Category Archives: Syria

FTAC – Syria – On Mirroring Amplification in Brutality

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Psychology, Regions, Syria

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The swings of cultural brutality involve mirroring amplification — as with brothers trading punches and raising the force used as they go, but that’s for fun — and a kind of dumbness as to where brutalization leads, which always is in two directions: the defeat of the human spirit and attendant subjugation or the Great God of War and Fire Without Limit and self-immolation in an orgy of death.

This dynamic seems not well understood in Syria.

Some wars end with an entropic complete expenditure of available energy, i.e., only stopping when there’s none left and some in the destruction of the war making capability of the enemy in its totality: no industry; no money; no projectiles; no weapons; no defenses.

Syria, because the same mentality sits on both sides of the table — it’s not the Wahhabism or the dictatorship separately: it’s the mutual quest for absolute power in the subjugation of others, each with its own political program — has a long way to go. The suffering of civilians and the destruction of moderating force carries no weight with the fighters on either side, even if each may believe he’s the savior of humanity aligned with his side.

The conversation follows from a state-aligned Syrian outlet impugning the character of the United States by portraying her as a terrorist arms supplier.

It’s not true.

The arms are loose Out There and gambling on secular technocrats like General Idris has proven, so far, bad odds.  Those Islamic Front fellows are mean: they promise to protect military assets held by more moderate warriors only to steal them for themselves and their immoderate ends (something like that: e.g., US, UK halt aid to Syria after weapons seized – 12/11/2013).

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I hope you read the above “mean” as campy pouting understatement, a remark, in fact, about those trusting, uncertain, or vacillating souls who make deals with ruthless liars and killers.

Well, perhaps the embarrassments of December — perhaps along with some sense of limits that have been exceeded —  have done some much needed motivational work:

Even as ISIS, which got its start as al-Qaeda in Iraq back in the days of the American war, regains territory in the Iraqi province of Anbar, it is slowly being pushed out of its northern Syrian strongholds by a broad coalition of moderate and Islamist groups fed up with its draconian interpretations of Islamic law and its abuses of power.

Syria Rebels Fight ISIS, an al-Qaeda Group, Fueling Regional Chaos | TIME.com – 1/7/2014.

Related on Syria’s Battle of the Bands

Syria rebels kill 34 foreign fighters in northwest: monitor | Reuters – 1/7/2014.

Syria rebels fight Al Qaeda ally for control of key city – latimes.com – 1/6/2014.

Gangs of the Middle East: Iraq, Syria torn by fighting factions | Fox News – 1/6/2014.

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Bulletin – Iraq – Syria – Lebanon – Libya – Weapons in Play

03 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Lebanon, Middle East, Politics, Syria

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Heavy fighting raged between the Iraqi military and Sunni fighters in Anbar province, after gunmen seized control of several police stations there.

Heavy fighting rages in Iraq’s Anbar province – Middle East – Al Jazeera English – 1/2/2014.

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The US government is concerned about al Qaeda gaining strength in Iraq. Now, Washington is sending missiles and drones to help Baghdad in the fight against the terror organization.

US weapons to help Iraq fight al Qaeda | World | DW.DE | 28.12.2013

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Two smugglers were transporting C4 explosives, TNT, armor-piercing explosives, mobile phones and circuit boards, among other supplies, into Bahrain. The boat was als0 carrying “50 Iranian-made hand bombs” and almost 300 commercial detonators stamped “Made in Syria,” Al Hassan said.

Bahrain finds Iranian and Syrian weapons in security raids | GlobalPost – 12/30/2013.

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Security sources say that the porous border region around Ersal is used to smuggle Syrian weapons and fighters involved in the country’s bloody civil war. It was unclear if the Syrians injured in Wednesday’s attack were fighters or civilians.

Ten injured in Syrian air raid over Lebanon | Al Akhbar English – 1/1/2014.

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Turkish security forces have seized a truck laden with weapons bound for Syria and arrested three people including a Syrian, local media reported on Thursday.

Report: Turkey seizes arms in truck bound for Syria – Al Arabiya News – 1/2/2014.

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The missiles being moved include long-range Scud D missiles that can strike deep into Israel, short-range Scud C’s, medium-range Iranian Fateh rockets, Iranian Fajr rockets and anti-aircraft weapons that are fired from the shoulder.

