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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSyrian officer who witnessed Houla massacre Defects
A senior official from the Syrian Air Force has defected and sided with opposition forces, and claims he witnessed the Houla massacre first hand. The Guardian spoke to Major Jihad Raslan, who was on leave in his house 300 metres away from the small village of Taldous, one of the first areas assaulted in the Houla masacre, when several hundred men he knew to be Shabiha members, pro-regime militia, entered on motorbikes and army trucks:
A lot of them were bald and many had beards, he said. Many wore white sports shoes and army pants. They were shouting: Shabiha forever, for your eyes, Assad. It was very obvious who they were.
We used to be told that armed groups killed people and the Free Syria Army burned down houses, he said. They lied to us. Now I saw what they did with my own eyes.
A lot of them were bald and many had beards, he said. Many wore white sports shoes and army pants. They were shouting: Shabiha forever, for your eyes, Assad. It was very obvious who they were.
He said the killings in his area were over in around 15 minutes. However, the rampage in other parts of Houla continued until the early hours of Saturday, according to eye-witnesses and survivors.
http://www.yalibnan.com/2012/06/03/syrian-military-officer-who-witnessed-houla-massacre-defects/
leveymg
(36,418 posts)That's the first rule of counter-intelligence, asylum officers, and good journalists. Also, cross-check the sources. The emergence of this Shabiha meme popping up so long after the fact doesn't smell right - it could be true, but it could be more disinformation.
People on this board have to be wary of the sources and intent behind these atrocity stories, particularly those posted at foreign and neocon web sites sourced solely from opposition sources
tabatha
(18,795 posts)Unfortunately, his statements back up what some of the witnesses said.
Next thing you'll be saying that people who survived the massacre are not to be believed.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)They contradict other eyewitness interviews that state that many of the victims were gov't supporters with houses near the police station. The truth will out, and the only thing we can assume is that a lot of people have a huge motive to lie about what actually happened.
MindMover
(5,016 posts)Response to leveymg (Reply #1)
Post removed
leveymg
(36,418 posts)I have no military discipline, and I hate propaganda of all types and stripes and flags.
David__77
(23,457 posts)...
MindMover
(5,016 posts)then an apologist.....but you are skirting that line....
David__77
(23,457 posts)I favor critical thinking. It's good to reassess one's axiomatic assumptions periodically...
MindMover
(5,016 posts)I sincerely hope that you follow the principles of your avatar and unite with the right people and not the wrong people.....
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)is one that withstands scrutiny. Highly recommend giving it a second look.
cali
(114,904 posts)and atrocities do happen.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Last edited Sun Jun 3, 2012, 06:27 PM - Edit history (5)
Too bad, the Guardian used to be a great newspaper before it was taken over by the neocons. Atlantic has also become a neocon mouthpiece.
But, that doesn't make this story untrue. My first reaction when I heard about the massacres was, also, this was largely the work of pro-regime Shi'ia militias, which is further evidence that this has become a full-scale religious war. I'm merely saying, now, I would hold off on promoting that as fact until there is better confirmation from other sources, which may never come or may show up on the screen in the next five minutes.
On edit: I wanted to add this about the Guardian's neocon line and general support for more active intervention in Syria and Iran by the US and NATO. About The Atlantic, in this regard, nothing need be said. For years, I respected and relied upon The Guardian for progressive international coverage. I began to detect something was wrong in 2007 when that paper championed a hard-line confrontation with Iran over the capture and short-term detention of a Royal Navy boarding party in the Shaat-al-Arab, that turned out to be a transparent provocation of Iran's al-Quuds naval units in that area in the period after the Israeli bombing in Lebanon and leading up to Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.
In March, this is what a Guardian columnist had to say about the summit between Obama and Cameron in Washington, and the Iraq and Afghanistan disengagement agenda they discussed. Read between the lines, and there is more than a streak of neocon pining for a more militant stance in Washington. It's a classic case of an ironically titled headline, in this opinion piece by Martin Kettle, entitled, "Cameron and Obama ended the neocon era. But the era of Assad goes on: David Cameron and Barack Obama buried the neocons in Washington. But the west will pay a price for the quiet life" http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/14/cameron-obama-ended-neocon-era
The similar surface noise over Iran and Syria also conceals a deeper current, a long withdrawing roar of disengagement. Cameron and Obama dwelt less on Iran and Syria than they did on Afghanistan. That's partly because there is less they can do there, even the Americans, certainly the British. The Washington Post joint article emphasised that there is time and space to pursue a diplomatic solution in Iran, buttressed by stronger sanctions. There is not an iota of ambiguity in the toughness of the language, but the unspoken reality is that Obama would do almost anything to avoid getting trapped into a military strike against Iran. That doesn't mean that it won't happen. But it does mean that he thinks, rightly, that it would be a mark of failure if it did.
In Syria the limits of engagement are even more stark. At the White House press conference, Obama spoke about aid to the opposition, about pressure on the regime, about mobilising the nations and tightening the sanctions. Cameron threatened the Assad dynasty with the international criminal court. It all sounds like action, and it is all useful incremental stuff. But it is action at a distance, with strict limits. It is not intervention, because the international order has a collective interest in inaction and because the costs not least the political costs at home are deemed too high.
