a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

Another take on what happened or might have happened

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/michaelweiss/100091058/the-bbc-swallows-assad-controlled-syria-media-rubbish-whole-then-reports-it-as-news/

It's confusing what happened. According to an NPR radio report I just heard, most of the folks who live in that city are fleeing ahead of an anticipated brutal Syrian government crackdown

And unrelated to that, other media (predominantly conservative) are reporting that Assad is paying farmers to protest in the border area with Israel.

The United Nations Security Council will consider a French proposal Wednesday afternoon formally to condemn the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad over an increasingly bloody crackdown on dissidents.

But Russia will likely oppose it.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2011/0608/Why-Russia-might-veto-a-UN-resolution-to-condemn-Syria-crackdown

A resolution would also provide the basis for the European Union, and perhaps others, to proceed to additional economic sanctions against Syria.

But Russia’s concerns about where a resolution might lead have been fed by the growing similarities of the Libyan and Syrian situations, some regional experts say.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13705854

That's disturbing.

NY Times says US is continuing with drone strikes against the Al Queda group in Yemen and the US has met with pro-democracy rebel groups in Yemen to convince them to continue to allow strikes against the Al Queda group there.

re: Syria - who would arm an uprising against Assad? I know there's tons of free-floating arms around the country, but any kind of successful armed resistance requires a) the support of the majority of the general populace and b) steady supply of weapons (WS Burroughs axiom no. 967)

Egypt and Tunisia (with weapons acquired from elsewhere)-- just kidding. Do Russia and China seriously think the current NATO mission is going to inspire the West to want to support a Syrian uprising?

But I don't get why the European Union is hesitant to say (or embargo) Syria until the UN Security Council formally condemns Syria (which might not happen because of Russia and China)

More than 1,000 Syrians crossed the border to Turkey within the past 24 hours, according to a Turkish official. The refugees say they anticipate a violent crackdown by troops closing in on the northwest border town of Jisr al-Shugur, where earlier in the week 120 members of the security forces were killed by armed gangs, according to the Syrian authorities. Turkish media report that the government in Ankara is preparing for an influx of up to 1 million refugees

Up to 1 million!

jesus fuck

I wonder if they're exaggerating a bit for political reasons, although i am sure the numbers are large.

Almost comical in parts Washington Post interview with Bahrain's Foreign Minister about reforming the country into a parliamentary democracy:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lally-weymouth-talks-with-bahrains-foreign-minister/2011/06/08/AGgxNbNH_story.html

Security forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad began operations in Syria’s northwest on Friday, with heavy gunfire reported near a flashpoint town

Assad seems to like doing lots of killing on fridays after morning religious services

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/11/syrian-troops-jisr-al-shughour-assad

killing on fridays after morning religious services

People in hiding more likely to emerge on Friday, I would guess.

Today, the Gay Girl In Damascus blog ended the mystery, posting an apology that revealed Amina was in fact the work of Tom MacMaster, an American from Georgia whose university records show is in a medieval studies graduate program at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland from npr

Russia and China snubbed UN Security Council talks convened to discuss a draft resolution that would condemn Syria’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, UN diplomats said.

“Russia and China didn’t think it necessary to show up,” a council diplomat said on condition of anonymity

from Reuters

Turkish media report that the government in Ankara is preparing for an influx of up to 1 million refugees

This "preparation" involves plans to move into Syria and establish a "safe zone" where anti-Assad rebels can plan and train.

Of course, as Turkey is part of NATO, this raises the possibility that the UK, and/or the United States, and/or everybody else in NATO will now be fighting in yet another country, regardless of what the Security Council says.

can't believe nato is prolonging the syrian uprising by providing all this support

Your irony has become so oblique I no longer know what its object is.

im kind of more interested in what you're getting at. is it a case of everyone (except iran) should stay the fuck out of sovereign syrian affairs? if so cool. it just isn't clear yet.

I'm not making a case about anything, just relaying what I've read.

I read that Turkey was mostly just creating refugee tent camps in Turkey for the now 6,000 or so refugees.

Tracer, So you are or are not pushing a stance that NATO should never intervene militarily anywhere? You have expressed your dislike for the Libya mission, and it seems like therefore you would feel the same re Syria. Are you with Aimless in believing that the US and Uk and others should not intervene anywhere? Just asking.

Obviously Libya has been an expensive mess that has not yet gotten rid of Gadaffi, and Syria would be that much more complicated and dangerous and Russia and China of course object. But it is unpleasant to watch dictatorships slaughter their people (obviously we're all in agreement on this last point, but we have different viewpoints on what if anything can or should be done )

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/06/13/bahrain.unrest/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Bahrain also just sentenced a woman poet to a year in jail.

"no poetic license" I assume

curmudgeon I don't really have some blanket personal policy about foreign intervention by the_global_north. (I don't think Aimless does either fwiw.) If there is any sort of rule I have I guess it's something close to the Hippocratic oath.

dont treat your family members?

"if you're going to commit troops overseas, make sure you can throw a strike at Yankee Stadium" - pretty sure that's in there somewhere

you're not helping

The Syrian government has stated that the town of 50,000 some 20 miles from the Turkish border was targeted because more than 120 security personnel were killed there last week by what they have referred to as "armed gangs." Local residents have stated that the deceased were in fact Syrian soldiers killed by the army after defecting.