Security analyst: Hezbollah continues transferring arms from Syria to Lebanon | JPost | Israel News – 1/3/2014.

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Ships waiting to remove Syria’s chemical weapons have returned to port in Cyprus because the country has missed a December 31 deadline.

Syria was supposed to have removed part of its chemical weapons arsenal for destruction on Tuesday, but Wael Nader Al Halqi, Syria’s prime minister, said security concerns and bureaucracy had caused delays in transporting the weapons to the Syrian port of Latakia.

Syria misses deadline to remove chemical arms – Middle East – Al Jazeera English – 1/1/2014

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Perhaps the conflict in Syria and whatever’s brewing in Iraq will expand in proportion to the volume of contested and loose weapons “in play” across the multi-state theater.

The powers that be would seem to be contesting their grip on conventional weapons and the reality of their control over WMDs.

While the agenda-poisoned special interest press points its fingers for respective advantage, i.e., PressTV screamed back in September, “US: Al-Qaeda running chemical weapons program“; the day before, The Washington Free Beacon noted, “Report: Hezbollah Armed with Syria’s Chemical Weapons” (9/20/2013), what is known is that multiple actors, from al-Qaeda to Hezbollah, from the Assad regime in cahoots with Iran to unknown quantities with money in Qatar (frequently the target of finger pointers), are challenging the state-based monopoly on violence.  Possibly nothing signals the out-of-control good health of a young war quite like the delayed arrivals and disappearance of weapons shipments, armories, and caches.

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From the Benghazi debacle:

“The loss of this military equipment is what pulled the plug on the U.S. operation,” one source with direct knowledge of the events told Fox News. “No one at the State Department wanted to deal with the situation if any more went wrong, so State pulled its support for the training program and then began to try and get the team moved out of the country.”

REPORT: U.S. Special Forces Equipment, Weapons Stolen In Libya – 9/26/2013.

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“I know where those weapons are coming from. They are the weapons left over from the Bosnian war. They are being shipped out in large measure through Croatian ports and airports and I can tell you they are making vast sums for corrupt forces in the Balkans.”

Syria: 3,500 tons of weapons already sent to rebels, says Lord Ashdown – Telegraph – 7/1/2013.

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Saudi Arabia has pledged $3bn for the Lebanese army, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman announced, calling it the largest grant ever given to the country’s armed forces.

The pledge comes just as Lebanon held a funeral for Mohamad Chatah, the former finance minister, amid rising tensions over who might have killed him.

Saudi Arabia pledges $3bn to Lebanese army – Middle East – Al Jazeera English – 12/29/2013.

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The increasingly familiar scene of shattered glass and twisted metal left little doubt that Lebanon’s slide toward conflict is accelerating as the country becomes embroiled in the broader sectarian rivalries threatening to engulf the region.

Bomb explodes in Hezbollah-controlled area of Beirut, killing at least 4 – The Washington Post – 1/2/2014.

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One starts to wonder if its the weapons that have the soul and humans in their vicinity have become the machinery that enables them to express themselves before growing old, unstable, and feeble with corrosion.

It’s an odd grim poetic thought, but the reality oddly supports it: whether involving the Saudi treasury or an al-Nusra ruse, the middle east, with Syria as a hub burning and smoldering with war through the winter, is today crawling with weapons, and some that were watched have disappeared and, probably, are moving to fulfill their purpose.

Addendum

The upheaval also affirmed the soaring capabilities of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the rebranded version of the al-Qaeda in Iraq organization that formed a decade ago to confront U.S. troops and expanded into Syria last year while also escalating its activities in Iraq.

Al-Qaeda force captures Fallujah amid rise in violence in Iraq – The Washington Post – 1/3/2014.

From whence came their firepower?

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FTAC – Putin’s Happy New Year – Briefest Comment

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Russia, Syria

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“Is he powerful, rich, happy?” Putin is powerful and wealthy, but it’s doubtful that he’s happy; divorced, alone, secretive, controlling, malignantly narcissistic, he has grandiose and self-aggrandizing ambition absent — one may take the cue from Syria’s tragedy — of sufficient empathy to produce either an appropriate humanitarian or military intervention to east the civilian suffering within the state.

