Houla massacre carried out by Free Syrian Army, according to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

I hope this isn't terribly inappropriate, but am I the only one who is reminded of Game of Thrones by all of this?

Just the amount of twists and turns to get rid of an unpopular king (dictator) reminds me of the series.

Originally posted by harryhaller

Originally posted by Tallone
I guess at the point they own the region and up the rents we could just call it a PANopoly.

PANOPOLY:
[pan-OP-olly]
noun Absolute Imperial control over a continent, or large group of geographies and countries.
(usage) 1. The USA aims for a PANOPOLY over the middle east.
history: In the game Monopoly, the person who owns the entire board forces the other players into bankruptcy and debt.

Credit to Tallone, this word can now assume the common usage it deserves.

edit on 15-6-2012 by harryhaller because: (no reason given)

Well that dictionary definition you provide fits with the intended meaning nicely. Feel free to apply to related situation at will. Credit to McGinty for providing the association in the first place.

reply to post by MysterX

A single source telling the world of what their reporters have witnessed on the ground in Syria has to be wrong or lying in your opinion because they are a Socialist organisation? How does it work that they have an agenda based on ideology, when you don't seem to see the same problems is true of media outlets reporting what our establishment tells them to report?

I agree with you, but for one error should be cleared up.

It was the german newspaper (FAZ) who published the story resulting from their staff interviewing Houla locals. So far as I am aware it was WSWS.org that broke the story first in English when it was completely ignored by the entire Western MSN. The WSWS.org story also contains fine analysis in my opinion, and the reason their analysis is so good is they do not have a nationalist perspective. They draw from any verifiable newssource for facts, such as The Economist, WSJ, the NYT, and non English speaking news sources such as FAZ.

One thing I read the other day, will interest you. The BBC world news editor Jon Williams now admits that the coverage of the massacre in Syria and by the entire MSN and including his own team at the BBC was nothing but a pack of lies. He chose to make the admission in his blog.

The Beeb (BBC) has not made such an admission though. Neither has any other newsource making up the MSN.

Some months ago, I reflected on the difficulties of reporting from Syria. The deaths of Marie Colvin and a dozen other journalists in the country so far this year has given us cause to think long and hard about the very real dangers there. But so too does the complexity of the situation on the ground in Syria, and the need to try to separate fact from fiction.

...
The truth it seems was more prosaic...

In the aftermath of the massacre at Houla last month, initial reports said some of the 49 children and 34 women killed had their throats cut. In Damascus, Western officials told me the subsequent investigation revealed none of those found dead had been killed in such a brutal manner. Moreover, while Syrian forces had shelled the area shortly before the massacre, the details of exactly who carried out the attacks, how and why were still unclear. Whatever the cause, officials fear the attack marks the beginning of the sectarian aspect of the conflict.In such circumstances, it's more important than ever that we report what we don't know, not merely what we do. In Houla, and now in Qubair, the finger has been pointed at the shabiha, pro-government militia. But tragic death toll aside, the facts are few: it's not clear who ordered the killings - or why.

Given the difficulties of reporting inside Syria, video filed by the opposition on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube may provide some insight into the story on the ground. But stories are never black and white - often shades of grey. Those opposed to President Assad have an agenda. One senior Western official went as far as to describe their YouTube communications strategy as "brilliant". But he also likened it to so-called "psy-ops", brainwashing techniques used by the US and other military to convince people of things that may not necessarily be true.

A healthy scepticism is one of the essential qualities of any journalist - never more so than in reporting conflict. The stakes are high - all may not always be as it seems. - Jon Williams, World News Editor, BBC

SOURCE

Highlighted text by Tallone.

reply to post by Tallone

To be accurate, he doesnt appear to be saying it's all ' a pack of lies', but merely that he is unable to confirm many things. Of course, he and many others in the press have been saying all along that the authenticity of much of the info is difficult to confirm.

I dont believe much of what *anyone* is saying about Syria. And that includes those who say it's all just a facade.

A few facts about the background of the FAZ investigator who revealed to the world days ago the Houla massacre was committed by the rebels and not instigated by the Assad government as claimed in countless MSN propaganda stories. Of course the world is having a problem accessing the true story at this time.

The prime German daily, the center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has anew report (in German) about the Houla massacre. The author is Rainer Hermann who studied and speaks Arabic, Turkish and Farsi. Hermann also has a PhD in economics and wrote his thesis about the modern Syrian social history. He currently lives in Abu Dhabi and has been reporting from the Middle East for over 22 years.

SOURCE

HERE is the link to the background on Hermann from the FAZ site. It is in German.

reply to post by MysterX


Oh, I understand in a cold, inhuman way the reasoning behind Russian support for the Syrian regime. But it is because those reasons cannot be understood unless one abandons ones morality and responsibility as a human being, to protect life, to nurture freedom, that I cannot accept their reasoning.

It is the same problem I have with the war on terror, the bailing out of banks at the expense of peoples jobs, and loans which carry interest. They are inhumane, and therefore unjustified and unjustifiable.

reply to post by Tallone


Sounds like you would prefer the rebel claims that it was Assad

Houla massacre by Syrian rebels confirmed.

