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Tuesday, June 28, 2016

UPDATED: VIPS to rescue as Dissenting Diplomats oppose Obama's courtship of Assad

Monday The Times reported:
Russia ‘using phosphorous bombs’ to break Aleppo

10 days of intense bombing by Russian & Syrian bombers have caused large fires to break out across the cityAP
Tom Coghlan, Beirut
June 27 2016, 12:01am
The last rebel lifeline to Aleppo has been battered by some of the heaviest airstrikes of the war, amid growing concerns that Russia is using phosphorous and cluster bombs against the city.

Russian and Syrian jets have mounted ten days of intense bombing as government troops attack areas north of the city in an attempt to complete the siege.

“What’s been happening in Aleppo in the last two days is surely unprecedented,” said Bibars Mishal, a civil defence volunteer in the city. “The warplanes never leave the skies of Aleppo and its countryside, it’s crazy and terrifying.” More...

It is recognized that these are tumultuous times for the British media and The Times is to be congratulated for publishing this story in spite all the other demands for its ink the week after Brexit. It is an important story although it is one on which both the western media and the world's politicians would rather pretend doesn't exist. Aleppo isn't just burning. This isn't a forest fire or some other natural disaster. Aleppo is being fire bombed by Russian and Syrian war planes. Like the US campaign in Vietnam that killed 3 million, they claim to be taking out only "bad guys," when they are in fact targeting the whole civilian population. Like the US campaign in Vietnam that killed 3 million, they are using incendiary weapons and cluster bombs to commit mass murder.

Of course Russia and Syria deny that this is what they are doing, but facts keep stubbornly bubbling to the surface, as in this Telegraph report from last week:
Russia 'caught out' using incendiary weapons
in Syria by its own channel Russia Today
A screengrab of the video showing a pilot next to the incendiary bombs, known as RBK-500 ZAB-2.5SM munitions Credit: RT
By Josie Ensor, Beirut
22 June 2016 • 4:34pm
Russia has been caught using incendiary weapons in Syria by its own TV channel Russia Today, which later tried to edit the footage out of its broadcast.

The Kremlin has previously denied that its warplanes were carrying these bombs, which are restricted by an international convention.

The English-language news station, which is funded by Moscow, broadcast footage of Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, visiting Hmeymim airbase in the Syrian province of Latakia last Saturday.

A pilot can be seen next to a plane loaded with munitions marked with identifying numbers.

Experts from Human Rights Watch, and Conflict Intelligence Team, an open-source intelligence group based in Russia, concluded that it showed incendiary weapons mounted on a Su-34 ground attack aircraft – specifically RBK-500 ZAB-2.5SM bombs.

They said they believed the weapons contained a metal powder fuel known as thermite that ignites while falling, which has led witnesses of attacks to describe them as “fireballs.” It is the hottest burning man-made substance in the world. More...
Aleppo was once Syria's largest city. For many years now, much of it, nearly half, has been cleared of government control, liberated, in the terms of the Syrian revolution. In spite of the years of attacks, they still hang on, organized in the local coordinating committees [LCCs], White Helmet volunteer rescuers, community organizations looking after the day to day needs in the neighborhoods, and Free Syrian Army fighters looking after their defense.

Now the Assad regime and its allies are waging a campaign of carnage unprecedented, even in the Syrian conflict, to destroy liberated Aleppo with fire while hundreds of thousands of civilians still live there. Although Europe and the United States may see fit to ignore what is happening in Aleppo, they can't ignore the consequences. They can fail to mention this mass murder of Arabs, now being done largely by Russians, on US TV, and they can refuse to do anything to stop it.
Aleppo today
However these air attacks are forcing many more to flee Aleppo and Syria altogether. They too will join the refugee stream coming out of the world's conflict zones, and that they can't stop. They can refuse to stop the bombing and they can refuse to talk about what the Syrian refugees are running from but they can't stop them from trying to run. In the US presidential campaign everybody talks about the Syrian refugees but few talk about why they are refugees. America's response to Syrians fleeing the first holocaust of the 21th century makes their disregard for the Jews fleeing the Nazis before World War II look almost humane.

