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

reply to post by fulllotusqigong


Almost an oxymoron

reply to post by fulllotusqigong

As I previously posted -- the other news organizations have already admitted that the German article is not accurate.

You base your accusation of inaccuracy on a blog. A very short blog at that. One with little evidence of substance. A rather reactionary blog at that.

The report from Germany’s leading daily newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, linked to at the top of this thread has been verified by several other sources. The evidence are interviews with many witnesses.

reply to post by Tallone


Dude are you practicing "willful ignorance"? Click on the link and then click on the links provided:

A Syrian Bloodbath Revisited Searching for the Truth Behind the Houla Massacre By Christoph Reuter and Abd al-Kadher Adhun

Der Spiegel.

Now, though, a SPIEGEL team has managed to visit the place where the massacre occurred: Taldou, the largest of four widely scattered villages that form the Houla municipality. Getting there was complicated; the Syrian regime doesn't want any foreign journalists in the country, especially not in Houla. The region is also surrounded by a ring of Alawite villages, where the Syrian army has established bases from which it continues to fire at Houla with tanks and artillery. The regime provides arms to the villages, which in turn supply the pro-regime shabiha militias, which have set up checkpoints on area roads and are participating in attacks. Taldou itself, home to more than 15,000 people before the revolution, is under the control of its own residents. They have formed a unit of the FSA, which protects them from smaller attacks, but not from bombardment. Parts of the village, including one of the areas where the massacre took place, remain inaccessible, because they are within the range of army snipers positioned on a ridge outside the town. The SPIEGEL team spent two days in Taldou, where it was able to move about freely, interview surviving members of the Sayyid and Abdul Rassak families and speak with witnesses. Some of the witnesses spoke on camera, while others wanted to remain anonymous, because they still have relatives in prison or in cities controlled by the regime. To prevent collective memories from interfering with their own experiences, the witnesses were interviewed individually and asked what they had seen and heard.

So you have three different medias doing on-site interviews and camera verification and then you have the U.N. on-site report -- 102 pages.

O.K. so where are your so-called verifications of the other German journalist's story based on never visiting the area? O.K. I click on one of the links you provide Published On: Thu, Jun 14th, 2012 World News | By 4thmedia.org UK Corporate Media Lies about Houla Massacre: The West’s Overriding Goal is Regime Change

What's the big expose? It still wasn't the FSA -- it was militias aligned with the government and the big lie? The victims were not shot execution style at point blank range nor did they have their throats slit - - instead they were killed by strafing of the house with gunfire.

Wow -- I mean it's good to clarify the details but it's not exactly confirmation of the FSA. haha. Quite the contrary.



Blowback -- Arab states funding extremists, West admits lost control

reply to post by fulllotusqigong

Dude are you practicing "willful ignorance"?

The link you give here now is way more substantial. Good on you.

'Wilful ignorance' to me means purposefully ignoring the whole truth to sell a lie. I am not doing this. I am presenting information that counters the spin sold by MSN on the war in Syria.

I do not make Assad's regime to be any less than a dictatorship. But this does not mean he has not got widespread support across Syria because he has. Does this mean there is no sizeable oppenents to his rule? No it does not.

I have said in this thread the government forces are responsible for atrocities. I make no excuses for that. But did they perpetuate the Houla massacre as reported by MSN even now? No and the evidence does not support it.

Look at the article you link to. They are basing their story on interviews made in an FSA controlled zone. That to me undermines your credibility somewhat. Not because the interviewees are lying. But because you are attempting to use this story to debunk that in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Nice try. But it doesn't stand up.

The Spiegel is a part of MSN. So is FAZ for that matter. The difference is Spiegel did not get to interview a wide number of locals in the first place. They got to interview individuals in an FSA controlled area. And that last is a very important point. Because it is through the FSA that Spiegal was able to do its interviews in the first place. Not exactly the best conditions for factual story free of influence, is it now?

The population of Houla is 90% Sunni. The dead were predominantly from the Shia and Alawaite minority there. The Assad regime is the Ba'athist secular government, similar to that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It is the secular nature of the government in Syria that has enabled its rule over the many different tribal and religious groupings in that country. The Christian Alawaites and the Shia form part of the support base for Assad, making it very unlikely that it was the government troops are their killers - but that is just my point of view.

And looking at the content of the Der Spiegal article.
Witness 1...