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=224841

The article also says more than 10,000 Syrians have now gone to Turkey

wait, blog faker dude actually had a LDR with a lesbian in Canada

I mean, how

the writer, who acknowledged having carried on a Facebook relationship with a woman in Canada in the guise of his lesbian character,

facebook

wasn't one of the first big blog frauds a fake-lesbian?? takes you back...

I am just surprised that this Canadian lesbian never tried to Skype her girlfriend... unless...

zomg 40-yr-old-men posing as lesbians everywhere

it would explain a lot

Bam to escalate the drone war in Yemen. Greenwald:

Contrary to false denials, the U.S., under the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been bombing Yemen for the last two years, including one attack using cluster bombs that killed dozens of civilians. But what's new is that this will be a CIA drone attack program that is a massive escalation over prior bombing campaigns; as the Post put it: "The new tasking for the agency marks a major escalation of the clandestine American war in Yemen, as well as a substantial expansion of the CIA's drone war."

...for all the Democratic mockery of Richard Nixon's "If-the-President-does-it-it's-not-illegal" decree, bolstered by the Cheney/Yoo/Addington theory of presidential omnipotence -- that's exactly how this President is viewed, by his followers and himself. If he wants to fight a war somewhere, that -- his will, his decree -- is all that is needed. Such matters, as the once-discredited-but-now-vindicated John Yoo put it, "are for the President alone to decide."

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/06/14/yemen_illegal_war/index.html

The government of Bahrain claimed yesterday to have commissioned a UK-based law firm to file a case against The Independent for its reporting on the crackdown on protests in the country.

Nawaf al-Mawada, a representative of the Information Affairs Authority, told Bahrain's state news agency that the action was being taken because The Independent had "deliberately published a series of unrealistic and provocative articles targeting Bahrain and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia". A correspondence from the Information Affairs Authority to The Independent cites an opinion piece by Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk, in which he criticises the Bahraini government for putting 48 surgeons on trial, as being "based on slanderous hearsay". It also claims that "using columns, features and news to publish misinformation in repeated attacks on our people and rulers amounts to libel and will be treated as such in accordance with the law".

apparently some of the fighting in syria is between defectors from military and security services and brigades of both more loyal to assad. doesn't bode well.

(Reuters) - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday he had spoken to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and urged him to "stop killing people" and to engage in dialogue

This should solve things!

I guess Assad did not listen to Ban Ki-Moon today. Another Friday with protests and killings

from the NY Times:

By ANTHONY SHADID
Published: June 17, 2011
BEIRUT — Tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Damascus’s suburbs and three of Syria’s five largest cities on Friday, in a weekly show of defiance against President Bashar al-Assad. Activists said at least 19 people were killed.

Security forces fired on protesters in Homs, one of Syria most restive locales, and the police and protesters fought in Deir al-Zour, a large city in the east. But thousands were permitted to demonstrate in Kiswa, a town south of Damascus and carry banners that read, “Leave!” and “The people want the fall of the regime.”

From the Washington Post-Assad is still in fantasyland

— Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday blamed the mass protests rocking his country on “saboteurs” and “vandalism,” declaring in a televised speech that “there can be no development without stability.”

Assad, wrestling with the boldest challenge ever to his family’s 40-year rule, spoke for more than an hour at Damascus University, sounding mostly defiant despite some conciliatory notes.

Bahrain says a special security court has given life sentences to eight Shiite activists accused of plotting to overthrow the state.

The Bahrain News Agency says the life sentences were issued Wednesday against prominent Shiite political leader Hassan Mushaima, Shiite activist Abduljalil Al Singace and six others.

The report says pro-reform figure Ibrahim Sharif received five years and others sentences ranged from two to 15 years.

A total of 21 suspects were on trial — 14 in custody and the rest in absentia.

http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/dynamic/00608/Pg-01-splashpic-epa_608273t.jpg

And Obama hasn't been much better.

Meanwhile Syria responds to the EU finally doing something:

from voa news:

Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallim said in a speech in Damascus Wednesday that EU sanctions against military-linked companies in Syria and individuals show that the bloc wants to "plant strife and chaos" in the Arab nation.

He dismissed the EU sanctions, saying that Syria "will forget Europe is on the map." He also denied that Iran and Hezbollah are helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad put down the unrest.

Is Syria gonna provoke a war with Turkey, or at least a skirmish?

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/201162494326219146.html

that would be very uh... stupid of them.

NATO member and all that

Is this meeting held in Damascus good or bad?

Other speakers in the conference, attended by 150 people in a Damascus hotel, adopted a softer tone but said demands of street protesters after decades of autocratic rule must be met.

Syrian writer Louay Hussein, who was also a political prisoner, said repression in the last four decades have undermined Syria as a whole while emphasizing that peaceful means must be found to meet popular demands.

Hussein said the meeting would try to explore "ending the state of dictatorship, and a peaceful and safe transition into a desired country, one of freedom, justice and equality."

Monther Khaddam, an academic from the coastal city of Latakia, said a wider national dialogue is needed but that intellectuals were "behind street demands until the end."

Organizers of Monday's conference described it as a platform for independent figures searching for a way out of the violence

Main opposition figures had said the meeting could give political cover to Assad, with human rights groups saying that security forces have killed over 1,300 civilians and imprisoned 12,000 since the uprising began in southern Syria.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/us-syria-idUSTRE75J0AV20110627

imprisoned 12,000!

well if it's being boycotted by those who see it as an exercise in ass-covering and if opposition leaders are specifically disinvited it doesn't look promising..