The other hand: he’s cautious and shrewd.

Notably, quietly, he fairly evacuated Russian citizens from Syria, removed his navy, and reduced support to arms contract fulfillment and advisement. Doubtless he’s got Russia in for more, but he’s not reviving the Soviet. He appears to have reset his nation in the 19th Century and seems to be positioning for empire in the manner of an emperor. He has got more control of the oven in Syria than Obama or anyone else, but he’s also paying tribute to Kadyrov, more or less — and Kadyrov does as he wants (and it’s not good) in any case — so it’s a little iffy as to how long before he bugs out for Marbella or the Black Sea, but at the moment and for a while measured in years, he’s the man in control.

It’s an opinion, and we know that every whatever has one, including me, but it tells too that without producing a great humanitarian deed in association with the tragedy in Syria — in addition to disassembling those chemical weapons, thank you very much, Mr. Putin — the support given Bashar Assad the sabotage of the central liberation motif by the appearance and at least temporal success of the al-Qaeda affiliates in the state will be as ghosts through the course of the Olympic Games in Sochi.

Even if not mentioned close to the sports page or in Russian media, the Syrian Civil War will be as a phantom presence in the air.

How beautiful the games!

But keep the door closed on that other stuff associated with the producer’s will and vision.

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Kadyrov is the only leader in any of Russia’s 21 republics to have his own militia. So sure is he of his indispensability to the fragile Pax Putina in the North Caucasus that he once strode into the Kremlin wearing a tracksuit and jogging shoes. Few others would risk such a mark of disrespect to Putin.

Putin’s Medieval Peace Pact in Chechnya – Bloomberg – 4/25/2013.

Related: Chechen women in mortal fear as president backs Islamic honor killings – Washington Times – 4/29/2012.

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FTAC – Syria – A Note in Which the Psychology Comes Together

27 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Syria

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The will to dominance is compensatory and occluding.

In the Islamic Small Wars that feature deeply cruel and sadistic behavior (all sides), the psychology revolving around willfulness, a facet of power, is hard to escape. This is where things get ugly and tautological with language both expressing and inventing and reinforcing an emotional narrative in the cultural mind. It’s hard getting the little trains (trained minds) to jump their tracks and get out of it.

Here’s the thing to note about the kind of people who carry out assassinations and drive wars: they’re not representative of the humanity of the humanity surrounding themselves — at least not in the Islamic Small Wars where a very few (in Somalia, about 10,000 fighters at one time affiliate with al Shabaab) can drive a very many (in Somalia, about 2.75 million) out of their homes. On the other hand, the few are possessed of potent weapons plus war making knowledge, and they’re “social grammar” is hard to get to as, I believe, they don’t have access to it themselves.

The regional to international war: Russia (cash hungry or cash mad) — > Iran (well oiled arms buyer) — > Special Assad and Shiite Understanding | Sunni Central Expansion “<” — KSA, Qatar, UAE, etc. semi-independent coffers (the west has placed too much reliance on the state concept where it just barely applies, if at all) “<“– U.S. and NATO alliances, which make themselves deeply discomforting.

Basically, imho, Syria is Assad’s war within Putin’s sphere of influence, a part of the wreckage of neglected post-Soviet problems, and Putin, quick to relieve Khodorkovsky of aspirations involving political matters, especially corruption, essentially signaled interest in resurgent kleptocracy, at least for a while, long enough to separate Russia from the west and return Russians to the shadows of some former imperial glory. At that, Putin has succeeded, but we must note that it is neither in NATO’s or Russia’s interest to develop an Islamic island in Syria. I’d say we’re heading into the second of at least three acts in Syria — nowhere near the end of the book.

I’m calling it like a see it, and to hell with it!

🙂

Syria continues to become visible in terms suited to political science.

It’s morphed from an Arab Springy “people’s revolution” into a dynamic geopolitical blast furnace and whatever’s in it is still melting down, the best top layer either killed or siphoned off to soup lines and refugee camps, the next layer sucked in from the global Jihad and melding with whatever’s left into some deeply fractured substance boiling up death, suffering, and wreckage wherever it seeps, and the rest of the container adjusting to so many unpalatable upsets.