How Obama's "No MANPADS for you!" policy backfired

Ever since the beginning of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's brutal response to popular demands for an end to his family's 40 year dictatorship, politicians of all stripes in the West, on both the Left and the Right, thought it safe to ignore what was going on and the rising death toll that was being caused by what Assad's supporters excuse as his "over reaction." They thought what was happening in Syria would stay in Syria. Now one has to wonder if the FSA had been allowed MANPADS [ man portable anti-aircraft systems] when they asked for them in 2012, or if any effective measures had been taken to stop the Assad regime from simply clearing liberated areas from the air, would we in 2016 still be looking at the Brexit vote and the Donald Truman presidential campaign? The twin reactions behind them both are the refugees and the ISIS terrorists. Both have strong roots in the Syrian conflict. The Syrian refugees are fleeing that cesspool of war that has also allowed Daesh to breed, particularly in the Raqqa safe haven granted to them by President Assad.

One of the reasons Assad has been able to get away with murder for so long is that western governments have always supported rule by fear and violence, "free world" rhetoric to the contrary. Also President Barack Obama has always been a closet supporter of Bashar al-Assad, in spite of his numerous and obligatory calls for Assad to "step down." I detailed many of the reasons for this almost four years ago in Barack Obama's Courtship of Bashar al-Assad. So while the United States government may have made loud protests to the ongoing slaughter through diplomatic channels and even sprinkled a little money around for some military hardware and training, under Obama's leadership, it also made sure the Syrian's being bombed got no effective anti-aircraft weapons while those doing the bombing enjoyed a free fly zone. That's what the CIA was doing in Benghazi. One thing we can be certain of, they weren't helping the Syrian opposition get Gaddafi's MANPADS because we've seen only a few in rebel hands. Obama may have played "Good Cop" to his opposition, but as the person that was suppose to be leading international opposition to the Syrian regime's bloodletting, Barack Obama was just what the Doctor ordered.

US diplomat's "dissent channel" airs new grievances 

President Obama's policy of toothless action and benign neglect towards the Syrian people, as their body count rose from a few hundred to half a million and the conflict morphed into the first holocaust of the 21st century, has not been without opposition, even from within his own State Department. Ten days ago the New York Times published a draft version of a State Department memo that was very critical of Obama's Syria policy. The memo was signed by 51 diplomats and was sent through a "dissent channel" that was established to air internal opposition during the Vietnam War. Most controversially, the memo calls for,
the use of military force as an option to enforce the Cessation of Hostilities (CoH) and compel the Syrian regime to abide by its terms
It calls for an enforced no-fly zone to stop the bombing, saying
Assad’s systemic violations against the Syrian people are the root cause of the instability that continues to grip Syria and the broader region.
They call on the International Syrian Support Group (ISSG) to,
end the daily mass killing of civilians and egregious violations of human rights, cajole the warring parties to make necessary compromises at the negotiating table, bolster moderate rebel groups’ role in defeating Da’esh, and help bring an end to the broader instability the conflict generates.
They argue that allowing this carnage to continue is bad:
With over 400,000 people dead, hundreds of thousands still at risk from regime sieges, and 12 million people from a population of 23 million displaced from their homes, we believe the moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths and suffering in Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable. The regime’s actions directly result in broader instability and undermine the international system responsible for protection of civilians, prevention of mass atrocities, and accountability for grave violations.
Then they lay out what they expect can be achieved with this more interventionist policy in Syria:
5. (SBU) First, with the regime deploying tactics that overwhelmingly target civilians (barrel bombs and air strikes in cities) to achieve battlefield objectives and undermine support for the moderate opposition, impeding or ending such atrocities will not only save lives but further our political objectives.

6. (SBU) Secondly, a more assertive U.S. role to protect and preserve opposition-held communities, by defending them from Asad’s air force and artillery, presents the best chance for defeating Da’esh in Syria. The prospects for rolling back Da’esh’s hold on territory are bleak without the Sunni Arabs, who the regime continues to bomb and starve.

