The video above is a 10-minute-long activist video of a dangerous bike ride through deserted Juret Al Shayah, Homs in Syria.
What’s happening in Syria is a complete take down of the Assad regime. There is a concerted effort to destabilize Syria economically and militarily via arming and supplying of opposition forces. This is America’s war (and allies) with Syria.
When the fight is taking place IN Damascus … the capital of Syria … you know that they’ve passed an inflection point. We’ve written about rebel forces in Damascus HERE.
The UN is leaving Syria because of the escalation of war. BBC has the news HERE:
William Hague blamed the government of President Bashar al-Assad for the worsening situation.
In a statement, he said the suspension of patrols and restriction of staff movements “underlines the extent of the deterioration of security and stability in Syria, and calls into serious question the viability of the UN Mission“.
Activists reported on Saturday that at least 60 people had been killed around the country, with the worst violence in areas around Damascus, where they said 10 people were murdered in the town of Saqba.
Apart from the general upsurge in violence, the observers have in recent days found themselves physically obstructed, and their vehicles attacked and shot at.
The opposition Syrian National Council also warned of a looming massacre in Homs which it says is besieged by 30,000 troops and pro-regime militiamen.
Slate has an excellent account written by a freelance journalist HERE; one note on these types of stories – you really never can tell whether or not they’re factual or just another part of a PSYOPS mission. So read with your own skepticism.
New signs emerge every day now that the revolution is closing in on Damascus. A collapsing economy is delivering nothing but shortages and soaring prices, driving the discontented middle classes toward the revolution. Free Syrian Army checkpoints occasionally appear now on main highways, mere miles from the capital. The airport road, always of great symbolic and strategic importance, has at least twice fallen, if briefly, to the rebels. Bold assassinations of infamously cruel security chiefs are taking place in Damascus’ nicest neighborhoods.
The regime no longer has the military capacity to crush the rebellion everywhere at once. They don’t trust the troops enough to send them out without the supervision of certain loyalist divisions, and they don’t have enough tanks to drive the rebel forces from all the cities, towns, and villages they control. When the northeastern city of Raqqa began to rebel this spring after security forces opened fire on a peaceful protest, all the local tanks were on loan to regime forces fighting to retake Deir Ezzor, 150 miles away, which had fallen already to the Free Syrian Army.
AFP is reporting that the “Free Syrian Army” is much more organized and learning how to be more effective against the Syrian military HERE:
According to the Dubai-based Kahwaji, the FSA has “thousands” of members across Syria and is growing in both capacity and coordination. “They have become more organised,” he told AFP.
The FSA announced in March the formation of a military council grouping rebel chiefs and chaired by Syria’s most senior army deserter, General Mustafa al-Sheikh.
While Turkey-based Colonel Riad al-Assaad, one of the first officers to defect, officially leads the FSA, in practice operations are planned and executed at a grassroots level, independently from any exiled leaders, Kahwaji said.
Over the past months more efforts has been made to shore up the rag-tag rebel army into a more cohesive force, activists say.
“Small groups of armed rebels with no communication with other units are being replaced by larger umbrella squadrons to better organise the insurgency,” said Damascus-based activist Ahmad al-Khatib.
Meanwhile – in U.S. politics … Mitt Romney is now talking a very tough pro-Israel stance. A couple of days ago – Mitt Romney met privately with billionaire Zionist Sheldon Adelson. I call Mr. Adelson a Zionist because he is very much a one issue voter and those are his words – not mine. He is far from being a social conservative and his #1 concern is that of Israel. Mr. Adelson has now pledged up to $100 million to help Mitt Romney win the election … and that kind of money can buy you quite a lot from a Presidential candidate. So – Mr. Romney spoke m0stly about about Israel and Iran … but there was a snippet about Syria too.
The L.A. Times has the story HERE:
Romney said that as president, he would “forge a strong working relationship with the leadership in Israel.”
“I would make it very clear that for us, as well as for them, it is unacceptable for Iran to become a nuclear nation and that we’re prepared to take any and all action to keep that from happening,” he added, applause drowning out his next line.
If he were in office now, Romney said, he would be encouraging countries in the region, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to arm “the insurgents” in Syria’s civil war.
“But perhaps overarching is this: I would not want to show a dime’s worth of distance between ourselves and our allies like Israel. If we have disagreements, you know, we can talk about them behind closed doors. But to the world, you show that we’re locked arm in arm,” he said.
Except – we’re already partnering with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the other “Friends of Syria” (yes they literally call themselves that) to help arm the mercenaries and supply them with money, munitions and food. These people are not fighting a war with an army without support. Mr. Romney’s problem is not that he doesn’t know this … his problem is that he is a pathological liar intent on playing politics with international issues that have very, very serious consequences.
