Globalist-fueled Revolutions and One-world Government

Unrest in Syria: What You Need to Know

March 25, 2011

The Lookout - The uprising in Libya, which provoked military intervention by the United States and its allies to avert a brutal government crackdown, has dominated this week's headlines. But meanwhile, there's new unrest in yet another Middle Eastern nation--one with perhaps greater strategic implications for the United States.

Could the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad be set to go the way of the dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia, which were toppled last month by massive popular protests? And what would that mean for the U.S.?

Here's a rundown on the current situation in Syria:

What exactly has been happening on the ground?

Mass protests against the government have been going on since last week, and on Wednesday, demonstrators in the southern city of Dara'a were killed by al-Assad's security forces while taking refuge in a mosque. The number of casualties hasn't been confirmed, but some witnesses have put it as high as 100.

The deaths prompted even bigger anti-government demonstrations in Dara'a yesterday, and today the protests spread to the capital city of Damascus, where people called out: "Dara'a is Syria" and "We will sacrifice ourselves for Syria." In response, supporters of the president chanted back: "God, Syria, and Bashar, that's all."

UPDATE (4:42 pm): Government forces again reportedly opened fire on protesters today.

Fifteen children in Dara'a were arrested after writing graffiti calling for an end to al-Assad's rule. All were under the age of 14. That sparked demonstrations last week demanding the release of the kids--protests quelled by government security forces using tear gas, water cannons, and live ammunition. In response, anger steadily rose this week, leading to Wednesday's protests at the mosque which triggered more government violence.

What are the protesters' grievances?

Like their counterparts in Egypt, Tunisia, and other countries in the region, the protesters want democratic reforms--for instance, more freedom for political parties--as well as a more open press, an end to corruption and cronyism, increased economic opportunities, and stronger constitutional rights.

Editor's Note: Working secretly behind the schemes, the financial terrorists have used social networking to incite and organize youth. Young people worldwide are "fighting not merely for a space to survive, but for a society in which matters of justice, dignity and freedom are objects of collective struggle." They are calling for worldwide socialism with social equality and justice for all, including quality education and jobs with decent wages and benefits like those in the public sector.

According to Henry A. Giroux at t r u t h o u t:

"Out of place and subject to a grating diversity of realities that reveal massive unemployment, underpaid temporary work, skyrocketing tuition, escalating rent, rising food costs, deepening poverty and the indignity of having to live with their parents, youth no longer symbolize one of the most crucial investments enabling a society to build on its dreams.

"After living through years of a debilitating and humiliating disinvestment in the future, young people have hit the streets to reject the dismantling of services provided by the social state, the selling off of public goods, the politics of unchecked individualism, the rise of the punishing state, the collapse of long-term planning for the social good and the all encompassing and iniquitous power of corporate and authoritarian modes of sovereignty.

"This is a generation that is fighting back. What is promising about these student protests is that, while they may have begun in relation to specific issues such as rising tuition costs or mass unemployment, they have both gained momentum and successfully mobilized other constituencies such as labor by connecting single issues to a wider set of economic, social and political conditions. In doing so, these new social movements have called the larger neoliberal Zeitgeist into question."

Syria has been under emergency law since 1963 [Editor's Note: the U.S. has been in a state of declared national emergency since 1933], which has allowed the government to arrest people without warrants and imprison them without trial. Al-Assad's father ruled the country from 1971 until 2000, when al-Assad assumed office. Foreign reporters operate in Syria only with great difficulty--one reason why there's been relatively little recent coverage of events.

How has the government responded?

The government has responded with a mix of mild concessions, violence, and propaganda. It said yesterday that it would "study" lifting emergency rule and allowing more political parties, would consider a new law to increase press freedoms, and would raise the salaries of public workers.

But the regime has also instigated a crackdown. According to human rights groups, in addition to the violence at the mosque on Wednesday, anti-government activists have been arrested, some for their activities online. And al-Assad's camp has sought to use anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment for its own purposes: A government media adviser charged yesterday that the protests hamper Syria's "ability to be a pillar of resistance against Zionism and U.S. schemes."

How is the U.S. reacting so far?

Yesterday, the White House issued a statement strongly condemning Wednesday's attacks and the arrests of human-rights activists. A State Department spokesman declared: "Words are words. We'll obviously look for action."

For now, any kind of military intervention is out of the question, especially since the United States looks likely to be engaged in Libya for weeks at least. Two Republican senators yesterday urged the administration to begin a "sustained campaign of outreach" to the opposition. But America's immediate power to affect the situation appears limited.

What are the implications of this for Americans?

Al-Assad's government has close ties to Iran, and has long had chilly relations with the United States. Plus, there's evidence that it has sought to initiate a nuclear program. So if the Syrian government ultimately were to fall and be replaced by a more democratic, pro-U.S. alternative, America's ability to promote its vital interests in the region--fighting terrorism and extremism, protecting Israel, and ensuring a stable oil supply--could expand. Still, it's difficult to predict how any instability might play out.

Beyond that, the United States has an interest in standing on the side of democracy and human rights and preventing a humanitarian crisis -- one reason for the Libya intervention. If al-Assad's regime were to threaten mass killings on the scale that briefly emerged as a possibility in Libya, the Obama administration and its allies would likely come under intense pressure to act, though their room to maneuver would still appear very limited. For now though, we're not at that point.

Troops Open Fire as Protests Explode Across Syria

March 25, 2011

AP – Troops opened fire on protesters in cities across Syria and pro- and anti-government crowds clashed in the capital's historic old city as one of the Mideast's most repressive regimes sought to put down demonstrations that exploded nationwide Friday demanding reform.

