Syria Disintegrating: Part 2

[jimmy olsen]

Looks like this rebellion may not be ground down by Assad after all.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/syrian-rebels-get-influx-of-arms-with-gulf-neighbors-money-us-coordination/2012/05/15/gIQAds2TSU_story_1.html

Syrian rebels get influx of arms with gulf neighbors' money, U.S. coordination

Syria will also be on the agenda at this weekend's NATO summit in Chicago, according to administration officials.

Although the alliance has repeatedly said it will not become involved in Syria, Turkey has indicated that it may invoke Article IV of the NATO Charter, which would open the door to consultations on threats to Turkish security and consideration of mutual defense provisions of Article V of the charter.

Last month, after Syrian forces fatally shot four fleeing Syrians who had crossed into Turkey, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that under Article V, "NATO has responsibilities to protect the Turkish border."

The Turks, who have grown increasingly anxious about the growing conflict in their neighboring country, have resisted direct military involvement without the international legitimacy of a United Nations Security Council resolution. Efforts to pass a resolution authorizing any intervention beyond humanitarian aid have been blocked by opposition from Russia and China.

But Turkey's position has been evolving, with military officials who once opposed any kind of non-political intervention now seeing the region becoming increasingly involved in the crisis. Shiites and Sunnis in neighboring Lebanon battled this week over the Syrian situation, raising concern both in Ankara and Washington.

Officials in the region said that Turkey's main concern is where the United States stands, and whether it and others will support armed protection for a safe zone along the border or back other options that have been discussed.

The United States and its allies remain formally committed to a U.N. peace plan being spearheaded by former secretary general Kofi Annan. Nearly two-thirds of an authorized 300 unarmed U.N. military monitors have arrived in Syria, with the rest due by the end of this month.

But even Annan has acknowledged the initiative has failed so far to significantly quell the violence or make progress toward a political transition. U.S. officials have said they feel constrained from declaring the mission a failure, at least until the full complement of monitors arrives. Annan himself has expressed pessimism over prospects for success.

Opposition figures said they have been in direct contact with State Department officials to designate worthy rebel recipients of arms and pinpoint locations for stockpiles, but U.S. officials said that there currently are no military or intelligence personnel on the ground in Syria.

The Pentagon has prepared options for Syria extending all the way to air assaults to destroy the nation's air defenses. U.S. officials, however, have said that such involvement remains very unlikely. Instead, they said, the United States and others are moving forward toward increased coordination of intelligence and arming for the rebel forces.

The Sunni-led gulf states, which would see the fall of Assad as a blow against Shiite Iran, would welcome such assistance, but they would like a more formal approach. One gulf official described the Obama administration's gradual evolution from an initial refusal to consider any action outside the political realm to a current position falling "between 'here's what we need to do' and 'we're doing it.'"

"Various people are hoping that the U.S. will step up its efforts to undermine or confront the Syrian regime," the gulf official said. "We want them to get rid" of Assad.

Since the uprising began early last year, U.S. efforts to promote a political solution have been stymied by Assad's political intransigence and his ongoing military assault on Syrian towns and cities, as well as the opposition's failure to agree on a unified political leadership or game plan.

Despite administration hopes that the Sunni-led Syrian National Congress would become an umbrella organization, it has failed to win support from minority Syrian Christians, Kurds, Druze and Assad's Alawite sect. All have resisted what they say is the group's domination by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Free Syrian Army, the opposition military force, has resisted direction from the fractured political opposition. Its troops, many of them Syrian army defectors, are said to operate in independent entities spread across Syria, leading the United States and others in the past to express caution about assisting them.

Sly reported from Beirut.

[Jaron]

Not sure how I feel about arming rebels.

[katmai]

Not sure how I feel about arming rebels.

My thoughts on it

[Jaron]

[katmai]

[citizen k]

Have you guys seen the trailer for that Meskin Revolution flick with Andy Garcia and Eva Longoria?

[katmai]

Seen ads on TV, but not a trailer.

[CountDeMoney]

I wonder how Bain Capital would've handled this crisis?

[derspiess]

Not sure how I feel about arming rebels.

My thoughts on it

Is that recent or from your college years?

[CountDeMoney]

Is that recent or from your college years?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

yay another bunch of muslim nutters with weapons 
Arm the christians and make them re-establish Edessa!

[jimmy olsen]

Looks like things are heating up again.
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/26/11889756-clinton-condemns-syria-massacre-assads-rule-by-murder-must-end?lite

Clinton condemns Syria massacre: Assad's 'rule by murder' must end

By msnbc.com staff and news services

Updated 5:39 a.m. ET Sunday: The perpetrators of a massacre that left more than 92 dead – including 32 young children – in Houla, Syria "must be identified and held to account," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday.

The United Nations said the victims died in what activists described as an artillery barrage by government forces in the worst violence since the start of a peace plan to slow the flow of blood in Syria's uprising.

The bloodied bodies of children, some with their skulls split open, were shown in footage posted to YouTube purporting to show the victims of the shelling in the central town on Friday. The sound of wailing filled the room.

Clinton issued a statement early Sunday saying the United States condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms". She also issued a warning for the country's leader, President Bashar Assad.

"Those who perpetrated this atrocity must be identified and held to account," she said. "And the United States will work with the international community to intensify our pressure on Assad and his cronies, whose rule by murder and fear must come to an end.

"We stand in solidarity with the Syrian people and the peaceful marchers in cities across Syria who have taken to the streets to denounce the massacre."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said he was coordinating a "strong response" to the killings and would call for the U.N. Security Council to meet in the coming days.

Activists said Assad's forces shelled  Houla after security forces killed a protester and following skirmishes between troops and fighters from the Sunni Muslim-led insurgency fighting Syria's rulers, who belong to the minority Alawite sect.

However, Syrian authorities denied responsibility. "Women, children and old men were shot dead. This is not the hallmark of the heroic Syrian army," the country's foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdesi told reporters in Damascus on Sunday, according to Reuters.

Earlier, Syrian state television aired some of the footage disseminated by activists after the killing, calling the bodies victims of a massacre committed by "terrorist" gangs.

The carnage underlined just how far Syria is from any negotiated path out of the 14-month-old revolt against Assad.

The U.N. first reported the massacre on Friday. "The observers confirmed from examination of ordinances the use of artillery tank shells," Maj. Gen. Robert Mood said in a statement, without elaborating. "Whoever started, whoever responded and whoever carried out this deplorable act of violence should be held responsible."

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said residents continued to flee the town, in central Homs province, in fear that artillery fire would resume.

Syria calls the revolt a "terrorist" conspiracy run from abroad, a veiled reference to Sunni Muslim Gulf powers that want to see weapons provided to an insurgency led by Syria's majority Sunnis against Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect.

The U.N. says more than 9,000 people have been killed, most of them civilians, in the uprising.

[katmai]

Is that recent or from your college years?

Just last week, for my birthday we had a costume party and Pinata!

[Ed Anger]

Is that recent or from your college years?

Just last week, for my birthday we had a costume party and Pinata!

I brought a sweater for you.

[katmai]

And obviously kept it for yourself as I'm not wearing it!