All this is, in very large part, the politics of where we are now. Faced with all three of these grim situations at once a decade-long losing struggle against a feudal patriarchal narco-state, the threat of nuclear weapons in the hands of a paranoid revolutionary theocracy, and the readiness of a corrupt Arab socialist autocrat to kill his own people for the sake of the revolution it is hardly surprising that Obama and Cameron hold back. Who's to blame them for doing so? The historic failure in Iraq leaves them little choice. But so does the fragility of the global economy. Even if the US and the UK were faced with only one of the three problems, Iraq and the recession would make them think twice.
A large part of all of us breathes a huge sigh of relief at this. The post-George Bush era finally beckons. Withdrawal from Afghanistan means no more pointless deaths of young soldiers, no more massacres, insults and acts of desecration against Afghans at least by Americans. Western nations think in instant gratification terms and short timescales and this has all gone on too long. The west has had enough of fear and shame and hard times, of making enemies out of strangers and realising that getting people to change their ways is harder than it first seemed. People get weary, just like Obama said.
Another part of us, though, ought to reflect on what is being lost by this overwhelming collective disengagement. The disengagement is happening because the mistakes crimes if you prefer of the past have created a collective war-weariness that has now become a collective war-wariness. It is natural to want the conflict to end.
Who wouldn't? It's not wrong to want a quiet life, but how right is it when it comes at a price that someone else will inevitably have to pay? That wasn't acceptable to earlier generations who scorned non-intervention in Spain or Abyssinia. Obama and Cameron closed the door on the George Bush era on Wednesday, to the general relief of the world. But the era of Mullah Omar, Ayatollah Khamenei and Bashar al-Assad goes on, posing questions that will one day have to be answered.
Unfortunately, Mr. Kettle, the neocon era is not over. It just continues as such by moving to new targets.
dionysus
(26,467 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)The difference is that the Syrian civil war is essentially a sectarian religious war between a minority Shi'ia regime (the Alawites) that are predominant in cities along the north-western coast, and the Sunni majority that surrounds it within Syria, which -- like Iraq-- is essentially another line drawn in the sand after World War One at the British Foreign Office in London.
The present killing is a continuation after a long break of the last round of fighting in the 1980s, with hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides, won by the Ba'ath Party regime led by Assad's father, who was a considerably more capable man.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)They must view it as particularly incriminating for their champion.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)You really shouldn't. Why is this narrative just emerging now, days after the killings were first blamed on gov't troops, but everyone had to back off from that conclusion?
It may well be that most of the civilian casualties are the result of Shi'ia militias - if that's true, that confirms what some of us have been saying all along. We've gotten ourselves into the middle of a religious sectarian war. Ask yourself: Do you want to go further into this, in Syria, with all of its significance for both sides of the Islamic divide? Do you like forever wars? Twilight wars fought forever? Don't we, as Americans, have enough problems without that?
MindMover
(5,016 posts)and wholesale slaughter/murder of innocents, Pas moi, monsieur
leveymg
(36,418 posts)protection from the SLA? Most of the killings appear to have been the work of militias. Who's responsible for that? Not so easy to answer that question.
The only thing that can be said with certainty is that as foreign intervention intensifies, the situation becomes more chaotic and bloody. The greatest influence we can have is cutting off the flow of arms, money, and fighters - that means, essentially, we have to finally finish the job of wiping out al Qaeda, which is carrying out most of the terrorist bombings (that people seem to have momentarily forgotten) by going to its source: Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States.
MindMover
(5,016 posts)culpability is with Assad and his regime....I find your posts to be sophomoric debate...
Foreign intervention has been to supply the regime with further weapons and ammo from allies of Assad and words of horror from others...
You mention aQ like they are still a viable force in the region....BS....and nobody of substance has momentarily forgotten them...they better keep there heads inside their caves.....
leveymg
(36,418 posts)It's not a deflection. Don't worry about culpability for Assad, he'll get it. But, the others who've fueled this fire also have committed human rights violations, and must be held equally accountable for each death they are responsible for, as well.
BTW: AQ is still very much alive and active outside of caves - at least, that part of it that continues to operate internationally under the protection of the Saudi regime.
You need to offer more of substance to the debate, and be less personally confrontational.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)your steadfast support and excuses for his regime. :rollseyes:
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Assad is an idiot, and I have no doubt that he will eventually be overthrown. But, there are far more ruthless parties now in the mix, including Jihadists supported by Saudi Arabia. These foreign fighters are, in two words, al-Qaeda terrorists, and we are still in a de facto state of war with them.
pampango
(24,692 posts)that pro-government forces committed a massacre when only the government can conduct an inquiry? That is true whether the government is in Syria or Guatemala, Zimbabwe or North Korea.
If you don't want to listen to or believe witnesses or defectors, you either believe the government's version or you throw your hands up and don't know whom to believe (which is probably a win for any government since this may limit international damage to the regime).
MindMover
(5,016 posts)riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Or they can recognize false flag operations even if they occurred right in front of their very eyes?
MindMover
(5,016 posts)and false flags as you well know, happen anywhere....