Protests in Syria - Discussion Thread

[Camera]

I'm sure that every elections in Syria wiil be called fars or something like this by some outsiders and insiders. But if you don't have a majority bihind your back, you can't play the game forever. The people itself will call the elections undemocratic. But if a democratic process would lead to chaos and not to peace - I'm aginst such a process.

Hum… That's why you call for a PACIFICATION by Assad. Thank you.

[kalerab]

One of the few inside stories from Syria.

Fear and defiance amid Syria ceasefire

UN monitors have arrived in Syria to oversee a shaky ceasefire but the guns have not fallen silent and people are fearful, as the BBC's Ian Pannell observed when he secretly visited the northern province of Idlib.

Ahmed Al-Aboud's body bears the scars of the struggle for change in Syria.

He joined the Free Syrian Army but was detained at a checkpoint in Saraqib, Idlib province, three months ago. He says the government forces that captured him started by beating him, then they shot him and finally they set fire to his bleeding body and left him for dead.

His face, body and arms are disfigured and he pulled his robe to one side to show two clear bullet marks.

That he is alive is remarkable but we met the father of eight at a public protest in an area where government forces had been active just a few days ago.

"I am not afraid, I will sacrifice my soul and my life to get ride of [Syrian President] Bashar Al Assad," he says.

His defiance is typical of the people we have met in Idlib.

That does not mean people are not afraid.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17734946

[Camera]

Russian envoys: Assad's acts like Israel's in Gaza

By HERB KEINON
04/16/2012 20:33

Staffers present at Washington diplomatic meeting say Russians justified support for Assad by citing US support for Israel.

Russian diplomats in Washington, trying to justify Moscow's support of Syrian President Bashar Assad to Senate staffers earlier this month, compared what Assad is doing in Syria to Israel's policies in Gaza.

According to information based on staffers in the meeting, the central theme of the briefing -- aimed at giving an overview of Russia's Syrian policy -- was that there was no reason for Moscow to stop supporting Assad because both the government and the opposition committed "crimes."

The Russian diplomats, dispatched to the Hill for the meeting by the Russian embassy in Washington, said that it was preferential to keep Assad in power – with the "necessary adjustments" – because that would be better for regional stability.

When the US staffers pushed back against the Russian argument, the Russian diplomats – according to participants in the meeting -- replied that the US had no right complaining against Moscow's support for Assad. Washington supported Israel, they said, which takes similar actions against the Palestinians in Gaza.

Israeli Foreign Ministry officials declined comment on the matter Monday.

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPol...aspx?id=266291

[Flamming_Python]

The matter is devolving into a troll-fest.

No need to cite Israelis in Gaza. Simply say - you are supplying weapons to rebels and fuelling a bloody civil war. This is a much more effective arguement.

[gresh]

Do you think that every time peoples go out from mosques it begins a protest?
You say about a single event in Aleppo which is a big city. But you previously said about 700 events almost on a daily basis. Now you are more modest writing about Fridays. Just a bit more time and we would possibly get to a conlusion that you summed up all year-long protests to get at the number

Here ya go:


771 demonstrations on April 13th. That's from a Syrian. I think he knows a tad bit more about the conflict than you.

[machiavelli]

Maybe the UN should send you as an observer. You seem to have a hard time believing the Assad regime is capable of committing war crimes. You always try to draw comparisons between different countries revolutions because it suits your anti-west agenda. The fact is though, they are different countries. You can try to group them together because people in the media use fancy phrases like "Arab Spring", but they're still different country, different people.

I think war crimes are a common in war zones , from American soldiers raping or killing civilians to Israelis shelling of the Lebanon. These are criminal acts perpetrated by a few delinquent renegade soldiers and do not represent the middle ndset of the entire army or senior military advisors.

[gresh]

I think war crimes are a common in war zones , from American soldiers raping or killing civilians to Israelis shelling of the Lebanon. These are criminal acts perpetrated by a few delinquent renegade soldiers and do not represent the middle ndset of the entire army or senior military advisors.

Yeah, except in this case it's not a few soldiers going nuts, it's the entire military and security apparatus of Syria combined with help from Hezbollah and Iran. Those with courage have either defected or are too afraid because they fear for their families, or just don't plain have the moral integrity to doing anything to stop it.

Don't try to compare war crimes committed by Syria on a daily basis to a few bad American or Israeli soldiers who did awful things. That's really cheap.

[themacedonian]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middl...evolution-back

BEIRUT, LEBANON; AND CAIRO

Syrian activist Mohamed Alloush has fled his native country for Lebanon, but it wasn't President Bashar al-Assad's regime that drove him away. It was the rebels of the Free Syrian Army who ran him out of his hometown of Homs.

