Arab League NOT happy campers Linkie here



I don't know how a colonel is majikally turned into a Top General, but it does make better copy.

He would have been a top general in Gadaffi's Libya. No officer ranked higher than colonel when Gaddafi was in power.

Yeah, every country has their own ranking system. You should not laugh at it because over here a general is the top rank.

There has been a near rebellion going on in Syria for near 6 months now. This man would not have made his announcement to Al Jazerra unless he has a plan and he is confident he wil be joined by others. If the Army is defecting the Syrian goverment is doomed.

What amazing changes.

I'm still pissed off at the double-standard about turning weapons on their own people. When it's al-Assad, and it's pics like this, or the one attached to the article at SueDB's link, there's outrage about a govt committing violence on its own people.
Caution: Graphic Image
http://www.cbsnews.com/i/tim/2011/12/28/Syria_violence_AP111228019993_620x350.jpg

When it's our own people, and pics like this, it's "well, they deserved it", "shouldn't have been doing that" .
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You might say there's a big difference, but I feel like only a moment's confusion separates the latter and the former, ala Kent State.

We're not in Libya...The Syrians have a full blown General Staff complete with real live Generals. It seems like a Colonel is the head of one of the resistance groups. The Syrians are set up under the old cold war WARSAW Pact doctrine using the old Soviet style of command and control.

Now, if a really bizarre nutty and egomaniacal colonel takes over.....

Overall Composition of the Syrian Army (partial order of battle)

This is way too large of an army NOT to have a couple of folks at flag rank.

President Assad holds the rank of Lieutenant General



Another quote from the same article.



Quite possible that the highest rank is LTGeneral...

Except the Syrians are using real bullets, air strikes, field artillery, armored (armoured) vehicles, and using the main tank guns (up to 125mm gun) on the protestors. It is hard to stamp out an idea.

As an aside - if you look at the order of battle - this is one hell of a big army in a tiny country. (Divisions are usually about 20K folks depending) Corps are 2 or more divisions or a huge support command.
For what it is worth, they try to stay up to snuff cause when they attack their neighbor they keep getting their asses handed to them with a vengeance.

Negotiations could have been started a long time ago to get the Golan Heights back. The longer they wait balled up in their snit of defeatism the less chance to get the land back.

I don't see why in the world Israel would ever agree to return a patch of land that makes a perfect position (3300 feet above sea level) from which to shell large parts of Israel. It would be strategic suicide.

Given the militarization of our country's police, another Kent State might be in our future. However, I don't see Sergeant Pike with his pepper spray as morally equivalent to Pres. Assad and his enormous military and what they are doing. I object strongly to both but would be willing to kill to take Assad down. Or, more likely, I would be willing to welcome the Arab League intervening, perhaps with our and NATO's support, to put a stop to his massacres.

"It is hard to stamp out an idea." The ideas of freedom and justice cannot be stamped out forever. They arise from the core of our being. Although the Christian imagery is not to my taste, this video of "Epistle" from Bernstein's Mass has a powerful message. There is an even more pertinent and moving track that I cannot find on YouTube in which a young man writes to his folks from prison. I think it is embedded in a larger track.

Thanks so much for introducing this. It has always been my favorite selection from the brilliant but stylistically confused Mass.

I wonder if what you're referring to is the spoken part of the same number that is not included in the YouTube track. It contains passages like:



and



In a minor but possibly amusing connection to our favorite subject, while the original recording was conducted by Bernstein himself, the Musical Director of the original production was Maurice Peress, who is currently conducting the New Britain Symphony Orchestra. Sound familiar? It was (is?) the place of employment of our favorite Harpeau.

That is exactly the part that I was thinking of. It fits very naturally into what YouTube provides. I don't recall why the young man was in prison. It might have been for civil rights or Vietnam War protests. Either fits the point that I was trying to make.

Another way of making my point is

This is what drives the people of Syria. Admittedly, the resulting government might not be to our liking. It could be radical Islamist. When I think of that, I think of the eventual outcome that was envisioned by Richard A. Clarke in The Scorpion's Gate.

I'm not sure that she gets any more gigs with the New Britain Symphony Orchestra. She says here that she is "featured" at the NBSO, but that is not mentioned in the bio on her current Web site. However, it is possible that she performs in the related Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra.

She is one of the Birthers for whom I also feel some sympathy. Something went terribly wrong for her.

I checked the full libretto, and there's no further explanation of his imprisonment. But the year was 1971, and I (and many others, I suspect) took it for granted that he was a war protester, possibly a draft resister.

The full libretto is one of the things missing from the 2-CD version. The other thing missing is sound quality, so I just ordered a "Like New" vinyl boxed set from Amazon. (I loaned my original vinyl to a Congregational minister in Scarsdale, suggesting that sermons could be found in it, and he still has it on loan after 25 years.) I could have waited until I next got down to Orange, to Merle’s Record Rack, but even if they have one, it could sell the day that I arrive.

Real bullets you say? You don't think there's real bullets in that 9mm on Pike's right hip?

or here, on UC police and Alameda County sheriffs?
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You will notice that the 9mm ammunition MAY be in the automatic pistol. He is not spraying the crowd with his AK-47 7.62 x 33mm or even worse the AK-74 rounds flying all over the place. He is not sending a 125mm tank round into a building.