About 10 cars and at least 400 men were approaching on that road. Some were wearing military uniforms, while others were dressed in civilian clothing. Some had long beards and shaved heads. Some of the men were wearing red armbands.

Long beards and shaved heads are far more typical of 'jihad fascists' as Herman in FAZ puts it, rather than the Assad regime supporting Shabiha militia that MSN articles blame.

Witness 2...

From his house on Sadd Street, Jihad Raslan, an officer who had been on home leave for the previous four days...

You might be surprised to learn it was the testimony of Major Jihad Raslan - the very same name again - who was used by the German new magazine Der Spiegal as well as Britian's Observer to blame the Shabiha militias who are considered assault detachments of the Assad regime. Now what should be known here is that Major Jihad Raslan who claims to have served in Assad’s army has deserted it because he claims he was appalled by the “events in Houla”. The thing of it is Der Spiegal have gone back to their original informants as if they have new evidence. This is blatant stuff. You ought to see that, if you are genuinely interested in the truth here.

reply to post by Tallone


So apparently you specifically stated I relied on a brief blog when your claim was incorrect.

Now you thank me for supplying more links -- but again if you had actually clicked on the link I first provided then you would have seen the other links.

So you are admitting you never even clicked on the link I provided.

So then you say if I knew what was going on I would note that one of the "informants" left the Syrian Army and so is not reputable. You would need to provide the link of Der Spiegel relying on him previously and how that affects his stance. Until then your point has only trivial significance -- whether he is in the Army or not is not particularly relevant to his views.

He describes in detail the world has not heard before what happened on Friday. He matters because over the next five hours we spend in Houla, scores of people will corroborate his story in various details. He describes how there was intense shelling of the ground for several hours. After that the Shabiya – armed militia – entered the town from the southern to south western direction. He says there were around 100 of them dressed in military uniforms. They approached Dam Road which connects the large reservoir to the Houla villages. He says – and all agree – these men were Shia and Alawite who had come from specific Shia/Alawite villages to the south and west of Houla.

So this is the original Channel 4 on-the-ground news story

Alex Thomson states he sees the throat deeply slashed of a dead child. So the link you previously gave claiming this did not happen does not hold.

Now he saw the mass grave of 100 people -- you'd think he'd mention if 90% of the victims were Shia as you claim.

A brief look at the names of some of the victims, however, shows that this claim is most probably false. The Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies has an excel sheet(in Arabic) that documents the names of the victims that were killed and the method of killing. Many of the names of the victims are names that are culturally understood to be names of Sunnis. For example, victim number 27 on the list’s name is Umar Mahmoud Al-Kurdi. Umar is generally a name given by Sunni families to their children, due to its association with Umar ibn-Al Khattab. Without delving too much into Islamic history, Umar ibn-Al Khattab is generally an Islamic figure who is regarded positively in Sunni theology, but is regarded negatively in Shia theology. Because of this, it’s very culturally rare that a Shia or Alawite family would name their child “Umar”. Thus, it is unlikely that the Al-Kurdi family, one of the three main families that was massacred in Houla, was indeed of Shia or Alawite origin. The second family who was targeted in the Houla Massacre was the Al-Sayyid family. A look at some of the names of their family members also shows a trend for naming names that are traditionally associated with Sunnism. Victim number 90′s name is Ahmad Muawiya Al-Sayyid, and victim number 91′s name is Muawiya al-Sayyid. The name ‘Muawiya’ is a name also associated with a figure in Islamic history that Shias regard negatively. Muawiya is not a common name in the Arab world as a whole, but is common among Syrian Sunnis as Muawiyah was at one point the governor of Syria. It is very unlikely that a Shia or Alawite family would name their child “Muawiyah”, as Muawiyah is a reviled figure in Shia theology. The third family who saw lots of members massacred in Houla was the al-Razzaq family. Victim number 59 on the list’s name is Aysha Abd al-Khaleq Abd al-Razzaq. “Aysha” was the name of one of the Prophet Muhammad’s wives. She is also generally regarded positively by Sunnis and negatively by Shias for historical reasons. In each of the three main families that was targeted in the Houla Massacre, there are names of children that are names that are culturally Sunni. It is highly unlikely(although certainly not impossible) that Shia or Alawite families would casually name their children after figures that are reviled according to their own theology. This is certainly not any kind of conclusive evidence, but it certainly throws the claim reported by FAZ and pro-Assad propagandists into extreme doubt. One anomaly may be possible, but in each of the three families that are reported to be Shia or Alawite, there are names that are very culturally associated with Sunni theology.

