Tag Archives: Syria

FTAC – Syria’s Agony and Related Misperception

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Jordan, Lebanon, Middle East, Politics, Psychology, Syria

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No. It’s a mess. Back in 2007, by prior agreement with the Arab League, Lebanese Defense Forces were denied entry into the Nahr al-Bared camp to suppress the presence of an independent but al-Qaeda-minded force that had infiltrated the camp. Instead, it bombarded the camp with tank fire, corralled the entire residential population through the main gates, and the bused them to other camps. The LDF then razed Nahr al-Bared. Toward the very end, a handful of family members surrendered, and escaped, and the remnant fighters holed up in tunnels were, finally, bombed from the air.

My impression is the wealthy enjoy extraordinary wealth in the middle east and the equivalent of fellaheen live primarily at the mercy of the powerful. The common thread of “malignant narcissism” that binds both despot and mad revolutionaries into one recognizable category applies well to the tragedy unfolding in the Yarmouk camp. If anyone has ever been sickened by the historic photographs of starving Nazi concentration camp residents, the same outrage should apply in light of starvation in the Palestinian camp, even thought in their confined minds they may blame the Jews for what’s being done to them by Assad’s army and the infiltration and partial control of the opposed al-Qaeda affiliates. To the warring parties, the humanity trapped in the camp is but a useful poker chip. These kids may one day understand that it hasn’t been the Jews of the west that has been killing them but rather the divided powers most identified with them but equally callous toward them and careless of them.

The prompt for the comment had to do with the Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee Camp and its being made to starve between armies.

There has been some relief: Besieged Yarmouk camp in Syria finally gets some food – Middle East Israel News | Haaretz – 1/18/2014: “The delivery was made possible after an agreement was reached on Friday between representatives of Palestinian factions and Syrian rebels in the camp.”

One may imagine the leverage involved in those negotiations.

In the surface rhetoric, the rebels may claim having been merciful, but the public would do well to keep in mind that get to this point, they had had to have been unmerciful, and that neither better nor worse than Assad’s forces attempting to subdue the infiltration within the camp by starvation in the first place.

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To another correspondent asking about the fate of Hamas in Gaza given the mixed ambitions and messages carried forward by its membership, some, I hear, who have joined the rebels against Assad, I suggested the perception of the axis needs to shift in the middle east, maintaining that the fighting-minded on several sides are more similar to one another in their ambitions and expectations — in their essential psychology — than those who have had the misfortune of being caught between armies or of having been trapped in time by regional powers who, indeed, manipulate and treat them primarily as servants unto themselves.

Related Reference

Iran cuts Hamas’ funding for backing Syrian opposition – Washington Times – 6/2/2013.

Egypt to Hamas: We’re Coming for You – Israel Today | Israel News – 1/19/2014.

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From Australia – Drawn to Syria’s War – Plus a Note on Conscience

19 Sunday Jan 2014

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

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An uncle, who did not want his name published, said Ms Ali was desperate to help people . . . After initially posting about buying Prada sunglasses and working night shifts at the Sea World resort in her late teens, the aspiring graphic designer was fund-raising for families in Syria and writing posts such as ”the blood of a martyr does not dry” in the past year.

Syria deaths: Family despairs after couple killed in rebel infighting – 1/14/2014.

It’s a good story about a good woman who with her husband appears to have intended to do some humanitarian good in Syria.

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Another Australian man killed in Syria fighting for Al Qaeda-linked group – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) – 1/17/2014.

Two Sydney men arrested by AFP for allegedly attempting to join fighting in Syria – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) – 12/3/2013.

The headers tell the story.

Some, apparently, are stopped at the Turkish-Syrian border.

Others, apparently jet jump, more or less, from Down Under to Denmark to Aleppo.

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At 2:31 below: “We have no money to pay for food!  We have nothing to do with either side!  We just want something to eat!”

Palestinian refugees starve in Syria – YouTube

I first saw that portion of the clip (2:31) here: Rights groups: Palestinian refugees starving to death in Syrian camp – CNN.com – 1/16/2014.  From the same piece: ” . . . aid trucks had to retreat after the Syrian government told the convoy to enter from the camp’s southern entrance, where heavy gunfire prevented it from proceeding.”

The lack of access to conscience, simple decency, on the part of the combatants and their enablers and sponsors tells what needs to be told of the Syrian Civil War. Even for the generations of the refugees of 1948, the cause célèbre for 66 of anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist vitriol, it appears neither side will cease fire even to allow the same access to food.

Human Rights Watch has called for aid donors to Syria to “push the Syrian government to eliminate obstacles to effective aid distribution, and increase their contributions.”

Push with what?

Where good is concerned, the possession of conscience is the push.  Conscience looks around at what has happened, and embarks upon repair.

Addendum

Contacts pass links to me after I’ve published a piece, and some so fit the topic area, such as may be on any post on this blog, that I would feel remiss for not sharing what’s brought to my attention for a few hours to days after publication.

