I'm sorry I am so unenthusiastic about the psyop prop agenda-pushing these days, dear readers.
"Residents flee as Syrian forces, aided by snipers, invade town; Refugees hiding in forest camps rush into Turkey" June 24, 2011|By Liam Stack, New York Times
GUVECCI, Turkey — Syrian forces backed by snipers and tanks stormed into the border town of Khirbet al-Jouz yesterday, sending hundreds of refugees fleeing to Turkey from the informal camp where they had sought shelter from a violent crackdown on protests in the country’s rural northwest.
Since violence erupted in northwestern Idlib Province this month, thousands had found shelter in shabby tent cities scattered across the rugged frontier.
Generations of Palestinians have known nothing else.
In recent weeks, many refugees had come to think of the densely forested valley around Khirbet al-Jouz as a safe zone beyond the reach of the Syrian state as security forces remained mysteriously absent.
Those hopes were dashed at dawn yesterday....
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"Syrians’ protests keep up pressure on Assad regime; EU sanctions, rallies are taking a toll, analysts say" June 25, 2011|By Anthony Shadid, New York Times
BEIRUT — Thousands of Syrians turned out yesterday for weekly protests in the country’s most restive towns and cities, testing the ability of the military and the government’s already stretched security forces....
The shows of dissent have become a ritual in Syria....
So has the AmeriKan media daily focus on Syria.
Analysts have begun watching another key indicator, as well: whether security forces and the military, deployed for more than 100 days, will reach a breaking point.
How long have we been deployed, America? 10 years? Broke.
“The more this senseless violence goes on, without any clear objective and clear effect, the more the security services will come under stress, and ultimately they will break,’’ said a Syria-based analyst who, like many interviewed, spoke only on the condition of anonymity. He called the government’s approach “a slow-motion suicide dynamic.’’
Are you sure you are not talking about the AmeriKan empire, Mr. Anonymous (sigh)?
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It was almost impossible to gauge whether the protests were bigger than past weeks, though activists, citing accounts on the ground, insisted that they were in some places. Security forces killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens more, they said.
The worst violence occurred in the Damascus suburbs, where activists said security forces fired on protesters in Barze, killing four, and in Kiswa, killing two. In a conflicting account, almost impossible to reconcile, Syrian television quoted government officials as saying that armed men fired on security forces in those towns, wounding several of them.
Yes, what we see in the AmeriKan reporting is a constant obfuscation of armed covert agents or assets committing violence. It's always the Syrian state killed X amount of (implied through omission) peaceful protesters.
Four people were also killed in Homs, said Omar Idlibi, an activist with the Local Coordination Committees, a grassroots group that has tried to speak for the protesters....
When you see that in the paper it means a controlled front or agenda-advancing group.
The government has signaled in clear terms that it will rely on violence, with the full force of the state, to put down the revolt.
That's how all states react.
The very question of violence, though, may prove the undoing of Assad’s leadership. Weeks more of strife could undermine the government’s argument of “us or chaos.’’ To deploy the military and security forces for that long could also test the endurance of its repressive apparatus, already deployed from one end of the country to the other.
The deployment is to defend against any potential invasion.
“The more deaths and killing, the more the labyrinth of sectarian and social divisions is mended, and the more likely we are to see broader collective action against the regime,’’ said Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. “At that point, the regime’s security forces would have to be stretched too critically thin to contain the situation.’’
Is that the propaganda narrative that needed to get out?
So far, despite some sporadic defections, the military and security forces appear firmly united....
But protesters have sought to bring at least parts of the conscript army, dominated by poor Sunni Muslims from rural regions, to their side....
I thought those were being mended, sigh.
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And what of Syria's Kurdish population?
"Syrians flee to Lebanon after 20 killed in protests Friday" by Associated Press / June 26, 2011
BEIRUT — Hundreds of Syrians, some with gunshot wounds, crossed into neighboring Lebanon in search of a refuge from the growing government crackdown in their homeland, a Lebanese security official said yesterday....
Related: In the Hands of Hezbollah
Yeah, this is looking like a destabilization plan.
Most refugees arriving at the Lebanese border came after Syrian security forces opened fire on protesters in antiregime demonstrations across Syria on Friday. Syrian activists said 20 people were killed, including two children aged 12 and 13....
It's always the same script, have you noticed that?
The army sent reinforcements into Barzeh yesterday, setting up checkpoints and arresting about 150 people, as well as into the suburbs of Kaswa, Zabadani, and Bloudan, said Rami Abdul-Rahman of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Others had died Friday when security forces opened fire in the central city of Homs....
A prominent Syrian opposition figure, meanwhile, said some 200 regime critics and intellectuals will meet in Damascus tomorrow to discuss strategies for a peaceful transition to democracy....
It's regime change.
The new arrivals join thousands of other Syrians who fled to Lebanon in May and early June....
The military’s recent sweep through northwestern Syria, where armed resistance flared in early June, also has sent more than 11,700 refugees fleeing across the border to refugee camps in Turkey....
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Also see:
Syria Stifling New World Order?
Syria's See-Saw Protests
Syria Simmers Down
Syrian Spring Signals Long Hot Summer
Syria the Cornerstone of Neo-Con Plan
Next Day Update:
"Syria’s opposition leaders to hold meeting on strategy: Government has not moved to block summit" by Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Associated Press / June 27, 2011
BEIRUT — Three months into Syria’s bloody political showdown, some 200 critics of President Bashar Assad’s regime prepared to convene in an unprecedented opposition gathering today in Damascus, after another deadly weekend for antigovernment protesters....
Today’s planned meeting among scores of Syria-based opposition figures and intellectuals, the first inside Syria during the current upheaval, is meant to discuss strategies for a peaceful transition to democracy, said Louay Hussein, a prominent Syrian writer and dissident. They will meet under the slogan, “All for Syria within a civil and democratic state.’’
He said Syrian authorities were informed of the meeting and had not blocked it. There would be no government representation, he said.
Another participant, the well-known Syrian writer Michel Kilo, who spent years in Syrian prisons for his criticism of the regime, said those meeting today have “their own choices and positions’’ on moving Syria to democracy. He said no one from outside the country had been invited, and participants belong to no political faction.
Whether such a group might produce partners for President Assad’s proposed “national dialogue’’ remains to be seen....
The opposition says some 1,400 people have been killed — most of them unarmed protesters — during the government crackdown on months of street protests.
The regime disputes that figure, however, and says security forces have been the victims of “armed thugs’’ and foreign conspirators it says are behind the unrest. Syria’s military spokesman, Major General Riad Haddad, said yesterday that 300 soldiers and 47 police officers have been killed.
Yes, the arming of the opposition is only a "rumor."
His statement, like the reports by antiregime activists, could not be independently verified, since Damascus has banned most foreign reporters from Syria and put restrictions on local journalists’ reporting.
The unrest has sent thousands of Syrians fleeing into neighboring Turkey and Lebanon. As of yesterday morning, more than 11,450 Syrian refugees were sheltered in Turkey, officials there said. Hundreds, some with gunshot wounds, crossed into Lebanon late last week.
Assad has come under growing international condemnation and sanctions, including from Senator John McCain in Cairo yesterday.
Calling Assad a “butcher,’’ the Arizona Republican said, “It’s time to call out Bashar Assad for what he is and call for him to step down from power or be removed from power by the people.’’ But McCain emphasized that he was not advocating US military intervention.
Yeah, Israel can do that one.
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