September 2013 – Page 2 – The Progressive Democrat

Brief History of Aleppo: A Great World City Now in the Grip of War

As Syrian government forces and rebels clash in Aleppo, TIME takes a look at the history of this ancient, cosmopolitan city now locked in a state of war

A picture taken March 17, 2006 shows a general view of the historic Syrian city of Aleppo, 350 kms north of Damascus, with its landmark cytadel in the background

Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, is in the grip of the country’s civil war. Government attack helicopters and fighter jets circle the city’s skies as rebel factions entrench themselves in Aleppo’s old town and sections of the city’s suburbs. The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has dispatched armored columns to flush out insurgents, not unlike its recent crackdown on rebel fighters in pockets of the capital Damascus. One rebel commander in Aleppo told the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph that the fight for Syria’s commercial capital, a city of 2.5 million people, would last months. Rebels are stockpiling medical supplies and munitions, while the U.S. State Department warned of a potential massacre. A pro-government newspaper promised the “mother of all battles.”

Until recently, Aleppo was not one of the major theaters of the Syrian conflict. But it is no stranger to war. With a history as ancient as Damascus — considered to be one of the longest continuously inhabited cities in the world — Aleppo has been won and lost by a succession of empires, sacked by myriad invaders and reduced to rubble by epic earthquakes. That it still stands, and is, indeed, with its thousands of old limestone houses and winding old streets, a UNESCO World Heritage Centre, is testament to the richness of its past and the resilience of its people.

From its early origins, Aleppo was a place where people grew wealthy. Cuneiform tablets from roughly four thousand years ago tell of a settlement called ‘Halabu’ — eventually Aleppo — that was even then a center for the manufacture of garments and cloth. Located not far from the Mediterranean Sea on one side and the river valley of the mighty Tigris and Euphrates on the other, the city found itself in the middle of ancient Egyptian and Hittite trade routes. The Seleucids, a Greek dynasty descended from one of the lieutenants of Alexander the Great, developed the area further, while certain colonnaded avenues and courtyard homes in Aleppo today bear the tell-tale signs of Roman craftsmanship and Hellenistic urban planning.

Under siege: the uncertain fate of Arab Christians – Al Arabiya

Rarely do I write about my personal feelings and passions. The situation is different this time. I write with pain, nay, I write with anger. While watching with horror the savage assaults against the Christians in the Eastern Mediterranean, one of the first and oldest Christian communities in the world, I am shocked. From the beginning of the season of Arab uprisings I kept reminding myself, and others, that when we analyze and assess the rapidly unfolding events we should not lose sight of the fundamentals: the civil and human rights of all the peoples living in theses societies regardless of their ethnic and religious backgrounds or their gender. By that I meant that we should denounce and resist repression and injustice inherent in transitional times when the old entrenched powers, along with absolutist radical groups, continue to undermine peaceful inclusive change. Both state and “revolutionary” repression and intimidation should be confronted, although state repression is more dangerous because it is systemic and institutional.

Events in Syria

I was shocked by, and denounced, the destruction of the great Umayyad Mosque in Aleppo, a jewel of a structure with its elegant 11th century minaret. This was a beastly act perpetrated by a cruel regime and primitive gangs of fanatic Islamists. Also shocking was the shelling and looting of the historic Jobar synagogue in Damascus, one of the oldest Jewish houses of worship in the world. Now, I am seized with deep anger because the terror of both the Syrian government forces and elements of the radical Islamists Jabhat al-Nusra or Nusra Front have visited the iconic town of Maaloula, a truly unique and special Christian sanctuary nestled in the rugged mountains not far from Damascus where many inhabitants still speak Aramaic, the language of Christ . Maaloula’s Christian inhabitants, with their family tree going back to the first Christian communities in ancient Syria, fled the town when it was taken and retaken by the marauding gangs of Assad and al-Nusra.