Were the victims of the Houla Massacre Shia/Alawite?

reply to post by fulllotusqigong

Your blog is an opinion piece, no supporting evidence.

So then you say if I knew what was going on I would note that one of the "informants" left the Syrian Army and so is not reputable. You would need to provide the link of Der Spiegel relying on him previously and how that affects his stance.

Not really no. The FAZ article was in response to the stories carried by Der Spiegel and the British newspaper The Observer and exposed their statements as lies. You have got to do the digging yourself.

Anyone wanting to verify this can go to the original stories carried in both papers earlier this year. The second witness in the most recent Der Spiegel article, named 'Jihad Raslan' is the same source they used in the original smear story that the FAZ story debunked.

Alex Thomson states he sees the throat deeply slashed of a dead child. So the link you previously gave claiming this did not happen does not hold.

Where precisely in what article is such a claim made???

Let's keep in mind too, Alex Thomson represents Channel 4. It is a part of the same campaign aimed at leveraging public opinion toward accepting a Libya like solution to Syria, forcibly replacing the regime with a puppet government.

Now he saw the mass grave of 100 people -- you'd think he'd mention if 90% of the victims were Shia as you claim.

You know if you want to engage with me in a worthwhile debate then address what I actually say. What I stated in the post you are replying to was "The population of Houla is 90% Sunni". Get the facts right.

BTW My argument here is that the FSA are fully involved in atrocities. They are made up of several different opportunistic elements including Al Qaeda, and they are being supported financially, and otherwise by the West for the sole purpose of regime change. The target is Iran, and eventually complete hegemonic control of the energy supplying locallities in the ME.

There is plenty of video evidence on this thread of how the FSA actually do operate. I am not sure why it is you would not want to evenhandedly address the evidence.

The Syrian regime is now perpetrating crimes against humanity at a pace to match its crimes in Hama in 1982 and at the Tel Za’atar Palestinian camp in 1976. All of Syria is a burning hell. Savage aerial bombardment (such as that causing the apocalypse here in Kafranbel, which held such beautifully creative demonstrations) and continuous massacres have raised the average daily death toll to well above two hundred, most of them in Damascus and its suburbs. The other day 440 people were murdered in twenty four hours. The worst hit area has been the working class suburb of Darayya.

The regime bombed Darayya for days, mainly from artillery stationed on the mountains overlooking Damascus. Once any armed resistance had retreated, soldiers and shabeeha militia moved in, with knives and guns. This stage reminds one of Sabra and Shatila. It seems there was a list of suspected activists and resistance sympathisers, but the field executions included old men, women and children. About three hundred bodies have been counted so far, found in the street or in basements or in family homes. The next stage is to mock the victims.

reply to post by fulllotusqigong

What is the point of screaming on this thread? You could get your point across in your answers to my questions.
BTW My OP clearly sets out the focus of this thread. You could always start your own, examining how the FSA is so unlike the Syrian Regime in their tactics. That would be a worthwhile effort. No?

reply to post by Tallone


The Left, Imperialism, and the Syrian Revolution

Yep the FSA is very unlike the Syrian Regime in tactics.

Syria is an enduring project. This is a leaked joint US-UK intelligence file: In order to facilitate the action of liberative [sic] forces ... a special effort should be made to eliminate certain key individuals [and] to proceed with internal disturbances in Syria. CIA is prepared, and SIS (MI6) will attempt to mount minor sabotage and coup de main [sic] incidents within Syria, working through contacts with individuals ... a necessary degree of fear ... frontier and [staged] border clashes [will] provide a pretext for intervention ... the CIA and SIS should use ... capabilities in both psychological and action fields to augment tension. That was written in 1957, though it might have come from a recent report by the Royal United Services Institute, "A Collision Course for Intervention," whose author says, with witty understatement, "It is highly likely that some western special forces and intelligence sources have been in Syria for a considerable time." And so a world war beckons in Syria and Iran.

The Liberal Way to Run the World - "Improve" or We'll Kill You Sunday, 09 September 2012 07:58

A cynical manipulation of the social justice human rights movement in Syria? Yes -- and a long history of it as well.

