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Cockburn had also written:
"What makes the crisis in Syria so intractable is that three crises are wrapped into one. At one level, it is a popular uprising against a brutal, corrupt police state that started in March when security forces tortured children painting anti-regime slogans on a wall in Deraa in the south. The state disastrously misjudged its moment and an atrocity, intended to intimidate would-be protesters into silence, instead provoked them to revolt. Hatred of a despotic regime and fury at repeated massacres still impels great numbers of Syrians to go into the streets to demonstrate despite the dangers.There is no doubting their courage, but the struggle in which they are taking part has two other dimensions: it is part of the escalating conflict between Sunni and Shia and the 33-year-old battle between Iran and its enemies. The sectarianism of the Syrian opposition is persistently played down by the international media, but power in Syria is distributed along sectarian lines, just as it was in the recent past in Iraq, Lebanon and Ireland. Even supposing an anti-sectarian opposition, democracy in Syria means a loss of power for the Alawites and their allies and a gain for the Sunni.
Given that Sunni make up three-quarters of Syria's 24 million population, their enfranchisement might appear to be no bad thing. Unfortunately, many of the government's most committed opponents evidently have more fundamental changes in mind than a fairer distribution of power between communities. Core areas of the insurgency, where the Sunni are in the overwhelming majority, increasingly see Alawites, Shia and Christians as heretics to be eliminated.
Television reporting and much print journalism is skewed towards portraying an evil government oppressing a heroic people. Evidence that other forces may be at work is ignored."
-- http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-all-the-evidence-points-to-sectarian-civil-war-in-syria-but-no-one-wants-to-admit-it-6785682.html"There is no doubt that Assad’s police state is corrupt and brutal. There is every reason to press Assad towards reform. But it has become plain that negotiated reform is not on the agenda of the rebels. To the contrary, the bombs that killed 28 and wounded 235 in Aleppo, no doubt set by Sunni suicide bombers, probably operating through al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, were intended to elicit government repression, not to encourage negotiation."
-- http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/17/hypocrisy-and-syria/It's a horrible, horrible situation. I've lost non-immediate family in a civil war.
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The armed fighting seems to be mainly in Daraa and Baba Amr. What does this imply for a popular revolt that it's not widespread?
Unfortunately, my guess is that it will be suppressed (or 'cleansed', as the Syrian government is describing its operation) with violent force in exactly the same way as Hama in 1982, perhaps with less loss of life than in that instance.
But who knows how this will play out? China & Russia are unlikely to allow NATO to play the same game in Syria as it did in Libya. However, the Saudis, and others in the Middle East, have an interest in seeing Assad go, as do many in Lebanon (not including Hezbollah).
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By the way, Patrick & Alexander Cockburn, although brothers, are not the same person. The 2nd article you reference is by Alexander, whereas the 1st is Patrick.
I'm not familiar with Alexander Cockburn's work, so I don't have a view on how well informed he might be.
Patrick Cockburn* is someone whose journalism I have followed, and he appears to be as scrupulous in his journalism, as he is brave (or foolhardy, depending on your point of view).
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^ Ha!
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^^ I would have thought hiring Andy Coulson was already evidence enough.
Who cares about a horse ride?Cos it shows that Cameron lied for 4 days, and then revealed that he might have ridden the dead nag.
When someone pointed out that the Met website had an explicit statement along the lines of "we only give out retired horses to homes where they **wont **be ridden", the Met site was promptly changed to "decisions are made on a case by case basis".
it's not the dead riot horse itself, but the self serving nepotism in politicians and the Met.
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And Steve Hilton's resigned, which makes a total of nine senior advisers / minsters in a year. Not bad going!
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An Australian possum broke into a cake shop and ate so many pastries he was found unable to move in the morning by shop owner.
That's a well behaved possum, had it been me that top tray would have been carnage...
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Fark!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-17259087
Fucking el that things huge.
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To be fair, he is moving to the States where his wife works. They have young kids, so travelling back and forth isn't much of an option.
Pfft, Tories/MPs don't give a fuck about their families. Take Louise Mensch. Constituency in Corby, office in London, husband in New York, kids in between.
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This was written before I saw the post above.
The armed fighting seems to be mainly in Daraa and Baba Amr. What does this imply for a popular revolt that it's not widespread?
Does it matter to the people which group of villains are in charge? What if the cost of getting the newer, shinier version is widespread death and mayhem (as is the pattern)?
Do you have credible reports of this? Narwani throws doubt on the casualty figure narrative and shows instances when the claimed defectors weren't. I also ask again where are the credible reports of the altruism of the rebels and of the Syrian government wilfully targeting civilians in its response to the armed rebels?
Even Stratfor [1], said "most of the opposition's more serious claims have turned out to be grossly exaggerated or simply untrue, thereby revealing more about the opposition's weaknesses than the level of instability inside the Syrian regime."
-- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sharmine-narwani/stratfor-challenges-narra_b_1158710.html
The Arab League monitors reported that the armed opposition had committed violence against civilians. Is that a credible source?
So the FSA aren't terrorists, even when they've killed civilians with car bombs? US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said the FSA has been infiltrated by Al Qaeda. The same Al Qaeda assets who were prominent in the genuine people's revolution [TM] in Libya?
After their great success in hoodwinking the public over Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, what are the odds that the Western media are telling anything remotely like the truth about Syria? Of course the Syrian government has its own propaganda. However, when this matches with the same pattern of covert assistance and backing of out of country activists as in Libya, I'm inclined to believe it. That doesn't mean that I accept everything from RT or Press TV.
Was Marie Colvin killed in "a rocket attack", by an "an artillery shell", or "a mortar strike"? If the media don't even know how she was killed, are they likely to know who killed her?
1 - "a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency."
-- http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html