That's true, SueDB, but the means of killing someone is just an unsnap of a holster and a flick of the safety away. All I'm saying is a moment of lost discipline or confusion* was all that stood between a mouthful of pepper spray and a bullet in the head on many occasions here last fall. Dead is dead, and they'd be just as dead from a 9mm round as if they'd been hit by a round from a tank.

* That's what Kent State was - almost 70 rounds were fired in less than 15 seconds.

By some folks called the NATIONAL GUARD. They are NOT police. All National Guard Officers go through civil disturbance training. They are the a back-up for the police if the Governor calls them out.

That is what happens when people, guns, and ammo are in close proximity.

What is happening in Syria is that regular army forces who aren't trained in civil disturbance are being tasked to suppress a group of people. The only way the Syrian army knows how to do this is to kill people and break their things.

In fact there are only two reasons to have an Army - One is to kill the other guy and Two is to break their things other than that the Army is out of a job, Eh?

Anderson Cooper had a powerful interview tonight with a man in the middle of the protest in the "flashpoint" city of Homs. The evidence of artillery attacks by the loyalist army was everywhere. The man said that there were hundreds of casualties. He asked why nobody was coming to help.

CNN Breaking News

Thanks to China and Russia, more people are dying.

Although I remain deeply conflicted about the wisdom and practicality of U.S. intervention is such situations, I am now wondering if this is another time for NATO to intervene. Governments cannot be allowed to massacre their own people.*


* I do know the long history in which essentially every government has done just that, including not only China and Russia but also the U.S. (Native Americans). History cannot justify inaction.

IMHO I have a feeling that the only folks who can deal with this are the other Arab and Islamic States. You see what happened when the 'white man' tries to intervene in Iraq, Iran, the countless folks who THOUGHT they could rule Afghanistan (Brits, Russ, Soviets, Siberians etc). - And those states aren't doing much to stop the violence. Unless Turkey is attacked, NATO needs to keep its nose out of it.

Yet, we sit back and allow it to happen time and time again. Right now, the entire country of the DPRK is in danger of sliding into the slow genocide and deliberate starvation/retardation of the population.

On NRP today, they were talking about the unrest in Syria. The US and many other nations have closed their Syrian embassies. Everyone is pissed at China and Russian for their no votes on the UN Securities Counsel sanctions for Syria. The Syrian government is attacking it's own people and the reporter was saying that if Iran feels like the Syrian government has gone totally over the edge and lost control of their people, the Iranians will step in.

We'll be at war with Iran within a year. You heard it here first.

IMHO The Israelis won't allow this to happen. They've been the "bad boys" of the block for over 50 years, and I don't see them putting up with a piker like Iran.

I thought about this today and believe that I see a difference, although some may see my differentiation as very harsh: the Syrian people are rebelling while the North Koreans are not. The Syrian rebels are only sometimes using non-violent means, but I don't think it would have made much of a difference in how the Assad government responded if they had been entirely non-violent.

The Syrian people are acting to withdraw the legitimacy of the Assad government, then its authority, and then its power. This is how dictatorships are destroyed. It may take a generation or more, and it may take tens of thousands of lives. It may require outside intervention, at least to the stage of arming the rebels. The American rebels were significantly helped by the French. NATO helped in Libya and in Kosovo. But it all depended upon the people acting in their own interests, putting everything on the line. It may be that, with the brutes in power in North Korea, many people will have to put everything on the line.

The people of North Korea, so far as we know, are not acting. They have never acted. To be sure, they live under perhaps the most oppressive regime on earth, buttressed by the world's third largest military. They have been subject to expert propaganda for sixty years. But they are not acting. They enable their oppressors. That sentence about withdrawing legitimacy, authority, and power fully means what it says: if a people choose not to withdraw legitimacy, not to deny authority, not to overwhelm power, then the dictatorship will not fall.

A corollary of the work of Dr. Gene Sharp is that it is the people's responsibility to act -- not just that they will be successful if they do act. Sometimes, even often, this will result in people losing their lives. It may last a generation or more. However, it is the people of North Korea who have conferred legitimacy, authority, and power upon the Kim dynasty and its henchmen -- unwillingly but nevertheless accepting. It is only they who can withdraw it. Instead, they abased themselves for the extravaganza of the coronation of Kim Jong-Un.

I believe that in the long run a people get the government that they are willing to accept (I would almost say "the government that they deserve"). If the North Koreans show signs of rebellion, I would be all for helping them. Signs of guerrilla groups or resistance of any kind would be welcome. Sabotage and the other hard means that bring down governments would be welcome. Attempts to subvert the loyalty of the armed forces would be welcome. They have been bought off by the regime, but their brothers and sisters can speak to them: look what you are enabling!

So long as the North Koreans passively let the Kims enslave them, I don't think there would be much good in our trying to overthrow the dictatorship. We might find ourselves at war with the people of North Korea themselves. That is what we did in Germany with its millions of willing executioners for Hitler. That may be what is required for North Korea, and we may fight enslaved peasants who have pitchforks. It would be better for the people to act on their own behalf.

Gene Sharp never thought of his methods as "peaceful." They are not. Being peaceful does not bring change. Now a false peace prevails in North Korea. We sustain that false peace with what we call "humanitarian interventions" -- food, medicine, fuel. It may be that the more humane thing to do would be to put the regime under intense pressure from its people. Our being humanitarian may be the most destructive thing that we can do for the future of freedom in North Korea.

Not a very coherent response, for which I apologize. I'll think better tomorrow. In the meantime, my signature says it better than I.