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

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..

I guess pretty soon the whole country will be in jail

or in Turkey. While the numbers who have ended up in Turkey never reached the million stage as once talked about, apparently many Syrians were intimidated from leaving by an increased military presence near the border. I think 10,000 or so did make across to Turkey

The Bahrain situation really is outrageous - a regime reliant on foreign mercenaries to keep itself in power.

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

I can't see that as very likely... relations with Turkey improved a lot a while ago, partly because the Turks played a skillful game of carrot and stick (stick being their kickarse military). The Assads have never initiated a war they would clearly lose, so picking a fight with Turkey would be a very strange move.

It sounds like the Turkey/Syria border issues of recent weeks have calmed down some.

Wondering what Assad is up to--allowing the meeting in Damascus yesterday and now letting some media in, including NPR.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/06/28/137470934/in-syria-government-lets-international-media-in-to-make-its-case

isn't it pretty clear what he's up to?

planning a surprise party!

playing for time till the alien mercenaries arrive?

That's it. One would think he would realize that his tiny steps are not fooling anyone. Come Friday there will be more Syrians out in the street.

Saudi Arabia will withdraw most of its 1200 troops from neighboring Bahrain by next week after a three-month mission

How kind of them

If it's Friday, it means there ae protests in Syria:

from NY Times:

“Leave! Leave!” protesters chanted to a hip-hop beat.

After weeks of protests and crackdown, the uprising in Syria appears to have taken a compelling, if ambiguous turn lately. Diplomats speak of a stalemate, as neither protesters nor officials seem able to muster the strength to conclude the struggle on their terms. But new dynamics have emerged, as the opposition gathered in a rare meeting in Damascus this week, government officials have promised reform and protesters, in Hama in particular, have demonstrated a momentum that may prove impossible to blunt.

Hey NY Times, Assad has been blunting the protestors with bullets and jailtime for months. I'm not sure how they can "muster the strength to conclude the struggle on their terms" as long as he still has a military that sticks with him.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/07/syria-protesters-snub-regimes-invitation-for-national-dialogue.html

The statement questioned the actual motives of the regime in calling for dialogue, especially as “its forces continue to shell many cities, as well as arbitrarily kill and detain many protestors, torturing them to death in some cases.”

“This means that the regime’s aim in calling for dialogue is just to influence main international powers, rather than to really respond to the demands of the Syrian people,” it said.

In addition, the statement highlighted basic conditions the regime had not satisfied in order to promote an environment conducive to dialogue, such as stopping the use of violence against protesters and halting the detention of peaceful demonstrators.

Releasing political prisoners, ending the siege on numerous cities, stemming the stream of pro-regime propaganda and allowing foreign media to access the country to cover the current events, were also other demands the state had not yet met, making it an unsuitable partner for negotiation, the statement said.

Juan Cole on Syria (this is of course pretty much what everyone says)

In the absence of enormous crowds in the streets of the capital and a split military, it will be very hard for the protesters to prevail.

Syrian protest singer and activist Ibrahim Kashoush reportedly murdered. His body was found dumped in the river with his throat cut. It's quite a song he wrote.

http://www.nowlebanon.com/BlogDetails.aspx?TID=1640&FID=6

Fuck.

There's always news from Syria on Friday:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/8626514/Syria-reacts-at-fury-to-US-involvement-in-Hama.html

The presence of Robert Ford in Hama, along with his French counterpart, Eric Chevallier, encouraged an even higher turn-out at Friday's demonstration and infuriated the Assad regime.

“The US ambassador met with saboteurs in Hama who erected checkpoints, cut traffic and prevented citizens from going to work,” an interior ministry statement said. “The ambassador incited these saboteurs to violence, to demonstrate and to refuse dialogue.”

The foreign ministry said it was “proof” that America was instigating events in Syria, and “disturbing internal security and stability”.

Here's an Israeli take on what is happening in Syria and how it relates to Iran, Turkey and Lebanon

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=228411

x-post - Glad to see the US doing something that annoys Assad's government. Obama has been quiet on Syria since his speech urging Assad to take part in reform or get out of the way.