DAMASCUS - It might sound absurd to talk about normal life in Syria after two years of civil war which have killed more than 70,000 people and left five million more destitute and homeless.
Yet in the neighbourhood of Malki, a tree-lined enclave of central Damascus, a wealthy group of elite, pro-government Syrians still enjoy shopping for imported French cheeses, gourmet hand-made chocolates and iPad minis in the well-stocked, recently built Grand Mall and in nearby boutiques.
Such are the parallel realities of a conflict in which, for all the gains made by rebels and the current chatter about U.S. "red lines" crossed that might ultimately draw in Western might, President Bashar al-Assad is holding his ground in the capital, bulwarked by his own foreign allies and by many Syrians who fear his end could prove fatal for them too. And so life goes on.
In Malki, sprinklers water the manicured lawns outside their blocks of million-dollar apartments. Maids and drivers cater to their every whim and birds sing in the trees. Fuel for their BMWs and electricity for their air-conditioning is plentiful and the well-guarded streets are free of loiterers.
"Look at this display and you feel all is well, life is good and everything is here," said an elegantly dressed Hiyam Jabri, 50, as she placed her order at the delicatessen counter in the mall's main supermarket.
Malki residents continue to enjoy material comforts and abundant supplies of imported goods, even as millions of their compatriots subsist on food handouts.
The United Nations World Food Programme estimates it is feeding 2.5 million people inside Syria - a tenth of the population - and a further million who have fled the country, offering them subsistence rations of flour and rice.
"We are trying to keep up with the enormity of the crisis and the impact of the brutality," the WFP's deputy regional emergency coordinator Matthew Hollingworth said in the capital.
Most of those whom his staff help "haven't been displaced once but sometimes twice, three times". Food is so scarce for those uprooted by the fighting that rations intended to feed a family of five are being shared by three families.
ILLUSIONS
Even in Malki, though, the air of normality is an illusion - as unreal as the oft-repeated assertions of government officials that victory is near and Assad still controls almost all Syria.
Scratch the surface of the illusion and the normality quickly becomes anything but.
Pasted to the lamp-post outside the elegant chocolatier Ghraoui, whose interior boasts award certificates from France, is a wad of black and white fliers. They are printed by families and they mourn sons and husbands killed in the war.
It is a war, however, that seems to be going nowhere fast.
Recent days have shown again the reluctance of the United States and its allies, in the face of evidence Assad's troops may have crossed President Barack Obama's "red line" by using chemical weapons, to intervene militarily against him - not least as some rebels have espoused the cause of al Qaeda.
Among the few independent outsiders seeing at first hand the mosaic of opinion and suffering in Syria, many aid workers lament that international discourse has become a monotone debate on supplying weapons, with little push for a negotiated peace.
"We need a political solution for this conflict," said Marc Lucet, the local emergency coordinator for UNICEF, whose fellow humanitarian workers recount grim tales of hungry refugees found cowering in half-built apartment blocks or idle factories.
The surface serenity of Malki contrasts with what aid groups say is a country splintered by ever shifting frontlines and a fragmenting opposition; many fear violence will spread beyond Syria's borders and are baffled by the debate in the West over how far to arm rebels, saying this will only make matters worse.
Stressing the need for a political settlement, however, unpalatable and, so far, unattainable, UNICEF's Lucet said: "The solution is certainly not to give more weapons to either side."
Attempts to bring Assad down by diplomatic means have failed to break the impasse, even if they do make life less comfortable in Malki.
Inside the Ghraoui chocolate boutique, as everywhere else in Syria, sales are strictly cash only - sanctions have forced international credit card networks to boycott transactions here.
Prices on restaurant menus in local currency, the Syrian pound, have been hastily updated with stickers multiple times - a tell-tale sign of rapid inflation.
At the luxury mall supermarket, Eyad al-Burghol says he is selling fewer imported foodstuffs than before because many wealthy customers have left the country.
FIGHTING TALK
A distant thump of artillery fire serves as a reminder that, just a few kilometres (miles) away, fierce street-to-street battles are being fought between government and rebel forces. Some days, Russian-made MiG fighter jets streak across the sky on their way to bomb insurgent positions.
The abundant security in Malki, residents say, is provided by men who speak the Iranian tongue of Farsi, rather than Syrian Arabic. Tehran has long been Assad's sponsor against his fellow Arab leaders and the word on the street - impossible to verify - is that this heavily guarded area of town may be home to the Syrian president himself and to his immediate family.