7. (SBU) Third, putting additional constraints on the regime’s ability to bomb and shell both fighting forces and the unambiguously civilian targets would have a direct, mitigating impact on the refugee and IDP crisis. This crisis has deeply affected Syria’s neighbors for years and is now impacting our European partners in far-reaching ways that may ultimately jeopardize their very character as open, unified, and democratic societies. Even in the United States, the crisis in Syria has lent credence to prejudiced ideologies that we thought had been discredited years ago.
That last bit is obviously a nod to the rise of Donald Trump, who is not a supporter of Obama but is a fan of Putin. Needless to say, supporters of President Obama's current policy, as well as supporters of the Assad regime, have been very critical of this memo.

VIPS to the rescue!

Into this fray has jumped the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. You may remember them from their defense of Assad after he was accused of killing more than 1400 people, including hundreds of children, with sarin on 21 August 2013 in East Ghouta and other Damascus suburbs.

At that time they came out to back claims that Assad was innocent of this sarin attack. They said that "US-backed rebels" had murdered their own people. They didn't address the many conventional attacks by the Assad regime on East Ghouta or the many other chemical weapons attack he has conduct in many locations in Syria before and since. They didn't address the findings of the Syrian activists in East Ghouta, the doctors who treated the victims or the local Free Syrian Army. They treated the matter as if only the US govt was making the charge that Assad had used sarin and they responded to the claims only from that doubtful source.

The statement they signed and claimed to have written was actually plagiarized from one written by an Assad family insider and published on the pro-Putin Global Research five days earlier. This is a very serious charge of intellectual dishonesty so please allow me to provide links as well as a brief example.  This is an excerpt from "Did the White House Help Plan the Syrian Chemical Attack?" written by Yossef Bodansky and published by Global Research on 01 September 2013:
On August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major and irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and representatives of Qatari, Turkish, and US Intelligence [“Mukhabarat Amriki”] took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors.
This is from the VIPS memo: Is Syria a Trap? published on 06 September 2013:
on August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major, irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and Qatari, Turkish and U.S. intelligence officials took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, now used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors.
Do you see the same violation of copyright laws that I see? Sure they removed the tattletale Syrian security service term for US intelligence, but other than that, the wording is almost exactly the same. That is no accident! And there's a lot more where that came from. I didn't want to bore you but do check it for yourself.

How VIPS helped fuel the rise of Daesh

The combination of Obama's promise of 20 August 2012 that if Assad ever did use "a whole bunch of chemical weapons" it would cross a "red-line" that would trigger a US military response and his reneging on that promise when Assad did exactly that precisely a year later, did much to dishearten Assad's opposition, boaster the regime and fill the ranks of Daesh with demoralized fighters from the Free Syrian Army and other more democratic forces.

VIPS and its chief spokesman, Ray McGovern, did everything they could to discourage any military response to Assad's continuing carnage back then when the body count was less than 150K and they have prevailed. They stuck by their claim that Assad was innocent and his opposition had attacked its own people with sarin in a "false flag" grab for headlines.

Then proof positive emerged that Assad did it

One of the few good things to come out of this episode was that Assad was forced to give up some of his chemical weapons stockpiles. After he had done that, in 2014, and the UN had those sarin stockpiles to compare to the samples taken in the attack, they where able to make this extremely important observation:
In Al-Ghouta, significant quantities of sarin were used in a well-planned indiscriminate attack targeting civilian-inhabited areas, causing mass casualties. The evidence available concerning the nature, quality and quantity of the agents used on 21 August indicated that the perpetrators likely had access to the chemical weapons stockpile of the Syrian military, as well as the expertise and equipment necessary to manipulate safely large amount of chemical agents.
In other words, not the imaginary "homemade" sarin VIPS talks about.

I've added the bold because the UN was actually prohibited by the Russian veto from naming a perpetrator but this is pretty damn close. Still this finding is ignored by VIPS, Veterans for Peace and many others on the Left that have converted the conspiracy theory that it was a false flag attack carried out by anybody but Assad into an article of faith. When I learned that Ray McGovern would be speaking at the Veterans for Peace National convention in August 2015, I commission a large banner to challenge him on this very point.




You can see the UN quote in the upper left corner and the charge of plagiarism in the lower left. Ray McGovern walked by this banner many times during the convention but he never addressed these issues. Then in December 22, 2015 VIPS published A Call for Proof on Syria-Sarin Attack in which they claimed again that there was no evidence linking the Assad regime to that attack but again they failed to address or even mention this determinate report from the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. That means the title of their piece is a lie.