I was born, and grew up, in Beirut in a decidedly conservative Christian (Maronite/Catholic) environment. I still remember the pride we felt as youngsters when we used to pray and chant Syriac/Aramaic hymns written in Arabic script. In my teens I read Nahj al-Balaghah by Imam ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (usually translated in English as “Peak of eloquence”) the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, who is considered by his Shiite followers as the most important figure in Islam after the Prophet. The book is truly a magnificent collection of speeches, invocations and aphorisms written by a man of wisdom, courage and compassion. This was the beginning of my love affair with the Arabic language. Another great Muslim Caliph I admired was Omar Ibn Al Khattab, the second of the four wise Caliphs that succeeded Prophet Muhammad. Omar, one of the most powerful and consequential figures in the history of Islam, was known for his strong sense of social justice. I named my son after him.

Even when I parted ways with religion and became a secularist, I remained attached to the rituals and aestheticism of Christianity and Islam and their civilizational legacies. When I find myself in a European capital I do my own version of (Gothic) church hopping. On my first visit to Cairo and Istanbul I was intoxicated with their charming mosques and ancient churches. All this is to say that what I am writing here is not emanating from my religious background but from my moral and political convictions.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Group are not in Line with the Syrian Revolution

Syrian Coalition
Istanbul, Turkey
September 20, 2013

The Syrian Coalition condemns the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) for its aggression towards Syrian revolutionary forces and its indifference to the lives of the Syrian people. The Syrian Coalition stresses that the following ISIS practices constitute a stark contradiction to the principles of the Syrian revolution:

1. ISIS’s link with a foreign agenda and its repeated calls to establish a new state inside Syria violating national sovereignty.

2. ISIS’s repeated repressive practices with respect to the freedoms of citizens, doctors, journalists, and political activists.

3. ISIS’s use of force in dealing with civilians, as well as its fight against the Free Syrian Army (FSA), in particular the recent incident in the town of Azaz, Rural Aleppo, where ISIS tried to control the Bab al-Salamah border crossing with Turkey on September 18, 2013.

4. ISIS no longer fights the Assad regime. Rather, it is strengthening its positions in liberated areas, at the expense of the safety of civilians. ISIS is inflicting on the people the same suppression of the Baath party and the Assad regime.

The Syrian Coalition reiterates that the Syrian people are moderate, and respect religious diversity and political differences. They reject extremist (takfiri) ideology and exclusionary behavior, including any and all criminal acts against all citizens.

The Syrian Coalition emphasizes that the principles and values of the Syrian revolution are universal human values, and calls on all revolutionary forces to continue the struggle towards a state where freedom, justice, rule of law, democracy, and equality can thrive.

We ask for Mercy for our martyrs, health for our wounded, and freedom for our detainees.

Long live Syria and its people, free and with honor.

via Syrian National Coalition

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‘We Just Wish for the Hit to Put an End to the Massacres’

For Syrian refugees in Jordan’s Zaatari camp, arguments about international law ring hollow.

A family from Dara’a, now living in a caravan in Zaatari. “Even the children have forgotten how to smile,” the woman remarked to me. (All photos: Max Blumenthal)

I sat inside a dimly lit, ramshackle trailer functioning as a general store for the residents of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, while a wiry, sad-eyed man named Adbel told me about the massacres that drove him from his hometown. Dragging deeply on a cigarette, Abdel described how army forces rained shells down on his neighborhood in Deir Ba’alba, a district in Homs, over five months ago, pounding the town over and over. Then he told me how government thugs barged into homes at 6 am, methodically slashing his neighbors to death with long knives, leaving fields irrigated with the blood of corpses, a nightmarish scene that looked much like this. Like nearly everyone I interviewed in the camp, he described his experience in clinical detail, with a flat tone and a blank expression, masking continuous trauma behind stoicism.

As Abdel mashed his cigarette into a tin ashtray and reached to light another, a woman appeared at the shop window with three young children. She said she had no money and had not been able to purchase baby formula for three days. She had trudged to hospitals across the camp seeking help and was turned away at each stop. Without hesitation, the shop owner, a burly middle-aged man also from Homs, pulled a can of formula off a shelf and handed it over to the woman. She made no promise to pay him back, and he did not ask for one. Like so many in the camp, she left Syria with nothing and now depends on the charity of others for her survival. In a human warehouse of 120,000, the fourth-largest population center in Jordan and the second-largest refugee camp in the world, where few can leave and even fewer are able to enter, the woman’s desperate existence was not an exception but the rule.