Assad is not seen in public these days and officials refuse to comment on his movements or whereabouts.
Senior Syrian officials try hard to show visiting reporters a picture of normality in which the government is firmly in control. But even the cocoon in which they live and work is starting to be punctured by the facts of war.
Syria's central bank governor Adeeb Mayaleh gave Reuters an interview last week at a headquarters building bearing the scars of a car bomb attack earlier in the month. Blinds hung twisted and useless in front of warped window-frames without glass. A palm tree outside had been reduced to a charred skeleton.
The bank chief insisted that the government had plenty of foreign currency available to guarantee imports and enough cash to pay public employees' wages in advance each month. For how long? Iran and Russia, he said, were about to agree fresh funds.
Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad gave an upbeat assessment of the war in an interview - but a Syrian who works nearby told us that the complex housing the ministry had been attacked four times by rebels in the past few months.
UNICEF regional coordinator Youssef Abdul-Jalil estimated that at least three million children inside Syria now needed humanitarian assistance because of the war: "There is a crisis of the children of Syria," he said. "They are paying a terrible price in their lives, in their surroundings, in their health, in their education and in their lack of protection".
REALITY INTRUDES
Cars still choke central Damascus and traffic police still issue tickets for speeding and even clamp badly parked vehicles. But armed checkpoints snarl progress to a snail's pace.
Travel agents still offer flights and holidays. But the road to the city's airport is considered too dangerous by many and flights are available only to a few, friendly, destinations.
Telephones still work and officials still show up for work in neatly ironed shirts and well-pressed suits - but many scuttle off early to be home before nightfall.
One resident spoke of a distant relative, a Christian from a prosperous family of car dealers, who was kidnapped. Accused of supporting Assad, he was beaten while hanging upside down. His captors then they injected fuel into his veins. Released for a ransom worth over $20,000, the man died a few days later.
While the Syrian elite continue to insist that the military campaign against the rebels is succeeding, aid workers in Aleppo say that the area of the country's biggest city that is now controlled by the government is very small.
The main north-south highway which connects Aleppo to Damascus via the major cities of Homs and Hama now features some 38 checkpoints, about nine of which are manned by various groups of rebels, NGO workers who have travelled along it recently say.
In the capital, the government says it guarantees a "Square of Security" in the centre; some locals joke that rebel gains have shorn it to a rather smaller "Security Triangle".
Damascus's walled Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage site and home to the 7th-century Umayyad mosque, retains its beauty. But these days it is eerily empty. Tourists have long gone and the souvenir sellers have all but given up hope of selling anything.
Inside the mosque's main prayer hall, featuring a shrine said to contain the head of St. John the Baptist, mournful guides tell of how the imam was recently murdered.
At a jewellery shop in the al-Hamidiyeh bazaar, Anas Hallawi, 25, sat looking bored: "People are selling their gold not buying these days," he said. "Our business thrived on foreign tourists and Syrians buying gold for their brides.
"Now the tourists are gone. And nobody is getting married."
At the Al-Naranj restaurant in the Christian Quarter, one of Damascus's finest eateries, diners discussed the relative risks of car bombings versus random mortar attacks and kidnap. Little wonder that so many with the means have left for Lebanon, as life in the capital becomes a kind of ghoulish Russian roulette.
Across the room, a smartly dressed family group celebrated a betrothal with a lavish spread of traditional Syrian food on a table decorated with red roses.
As the strains of the old songs died away and a festive cake was eaten, a fighter jet roared across the sky. Artillery fire thudded in the distance. The family looked upwards through the restaurant's glass roof, eyes suddenly fearful. - Reuters
And in other news, the growth of jihad continues swimmingly despite the objections of apostates.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/18/189004/syrian-opposition-leader-moaz.html#.UYNWjMp0lEI
BEIRUT — The leader of the primary U.S.-backed Syrian opposition group, who criticized the United States last year for designating the rebel Nusra Front a terrorist organization linked to al Qaida, now is urging Nusra’s fighters to break ties with al Qaida.
In a speech before opponents of the Bashar Assad regime in Turkey earlier this week, Moaz al Khatib, the head of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, also called on Nusra leaders to stop trying to impose religious law in areas of Syria that they control.
“You are welcome to call people to Allah with wisdom and a good example, but be sure not to involve yourself, and people around you, in minor things that have no priority,” he said. “For example, one group has banned smoking. Honestly, I believe smoking is un-Islamic, but is this any priority now?”
He also warned against forcing women to cover themselves, calling that “a matter connected to people’s own personal convictions.”