Now VIPS has come out again. This time its to attack these 51 State Department dissents that are opposed to US government policy on Syria. Neither Assad nor Putin has been terribly troubled by Obama's policy on Syria, and they don't want to see it become more interventionist. VIPs also doesn't want to see this change, so on Saturday they published Intel Vets Call ‘Dissent Memo’ on Syria ‘Reckless’

Whether you agree with the dissenting diplomats call for a no-fly zone or other forms of US military action in Syria, it is clear that they are concerned about the plight of the Syrian civilians that are being slaughtered. VIPS can't say that, at least not based on the content of their memo. They never mention this aspect of the problem, choosing instead to paint the dissent diplomats as bullies, saying:
that 51 “State Department Diplomats” signed a dissent letter advocating direct U.S. bombing as a tool to force Syria into submission to our government’s dictates.
They add:
Unfortunately the dissent signers are calling for America to threaten, and if our bluff is called, commit acts of overt, aggressive war against the forces of a sovereign nation on its own territory.
Even if it is committing genocide on its own territory? Genocide or not, the hundreds of thousands of dead Syrian get no mention from VIPS, instead they say:
The line of thought — that it is America’s right and duty to employ large-scale death to enforce its leaders’ will on other peoples.
They refuse to mention the Syrians dying or already dead because Assad and Putin think they have a right to employ large-scale death to enforce their will. Instead they talk about hypothetical deaths that might be caused by any attempt to halt this carnage, because if stopping Assad's barrel bombs from falling is merely an exercise in American Power for these diplomats, then there is really no need for VIPS to dwell on "the government’s barrel bombing of civilians."

From the VIPS point of view, what is being done to and by ordinary Syrians is of little concern. While the memo they are critiquing speaks of the death and destruction suffered by these people, the VIPS memo does not. They don't see a Syrian freedom movement worth defending and they don't dwell on the regime's civilian causalities. To them any honest Syrians in Assad's opposition are the dupes in a great game being orchestrated by foreign powers:
It’s true that the initial phase of the Syrian Spring seems to have been largely spontaneous. Facts show, however, that outside interveners — primarily the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia — cooperated in lighting the match that brought the inferno of civil war. Covert funding and provision of weapons and other material support to opposition groups for strikes against the Syrian Government provoked a military reaction by Assad...
This also happens to be the Baathist and Russian view of what happened but it is not what happened.

There are other important differences between VIPS and the diplomats on the terrorist threat. While the dissenting diplomats refer to jihadi terrorists that have emerged from Assad's prisons to threaten the whole world as Daesh, the name given to them by the Syrian opposition and most who oppose it, VIPS honors it with its propaganda name, ISIS, although it is neither Islamic nor a state.

Since the beginning to the civil war, Assad has claimed that the only opposition that he faced was from terrorists. Putin has echoed him. VIPS also promotes this view, but they base it on,
Pentagon claims that the opposition and Nusra are one in the same.
Then they go on to say,
We are astonished. After 15 years of strident rhetoric about waging a war on Al Qaeda, we have now come full circle to witness the CIA and a vocal bloc within the State Department advocate to arm and train an Al Qaeda affiliated group.
They sum up Obama's history on Syria,
the President appeared to support the overthrow of Assad but then backed away from the precipice of militarily taking him out.
That's what the Good Cop does every time. Only a fool or supporter of his Good Cop deception would continue to argue that he ever really supported the overthrow of the Assad regime.

Epilogue

Matthew Heimbach, wearing red hat and pushing black woman out of Trump rally.
On Sunday, fights broke out in Sacramento, CA between members of a white supremacist neo-Nazi group and anti-racists protesters. The head of the white supremacist group is Matthew Heimbach, who earlier this year gained notoriety as the Trump supporter seen bating and pushing a black women out of a Trump rally. Like many fascists and "Leftists", this one is also an Assad supporter. This is what he wrote about the conflict on his facebook page:
"While President Obama says he is fighting terrorism, he is actively supporting it by continuing to flood money, training and arms to Syrian rebels. President Obama also says that he is working to topple Assad, the only force in Syria stopping the advance of the Islamic State."
It must be a real embarrassment to VIPS, Veterans for Peace and other "anti-imperialists" to find that with regards to Syria, they are on the same team as scum like that.