While President Putin trades a few political prisoners into freedom for the sake of Peace at Sochi in Time for the Games, it may be what’s happening in and to Syria that dogs him through that event.

Within the Syrian Civil War and a little bit without, the same mentality occupies chairs on either side of the board: it’s the despot Assad vs. the despotic al-Qaeda affiliates (now that they’ve disarmed more moderate forces with the combined powers of the Qur’an and “trust me trust me” wink wink over a couple of warehouses loaded with war materiel).  Everyone has lost that war, partially because vacuous “winning” will turn out about being lost — as lost as the Assads with Maher and the first whiff of atrocities and war crimes to come.

In fairy tale terms, the good child, prince of his kingdom, has had to watch himself become a monster, in name or by assent or by his own orders, and everything he does, everything he tries, only draws the blood from the floor, a little bit at first on the shoes, and that washes off, but then it’s up around the ankles, and every step out of it means another splash into it, then it’s up around his waist, the family is screaming bloody murder, mad at the world, at themselves, at the puppet master with the greater civilization, which is at peace within itself at least, and their hand wringing and remonstrances notwithstanding, the horror continues rising up to the neck and seeping into their mouths, preventing them from talking straight, if ever they could, and up it rises before their eyes.

By now, it’s an everyday matter, the blood dimmed tide a familiar site, the once-thrilling uncertain exigencies of war routinized.

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“The level of human sufferings that I am witnessing with the Syria crisis is indeed without a parallel with anything else I have witnessed in my own life,” says Antonio Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Syria: ‘Unparalleled human suffering’ – Inside Syria – Al Jazeera English – 12/1/2013.

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War in Syria, violence in Syria today: house to house fighting – YouTube – 12/26/2013

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▶ Chaos and Despair in Aleppo – YouTube – 12/26/2013.

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Syria – Side by Side – The Instructions – The Results

19 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Psychology, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria

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▶ Al-Qaeda in Syrian School: Infidels Must Be Slaughtered; Obama, World Leaders Are Infidels – YouTube – Posted 12/16/2013 with the event noted as having taken place 11/26/2013.

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▶ SYRIA: New Massacre in Sadad against Christians (Nov.2013, Homs countryside) – YouTube – Posted 11/5/2013.

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The two videos are not in perfect chronological order or spatial relationship, but the approximation nonetheless makes its point.

The preying on the believing by attaching monotheist faith to messianic and grandiose delusion, a part of the signal of “civilizational narcissism”, “malignant narcissism”, narcissistic political sociopathy (reference “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy”) leads to darkness.

The Jewish attitude toward others is very different, conservative and scaled down when hateful — so the Jewish people set themselves apart from what they believe isn’t so good, unless directly threatened, a defensive rather than crusading posture (reference: The Peace and Violence of Judaism: From the Bible to Modern Zionism: Robert Eisen: 9780199751471: Amazon.com: Books), and if wanting to elicit some change in others, Rabbi Kook’s advice might prevails:

“The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom.”

One may respect the “chosen” qualities of others.

One may also bring light to darkness.

The Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria, believing themselves possessed of all the answers, swiftly inhibit the freedom of thought among the ranks of children.

Perhaps as a rule, autocrats and autocratic societies drain and suffocate their subjugated constituencies, which afford “narcissistic supply” to those who then enrich and aggrandize themselves without limits.

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Syria may have General Idris as one side, but the other two are on the same side even though opposed in battle.

The Assad Regime and the Al Qaeda affiliates are of the same mind — repeat: different content and rant but same psychopathology.  This abstract observation may be hard to see at first but over time and with the death and displacement of millions of souls who don’t share their outlooks, the source of the conflict in the mind becomes apparent.

What to do about it?

Well, the world is failing Syria, imho, but the development and sustaining of the Syrian Civil War represents chiefly the failures of different but psychologically similar external governments, Russia and Saudi Arabia and their related political complexes, who will now be seen as backing competing autocratic-totalitarians in the Syrian theater.

Israel has confined itself to responding to some urgent humanitarian needs; the United States has fumbled on the issues — somebody in State should be tracking this blog — and has been trying to back away from the association of the anti-Assad revolution with the developing presence and power of the al Qaeda affiliates.

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Amok in Syria – Unearthly Crimes

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Syria

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Those hunting for war porn may find it on Live Leak.