“I hereby announce clearly that we reject all outsider ideologies that come from unknown sources and, specifically, we reject the ideology of al Qaida,” he said. “We have always been, in Syria, the source of moderate Islam.”
He called on members of Nusra to “change your current name, al Nusra” and select “clear leaders . . . that are affiliated with our known Syrian references.”
Whether Khatib’s speech will have an impact in Syria is unknown. While the United States has pledged $60 million to the Syrian Opposition Coalition, the group has yet to show that it has much influence with rebel fighters in the country. Nusra fighters, meanwhile, have led many of the rebels’ most recent military successes in Syria.
The growth of Nusra and its effort to impose its view of Islam in the parts of Syria it controls has sparked dissent. Some rebels from other armed groups in Syria’s north and east speak of the need for a “Sahwa movement,” a reference to the Sunni Muslim tribes in Iraq who took up arms against al Qaida in Iraq, with U.S. military backing.
Nusra’s leaders have said repeatedly that they oppose holding elections if Assad falls, a position that’s increased tensions with rebel groups that favor a democratic system of government.
Louay Meqdad, a spokesman for the Supreme Military Command, which is affiliated with Khatib’s opposition coalition and which oversees the operations of moderate rebels who call themselves the Free Syrian Army, claimed that his battalions would fight Nusra.
“As the FSA, our aim is to have a democratic country, and we don’t want Nusra or any other group to impose its ideas,” Meqdad said. “We as the FSA are only interested in protecting the revolution and the people, and our aim is to protect this and let the people live. And anyone who tries to impose anything on the Syrian people by force . . . the FSA today, and the national army after the fall of Assad, will be obligated to defend those goals that they are fighting for now, and by all means necessary.”
And people are still saying that jihad can't succeed without American help. That's a western chauvinist notion. In closing, here's FEMEN being stupid again.
http://weaselzippers.us/2013/04/05/french-feminists-burn-islamic-battle-flag-near-paris-grand-mosque-promptly-attacked/
The Assads are fading out of the picture, al-Nusra has been disowned by the FSA and the AmeriKKKans. Either side with Jabhat or you're with the terrorists.
http://www.vagazette.com/news/sns-rt-us-syria-crisis-israelbre9420gs-20130503,0,780684.story?page=2
Lacking enough of the specialized ground troops that would be needed for a search-and-destroy sweep of chemical weapons, Israel would probably have to rely on aerial bombing.
The Netanyhau government might even acquiesce if the rebels acquire the chemical weapons, on the assumption that the insurgents were mainstream Syrians keen to rebuild their country and loath to invite catastrophic war with Israel.
"If the jihadis get the chemical weapons, that's very bad, but there's still the hope that these people lack the hard-core military wherewithal, and required technical support in Syria, that would be required to use them," one Israeli official said.
Indeed, Israeli planners are debating to what extent the radical Sunni Islamists fighting Assad could eventually constitute a direct threat to Israel.
The chief military spokesman, Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai, sounded the alarm last month by saying the "Global Jihad" - meaning al Qaeda and its affiliates - wielded the most clout on the Syrian-held side of the Golan Heights.
Other Israeli authorities are more optimistic. The Mossad intelligence agency estimates that Syria's entrenched secularism will dilute enmity to Israel, according to one official.
"The Islamists there aren't all Salafists, and the Salafists aren't all al Qaeda, by any means," the official said.
"We may not make peace, but I think we might find some kind of dialogue, if only for the sake of mutual deterrence."
Israel has given no indication that it already has contacts with Syria's opposition. But it has coordinated closely on security with Jordan, a supporter of some rebel factions.
Back in Judge Yaakov's courtroom, the fate of Massarwa, who faces a maximum of 15 years in jail if convicted, rests on whether the state can prove there is danger to Israel from the Free Syrian Army unit he stayed with for a week in March.
Edited by mustang19 ()
By the way Qatar is supporting the moderates, not the actual jihadists.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/qatar-faces-backlash-among-rebel-groups-syria
There is also mistrust of Qatar on the opposite end of the rebel spectrum, among the more hard-line Islamic fighters.
Abu Mohammad, a fighter for Ahrar al-Sham, a prominent rebel brigade in northern Syria with an ultra-conservative ideology, said Qatar, as well as Turkey, "is interested in ruling Syria" once the regime is toppled.
He said his group never saw "a dime from Qatar, which supports its own people." He declined to specify which groups Qatar backs. He spoke via Skype from the eastern city of Raqqa, which in early March became the first provincial capital to completely fall to the rebellion and which is now controlled by Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra.
