The United States has picked up where it left off more than a month ago and started shipping nonlethal aid to Syria in hopes that al Qaeda won’t seize it and keep it from reaching its intended rebel fighting recipients.

U.S. restarts aid to Syria, hoping al Qaeda won’t seize it again – Washington Times – 1/28/2014.

Officials may have strengthened the chain of custody by winnowing down the trustworthy to “Free Syrian Army Supreme Military Council members”.

Last night’s State of the Union Address by President Obama emphasized domestic economic progress and de-emphasized foreign policy, and that to the extent that American involvement in the Islamic Small Wars appears to have been pared back to the 12-year-presence in Afghanistan and the diminishing of Islamist strength in that theater with but a nod to the whack-a-mole games played with drones and special forces and familiar to Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

* * *

The number of al-Qaeda linked fighters active in Syria has mushroomed from 2,000 to more than 30,000 in just two years, a senior Israeli intelligence official has warned . . . .

Over 30,000 al-Qaeda linked fighters’ in Syria, Israeli official claims – Telegraph – 1/25/2014.

Syrians, ordinary Syrians, Syrians who bake bread or lay brick, Syrians who were hungry three years ago at the hands of their kleptocrat government and sought a better deal for themselves, have been suffering mightily between the malignancies of their regime and a now strong portion of the regime’s challengers.

Where’s Putin now?

Not a word.

Web search “Syria Putin al-Qaeda” and the top page list comes back with the mud slung in early September: it’s the Americans that have backed al-Qaeda.

We know it’s not true.

Americans have backed the above mentioned “Free Syrian Army” led, nominally, at least, by General Salim Idris.  That army has found itself forked between the brutal dictator — this is one who flew jets against large noncombatant populations — and the equally unconstrained primitives of the al-Qaeda affiliates.

Read the still recent headlines:

FSA chief: Free National Army is a pipe dream « ASHARQ AL-AWSAT – 1/16/2014.

‘We don’t have long,’ say Syrian rebels locked in battle with Al Qaeda, Assad | Fox News – 1/17/2014.

President Obama turned up the populist card last night with brags about progress in the American system within its borders, from energy independence to health care, and while he proffered continued support for nascent democracies in war torn space, he made clear that American troops were staying at home.

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“Dozens of Antonov 124s (Russian transport planes) have been bringing in armored vehicles, surveillance equipment, radars, electronic warfare systems, spare parts for helicopters, and various weapons including guided bombs for planes,” a Middle East security source said.

“Russian advisers and intelligence experts have been running observation UAVs around the clock to help Syrian forces track rebel positions, analyze their capabilities, and carry out precision artillery and air force strikes against them,” said the source, who declined to be identified.

Report: Russia stepping up military aid to Syria’s Assad | JPost | Israel News – 1/17/2014.

Perhaps in Putin’s cold political calculus, Syria will be held in The Bear’s paw at any price to Syria’s humanity.

President Bashar Assad’s military and the Free Syrian Army may wake up to realize that their enmity may be misdirected, for the true axis is not, has never been, Assad vs al-Qaeda but rather The People vs Assad.  Forget about that old rusty post-Soviet chain: Russia – Syria – Iran | Saudi Arabia – NATO – America.

Syria is.

Syria exists for Syrians.

Syrians internally displaced or made refugee by war — about nine million souls (6.5 million IDPs; 2.1 million refugees) —  need peace and home for themselves, and all they have for getting that are two armies, in body, and their differential in leaderships, that should be the last to be at their own throats.

As much hell comes from misguidance and propaganda helped along by a surrounding sea of greed.

Obama’s America with NATO returned to a defensive posture would seem to have zero interest in intervention in Syria apart from keep General Idris’s enterprise in sufficient weaponry for maintaining the three-way stalemate while talk-talk-talk fills time.

Putin’s Russia, which well may view Syria as part of its post-Soviet inheritance, seems immune to humanitarian overtures apart from bending, twisting, and spinning it some around Bashar al-Assad, who in state propaganda and RT has been made to look like a blameless angel.

So far as may be gleaned from the news online, Putin’s in it for the money and to maintain an anti-western post in a client buffer.

Compared to Putin’s glory — and how glorious that glory will be at the $50 billion Winter Olympics in Sochi — the depth and expanse of civilian Syrian suffering, in state and splayed out in the refugee camps of hosting neighbors, would seem by comparison invisible.

Here’s another cycle in headers:

Russia And China Provide Practically No Aid To Syrian Refugees | ThinkProgress – 9/3/2013.

Russia Provides $10M to Syrian Refugees | World | RIA Novosti – 10/1/2013.

Russia to Send Additional Humanitarian Aid for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon — Naharnet – 11/25/2013.

Donors Offer $2.4 Billion to Aid Syrian Civilians, but U.N. Says More Is Needed – NYTimes.com – 1/15/2014.

Get the picture?

Perhaps this will help: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s $50-billion Olympic Games | Toronto Star – 6/25/2014.

Disclaimer: I confess I now write with a “nice pen”, acknowledged as such by an expert.  It’s best feature is its 21 karat gold medium-fine nib, so I know a little bit about fine things too!  But my fine things would seem fit to living in a cabin, which is more or less how I live (but I can dream).

* * *

I have seen the face of suffering and hate online in many faces.  Someone has been lied to or manipulated; someone has a mind confined to state media or a wallet meagerly fattened by the patronage of a despot, a shameful situation where conscience and ethics have not been entirely extinguished.  What may be done to repair that person?  Or, collectively, such people captive to closed information (remember: mouth – ear – mind – heart) systems?

I don’t know.

I do know the world online is larger than the space in which I live and the freedom to speak has its complement in the freedom to read, listen, or watch widely with great curiosity and with some ambition and discipline as regards discerning the nature of things.

Additional Reference

Syria talks face immediate hurdle of Assad’s refusal to step down | World news | The Guardian – 1/19/2014

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