T

On June 13 journalist Rainer Hermann confirmed his earlier report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung refuting the official version of the Houla massacre in Syria.

The media have almost unanimously described the May 5 events in Houla as an atrocity committed by the Syrian government, relying almost exclusively on reports from the so-called rebels. Western powers have used the massacre as a pretext to whip up pro-war sentiment and intensify their pressure on the Assad regime. The US and UK reacted to the massacre by withdrawing diplomats from Syria.

In his June 7 report, Hermann asserted that the victims of the massacre in Taldou, a village in the Houla region, were members of the Alawite und Shi’ite minorities and that the killers were not troops loyal to the Assad regime, but forces aligned with the Sunni-based, sectarian Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Although the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is one of the most prominent German-language newspapers and Hermann a well-known journalist, the report has largely been ignored by the German and international media and criticized in a few reports.

In his new article June 13 Hermann defends his reporting and adds further details about the massacre. This report has also been met largely with silence.

The Houla plains region, Hermann writes, “is burdened by a long history of sectarian tensions. ... Of the names of the civilians killed, 84 are known. These are the fathers, mothers and 49 children of the Al Sayyid family and two branches of the Abdarrazzaq family. … Additionally killed in Taldou were relatives of the … member of parliament Abdalmuti Mashlab.”

Hermann goes on to describe what happened: “The family members were targeted and killed with only one exception. No neighbour was injured. One had to have knowledge of the place to carry out these well-planned executions”.

Hermann then quotes 11-year-old Ali, the only member of the Al Sayyid family to survive the bloodbath: “Those responsible had shaved heads and long beards”. In Hermann’s opinion, this points to “fanatical jihadists” and not the “Shabiha militia”.

The version of the event advanced in the global media, in particularly lurid fashion by Britain’s Observer and Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, blames the Shabiha militias, regarded as assault detachments of the Assad regime. These articles rely on the testimony of a Major Jihad Raslan said to have first served in Assad’s army, who then deserted because he was so appalled by the “events in Houla”. Hermann’s article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung exposes these reports as a bunch of lies.

Hermann reconstructs the sequence of events as follows: “After the Friday prayers on May 25 more than 700 armed people led by Abdurrazzaq Tlass and Yahya Yusuf, forming three groups from Rastan, Kafr Laha and Akraba, attacked three army checkpoints around Taldou. The numerically superior rebels and the (mostly also Sunni) soldiers fought bloody battles in which two dozen soldiers, mostly conscripts, were killed. During and after the fighting the rebels, supported by residents of Taldou, wiped out the Al Sayyid and Abdarrazzaq families. They had refused to join the opposition”.

In his article, Hermann refers to earlier reports by other journalists and nuns from the Jacob Monastery in Qara. Nuns had described to Dutch journalist Martin Jannsen how the rebels piled the bodies of dead soldiers and civilians in front of the mosque and told UN observers their version of the alleged massacre in front of cameras from rebel-friendly television channels.

The nun Agnès-Maryam had already described the escalation of sectarian violence around Homs in an open letter toward the end of April. She warned of a step-by-step liquidation of all minorities by the Sunni rebels and described the displacement of Christians and Alawites from their homes and the rape of young girls who had been given to the rebels as spoils of war.

Herman also refers to Russian journalist Marat Musin who works for the Anna news agency and was in Houla on May 25 and 26, thus becoming an eyewitness of the events as well as a reporter. So far Musin seems to have given the most detailed description of what took place. His version coincides with Hermann’s and that of the nuns on all decisive points.

These reports and the latest article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung confirm that Syria is being ravaged by a civil war deliberately promoted by Western powers to destabilize the country and prepare it for regime change. The rebels do not speak for the majority of the population. They are made up of former members of the regime, soldiers, mercenaries, terrorists and secret agents pursuing a reactionary political agenda, many of them using the support by the West to settle old scores and carry out sectarian conflicts.

Full story can be found HERE

reply to post by Tallone


Isnt that just a re-post of the same article from Wsws?

reply to post by stanguilles7

Originally posted by stanguilles7
reply to post by Tallone

 

Isnt that just a re-post of the same article from Wsws?

Different source, different story, but related to the first which came from FAZ the leading German newspaper.

Former British Intelligence Officer states Houla killings most likely the work of the rebels

And still MSN has not mentioned the findings of the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) that the Houla massacre was not the work of the Assad regime, as a number of Western governments and the UN also continue to claim.

"Alistair Crooke, a former British intelligence officer talks about the killings in the Houla area on Friday, 25 May, 2012. He says that it is very unlikely that soldiers would have committed such atrocities. It bears more the signature of some anti-Shia Iraqi killings squads."
SOURCE

Former Brit intelligence agent Crooke makes the following sharp observation in the video.

While the investigation into the Houla massacre is ongoing, former British intelligence officer Alastair Crooke told RT these attacks are not characteristic of the cultural region to which Syria belongs.