“We’re in a prison right now,” Abdel told me. “We can’t do anything. And the minute we try to have a small demonstration, even peacefully, [Jordanian soldiers] throw tear gas at us.”

“Guantánamo!” the shop owner bellows.

None of the dozens of adults I interviewed in the camp would allow me to report their full names or photograph their faces. If they return to Syria with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad still intact, they fear brutal recriminations. Many have already survived torture, escaped from prisons or defected from Assad’s army. “With all the bloodshed, the killing of people who did not even join the resistance, Bashar only wanted to teach us one lesson: That we are completely weak and he is our god,” a woman from Dara’a in her early 60s told me. “His goal is to demolish our spirit so we will never rise up again.” The woman’s sons had spent four months under sustained torture for defecting to the Free Syrian Army. She does not know where they are now, only that they are back in the field, battling Assad’s forces in a grinding stalemate that has taken somewhere around 100,000 lives.

Mansour, a 7-year-old, was held at gunpoint by regime forces when his father was arrested. They were reunited in Zaatari, where Mansour is desperate to receive a caravan for his family.

When news of the August 21 chemical attacks that left hundreds dead in the Ghouta region east of Damascus reached Zaatari, terror and dread spiked to unprecedented levels. Many residents repeated to me the rumors spreading through the camp that Bashar would douse them in sarin gas as soon as he crushed the last vestiges of internal resistance—a kind of genocidal victory celebration. When President Barack Obama announced his intention to launch punitive missile strikes on Syria, however, a momentary sense of hope began to surge through the camp. Indeed, there was not one person I spoke to in Zaatari who did not demand US military intervention at the earliest possible moment.

Syria’s 1982 Hama Massacre Recalled: Lesson for Assad Today?

FEBRUARY 3, 2012 BY DAVID ARNOLD

After violent clashes between government forces and Muslim Brotherhood insurgents in several trouble spots in 1982, then-President Hafez Al-Assad ordered troops into the restive city of Hama. For three weeks Syrian tanks and planes bombarded Hama while soldiers airlifted in by helicopter carried out house-to-house searches and on-the-spot executions. Estimates of the total number of civilians who died in the siege range widely between 10,000 and 45,000.

A Syrian-American with family roots in Hama recently described the stories she heard from family members who escaped the massacre and found refuge in her father’s house in Damascus.

“I was 16 and I was just like hearing every day those horror stories when people were coming,” said Rana al-Hamwi. “I can start telling you books of stories from every person and what they saw over there.”

“Even now, all I can see from life is a black cloud following me and that has been with me for a long time.”

What You Need to Know About the Syrian War

Syria is much like Egypt. While it is a Muslim-dominated country with a rich Islamic history, it has also had a secular, authoritarian government for decades. And like Egypt, Syria is a country of considerable ethnic and religious diversity, a country with a high literacy rate, a large educated class, and a reasonably good educational system. The point here is that there is no more popular support for the creation of an Islamic state in Syria than there is in Egypt. The Arab world is very much divided in its vision of the desired outcome of the Arab Spring.

The Syrian opposition Free Syrian Army is headed by defected leaders of Assad’s military establishment, and the majority of its fighters are defected Syrian military soldiers and citizen militia, and they number about 200,000 fighters. Of these, roughly 10,000 are Syrian Islamist fighters. There are also about 2,000 foreign jihadist fighters from around the world, who have come to Syria to fight because of their deep Islamic religious fundamentalist beliefs. These are estimates were provided by FSA Colonel Abdul Jabbar al-Oqaidi.

The Syrian people are desperate. As former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright remarked recently on the television program Face the Nation, it is hard to imagine how things in Syria could become worse as a result of an American military strike. The Syrian civil war has caused the most dire humanitarian crisis on the planet. Over a 100,000 people have died, every manner of war crime has been committed by the regime against its own people, and over two million Syrians are now refugees, many being without the most basic means of survival. The likelihood that a targeted U.S. strike against military assets of the Assad regime could actually make things worse for the Syrian people is an argument that simply does not stand up to critical scrutiny. How could things be worse?

The Syrian opposition has been accepting support from any and all sources. The majority of the opposition fighters have made it quite plain that they are not particularly fond of the presence of foreign fighters in their country, but anyone who opposes Assad is a nominal ally.