UPDATE 3 July 2016 {Closing the Circle}

Click to enlarge
I had ended this post by showing how the VIPS views on Syria reflect those of a neo-Nazi Trump supporter and already I can report how at least one VIPS signer is warming up to Donald Trump. Coleen Rowley, ex-FBI agent and VIPS Steering Group member, seems to be promoting Trump as the lesser evil in this facebook post:
Coleen Rowley I agree it [Sander's nomination] is a longshot but it is the best option. And what would be the alternative? More war and chaos via Killary? Or taking a longshot on Trump, who may well be the lesser evil as he's publicly states he's against war on Russia, but still a huge gamble?
Over time we can expect to see growing support for Trump from those on the "Left" that currently support Gaddafi, Assad and Putin. This should surprise no one.

Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!

Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria

Monday, June 20, 2016

Venice Beach Hotel owner gets away with racist murder

This post is a followup to the post we made 31 August, 2015:
Venice Beach hotel owner arrested for ordering racist murder of homeless man

Shakespeare
Jascent Jamal Lee Warren, 26, a homeless activist known as “Shakespeare” to his friends, lay dead and another black man injured, after a security guard for a Venice Beach hotel acted on orders from the hotel owner to "Kill that nigger" and started firing at a group of homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk early Sunday morning. While the man that did the shooting fled and is still at large, LAPD has announced that they have arrested another man associated with the murder, but have not said who he is. I have it on good information he it is Sris Sinnathamby, the owner of the Cadillac Hotel and the man witnesses say ordered this racist murder. The police are holding him on suspicion of murder for $1 million bond. That may sound like a lot but this man can easily afford it and the charge is murder. More ...
That post included a 13 minute video report done by Venice activist Tony Vera that very night. Five minutes is spent interviewing John Rasta White Lion only hours after the killing. He was one of a number of witnesses in this case and he was close enough to the shooting to have a gun pointed at him by the shooter and to have Shakespeare's blood on his shirt. 2:16 into his interview he says:
Mexicans and black people, we need to get along. You know, right before he killed my brother, that man said "kill that nigger, killed that nigger." That's what the guy that owns this building right here [pointing] told the security guy "kill that nigger." He didn't have to go to that level. Everything could have been everything. We could have walked away from this situation. Everything was everything. Next thing you know he pulled a strap on him and he bust on him. Next thing you know my brother's laying over there on the concrete dead. I called the fucking police. Takes police 20 minutes to get here, and the god damn police station's on the thing [beach], but and yet when I make my fucking tent, it takes them 10 muthafucka minutes to get my in my fucking tent and say "Hey Rastafarian, haul your fucking ras." The man's leaking. The man's leaking on the god damn concrete right there and the police station is less than 3,000 yards away, however far that is. It's right there, it's right fuckin there. This shit disrespect dawg.
We ended that post by saying:
The alleged killer and hotel owner, Sris Sinnathamby, is a big contributor to Los Angeles City politicians. It will be interesting to see how this case is handled in that light.
Now we have the sad duty to tell you that the judge has dismissed murder charges against the owner of the Cadillac Hotel. On 8 June, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elden Fox granted a defense motion that argued that there wasn't enough evidence that Cadillac Hotel owner Sris Sinnathamby ordered the murder. In an email to a local paper, Alan Jackson, the hotel owner's attorney, explained the outcome this way:
“To use the judge’s words, in order to hold Mr. Sinnathamby to answer, he would have to believe the prosecution’s witnesses that claimed to hear the statement ‘Shoot that n*****.’ The court stated, ‘I simply don’t believe them,’”
The judge held that the witnesses where all bias against Sinnathamby because many of them were among a group of men that attacked him right after the shooting, and because some had a civil suit against him. The were also young, homeless and minorities. In any case, the judge didn't find their testimony credible when weighed against the denials of a well connected multi-millionaire. End of Story.