Abu Muhammed said his group received some weapons from Iraqis and some from "good people in the region" but mainly from looting the stores of regime forces. He spoke on condition he be identified by his nom de guerre to avoid reprisals.
Edited by mustang19 ()
mustang19 posted:I don't believe the Al Nusra Front is currently taking white american DC metropolitan-area basementdwellers, I'll send you a heads up when they are.
mustang are you coming to the next dc 'zzoner meet up
I'm not asking for bombthrowing maoists to show up at my door either, maybe after I get a job.
lol they would probably take you hostage like those idiot american cia journalists that thought chechen mafiaso salafists were freedom fighters
Plane tickets to Boston require American currency, this is otherwise difficult to acquire. Jihad is a calling but the call may come in unexpected ways, like hearing your daughter was just captured while strolling around the Swiss Cheese district in Grozny.
Unfortunately, the masses in Syria and elsewhere in the region sympathize with the struggle against Assad and his creeping securalism and socialism. The masses themselves have decided that socialism must be rejected. As much as leftist weaklings prefer to deny it, it's the poor and disaffected who are directly engaged in the conflict for liberation from Assad's brutal statism.
The Islamists are independent and represent the interests of the Syrian proletarians, their groups growing extensively and offering welfare services and grass roots councils among the people, taking care of their food, housing, healthcare etc. The people want ultraconservatism and the free market, free from the shackles of the secular state and other weaklings.
I can only hope this mass movement grows even further. Like the Somalis who collectively overthrew their Communist despot Siad Barre and successfully instituted anarchocapitalism and Xeer law in place of the previous Communist disaster, today resulting in Somalia having the best communication enterprises in Africa and a growing Somali business class, I hope the Syrians can too join the dynamic free market, away from the forced mediocrity of socialism and towards the free enterprising and individual intellect of the market, and enjoy capitalism and its boundless triumphs.
Cheers.
COINTELBRO posted:I can only hope this mass movement grows even further. Like the Somalis who collectively overthrew their Communist despot Siad Barre and successfully instituted anarchocapitalism and Xeer law in place of the previous Communist disaster, today resulting in Somalia having the best communication enterprises in Africa and a growing Somali business class, I hope the Syrians can too join the dynamic free market, away from the forced mediocrity of socialism and towards the free enterprising and individual intellect of the market, and enjoy capitalism and its boundless triumphs.
mustang19 posted:It's too bad that you still buy into Assad's "counterterrorist" bullshit. Are you just going to run away now or are you going to explain how you're advancing the jihad other than by hating on the Islamic State of Iraq & Shaam?
why does this matter to you?
I can only hope this mass movement grows even further. Like the Somalis who collectively overthrew their Communist despot Siad Barre and successfully instituted anarchocapitalism and Xeer law in place of the previous Communist disaster, today resulting in Somalia having the best communication enterprises in Africa and a growing Somali business class, I hope the Syrians can too join the dynamic free market, away from the forced mediocrity of socialism and towards the free enterprising and individual intellect of the market, and enjoy capitalism and its boundless triumphs.
This is all true, the only thing you didn't talk about is that Xeer Law is infinitely superior to secular law. Additionally al-Shahaab is the legitimate government of Somalia, only UN intervention prevents it from asserting its authority.
You also underemphasized the godlessness of socialism and progress, that was a major benefit of anarchocapitalism. The Islamic Caliphate was a realization of libertopia, citizens were bound by a voluntary contract (the bayah) to the empire. All other individuals were property, which is the correct natural rights position toward those who do not partake in a system of voluntary contracts.
Edited by mustang19 ()
mustang19 posted:I can only hope this mass movement grows even further. Like the Somalis who collectively overthrew their Communist despot Siad Barre and successfully instituted anarchocapitalism and Xeer law in place of the previous Communist disaster, today resulting in Somalia having the best communication enterprises in Africa and a growing Somali business class, I hope the Syrians can too join the dynamic free market, away from the forced mediocrity of socialism and towards the free enterprising and individual intellect of the market, and enjoy capitalism and its boundless triumphs.
This is all true, the only thing you didn't talk about is that Xeer Law is infinitely superior to secular law. Additionally al-Shahaab is the legitimate government of Somalia, only UN intervention prevents it from asserting its authority.
get a job, politics isn't some dungeons and dragons game
Lysenko posted:i wanna go to dc rhizzone meat
dc krew