I believe that it is true and fair to say, and I say this as an Obama partisan, that the Obama administration missed an opportunity to be the principal ally of the Syrian opposition, and thus deferred this role to the jihadists. On the other hand, American involvement taints the noblest of motivations in the eyes of the Arab world. It is a foreign policy no-win scenario for the Obama administration. Thank you, George Bush.

Here, from the archives, is the essence of the political philosophy of the Syrian opposition movement, as published in late February of this year by the conference of the Syrian National Coalition, in Cairo, Egypt:

The Syrian Coalition’s Closing Statements of the General Assembly — Cairo, Egypt

The Syrian Coalition’s Closing Statements of the General Assembly Meeting Outline the Framework of a Political Solution and Announce a Date for the Selection of a Prime Minister for the Interim Government

In its meeting on February 21-22, 2013, in Cairo, Egypt, The Syrian Coalition defined the framework of a political initiative that is inline with advancements on the ground, while at the same time ensures achieving the goals of the revolution, the preservation of human life, stability, infrastructure and institutions. Such a political solution must be founded within the following fundamental parameters:

1. Achieving the goals of the Syrian revolution, which include: justice, freedom, liberty, and dignity, while preserving human life, and sparing the country further destruction, devastation and dangers. Furthermore, it is important to preserve the unity and sovereignty of Syria, geographically, politically, and socially, as the ultimate goal is to achieve a civil, democratic and pluralistic Syria, where all citizens are equal regardless of gender, religion, or ethnicity.

2. The removal of Bashar Al-Assad and all of the security and military leadership responsible for the decisions that have destroyed the country and terrorized its people. These individuals do not fall within the confines of any political framework and will not be a part of this political solution. They must be held accountable for their crimes.

3. The political solution and the future of our country encompasses all Syrians, including honorable persons from within the current security forces, the Baathist regime and any other government, civil or political organization, so long as these individuals were not involved in crimes against the Syrian people.

4. All initiative must be defined by the above parameters, set within a specific time frame, and must include a clear and announced goal.

5. International guarantees from the Security Council, and especially from Russia and the United States, as well as international support and safeguards are important for the realization of any initiatives through a binding UN Security Council resolution.

6. A commitment to continue supporting the revolution on the ground to tip the scale of power in support of the revolution.

7. Obtaining the necessary support from the friends of Syria and its neighbors within the region is also vital for a successful political solution within the above parameters.

8. The General Assembly of the Coalition is the only body authorized to propose a political initiative on behalf of the Syrian Coalition.

The Syrian Coalition’s General Assembly has decided to form an interim government for Syria that will carry out its duties from within the Syrian territories. The Coalition set a date of March 2nd, 2013 to select a prime minister from amongst the candidates nominated by the General Assembly, within the agreed upon parameters and after consultation with Syrian opposition forces and the revolutionary movement.

The General Assembly of the Syrian Coalition condemns the barbaric bombing and assault, which once again targeted several civilian neighborhoods in Aleppo. These attacks were carried out using Russian made ballistic missiles and caused severe damage and loss of life.

These bombings and attacks on densely populated neighborhoods with missiles launched from a distance of over 400 km away are a crime against humanity. The head of this criminal regime, those who carry out these attacks and those who supply this regime with weapons of mass destruction bear the full moral and political responsibility of these crimes. Furthermore, those who deprive the Syrian people from a fair and equal defense by failing to provide them with the necessary weapons to do so also bear the moral and political responsibility of these vicious attacks.

via البيان الختامي لاجتماع الهيئة العامة / The Syrian Coalition’s Closing Statements.

Why the French Economy Works Surprisingly Well – SPIEGEL ONLINE

New French President François Hollande performs his patriotic duty.

The journalists’ visit to the Paris-based headquarters of French automaker Renault kicked off in a very French way: with an almost two-hour lunch. It was naturally not a simple affair in the company cafeteria. The meal at the nearby Cap Sequin restaurant boasted three artery-clogging courses, a bottle of white wine and a wonderful view of the Seine River followed by coffee and chocolates. At about half past two, it was finally time to get back to work, though it was somehow difficult to do so.

