Killing Syrians – A Game Anyone Can Play 179


Israel’s massive air strikes against Syria are, beyond argument, illegal. There is no provision in international law that enables you to bomb another country because that country is in internal chaos. Yet the reporting on the BBC, and indeed throughout the mainstream media, makes no mention of their illegality, and makes no mention of the people killed. Contrast this to the condemnatory tone of BBC reporting of North Korean ballistic missile tests, or of Iran’s civil uranium enrichment programme, both of which I view as neither wise nor desirable, but both of which are undoubtedly quite legal.

I have previously noted that Israel does not want the Syrian regime to fall. Tel Aviv has looked long and hard at the likely result, and decided that the risks are too great; an Israel-friendly Sunni strongman could yet be engineered, but a jihadist influenced government is a very real danger for them. This Israeli coolness is the major reason that the Obama government have stepped back from stoking directly the flames of war, although they continue to do so through their Saudi, Qatar and other allies.

But a Syria tearing itself to pieces is, so long as it lasts, pretty acceptable to Netanyahu. He can step in when he wants and destroy Syria’s military infrastructure, such as the defensive installations just wiped out in massive strikes around Damascus. This is very helpful to Israel’s long term military domination. Normally the scale of this devastating Israeli attack on Syria’s ability to defend itself against Israel air strikes would have brought the most profound world condemnation, but suddenly it is “humanitarian intervention” – and nobody in the western media has even felt the need to justify the narrative that Damascus’ air defences were a humanitarian threat to rebel populations.

In the meantime, a clear statement from the United Nations that the evidence points to rebels, not the government, using the chemical weapon Sarin in Syria, does appear on the BBC website but I have not heard it broadcast, and it does not figure in western media with a hundredth of the prominence given to the unsubstantiated claims of Assad forces using Sarin.

I am in no sense a supporter of Assad. I should dearly love to see his regime overthrown and a democratic government representing the Syrian people installed instead. But the attempt to subvert Syria and influence the country towards the installation of a US and House of Saud backed puppet regime, backed by an extraordinary barrage of distorted propaganda to fool western populations over the course and meaning of events, is sickening.


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179 thoughts on “Killing Syrians – A Game Anyone Can Play

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  • Komodo

    Don’t be irrelevant, Lube. Israel has no rights in Lebanese airspace, and Herzog is trying to assert that the IDF’s illegal actions are legal.

  • Lube for you

    Like I said before, all parties will justify. International law can never be enforced other then sanctions and condemnation (which has worked so great with places like North Korea)…. All parties will act according their interests, and powerful counties want weak ones on their boarders. If you’re holding out that the UN and International Law will solve this matter well several resolutions into the matter won’t mean a thing unless someone is willing to back it up with more war.

    I feel that peace will never be realized in the region unless parties are willing to talk and make concessions. Israel gave the Sinai back to Egypt (they took it, if you recall, after Egypt invaded them) in return for a peace agreement. Syria also invaded Israel, and they lost the Golan Heights. I’m sure with a stable government in Syria (whenever that may be) something could be worked out (or at least negotiations could occur). Don’t get me wrong, neither side is totally innocent, but there needs to be people willing to talk to solve the violence. That’s hard to do when you consider that Hamas will not acknowledge Israel, and like all the other neighboring states there, they want Israel wiped off the map. No one seems willing to move out do they?

  • Lube for you

    “Don’t be irrelevant, Lube. Israel has no rights in Lebanese airspace, and Herzog is trying to assert that the IDF’s illegal actions are legal.”

    Neither was Syria and Israel invading Lebanon years back. They both found reasons to justify it didn’t they (in the realm of national security). How long did international pressure take to get them out? How many people died as a result? In the end, if human life is lost, what’s the point of ‘stop or I’ll say stop again, you’re in violation of international laws, so stop it’? What’s the ultimate plan which strives to set a base level of peace and keep it? I’m asking?