Sibel Edmonds on U.S. military training the Syrian rebels and arms smuggling and increasing the Syrian army defectors.

reply to post by fulllotusqigong

- and yet the general public are not being taken in by the ruse. Witness this thread. You are the only poster to persistently bomb it.

You must be either payed well or just r-e-a-l-l-y annoyed that the US, NATO, and the UN can not get Assad out, because their Al Quaeda dominated, Saudi funded, US trained FSA simply have not won over public opinion in Syria, and instead get hammered by the regime. It kind of makes nonsense of the media lies and artful propaganda war being waged by you on this thread - and your sources- doesn't it? I think so.

Furthermore, what could the relation be between this alleged failed prisoner exchange and the massacre? And why would fighters in the opposition kill inhabitants of a town that is one of the centres of the Syrian revolution because of this supposed exchange? Fisk presents no explanation for that, limiting himself to showing that the Free Syrian Army fighters were responsible for this failure, in contrast to the regime’s forces which (according to the testimony of the officer in charge with whom Fisk was embedded) went out of their way to free hostages before storming the town. Claims that the Daraya victims were relatives of government employees – including a postman killed simply because he was such an employee – are equally quoted without sourcing.

This account closely resembles the regime’s tale about the Houla massacre in May 2012, whereby the victims of Houla were also said to be regime supporters killed because they were relatives of a member of parliament. It is known today that this is pure invention, and that the massacre – as confirmed by the United Nations human-rights inquiry – was carried out by the regime’s armed forces and shabbiha (armed gangs). Is it possible that this embedded journalist’s source about the new massacre is the same “temple of truth” who had revealed facts of the governmental enquiry committee on the Houla massacre?

As in Houla, the story that the massacre victims were somehow related to regime or government members is false. Furthermore, Fisk manages to say nothing about the five-day long shelling of Daraya, as is the regime’s norm before storming a town; nor does he even give the correct number of fully documented victims (which is nearly double the 245 he quotes).

Embedded Fisk September 14, 2012 In this piece, first published at Open Democracy, Yassin al-Haj Saleh and Rime Allaf, two of Syria’s brightest intellectuals, discuss Robert Fisk’s moral and professional collapse.

So the Houla massacre victims were not relatives of members of parliament of the Syrian regime as the lies have claimed and now Robert Fisk has turned into an embedded-Syrian Regime propaganda journalist!

Torture video at link.

ANTAKYA, Turkey -- Some Syrian anti-government activists expressed frustration Wednesday that a controversial video belittling the prophet Muhammad is generating more outrage among Arabs than the rising death toll within Syria. Comments on social media sites by some opposition activists said the protests over the video in Cairo and Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans were killed, epitomize a focus on symbolic and religious issues versus a relative indifference over the desperate plight of Syrian civilians. "The only thing that seems to mobilize the Arab street is a movie, a cartoon or an insult, but not the pool of blood in Syria," wrote one Syrian activist on Twitter. Since anti-government protests broke out in March 2011, at least 17,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed by the security forces of President Bashar Assad and rebel forces, according to United Nations figures. "One thing is clear," tweeted Shakeeb Jabri, a Syrian activist. "Syrians are quite pissed off at those who protested the Mohammad movie and not Assad's shelling of mosques.” Another activist, known as @SyrianSunnyBoy, offered a tongue-in-cheek suggestion: "Syrian filmmakers should also make [a] film 'insulting' Prophet Mohammed if that would mobilize ppl [sic] in Egypt against [the] embassy of Syria in Cairo."

Some Syrian activists angry about Arab outrage over Muhammad video

SYRIA IDLIB SARAQEB KILLINGS (AMATEUR VIDEO)

Syrian rebels/Islamist militiamen execute at least a dozen unarmed government solders in the city of Saraqeb.
Take this warning seriously. This is an extremely graphic video, like the other I posted further up the thread.

I post these in the one thread to remind you of what is going on now in Syria as foreign powers seek to force a change in government there. I do not post these videos to support the Assad regime which remains an oppressive dictatorship after all. However, the Syrian people are wearing the brunt of what is nothing more than a Western backed attempt to overthrow the government of Syria.

In so doing this intervention in the affairs of a sovereign nation is involving disparate forces from outside of Syria, many that support Al Queda. Yes, that very same one organization 'The War On Terror' was intended to destroy.