"In September last year I had been arrested again by the regime for organizing protests," says Mr. Alloush, speaking on a cafe terrace in Beirut. "After they released me, I ran into a group of men I knew as members of the Free Syrian Army. I walked up to them and screamed: "You guys have stolen our revolution! You are just as bad as the shabiha," the pro-regime militia in Syria.
The rebels kept Alloush for four days, after which they told him not to show his face in Homs again.

“Our revolution has been stolen from us by people who have their own agenda,” says a singer who uses the pseudonym ‘Safinas’ because she still lives in Damascus. “We are not violent people. We want to get back to the real thing. It was a clean thing when it started, but it has become something else now. I am against the regime, but I am also against the armed rebels.”

[Hollis]

Sad state of affairs. Non-violence works when you have a culture that is based on laws and the courts. IMHO, that is not Syria under Assad.

[MUSHROOM123]

A much people got killed today? 50? 60? It's a cease fire?...

[Sootan]

I think war crimes are a common in war zones , from American soldiers raping or killing civilians to Israelis shelling of the Lebanon. These are criminal acts perpetrated by a few delinquent renegade soldiers and do not represent the middle ndset of the entire army or senior military advisors.

A few delinquent soldiers? That explains the heavy barrage from several batteries of artillery targetting heavily populated areas.

[[64]Lynx]

Each of these countries is different and one can not advocate that their citizens should be forced to live under dictators that they don't want anymore.

Have you met with any Syrian or Arab from nearby to be so sure in it?

What is your definition of "tolerant" and "secular"? I don't see much of any. The only "secular" thing I see in Syria is maybe..not forcing women to wear hijab and they can go to school. That's about it.
Oh and also, what Camera said. Nobody should be forced to live under a dictator just cause it's the Middle East and not our immediate problem.

Nobody destroys cemeteries of infidels, nobody waves Al-Quaeda flags in the capital, christians and muslims live without significant tensions.

Are you for real? Gaddafi was since when secular? He created his own pan-islamic legion for gods sake, he forbid any public use any but arabic text, created his own metric units so they wouldnt be influenced by devilish non-islamic influence, nearly started war with Egypt when Egypt signed peace trety with sacred enemy, finished expulsion of Jews from Libya. Secular, my arse. Balance between different gorups, that is Warfella tried to kill him back in 90s, that is why his own son tried to overthrown him decade ago, that is why things were able to go FUBAR in 24 hours in whole country. Why not add PBUH behind his name while you´re at it. Apparently all it takes to become knight in shining armor from pariah and terrorist is western intervention.

Don't know where have you found such fairytales but I have just counter information from those who had worked there for some years. BTW, jews lived in Libya just until that revoultion.

WTF is this comparison?
Sarkozi is not a dictator. He is a democratically elected president and none contests his election.
Assad, as so many dictators, pretends being elected by a contested elections that are a parody of a democratic electoral process.

Only a democratic process could tell what the majority wants.

Democratically elected from your point of view. Syrian elections are parody from your point of view again. And European point of view is not the ultimate truth which must be admitted by everybody in the world. Calm down and realize that there are some other ways of life that differ with yours. And somewhere your tolerance is treated like weakness, your democracy - like ability to do everything wanted.

[Camera]

Have you met with any Syrian or Arab from nearby to be so sure in it?

I'm an IDF veteran so you can bet I know more about Arabs than you do in Saratov.

Democratically elected from your point of view. Syrian elections are parody from your point of view again. And European point of view is not the ultimate truth which must be admitted by everybody in the world. Calm down and realize that there are some other ways of life that differ with yours. And somewhere your tolerance is treated like weakness, your democracy - like ability to do everything wanted.

First, my reply was an answer to your question if I have an evidence the majority of Syrian are not supportive of Assad. And democratic process is the only way to check it.
Second, democracy is not a concept that supports wild interpretations like yours. Open a dictionary and read its definition.

[Camera]

Allies meet to coordinate Syria sanctions

Closed-door Paris talks draw more than 50 diplomats and finance officials from the EU, Arab League countries, and elsewhere




(…)

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe was set to kick off Tuesday’s closed-door talks in Paris under the “Friends of Syria” banner. But two Arab League nations — Syrian neighbors Iraq and Lebanon — were not attending.

Diplomats say a string of EU, US and other sanctions are affecting Assad by curbing Syria’s ability of export oil and the ability of his cronies to do business abroad.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/allies-...ria-sanctions/

[kalerab]

Don't know where have you found such fairytales but I have just counter information from those who had worked there for some years. BTW, jews lived in Libya just until that revoultion.

Yeah, sure. You have first hand informations from Russia Today. Good for you. And no, jews did not live there until revolution, their expulsion started after establishment of Israel and ended in 70s with the only synagogue in Tripoli closed for 3 decades now.