  • karel (a conspiracy a day keeps idiocy away)

    Lube

    will not help with your genital warts. The Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) papiloma virus seems the likely culprit and your apparent confusion about lubricants is probably nothing other than early manifestation of one of the rarer symptoms of the HPV. Hence, I feel obliged to act magnanimously as to excuse your sentences like “Israel gave the Sinai back to Egypt (they took it, if you recall, after Egypt invaded them) in return for a peace agreement.” Have you not been taught at school that one should not steal or that stolen objects or land should be returned unconditionally to their rightful owners? Is this concept of justice rather strange to your depraved mind or have you attended Yeshiva?

  • Lube for you

    Karel (idiocracy was a funny film):

    READ SOME OF MY POSTS. INTERNATIONAL LAW DOESN’T MEAN SHIT. THERE’S NO WAY TO ENFORCE IT WITHOUT THE VERY LEAST A REAL MILITARY THREAT. YOU WANT JUSTICE, and THE HAGUE and UN is GOING TO GIVE IT TO THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD? Didn’t Monty Python do a bit on this?

    “Have you not been taught at school that one should not steal or that stolen objects or land should be returned unconditionally to their rightful owners?”

    YOU REALLY THINK THAT WILL HAPPEN? DO YOU THINK ISRAEL WILL JUST LEAVE? ‘Sorry, we sort of took some land from you guys which historically we’ve always lived on with one another, and fought one another about’…. ‘were just going to give it all to you now because Karel and Trinidad told us it’s unfair and they’re threatening us with a UN BINDING resolution’……’We scared of being prosecuted in the Hague for war crimes’…. Remember, you only get prosecuted if YOUR CONQUERED!

    COME BACK TO REALITY, it sucks here most of the time, but it’s those special moments that make it ALL worth while. I got some LUBE for YA, or at least some pudding to fill your diaper!

  • resident dissident

    Lube

    Many thanks for talking some sense. Perhaps those who believe that there may be some other way forward in the Middle East might suggest what it might be rather than indulging in name calling and worse. Answers suggesting that Israel should accept Hizbollah’s missiles with open arms or similar will just be ignored.

  • April Showers

    The west and its allies cynically bleed Syria to weaken Iran
    If western politicians were really interested in saving lives, they would use their leverage to negotiate a settlement

    Seumas Milne
    The Guardian, Tuesday 7 May 2013 20.38 BST

    If anyone had doubts that Syria’s gruesome civil war is already spinning into a wider Middle East conflict, the events of the past few days should have laid them to rest. Most ominous was Israel’s string of aerial attacks on Syrian military installations near Damascus, reportedly killing more than 100.

    The bombing raids, unprovoked and illegal, were of course immediately supported by the US and British governments. Since Israel has illegally occupied Syria’s Golan Heights for 46 years, perhaps the legitimacy of a few more air raids hardly merited serious consideration.

    But it’s only necessary to consider what the western reaction would have been if Syria, let alone Iran, had launched such an attack on Israel – or one of the Arab regimes currently arming the Syrian rebels – to realise how little these positions have to do with international legality, equity or rights of self-defence.

    /..
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/07/west-cynically-bleed-syria-weaken-iran

  • Komodo

    Lube: In the end, if human life is lost, what’s the point of ‘stop or I’ll say stop again, you’re in violation of international laws, so stop it’?

    (I’ll assume that that wasn’t a rabbinical, rhetorical question. Just for lulz.)

    None whatever. Obviously. International law is inefficiently enforced, obviously. Its efficient enforcement is dependent, among other things, on the signatories to international conventions refraining from giving their special buddies a free pass to do exactly as they like while said signatories are bombing the shit out of other regimes who are getting in the way of “their” oil. Hello, US, UK?

    What’s the ultimate plan which strives to set a base level of peace and keep it? I’m asking?

    Yeah, I am tempted to say, like you’re serious. I’m interested in the MidEast, it’s a bit smaller than the world. There is (obviously) no quick fix. But wouldn’t it be a good idea for Israel to acknowledge the right of the Palestinians to remain in (and return to) the area where they have lived, and either create a single state which accommodates both Jews and Arabs or set up a separate contiguous, functioning state for the latter? Just for a start. Instead of shooting farmers, bombing Gaza, cutting down olive groves and building fortified settlements full of expatriate Russians on Palestinian-owned farmland while pretending that you support any other solution than a shrinking Bantustan? Might be a start, no?