For decades, France’s economy has violated established laws of economics and not just because of the cholesterol-packed lunches. There’s also the fact that France is the world leader in terms of vacation days, has a nationwide 35-hour work week and allows its citizens to retire at 65, two years earlier than in Germany. On top of that, France has strict regulations regarding employee termination and a swollen public sector. Nearly 57 percent of France’s economic performance flows through state hands. That figure is about 10 percent higher than in Germany and a record level among industrialized nations.

Now France has elected François Hollande, a Socialist president whose most important pledge was “More of the same!” He has called for public-sector jobs financed with a 75 percent tax on top earners, and more time to enjoy retirement. Indeed, while Germany just boosted its retirement age to 67, its western neighbors might soon be able to leave the working world at 60 with a full pension.

Given these facts, it should come as no surprise that France is struggling with a few economic problems: major budget shortfalls, persistently low economic growth and a high youth-unemployment rate. Even more astounding, however, is just how good the French are doing despite their idiosyncratic economic model. Admittedly, per capita economic performance is 8 percent lower in France than Germany, after adjusting for differences in purchasing power. But considering that the French have been the world champions of savoir vivre for decades, while the Germans have been self-denying work horses, that 8 percent difference doesn’t really seem so big.

In other words, a country that according to established economic laws should be playing in the same league as Greece has defied the odds to keep pace with Germany. How did this happen?

Read more at Der Speigel

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El Salvador’s Children of War | Mother Jones

Watts, Los Angeles, 1994. Three-year-old “Esperanza” named her pet pigeon after her wheelchair-bound teenaged uncle. He was shot by a rival gang member in a drive-by shooting. “The gun on the bed—a loaded pellet gun—was real and dangerous to a three-year-old,” De Cesare writes.

From 1979 until 1992, El Salvador was mired in a civil war that left 75,000 people dead and untold numbers displaced or unaccounted for. It was a conflict marked by extravagant violence: On December 11, 1981, in the mountain village of El Mozote, the Salvadoran army raped, tortured, and massacred nearly 1,000 civilians, including many children. News of the killings didn’t reach the United States until January 27, 1982, the same day the Reagan administration announced El Salvador was making a "significant effort to comply with internationally recognized human rights." Washington continued to pump aid into the regime—$4 billion over 12 years.

Part of what made the war so complicated, at least for US interests, was the ultimatum it seemed to present: Defeat the guerillas at any cost or lose the country to communism. In the twilight of the Cold War, any threat of a domino effect in the region—Nicaragua had already fallen to the Sandinistas—was too ominous for Washington to bear. By backing El Salvador’s right-wing junta and, by extension, its paramilitary death squads, the United States created a conundrum for journalists: how to document a war whose maneuvers and motivations were kept deliberately murky?

Photographer Donna De Cesare traveled to El Salvador in 1987 to “witness and report on war, with all the earnest idealism and naïvete of youth,” as she puts it in her new photo book Unsettled/Desasosiego. What she couldn’t have known at the time was how the experience would shape the next 20 years of her life. She visited refugee camps in Honduras, Jesuit killings on the campus of Central American University, a morgue in Guatemala City. Her work—like that of Larry Towell and Susan Meiselas—is essential to understanding a chapter in Central America’s history that is too often whitewashed or denied.

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” – William Shakespeare

See more of Donna De Cesare’s work at Destiny’s Children

via El Salvador's Children of War | Mother Jones.

Syrian president’s brother, Maher al-Assad, key to regime survival

Maher al-Assad, the younger brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (AFP)

He is rarely photographed or even quoted in Syria’s media. Wrapped in that blanket of secrecy, President Bashar al-Assad’s younger brother has been vital to the family’s survival in power.

Maher al-Assad commands the elite troops that protect the Syrian capital from rebels on its outskirts and is widely believed to have helped orchestrate the regime’s fierce campaign to put down the uprising, now well into its third year. He has also gained a reputation for brutality among opposition activists.

His role underlines the family core of the al-Assad regime, though he is a stark contrast to his brothers. His eldest brother, Basil, was the family prince, publicly groomed by their father, Hafez, to succeed him as president – until Basil died in a 1994 car crash. That vaulted Bashar, then an eye doctor in London with no military or political experience, into the role of heir, rising to the presidency after his father’s death in 2000. The two brothers – the “martyr” and the president – often appear together in posters.