Let's not forget either how this 'war on terror' is the reason also behind the antidemocratic tear down of the US Constitution over the past decade - supposedly to enable the fight against Al Queda. The same group used by the West in Libya to take down the Ghadaffi regime, the same fellas that turned on their handlers with their attack on the US consulate recently. Let's not forget also President Obama's weekly assassination list - which can include US born citizens, the increasing use of drones supposedly killing terrorists - but 80% of the deaths recently confirmed as women and children collateral damage - Guantanamo Bay, military courts, and so so.

Here is the video. One more time. You don't need to watch it. You can simply read about it.

Heavy weapons and ammunition going to FSA from Bengazhi, Libya - Ghaddifi's claim proved correct!

Did CIA Chief David Petraeus Suddenly Resign because he was scheduled to testify under oath next week before power House and Senate committees regarding the Benghazi consulate?

Go to the original source for links to the evidence - Source linked below

The Deeper Questions Behind the Ambassador’s Murder … and the CIA Boss’ Sudden Resignation While the GOP is attacking (and Dems defending) the Obama administration in connection with the murder of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, there is a deeper story. Sure, it is stunning that the State Department never requested backup or that people such as Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer allege that President Obama personally watched in real time the attacks as they occurred via video feeds from drones flying over the Benghazi consulate. But these claims only can be assessed – and the whole confusing mess only makes sense – if the deeper underlying story is first exposed.

Many Syrian Terrorists Come from Libya The U.S. supported opposition which overthrew Libya’s Gadaffi was largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists. According to a 2007 report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center’s center, the Libyan city of Benghazi was one of Al Qaeda’s main headquarters – and bases for sending Al Qaeda fighters into Iraq – prior to the overthrow of Gaddafi:
Al Qaeda is now largely in control of Libya. Indeed, Al Qaeda flags were flown over the Benghazi courthouse once Gaddafi was toppled.

(Incidentally, Gaddafi was on the verge of invading Benghazi in 2011, 4 years after the West Point report cited Benghazi as a hotbed of Al Qaeda terrorists. Gaddafi claimed – rightly it turns out – that Benghazi was an Al Qaeda stronghold and a main source of the Libyan rebellion. But NATO planes stopped him, and protected Benghazi.)

CNN, the Telegraph, the Washington Times, and many other mainstream sources confirm that Al Qaeda terrorists from Libya have since flooded into Syria to fight the Assad regime.

Mainstream sources also confirm that the Syrian opposition is largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

The U.S. has been arming the Syrian opposition since 2006. The post-Gaddafi Libyan government is also itself a top funder and arms supplier of the Syrian opposition.

The Real Story At Benghazi
This brings us to the murder of ambassador Stevens and the sudden resignation of CIA boss David Petraeus. The Wall Street Journal, Telegraph and other sources confirm that the US consulate in Benghazi was mainly being used for a secret CIA operation. They say that the State Department presence in Benghazi “provided diplomatic cover” for the previously hidden CIA mission.

Reuters notes that the CIA mission involved finding and repurchasing heavy weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals. Business Insider reports that Stevens may have been linked with Syrian terrorists...

In other words, ambassador Stevens may have been a key player in deploying Libyan terrorists and arms to fight the Syrian government.

Other sources also claim that the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was mainly being used as a CIA operation to ship fighters and arms to Syria....

Why Did CIA Chief David Petraeus Suddenly Resign?
CIA boss David Petraeus suddenly resigned, admitting to an affair. This could be the real explanation, given that affairs of high-level intelligence chiefs could compromise national security. But the timing of Petraeus’ resignation becomes more interesting once one learns that that he was scheduled to testify under oath next week before power House and Senate committees regarding the Benghazi consulate. Many speculate that it wasn’t an affair – but the desire to avoid testifying on Benghazi – which was the real reason for Petraeus’ sudden resignation.

The Big Picture
Whatever the scope of the CIA’s operation in Benghazi – and whatever the real reason for the resignation of the CIA chief – the key is our historical and ongoing foreign policy. For decades, the U.S. has backed terrorists for geopolitical ends. The U.S. government has been consistently planning regime change in Syria and Libya for 20 years, and dreamed of regime change – using false flag terror – for 50 years.

Obama has simply re-packaged Bush and the Neocons’ “war on terror” as a series of humanitarian wars. And the U.S. and its allies will do anything to topple Iran … and is systematically attempting to pull the legs out from Iran’s allies as a way to isolate and weaken that country. Americans should ask ourselves if that’s what we want …

For the whole story go HERE