    You say no. Which gives me a clear idea of where you’re coming from, if I didn’t have one already.

    And btw, what’s G-d’s plan for the universe? I’m asking.

  • Komodo

    Oh, and –
    Hamas will not acknowledge Israel…

    Couldn’t have anything to do with the FACT that when Hamas was democratically elected by the Gazans – and even Israel was forced to admit the elections were fair – Israel then refused to have anything to do with Hamas, and then leaned on the US, Europe and us to do the same? And has made impossible conditions for resuming peace talks ever since?

    Result: Hamas – which had some reasonable diplomats at the time – is now hardline and autocratic. Stick. Own back.

  • April Showers

    BBC Website today

    No contradiction then in these two headlines????

    Israel ‘curbs settlement building’

    Israel approves new settler homes
    Israel has approved the construction of nearly 300 new Jewish settler homes.

    The Phillipines want to withdraw their troops as UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights due to kidnapping. Wyre Davies of the BBC was reporting from there this morning speaking to the kibbutzim on their fears of being attacked!

  • April Showers

    Ali Abunimah

    A standard objection to the Palestinian campaign for the boycott of Israel is that it would cut off “dialogue” and hurt the chances of peace. We’ve heard this again in the wake of Professor Stephen Hawking’s laudable decision to withdraw from Israel’s Presidential Conference in response to requests from Palestinian academics – but it would be hard to think of a more unconvincing position as far as Palestinians are concerned.

    One of the most deceptive aspects of the so-called peace process is the pretence that Palestinians and Israelis are two equal sides, equally at fault, equally responsible – thus erasing from view the brutal reality that Palestinians are an occupied, colonised people, dispossessed at the hands of one of the most powerful militaries on earth.

    For more than two decades, under the cover of this fiction, Palestinians have engaged in internationally-sponsored “peace talks” and other forms of dialogue, only to watch as Israel has continued to occupy, steal and settle their land, and to kill and maim thousands of people with impunity.

    While there are a handful of courageous dissenting Israeli voices, major Israeli institutions, especially the universities, have been complicit in this oppression by, for example, engaging in research and training partnerships with the Israeli army. Israel’s government has actively engaged academics, artists and other cultural figures in international “Brand Israel” campaigns to prettify the country’s image and distract attention from the oppression of Palestinians.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/09/stephen-hawking-palestinian-boycott-israel-history

  • Komodo

    “prettifying the image”…continued

    WORDS THAT WORK
    We know that the Palestinians deserve leaders who will care about the well being of
    their people, and who do not simply take hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance
    from America and Europe, put them in Swiss bank accounts, and use them to support
    terror instead of peace. The Palestinians need books, not bombs. They want roads, not
    rockets.”

    MORE WORDS THAT WORK
    “The obstacles on the road to a peaceful and prosperous Middle East are many.
    Israel recognizes that peace is made with one’s adversaries, not with one’s friends.
    But peace can only be made with adversaries who want to make peace with you.
    Terrorist organizations like Iran-backed Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad are,
    by definition, opposed to peaceful co-existence, and determined to prevent
    reconciliation. I ask you, how do you negotiate with those who want you dead?”

    Put the book (1) down, Lube (The Israel Project’s 2009 GLOBAL LANGUAGE DICTIONARY) by Frank Luntz (2)). And walk away slowly.

    (1) http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Fmedia%2F70%2Ftip_report.pdf&date=2009-08-06%3Cbr%3E

    (2) Far-right neocon professional liar –

    Among Luntz’s notable clients, for his memo on killing financial reform legislation:

    – Luntz client Ameriquest Mortgages: The proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) would eliminate predatory mortgages. Ameriquest, America’s “sub-prime leader,” has been prosecuted by Attorney General Richard Blumenthal for inflating property values so borrowers could get bigger loans, imposing upfront fees without reducing interest rates as promised, and intentionally deceiving lenders with hidden penalties and interest rates on final loan documents.

