Facing the hard truth

The conclusion is a hard one. When one wants to bring down a dictatorship most effectively and with the least cost then one has four immediate tasks:

• One must strengthen the oppressed population themselves in their determination, self-confidence, and resistance skills;
• One must strengthen the independent social groups and institutions of the oppressed people;
• One must create a powerful internal resistance force; and
• One must develop a wise grand strategic plan for liberation and implement it skillfully.

Changes can come from the power of many, but only when the many come together to form that which is invincible: the power of one.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Free Syrian Army is all that stands between civilians and tanks

As Syria's rebellious cities are bombarded and the regime's tank crews prepare to move, only a rag-tag and poorly armed but determined army stands in their way.

The last straw for Captain Abu Mahmoud came when 13 of his fellow officers were lined up and shot by a Syrian firing squad. They had been identified as potential deserters - all officers have their own team of watchers from military intelligence to monitor their behaviour - and were executed just in case, he said.

He was headed at the time with his Third Division for Idlib in the north, scene already of many battles and massacres in this encroaching civil war. He turned tail, shook off his spies and went home.

In a fine example of how the paranoias of dictators eventually make themselves come true, he is now with the Free Syrian Army on the front line of the battle for Homs.

He is a helpless spectator as the Syrian tanks and artillery, which his Free Syrian Army cannot match, drop round after round of shell fire on to the defenceless citizens of the Homs neighbourhoods Bab al-Amr and Khalidiya, enclaves now to match the names of Sarajevo and Misurata.

But economic ties -- valuable military contracts and energy investments that could be lost if the Assad regime fails -- play a key role as well.

"It's a significant economic interest," said Daniel Treisman, a Russia specialist at UCLA. "We're talking about several billion dollars in contracts with Syria may be at risk."

Billions in arms sales: Even as images of horrific suffering stream out of the country, Russia has maintained that the situation is for Syrians to resolve without outside intervention.
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Russia has long been Syria's primary military supplier and currently has about $4 billion worth of contracts for future arms deliveries to Damascus, according to a report from global analysis firm Oxford Analytica. Syria received 6% of total Russian arms exports in 2010, the report said, and is "critical for some [Russian] companies' financial survival."

Syrian government forces are using detained civilians as human shields, placing them on tanks in the besieged city of Homs to prevent the opposition Free Syrian Army from fighting back, an opposition activist said.

The latest tactic came as shelling rained on city's Baba Amr neighborhood once again Sunday, residents say, marking at least the eighth straight day President Bashar al-Assad's troops have pummeled Homs in an attempt to wipe out the opposition.

"My house is dancing. I am almost dead because of the siege," said the opposition activist, named Omar.

At least 23 people were killed Sunday, including a woman and two children, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria (LCC). The death toll included nine people in Daraa, five in Homs, four in Idlib, two in Hama, two in Damascus suburbs, and one in Damascus, the group said.

Intellectuals are debating whether Vladimir Putin might have made a mistake in protecting Syria at the risk of a diplomatic crisis with the United States. The question is wrongly put. Having reconstituted its forces for years and asserted itself today on the international stage, Moscow has put an end to two decades of a unipolar world order, permitting Washington to expand its hegemony to achieve global domination. The choice was not between siding with tiny Syria or with the mighty United States, but between allowing the first world power to destroy yet another government or upsetting the balance of power to create a more just international order in which Russia has a say.

Journalists Marie Colvin, Remi Ochlik killed in Syria, activists and French official say
Two others — including an American in need of urgent treatment — are wounded after house is bombarded, according to activist

The United States and dozens of other countries moved closer on Sunday to direct intervention in the fighting in Syria, with Arab nations pledging $100 million to pay opposition fighters and the Obama administration agreeing to send communications equipment to help rebels organize and evade Syria’s military, according to participants gathered here.

The moves reflected a growing consensus, at least among the officials who met here this weekend under the rubric “Friends of Syria,” that mediation efforts by the United Nations peace envoy, Kofi Annan, were failing to halt the violence that is heading into its second year in Syria and that more forceful action was needed.

With Russia and China blocking United Nations measures that could open the way for military action, the countries lined up against the government of President Bashar al-Assad sought to bolster Syria’s beleaguered opposition through means that seemed to stretch the definition of humanitarian assistance and blur the line between so-called lethal and nonlethal support.

There remains no agreement on arming the rebels, as countries like Saudi Arabia and some members of Congress have called for, largely because of the uncertainty regarding who exactly would receive the arms.

The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a measure Saturday that allows for an observer mission in Syria to be expanded to 300 unarmed military monitors across the country.

CNN April 21, 2012 emphasis mine

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Annan's mission, centered on an April ceasefire that never took hold, has looked irrelevant as fighting has intensified in Damascus, Aleppo and elsewhere.

Annan blamed "finger-pointing and name-calling" at the U.N. Security Council for his decision to quit but suggested his successor may have better luck.

Russia, the United States, Britain and France began pointing fingers at each other over who was responsible for Annan's sudden announcement that he would depart. One senior council diplomat said it was now time to acknowledge the "utter irrelevance of an impotent Security Council" on Syria.
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Annan suggested that the continued arming of all sides in the conflict and the Security Council deadlock had undermined his ability to pursue a diplomatic solution.