“This type of killing, beheadings, slitting of throats (of children too), and of this mutilation of bodies, has been a characteristic not of Levantine Islam, not of Syria, not of Lebanon, but what happened in the Anbar province of Iraq. And so it seems to point very much in the direction of groups that have been associated with the war in Iraq against the United States who have perhaps returned to Syria, or perhaps Iraqis who have come up from Anbar to take part in it,” he says.

Crooke believes the Al-Qaeda connection is misleading, as the massacre has its tactical and ideological roots in the Iraq war.

“I think the attack is more close to Musab al-Zarqawi [who declared an all out war on Shia in Iraq], than Al-Qaeda as we know it, in the sense that Zarqawi and Iraq gave birth to this very strong, bigoted, anti-Shia, anti-Iranian rhetoric. Much of that came into Syria when fighters from Anbar returned to their homes around Homs and Hama. “So yes, we’re talking about Al-Qaeda like groups that are at the very end of the spectrum of the opposition. They may be a minority in terms of the numbers of the overall opposition, but they are defining the war,” Crooke maintains.

Even the BBC who started reporting that women and children had their throats cut admit, these things may not have happened and they don't know who did it, despite in their reporting they claimed it was Assad or the pro regime militia.

In the aftermath of the massacre at Houla last month, initial reports said some of the 49 children and 34 women killed had their throats cut. In Damascus, Western officials told me the subsequent investigation revealed none of those found dead had been killed in such a brutal manner. Moreover, while Syrian forces had shelled the area shortly before the massacre, the details of exactly who carried out the attacks, how and why were still unclear. Whatever the cause, officials fear the attack marks the beginning of the sectarian aspect of the conflict.

Given the difficulties of reporting inside Syria, video filed by the opposition on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube may provide some insight into the story on the ground. But stories are never black and white - often shades of grey. Those opposed to President Assad have an agenda. One senior Western official went as far as to describe their YouTube communications strategy as "brilliant". But he also likened it to so-called "psy-ops", brainwashing techniques used by the US and other military to convince people of things that may not necessarily be true.

www.bbc.co.uk...

reply to post by woodwardjnr


Wow the comments on that BBC article don't look good for there credible on reporting, that's a lot of negative comments.

I am glad people are finally starting to wake up, but i have a question.


Why doesn't this reporter go on the air and admit this live?

reply to post by Agent_USA_Supporter


Exactly, surely their reporting should be corrected and the public made aware of the truth rather than the government spin on things remaining unquestioned.

That link I got was hidden away from the main BBC web page. I only came across it after reading comments in a certain paper that linked the page.

Originally posted by Tallone

Originally posted by harryhaller

Originally posted by Tallone
I guess at the point they own the region and up the rents we could just call it a PANopoly.

PANOPOLY:
[pan-OP-olly]
noun Absolute Imperial control over a continent, or large group of geographies and countries.
(usage) 1. The USA aims for a PANOPOLY over the middle east.
history: In the game Monopoly, the person who owns the entire board forces the other players into bankruptcy and debt.

Credit to Tallone, this word can now assume the common usage it deserves.

edit on 15-6-2012 by harryhaller because: (no reason given)

Well that dictionary definition you provide fits with the intended meaning nicely. Feel free to apply to related situation at will. Credit to McGinty for providing the association in the first place.

edit on 15-6-2012 by Tallone because: (no reason given)

Thanks, Tallone

I look forward to seeing PANOPOLY in store soon...

'Stamp on the weak, steal from the poor, join the Global Elite...' ( Players must be 6+ )

Originally posted by Agent_USA_Supporter
reply to post by SeekerofTruth101

 

All the rebellion have are small arms, most certainly not tanks or choppers that the animal Assad is supplied with by his fellow mass murdering supporter KGB agent Putin.

Once again people are falling for the propaganda as in Libya case, and the rebels are been supplied by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Which are America's puppets.

If your a real seeker of truth you wouldn't be falling for such a propaganda.

edit on 14-6-2012 by Agent_USA_Supporter because: (no reason given)

New scribd article on the Free Syria Army

Rare look behind the scenes of Free Syria Army


Accounts of Syria Rebels Executing Prisoners Raise New Human Rights Concerns Saturday, 04 August 2012 09:23

reply to post by Tallone


Maybe this is delayed Justice for when the Syrians eradicated the Lebanese Christian Army? Either way why should I care about those people? These people if we lived in their country, would persecute us all (the annoying pagans and atheist's here wouldn't even get to experience persecution but would be outright stoned to death or murdered in the streets)like the KKK persecuted anyone who wasn't a shining example of WASP'dom back in the old South. So really, why should any person care about them?


I know some people are overly emotional, or rather their impulses to control their emotions are lacking(not that you experience emotion in any true depth), but we have to remember that nations aren't just an imaginary line on the ground. That nations aren't just charters and treaties, that nations are communities of people. Those communities of people over their are very much our enemy.

It cracks me up every-time I read some stupid gay activist start a "Gay's for Gaza", when I know full well if that homosexual was born in Gaza, he or she would of already been stoned to death. We should focus on those that we care about and leave the rest to the wolves.

My hypotheses is that If Israel/USA want attack Iran they need Syria authority go under because military jets can't fly by over other countries in that region.

My post has morphed into two instead of one-with-edit. My post follows.