    – Luntz clients Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns: Under proposed financial reform, big banks, like Luntz clients Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns, would face a new structure designed to police financial products, prohibit predatory ones, and require clear forms and disclosures. The CFPA would also help regulate hidden bank fees and other bank abuses.

    – Luntz client American Express: The CFPA would regulate the credit card industry, preventing predatory interest rates and fees.

    (Wikipedia: Frank Luntz)

  • Cryptonym

    I don’t believe that in the cases ‘Lube For You’ cites, that the facts bear out the version of events given. Neither Egypt nor Syria invaded Israel, Israel launched pre-meditated attacks in both cases, claiming they were about to be attacked. In Syria one object was to take prime agricultural land, still held. The Sinai was returned to Egypt only after had Israel had fully exhausted (stole), pumped dry, what was Egypt’s only onshore oil field, leaving Egypt thereafter far more dependent on outside aid than before.

  • Lube for you

    WHAT Cryptonym??? Have a general read:

    1973 Arab–Israeli War and the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was a war of aggression[39] fought by the coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel from October 6 to 25, 1973.

    The war began when the coalition launched a joint surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, which occurred that year during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Egyptian and Syrian forces crossed ceasefire lines to enter the Israeli-held Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights respectively, which had been captured and occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War. Both the United States and the Soviet Union initiated massive resupply efforts to their respective allies during the war, and this led to a near-confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers.[40]

  • Lube for you

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War

    Just so I’m not accused of being Jewish, or a NeoCon… I’M NOT EVEN A REPUBLICAN Komodo! Nor have I read the book you’re implying. If I was such a person with those beliefs I wouldn’t be here debating. I’m debating at this point because people here constantly go way out with things like International Law, the UN etc. Then people look for who’s to blame. What I keep trying to state is that NONE OF THAT MATTERS, AND IT DOESN’T EVEN APPROACH HOW TO BRING PEACE TO THE MIDDLE EAST and ELSEWHERE…

    Really, which ever ‘side’ is right, just, and honorable (which NEITHER IS), does that bring ALL PARTIES to the negotiation table, or even start talks?? It makes one side defensive and angry, does it not?

    If you must know, the person I’m reading much from is Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a former Jihadist who studied under Ayman al-Zawahiri. He’s now a reformer, and has really interesting theories about how to end fighting, especially on religious grounds. Here’s a description from his Wikipedia page:

    “Tawfik Hamid (born in 1961) is an author from Egypt who opposes Islamic fundamentalism.

    A self-described former member of the militant al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya Tawfik Hamid advocates a peaceful understanding of Islam that is compatible with universal human rights and intellectual freedom.”

  • Lube for you

    Resident Dissident, thank you for summing up what I’ve been trying to say:

    “Many thanks for talking some sense. Perhaps those who believe that there may be some other way forward in the Middle East might suggest what it might be rather than indulging in name calling and worse. Answers suggesting that Israel should accept Hizbollah’s missiles with open arms or similar will just be ignored.”

    Komodo,

    “And btw, what’s G-d’s plan for the universe? I’m asking.”

    You assume I believe in G_d or that i’m monotheistic…. WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH HUMAN KIND LIVING TOGETHER? Does it matter what I believe outside this known world?

  • karel (a conspiracy a day keeps idiocy away)

    Lube
    you brain somewhat to be able to understand simple concepts. You seem to be in a state of slight confusion as your sentences like ‘Sorry, we sort of took some land from you guys which historically we’ve always lived on with one another, and fought one another about’…
    It sounds like a like a testimony of a demented criminal who says Sorry, I just blew his brains out, because historically speaking it was my right as my mother lost her virginity in that wood.

    First of all lube, even though I am a simple goy, you have not yet taken anything from me yet and I would cut your balls off if you ever tried any such tricks with me.

    Second, what does “we” mean in that weasel sentence of yours?? Do you consider yourself to be a descendant of the king David, who never existed, or more realistically a boisterous misfit of the primitive Khazar tribesmen who never set a foot to the “Holy” land? Please explain.