The variety of insults to humanity evident in the Syrian theater have horrified and numbed this observer, albeit not in the action immediately — although throwing civilians into baking ovens would seem as bad as it gets: from there, the numbers subject to similarly depraved behavior may climb, God rest their souls, but the character of the crime could not be worse, well, perhaps with the exception of being boiled in exploding nuclear plasma — but in the consideration that this dive down into the criminal depths has been going on, and one may say this today with a straight face, for years.

While Putin and Obama may try to keep at their own arms length the depravity exhibited by the Assad regime (from the outset) and the Al Qaeda affiliates that have carried into the fray their own intellectual poisons as well as a demonstrated lack of self-restraint, the two remain visible at the outer boundary of the melee, would that either could untie themselves from what keeps them in an opposition fast losing its equilibrium.

The Syrian Civil War as a furnace, in the larger sense, continues drawing fuel from Islamist ranks worldwide.  In fact, as we head into the New Year, Syria would seem the go-to place for fighting to establish the global caliphate, to chat freely about offing the Jews, once and for all, and for throwing innocents into baking ovens.

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Syria today is a country of blurred facts and wild rumors, but the abduction and in some cases murder of Christian clerics is real enough.

Forced Exodus: Christians in the Middle East | World Affairs Journal – 12/17/2013.

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It is believed that more than 30 journalists are currently being detained in Syria.

Many kidnappings have been downplayed in the hope of aiding negotiations.

On Tuesday the Spanish newspaper El Mundo decided to publicise the abduction of two journalists in Syria in September after indirect communications with their captors led to “no result”.

BBC News – Media urge Syrian rebels to stop journalist kidnappings – 12/12/2013.

Related: 2 Spanish journalists kidnapped in Syria, newspaper says – CNN.com – 12/10/2013.

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Rise of Islamic Front a disaster for Syria – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 12/15/2013.

Growing strength of Syria’s Islamist groups undermines hopes of ousting Assad | World news | The Observer – 12/14/2013.

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BBC News – Briton Ifthekar Jaman ‘killed fighting in Syria’, family says – 12/17/2013.

BBC News – The Chechen Jihadists fighting in Syria – 12/16/2013.

Syria: Islamists Find a New Way to Behead – Middle East – News – Israel National News – 12/8/2013.

Assad’s crimes pale in comparison to atrocities by Syrian radical groups – Today’s Zaman, your gateway to Turkish daily news – 11/3/2013.

Testing a US ’empathy deficit’ in Syria – CSMonitor.com – 12/16/2013.

Syria: ‘Unparalleled human suffering’ – Inside Syria – Al Jazeera English – 12/1/2013.

BBC News – Syria conflict: Women ‘targets of abuse and torture’ – 11/26/2013.

Related PDF: “Violence against Women, Bleeding Wound in the Syrian Conflict.”  Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, November 2013.

Human rights at war in Syria – Opinion – Al Jazeera English – 8/8/2012.

Syria turning into ‘World War II scenario’ | World | DW.DE | 04.12.2013

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▶ Syria: Executions, Hostage Taking by Rebels – YouTube – Posted 10/11/2013.

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To the Ovens! The Latest Atrocities Involving Syria’s Civilians

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Syria

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“The worst crime they committed was that they toasted people in ovens used to bake bread when those people came to buy it. They kidnapped and beat up many.”

Government claims Islamic rebels executed civilians in Adra [UPDATE] – UPI.com – 12/16/2013.

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“Civilians told us that the workers of an Adra bakery were all executed and burned during the first hours of the attack. Whole families were massacred. We do not have an exact estimation of the number because we are unable to get into the town, but the number is high,” Kinda Shimat, Syria’s Social Affairs Minister, told RT.

‘Slaughtered like sheep’: Eyewitnesses recount massacre in Adra, Syria — RT News – 12/17/2013.

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Clearly, the evildoers have lost their minds and souls and have exceeded limits.

What are they going to do with themselves?

The only thing worse — actually, there is nothing worse: they have drilled down to hell — is what some of my fellow writers seem to be doing with the information, which is conflating the barbarity of al-Qaeda affiliates with American policy while doing the look-away on the state-borne “death from above” that has dumped tens of thousands of pounds of bombs on Syrian noncombatants, conveniently also conflated with “the terrorists”, a now convenient catch-all for all the Assad regime (shall I conflate that with Putin?) finds adverse to its outright ownership of its subjugated people.