The shooter is still awaiting trial in county on $3 million bail but his former boss is back to opening new businesses in the rapidly gentrified Venice.

Saturday, June 11, 2016

From the Syrian Revolution: Important Statement from Manbij City Council

The following statement from the Manbij City Council has been translated by a member of Syria Solidarity UK. For a comprehensive and current view of the struggle around Manbij, I highly recommend Al-Qaeda Wants to Establish an Emirate in Syria, but Not Now by Haid Haid, 9 June 2016, Atlantic Council.

Syrian Arab Republic
Province of Free Aleppo
The Political Committee in the City of Manbij and its Countryside

Statement issued from the Political Committee in the City of Manbij

The PYD "Democratic Union" represented by its military wing "People's Protection Units" is attempting to control the cities and towns and villages of the Eastern countryside of Aleppo, supported by the forces of the US-led International Coalition which takes the responsibility of providing its forces with aerial cover in addition to the offering of all types of financial and logistical support, and that under the slogan of fighting terrorism represented in the "ISIS" organisation. The last few days have witnessed rapid advances by these forces towards the city of Manbij with the intention of taking control over it and kicking out the ISIS organisation. And perhaps there ought to be no need to remind that the Free Army from the children of the city of Manbij are the first who began fighting ISIS, and were able to expel it from the city on January 5th 2014. And after the return of the organisation to the city the people of Manbij organised a strike which was the first of its kind, embodying their refusal of the presence of this terrorist organisation in their city, but the struggles for regional and international interests on the Syrian arena which resulted in the weakening of the Free Army and its exhaustion, and likewise the ability of the Assad regime to use this struggle and employ terrorist organisations to hit at the revolutionary forces, all of this opened the room for Daesh to expand and penetrate into the Syrian land, the issue that transformed it into a power necessitating large international efforts to uproot it. And whilst we strongly support any party that fights terrorism and aims to undermine it, we also on the other hand affirm and strongly that fighting terrorism should not result in its replacement with another terrorist side, and we mean by that that our resistance to terrorism derives from fundamentals and determinants dictated on us by the values and principles of the Syrian revolution and these could be stated as the following:

1 - That the great Syrian Revolution is a revolution of an oppressed people which demanded its freedom and dignity and the overthrow of the tyrannical Assadist regime, and the establishment of the state of justice and law and citizenship, and is represented by the Free Army (with all its negatives and positives), and the two sides that are fighting now for the control of Manbij do not hold these agendas, rather each of these sides hold their own [specific] project that they are fighting for.

2 - Perhaps everyone has come to know that the presence of the ISIS organisation in our areas is a result of a regional and international accordance, and the removal of this organisation or its uprooting will not occur except with International agreement, and specifically, "Turkish-American" agreement. The Assad regime has benefited a great benefit from this disagreement and was able to employ ISIS and others in lengthening its stay in power.

3 - Fighting the ISIS organisation and expelling it from our areas is no longer a local choice, not least that it requires the support of regional or international powers which can provide sufficient aerial and logistical cover, and these issues exceed the capabilities of the Free Army which has [long been] drained and weakened in an intentional and well-planned way.

4 - The sibling Kurds are an authentic component from the components [demographics] of the Syrian people and they have rights that have long been violated throughout the passing of tyrannical ruling regimes in Syria, and the demanding of those rights is the duty of all Syrians not just Kurds. As for the "PYD Democratic Union"it is a faction that does not represent all the Kurdish people with the evidence its disagreement with most Kurdish forces and parties, as for it now enjoying military power and American support and attempting to force its specific agendas on our cities and towns, our speech to it is what follows: Firstly: If you want for your presence to have Syrian national legitimacy, then that legitimacy rather resides in the identification of your behaviour and goals with the aspirations of the Syrian people in bringing down the tyrannical state and Assadist terrorism and the setting up of a free Syria a state of citizenship [belonging] to all its citizens. Secondly: That you today, by the judgement of the current international and regional balances - possess a large military force and enjoy the support of large global powers, and you are seeking to control the city of Manbij and what surrounds it from cities and towns and villages under the slogan of expelling the ISIS organisation, and you now are very close from entering these cities and towns; therefore the safety and security of those cities and the preserving of the lives of its people and their properties and the safeguarding of their dignities, and staying away from revengeful and vindictive practices, and the respect of the geographic and demographic natures of these areas are the test of your honesty and the legitimacy of your words which we have been long accustomed to hearing. So if you succeed in this test then all the doors of discussion are open between us and you, for the nation is for everybody and fits [is wide enough for] everybody; as for if you deduce that your possession of power and land permits you to trespass on the rights then you will affirm that your presence will not differ from the presence of any other occupier, and especially that the very recent memory still retains the details of what happened in Tel Abyad and the villages and towns of the Northern countryside of Aleppo. And the fabricated media interviews that become engineered with some of the compelled residents will not be a measure of that popular support which we know that you are in dire need of, noting that we should remember always that the Kurds are the ones who were subject to injustice and oppression, and one does not presume that a side that seeks to get rid of injustice can do so through practicing it over others.