Ironically, for the UN humanitarian appeal for Syria, held in Kuwait earlier this week, both Saudi Arabia and Qatar pledged a combined total of $120 million.

In other words, these two Persian Gulf monarchies have spent 75 times more on fueling conflict and destruction in Syria than what they are now pledging in “humanitarian assistance”.

Syria’s ‘shameful betrayal’ for Palestinians | nsnbc international – 1/18/2014.

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Wounded Syrian woman: “We hesitated coming to Israel, because we were taught to hate it. We were taught this is a brutal enemy state, but we learned that reality is different. People here have a conscience. Our enemy is in Syria, not in Israel.”

Israel Hayom | Wounded Syrian couple treated in Israel – 1/19/2014.

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FTAC – Syrian Arrangements and Related Induction

16 Thursday Jan 2014

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

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Putin and Assad’s strategy means to play the Syrian regime against a growing Sunni AQ-type threat overshadowing its own anti-western characteristics and the Shiite Hezbollah presence.

Naive Obama may have misgauged the true effects of the Soviet demise, which appears to have removed the ideology of the former state but not the program mechanics by which it operated.

Reference

Schism in EU? Intelligence co-operate with Syria amid political freeze — RT News – 1/15/2014.

Damian Clairmont killed fighting with al-Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria – Canada – CBC News – 1/16/2014.  Watch both videos.  I found the second frightening:Interviewee Muhammad Robert Heft states, “It’s just the extreme of what happens.  You’re going to save the world.  I call it the khalifa complex.  They suddenly think that picking up an AK-47 and shooting a few people that we’re going to live happily ever after.  It’s so wrong.  It’s taken us fourteen-hundred years as Muslims to become dysfunctional, and we want it back in twenty-four hours.  It’s just not going to happen that way.”

How is it going to happen?

Additional Commentary

Political calculus suggesting that Syria has become a battleground between two of the same personality — different talk, same walk — continues to hold in my thinking, but Bashar al-Assad may have the edge with the gift provided by the Al Qaeda affiliates: if not him, them.

The west has gotten the message and, as ever, seems not to have a good return for it other than to perhaps redouble its efforts with General Idris and what remains of a more moderate FSA, which seems hardly in the news these days (except when it gives up a major weapons depot to hardened Islamists).

The draw of vulnerable “Clairmonts” to serious battle reenactment in foreign space is not the least new in the west, but my impression is the numbers have gone up.  These are not a handful of Somali youth from the American midwest lighting out for Mogadishu and a lesson in al-Shabaab realpolitik.

There is an open and extensive conflict under way in the middle east, and these wish for their glorious role in it.

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FTAC – On Syria — Mirrored Sides

09 Thursday Jan 2014

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

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It’s not sinking in but I keep asserting this: the same personalities — different talk; same walk — occupy both sides of the combat. There is no winning, and they are proving that by mutually losing, not only treasure but also respect and self-respect. I noted earlier this morning that more than 11,000 children have died in the Syrian Civil War, most beneath the bombing on the state’s side and some at the hands of snipers aligned with the state. That doesn’t shift the black/white, good guy/bad guy thinking at all considering what the global jihad does to children. That both sides do similarly unrestrained things — they exceed limits — tells about the “malignant narcissism” of the characters driving the war. Neither care about people. The care about control, power, subjugation, and self-aggrandizement and they use fear and force to get their share of “narcissistic supply”. There’s nothing actually in the predominant warring parties — not God; not humanity — over which to bargain and make peace. In the end, they will be seen as killers and nothing else.

The key: “different talk — same walk.”

The dictator and the revolutionary have the same self-aggrandizing drive, and God above and humanity at their feet are of no real account: they have already bent words to clothe themselves and provide to themselves the exclusive privilege of determining the fates of others.

God works through both — the blood bespattered dictator and opposed zealot alike — does He not?

So they themselves might say.

The humanity of humanity may beg to differ.

Sideways Related Reference

OCHA | Coordination Saves Lives – Second International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria | OCHA

As UN prepares for mammoth Syria aid conference, Assad regime keeps relief from the suffering | Fox News – 1/7/2014.

Snowmen and suffering: A bleak winter for young Syrian refugees – CNN.com – 12/21/2013.

Aid sought for Syrian refugees facing harsh winter | GulfNews.com – 1/8/2014.

Sharjah’s Sheikha Jawaher’s plea to UAE residents help Syrians as winter conditions turn ‘catastrophic’ | The National – 1/8/2014.

Champion the #childrenofsyria

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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 – On Syria – An Excerpt From Correspondence

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars

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What may and should happen, sooner or later, quickly or slow, is that, perhaps like you, good people walk away from the fighting and do not take it up themselves. They write it off, the whole thing: perceived differences, grievances, promises — and they embark on the adventure into different and better lives.

Something of the past is dying in Syria.

It’s taking a lot of innocents with it, but it’s unlikely that either Assad will win back what he had and reconstruct or that al-Nusra and company will get what they want and continue their rampage across Damascus and out to the surrounding states.

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