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A man who appears to be their commander admonishes his men, “Come on guys, we are here to carry out our duties not to seek revenge on our own. This is unacceptable.”

One of the paramilitaries smilingly replies, “But we are killing them in God’s cause, only in God’s cause.”

Opinion: Syrian war’s brutality isn’t going away – CNN.com – 10/11/2013.

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“The horrific things that each side has done to the other now gives license to this kind of behavior . . . as the rest of the world tries to understand what it can do in Syria, who the bad guys are and who the good guys are, it’s becoming harder and harder to make that judgment.”

One Photographer’s Witness to a Brutal Execution in Syria – LightBox – 9/12/2013.

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Syria – Refugee Relief – Bitter Conditions Today – Bitter Memories In the Making

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Syria

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Amnesty International slams EU for approach toward Syrian refugees – YouTube – 12/15/2013.

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▶ Snow Worsens Misery for Syrian Refugees – YouTube – 12/15/2013.

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BAALBEK, Lebanon — Shivering in the snow, Syrian Aisha Mohammad looked at the last-minute charity that saved her children from freezing during the smack of a particularly tough Lebanese winter: a wood-burning stove complete with twigs and garbage to ignite in hopes of warming her drafty tent in an icy eastern plain.

Syrian refugees in Lebanon face bitter winter – The Washington Post – 12/15/2013.

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How to help Syrian refugees – CNN.com — The article lists more than a dozen major organizations involved in assistance and relief activities serving Syria’s refugee.

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Refuge | The Washington Post – features 18 refugee stories ranging from “a birth and a wedding” to a family mourning their own in a cemetery on what was to them “foreign soil”.

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Many refugees in Lebanon are living in unofficial makeshift camps, with shelters built from scavenged materials. The Lebanese government has refused to establish refugee camps for fear that they will become permanent homes for Syrians who have fled the civil war.

Images from the area showed refugees scraping snow off the roofs of tents, icicles hanging from ropes and wooden posts, and laundry frozen on washing lines.

Syrian refugees facing extreme hardship as blizzards hit region | World news | theguardian.com – 12/12/2013.

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Bulgaria: Syrian Refugees Face Appalling Conditions | Doctors Without Borders – 11/21/2013.

Syria Refugee Camps Filled With Child Deaths And Winter’s Cold – 12/16/2013.

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. . . hopes for a negotiated end (always a long shot due to Moscow’s strategic interests in Syria) are now even less likely due to the growing bad blood between the U.S. and Russia.

Why Obama vs. Putin Spells Doom For the Syrian Refugees – PolicyMic – 8/19/2013.

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Revolution?

Civil war?

Jihad front?

Cold War Extended?

Political anarchy?

To those who have fled the fighting, what the conflict in Syria is about may not matter or mean very much, if anything: they have found themselves out in the cold in numbers almost too vast to contemplate and with a distribution impossible to administer centrally through other than interstate cooperation in the matter, and that appears about as non-existent as peace or, perhaps, blankets may to those who have none.

One wonders what memories Syria’s refugees will carry with them, those who survive, for the rest of their lives?

How will they come to feel about the world that helped them?  That failed them?

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In a briefing published today, An international failure: The Syrian refugee crisis, the organization details how European Union (EU) member states have only offered to open their doors to around 12,000 of the most vulnerable refugees from Syria: just 0.5 per cent of the 2.3 million people who have fled the country.

Fortress Europe: Syrian refugee shame exposed | Amnesty International – 12/13/2013.

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▶ Snow storm causes misery for Syrian refugees – YouTube – 12/11/2013.

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When she emerged from underneath her blanket, Ghusun, who is “more than 100 years old”, turned her deeply lined face from the wind and moaned in pain from the cold.

Her small group of seven included an 87-year-old woman, four other women and one man. Each clutching old blankets to shield themselves from the bitter wind, they explained they had left their homes in the Syrian city of Homs two months ago, making their slow way to Aleppo, then finally crossing the border into Turkey just before the snow fell.

Syrian refugees face new challenge – freezing weather – 12/13/2013.

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