JERUSALEM — The Syrian government said that Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike inside its territory on Wednesday, raising the risks that the two-year-old civil conflict in Syria could spread beyond the country’s borders.

A statement by the Syrian military said that a scientific research facility in the Damascus suburbs was hit, but the precise target was unclear. Earlier news reports, confirmed by an American official in Washington, said the Israelis were targeting a truck convoy inside Syria that was bound for Lebanon.

It was the first time in more than five years that Israel’s air force had attacked a target in Syria, which has remained in a technical state of war with Israel although both sides have maintained an uneasy peace along their disputed border.

Kerry has already signaled that he will be more aggressive and ruthless than his predecessor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, when it comes to implementing the US program of destroying the sovereign and independent nation states of the world, and replacing them with micro states, mini states, rump states, failed states, warlords, and chaos. Accordingly, Kerry wants to increase aid to the Syrian rebels, whom his own department has branded as terrorists.

There is a "high probability" that Syria used chemical weapons against opposition forces, though verification is needed, U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday.

A rumor about the death of Syrian President Bashar Assad was massively shared on social media websites on Sunday, the French weekly magazine Le Point reported.

"News about Assad being shot dead by his Iranian bodyguard have not been confirmed yet,” the magazine said, revealing that the opposition's Free Syrian Army has denied such reports.

Noting that "tweets and Facebook comments helped in largely and rapidly disseminating the rumor”, Le Point remarked: “Social media websites were the primary source of this rumor.”

The reported news shared that Assad was shot on Saturday and was transferred to a Damascus hospital, as roads were blocked and buildings surrounding the location were firmly seized by the Syrian army.

Syrian opposition in disarray as its leader resigns

BEIRUT — Syria’s opposition coalition was on the verge of collapse on Sunday after its president resigned and rebel fighters rejected its choice to head an interim government, leaving a U.S.-backed effort to forge a united front against President Bashar al-Assad in tatters.

The resignation of Moaz al-Khatib, a moderate Sunni preacher who heads the Syrian Opposition Coalition, culminated a bitter internal fight over a range of issues, from the appointment of an interim government to a proposal by Khatib to launch negotiations with the Syrian regime.

His departure plunged the opposition into disarray at a time when the United States and its Western allies are stepping up their support for moderates opposed to Assad’s regime, with the coalition expected to play a key role in identifying the recipients and channeling the assistance. ...

The trigger for Khatib’s departure was the selection last week of Ghassan Hitto, a relatively unknown Syrian-born U.S. citizen, to head a proposed interim government. Khatib and his supporters had opposed the creation of an interim government at this time, as had the United States, whose diplomats argued forcefully against the move on the grounds that it created an unnecessarily divisive distraction from the goal of bringing down Assad’s regime, according to Syrian opposition members.

Hitto’s candidacy was backed, however, by the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the push to install him as Syria’s first opposition prime minister was widely seen as an effort by the Brotherhood to claw back some of the influence lost when the original Syrian opposition body, the Syrian National Council, was absorbed into the wider Syrian coalition.

Free Syrian Army rejects new Syrian National Coalition PM

Rebel leaders do not believe Ghassan Hitto is right choice to lead the first government of the Syrian revolution; opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib resigned shortly after his appointment.

The split in the Syrian opposition – and especially between the fighting forces and the political leadership - plumbed new depths Sunday when the Free Syrian Army announced that it does not recognize the anti-Assad coalition's choice of Ghassan Hitto as provisional prime minister.

The Free Syrian Army leaders, fighting against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, do not believe that Hitto, a U.S. citizen who spent most of his life in the U.S., is the right choice to lead the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces - the first government of the Syrian revolution.

Hitto, whose cabinet is supposed to govern rebel-held areas currently ruled by hundreds of brigades and emerging warlords, was backed by the Muslim Brotherhood and coalition Secretary General Mustafa Sabbagh, who has strong links with Qatar.

Assad has written to the leaders of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) urging them to help to stop the violence in Syria. He finds the sanctions to be illegal, unfair, and harmful; the BRICS nations can assert their power on this issue.

Just a letter. So far there is no report of an actual appearance by Assad in Damascus. He is said to be in high spirits, but who wouldn't be with 72 virgins hanging around? The news reporting problem is simply that there is no command structure in Syria.

CounterPsyOps (edited by WorldMathaba) – On March 24, the news of Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad being dead started spreading on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Arab and Jewish news outlets as well as Zionist website JSS News also reported that Al-Assad has been shot by his “Iranian bodyguard named Jacoby”, ...

In fact, Zionist Bedouins created an Al-Assad articulated robot ..., and will show him “dead” along with Damascus streets in chaos, to bring about panic and to demoralize the Syrian people and the army, and to enable terrorists to take advantage of the situation – just like they did with the fake Green Square footage in Libya.

Remember what we’ve been warning you about: Qatar spending billions to simulate Assad’s collapse and Al Jazeera preparing fake images of Syria

See below a tweet posted by a Damascus resident stating that what the Zionist news is saying about hospital roads being closed and Damascus diving into chaos is completely false.