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Why is everyone rallying for these rebels? Have they asked for democracy? Aren't they a guaranty of murder, mayhem, and Islamist fanaticism for decades to come? OK so the Libyan rebels won and slaughtered their opposition. They then turned on their benefactors the Yanks, and they havent got started yet. As enamoured as we are of democracy, bear in mind that Hitler was VOTED into power, and so was the Islamic Brotherhood. Now with the Israelis bombing Syria and everyone in the region more than happy to continue several wars of political destabilization (the so-called "Arab Spring"), a view of what's to come is beginning to clarify. All educated people and people not so well educated who value their skins will begin immigration immediately. What are we headed into? You know what they say, those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Monday, November 12th 2012 at 11:51PM
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Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, sent a diplomatic note to Syria on Monday to protest the Ras al-Ain bombing, the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency reported.
Civilians in southern Turkey’s provinces of Hatay, Sanliurfa and Gaziantep, where the government has erected camps for Syrian refugees, have been advised not to travel close to the border.
In Israel, the military said Israeli tanks that are deployed in the Golan Heights, which the Israelis seized from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, had made a direct hit on a Syrian mobile artillery launcher on Monday after consecutive days of erratic mortar fire coming from the Syrian side of the armistice line.
Military officials and analysts in Israel said that they viewed the shelling by the Syrian government forces as unintentional spillover and that Israel had no desire to get involved in the Syria conflict.
But some Israelis said that after four decades of relative stability in the Golan area, the Assad government may be trying to push them into a fight that could galvanize Arab hostility toward Israel and distract attention from its own problems.
Others said Mr. Assad was unlikely to want to provoke Israel, afraid of a crushing response that could weaken him militarily. If, for example, an errant Syrian shell hit a school filled with children on the Israeli side, said Prof. Moshe Maoz at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a strong Israeli strike on Syrian government forces would be all but guaranteed. “Assad knows very well that Israel does not have a sense of humor here and can retaliate very heavily,” he said.
Regardless, there is fear in Israel that the situation could escalate. The United Nations, which monitors an armistice agreement between Israel and Syria in force since the 1973 war, has said it feared that Golan violence could jeopardize the cease-fire.
In Doha, Qatar, where Syrian opposition figures had been meeting since last week, the agreement reached Sunday on forming a new umbrella organization, which could become the basis for a provisional government, was welcomed by participants and the effort’s foreign backers, including Turkey, the United States, the European Union and the Arab League.
There were expectations that the new group, called the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, would be permitted to take Syria’s seat at the Arab League, which expelled Mr. Assad’s representative.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry released a statement saying that the agreement “would add momentum to efforts in completing the democratic transition process in line with the legitimate expectations of the people.”
In the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, a battleground since the summer, civilians who have been living under the threat of constant shelling by the Syrian Army welcomed the unity agreement and expressed hope that it signaled a turn in the conflict.
“We have been waiting for this for a very very long time,” said Abu al-Hasan, an anti-Assad activist in Aleppo who was reached by telephone. “Even if it is not perfect yet, it will save us.” But he also warned that “people do not believe this will stop the shelling like a miracle.”
There was no sign that the violence was abating elsewhere inside Syria. Activist groups said that warplanes were dropping bombs in Damascus suburbs and that army snipers had taken up positions in areas where bombs had been dropped. The mayhem surrounding central Damascus made residents in that part of the capital feel increasingly isolated.
“The inside of the city is like a big prison now,” said Alexia Jade, an activist contacted in Damascus. “The checkpoints have increased and the lines of cars waiting to be searched are getting longer.”
Monday, November 12th 2012 at 11:52PM
DAVID JOHNSON
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