The great Syrian revolution will succeed with the aid of God without a doubt, and the current balances of power are not the first or last determinant, and we also affirm that Manbij and its environs is a part of Syria, and that the revolution is a revolution for all Syrians and not the revolution of Manbij only.

Long live Syria Free and Dignified, and perpetuity for the souls of our noble martyrs

The political committee in the city of Manbij

6-6-2016

الجمهورية العربية السورية
محافظة حلب الحرة
الهيئة السياسية في مدينة منبج و ريفها
بيان صادر عن الهيئة السياسية في مدينة منبج
يسعى حزب (الاتحاد الديمقراطي pyd ) ممُثّلاً بجناحه العسكري( قوات حماية الشعب) إلى السيطرة على مدن وبلدات وقرى ريف حلب الشرقي،مدعوما بقوات التحالف الدولي بقيادة الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية التي تتولّى قواتها التغطية الجوية الكاملة إضافة إلى تقديم كل أشكال الدعم االمادي واللوجستي،وذلك تحت شعار محاربة الإرهاب مُمثلاً بتنظيم (داعش). وقد شهدت الأيام القليلة الماضية زحفاً لهذه القوات تجاه مدينة منبج بغية السيطرة عليها وطرد تنظيم داعش. ولعلّ لا حاجة للتذكير بأن الجيش الحر من أبناء مدينة منبج هو أول من بدأ بمحاربة تنظيم داعش،وتمكن من طرده من المدينة في 5 كانون الثاني 2014 ، وبعد عودة التنظيم إلى المدينة نفّذ أهالي منبج إضراباً هو الأول من نوعه مجسّدين رفضهم لوجود لهذا التنظيم الإرهابي في مدينتهم،ولكنّ صراع المصالح الإقليمية والدولية على الساحة السورية والتي أفضت إلى إضعاف الجيش الحر واستنزافه،وكذلك قدرة نظام الأسد على استثمار هذا الصراع وتوظيف الجماعات الإرهابية لضرب قوى الثورة،كل ذلك أتاح المجال لداعش أن تتمدّد وتتغوّل في الأرض السورية،الأمر الذي أحالها إلى قوّة يتطلّب استئصالها جهوداً دولية كبيرة. إننا إذ نؤيد بقوّة أيّ جهة تحارب الإرهاب وتسعى إلى تقويضه،فإننا من جهة أخرى نؤكّد وبقوّة على أن محاربة الإرهاب يجب ألّا تفضي إلى استبداله بطرف إرهابي آخر،ونعني بذلك أن مقاومتنا للإرهاب تنطلق من ثوابت ومحدّدات تمليها علينا قيم ومبادىء الثورة السورية ويمكن بيانها بما يلي:
1 - إن الثورة السورية العظيمة هي ثورة شعب مقهور طالب بالحرية الكرامة وإسقاط نظام الاستبداد الأسدي،وإقامة دولة العدل والقانون والمواطنة،ويمثله الجيش الحر(بكل سلبياته وإيجابياته)والطرفان اللذان يتقاتلان الآن على السيطرة على منبج لا يحملان هذه الأجندة،بل لكل طرف مشروعه الخاص الذي يقاتل من أجله.
2 - لعلّ الجميع بات يعلم أن وجود تنظيم داعش في مناطقنا هو نتيجة توافق إقليمي ودولي،وزوال هذا التنظيم أو اجتثاثه لن يتم إلا بتوافق دولي، وحصراً، توافق( أمريكي - تركي).وقد استفاد نظام الأسد فائدة عظيمة من هذا الخلاف واستطاع توظيف داعش وسواها في إطالة بقائه في السلطة.