  • karel (a conspiracy a day keeps idiocy away)

    Res Dissident,

    what a pathetic figure you are. A dissindent?? Ha hah ha and once more haha . Are you expecting a knock at the door every night at four to be taken to the Gulag of Guantanamo? I would piss into my trousers with laughter if my jordan was not so invitingly near. Dissident where and what is your dissent?? You are a pathetic sycophant to the demented but slightly lubricated hahababa. Is this a form of dissent?? It is pretty obvious that you are one of those whom Israel Shamir calls the “swarm” but sadly not such an amusing insect as our beloved halibabacus. Get lost you tedious clown.

  • karel (a conspiracy a day keeps idiocy away)

    Komodo,

    why to waste time seriuosly arguing with those who feel that they are “chosen”? Such convictions are nothing but an early manifestation of a mental disorder. You deserve a better fate than that.

  • karel (a conspiracy a day keeps idiocy away)

    Komodo,

    having just experienced an unsatiable desire to argue with you about something we have been forbiden to do by Craig. But the inability to relieve myself burns so much in my desirous brain that i feel that it is grotesqually inhumane to let me suffer any longer. Being a relative newcommer and a great coward, i.e. someone who likes to hide behind the bush, if you know what I mean,to this blog with no leverage whatsoever can you please plead with craig to let us contemplate the prophecies of the ….,. I apologize for not having the courage to write this dreadful word down.

  • April Showers

    Add Hammond to the list.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22500121

    Things are going swimmingly in Libya.

    BP withdraws some Libya staff over security concerns
    The UK has withdrawn some staff from its embassy in Libya
    The BP move follows UK advice about uncertainty in Libya

    Libya after Gaddafi
    Armed and angry
    Forgetting Gaddafi

    Oil giant BP has withdrawn some non-essential staff from operations in Libya following UK government advice about uncertainty in the country.

    /..
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22501901

  • Dreoilin

    Col. Morris Davis is on Twitter

    “Gitmo chief prosecutor ’05-’07. Retired w/25 yrs Air Force service. Asst Prof Howard Law. Battling the faux-patriots one comment at a time … ”

    He’s promoting the Close Guantanamo petition at Change.org
    http://www.change.org/CloseGTMO

    Please sign!

  • April Showers

    FSA Founder Robert Ford Shows Support for Al Qaeda/Al Nusra Terrorists on Syrian Border

    Posted on May 13, 2013

    U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford met with a Syrian rebel chief at a border crossing with Turkey this week, a rebel commander told AFP on Friday.

    http://friendsofsyria.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/fsa-founder-robert-ford-shows-support-for-al-qaedaal-nusra-terrorists-on-syrian-border/

    Ford’s previous. Ford was Negroponte’s No 2 in the US Embassy in Baghdad.

    John Negroponte- Robert S. Ford. The Iraq “Salvador Option”

    In January 2005, following Negroponte’s appointment as US ambassador to Iraq, the Pentagon confirmed in a story leaked to Newsweek that it was “considering forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in a strategic shift borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago”. (El Salvador-style ‘death squads’ to be deployed by US against Iraq militants – Times Online, January 10, 2005)

    John Negroponte and Robert S. Ford at the US Embassy worked closely together on the Pentagon’s project.

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-pentagon-s-salvador-option-the-deployment-of-death-squads-in-iraq-and-syria/26043

  • Komodo

    Komodo,

    “And btw, what’s G-d’s plan for the universe? I’m asking.”

    You assume I believe in G_d or that i’m monotheistic…. WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH HUMAN KIND LIVING TOGETHER? Does it matter what I believe outside this known world?

    Not assuming anything. Just asking….you seem to like asking very large and unanswerable questions, and I thought you’d appreciate it.

  • karel (a conspiracy a day keeps idiocy away

    Komodo,
    you slipping from my grasp like an oversize eel who is still tempted to breed in the great ocean. I know nothing of god’s plans, neither you do I guess, but I want to discuss conspiracies (those we are not allowed to talk about) with you. Not god’s plans.

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