3 - قتال تنظيم داعش وطرده من مناطقنا لم يعد خياراً محليّاً،فضلاً عن أنه يستوجب دعم قوّة إقليمية أو دولية توفّر غطاء جوياً ولوجستياً كافياً،وهذه الأمور تفوق قدرات الجيش الحر الذي تم استنزافه وإضعافه بطريقة مقصودة ومُخطط لها بإتقان.
4 - الإخوة الأكراد هم مكوّن أصيل من مكونات الشعب السوري ولهم حقوق تم انتهاكها طيلة تعاقب الأنظمة المستبدة على الحكم في سورية،والمطالبة بهذه الحقوق هي من واجب السوريين جميعاً وليس الأكراد فحسب. أما حزب (الاتحاد الديمقراطي pyd) فهو فصيل لا يمثل كل أطياف الشعب الكردي بدليل خلافه مع معظم القوى والأحزاب الكردية، أمّا وأنه الآن يحظى بقوة عسكرية ودعم أمريكي ويسعى لفرض أجندته الخاصة على مدننا وبلداتنا،فإن خطابنا له هو التالي: أولاً: إذا أردتم أن يكون لوجودكم مشروعية وطنية سورية،فإن هذه المشروعية إنما تكمن في تماهي سلوككم وأهدافكم مع طموحات الشعب السوري في إسقاط دولة الاستبداد والإرهاب الأسدي وقيام سورية الحرة دولة المواطنة لكل السوريين. ثانياً:إنكم اليوم،وبحكم التوازنات الدولية والإقليمية الراهنة - تمتلكون قوة عسكرية كبيرة وتحظون بدعم قوة عالمية كبرى،وتسعون للسيطرة على مدينة منبج وما حولها من مدن وبلدات وقرى تحت شعار طرد تنظيم داعش،والآن أنتم قاب قوسين أو أدنى من الدخول إلى تلك المدن والبلدات،فإن سلامة وأمن تلك المدن والحفاظ على أرواح أهلها وممتلكاتهم وصون كرامتهم،والابتعاد عن الممارسات الانتقامية والثأرية،واحترام الطبيعة الجغرافية والديموغرافية لتلك المناطق هي امتحان لمصداقيتكم وشرعية خطابكم الذي اعتدنا سماعه،فإن نجحتم بهذا الامتحان فإن كافة أبواب الحوار مفتوحة بيننا وبينكم،فالوطن للجميع ويتسع الجميع،أمّا ّإذا اعتبرتم أن حيازة القوة والأرض تبيح لكم التجاوز على الحقوق فإنكم عندئذٍ تؤكدون أن وجودكم لن يختلف عن وجود أي محتل آخر،وخاصة أن الذاكرة القريبة جداً مازالت تحتفظ بتفصيلات كل ما جرى في تل أبيض وقرى وبلدات الريف الشمالي من حلب .ولن تكون المقابلات الإعلامية المفبركة التي تتم هندستها مع بعض السكان المجبرين على القول مقياساً لوجود تأييد شعبي نعلم أنكم بأمسّ الحاجة إليه، علماً أننا يجب أن نتذكر دوما أن الأكراد هم ممّن تعرّض للظلم والاضطهاد،ولا أعتقد أن طرفاً يسعى للتخلص من الظلم من خلال ممارسة الظلم على الآخرين.
إن الثورة السورية العظيمة ستنتصر بعون الله لا محالة،وأن موازين القوى الراهنة ليست المقياس الأول والأخير،كما نؤكد أن منبج وما حولها هي جزء من سورية،وأن الثورة هي ثورة جميع السوريين وليست ثورة منبج وحسب.
عاشت سورية حرة أبية ، والخلود لأرواح الشهداء الأبرار
الهيئة السياسية في مدينة منبج.
6 - 6 - 2016
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