The upheaval sweeping the region definitively took root in Syria as an eight-day uprising centered on a rural southern town dramatically expanded into protests by tens of thousands in multiple cities. The once-unimaginable scenario posed the biggest challenge in decades to Syria's iron-fisted rule.

Protesters wept over the bloodied bodies of slain comrades and massive crowds chanted anti-government slogans, then fled as gunfire erupted, according to footage posted online. Security forces shot to death more than 15 people in at least six cities and villages, including a suburb of the capital, Damascus, witnesses told The Associated Press. Their accounts could not be independently confirmed.

The regime of President Bashar Assad, an ally of Iran and supporter of militant groups around the region, had seemed immune from the Middle East's three-month wave of popular uprising. His security forces, which have long silenced the slightest signs of dissent, quickly snuffed out smaller attempts at protests last month.

Syrians also have fearful memories of the brutal crackdown unleashed by his father, Hafez Assad, when Muslim fundamentalists in the central town of Hama tried an uprising in 1982: Thousands were killed and parts of the city were flattened by artillery and bulldozers.

The Assads' leadership — centered on members of their Alawi minority sect, a branch of Shiite Islam in this mainly Sunni nation — have built their rule by mixing draconian repression with increasing economic freedom, maintaining the loyalty of the wealthy Sunni merchant class in the prosperous cities of Damascus and Aleppo.

Bashar Assad now faces the same dilemma confronted by the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain — ratchet up violence or offer concessions. A day earlier, his government seemed to test the latter track, offering to consider lifting draconian emergency laws and promising increased pay and benefits for state workers.

As massive crowds rejected the offers, the worst violence appeared centered around Daraa, where the arrest of a group of young men for spraying anti-regime graffiti last week set off a cycle of growing demonstrations and increasingly violent government crackdowns.

The Syrian government said 34 had been slain in Daraa before Friday, while the U.N. human rights office put the figure at 37. Activists said it was as high as 100.

Thousands poured into Daraa's central Assad Square after Friday prayers, many from nearby villages, chanting "Freedom! Freedom!" and waving Syrian flags and olive branches, witnesses said. Some attacked a bronze statue of Hafez Assad. One witness told The Associated Press that they tried to set it on fire, another said they tried to pull it down.

Troops responded with heavy gunfire, according to a resident who said he saw two bodies and many wounded people brought to Daraa's main hospital.

After night fell, thousands of enraged protesters snatched weapons from a far smaller number of troops and chased them out of Daraa's Roman-era old city, taking back control of the al-Omari mosque, the epicenter of the past week's protests.

The accounts could not be immediately independently confirmed because of Syria's tight restrictions on the press.

In Damascus, the heart of Bashar Assad's rule, protests and clashes broke out in multiple neighborhoods as crowds of regime opponents marched and thousands of Assad loyalists drove in convoys, shouting, "Bashar, we love you!"

The two sides battled, whipping each other with leather belts, in the old city of Damascus outside the historic Umayyad mosque, parts of which date to the 8th century. About two miles (three kilometers) away, central Umayyad Square was packed with demonstrators who traded punches and hit each other with sticks from Syrian flags, according to Associated Press reporters at the scene.

An amateur video posted on the Internet showed hundreds of young men marching though Damascus' old covered bazaar, some riding on others' shoulders and pumping their fists in the air as they chanted: "With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice for you, Daraa!"

Security forces chased and beat some 200 protesters chanting "Freedom, Freedom!" on a bridge in the center of the city, an activist said.

After dark, troops opened fire on protesters in the Damascus suburb of Maadamiyeh, a witness told the AP. An activist in contact with people there said three had been killed.

The scenes of chaos and violence shocked many in this tightly controlled country where protests are usually confined to government-orchestrated demonstrations in support of the regime, and political discussions are confined to whispers, mainly indoors.

"There's a barrier of fear that has been broken and the demands are changing with every new death," said Ayman Abdul-Nour, a Dubai-based former member of Assad's ruling Baath Party. "We're starting to hear calls for the regime's ouster."

Also startling was the scope of the protests — in multiple cities around the country of nearly 24 million.

Troops opened fire on more than 1,000 people marching in Syria's main Mediterranean port, Latakia. One activist told the AP that witnesses saw four slain protesters in a hospital. Another was reported killed in the central city of Homs, where hundreds of people demonstrated in support of Daraa and demanded reforms, he said. The activist, like others around the country, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the regime.

Demonstrators in the southern village of Sanamein tried to march to Daraa in support of the protesters, but were met by troops who opened fire, said an activist in Damascus in touch with witnesses there. He said the witnesses reported as many as 20 fatalities, though it was impossible to confirm the number.

A video posted on Facebook by Syrian pro-democracy activists showed five dead young men lying on stretchers in Sanamein as men wept around them. The voice of a woman could be heard saying, "Down with Bashar Assad."

An unidentified Syrian official asserted that an armed group attacked the army headquarters in Sanamein and tried to storm it, leading to a clash with guards.

Further protests erupted in the town of Douma, outside the capital, and the cities of Raqqa in the north and Zabadani in the west, near the border with Lebanon, a human rights activist said, reporting an unknown number of protesters detained.

The protests in Damascus appeared led by relatively well-off Syrians, many of whom who have been calling for reforms for years and have relatives jailed as political prisoners.

They contrast sharply with the working-class Sunni protesters in conservative Daraa, where small farmers and herders pushed off their land by drought have increasingly moved into the province's main city and surrounding villages, looking for work and in many cases growing angry at the lack of opportunity.

The protests in Daraa appeared to take on a sectarian dimension, with some accusing the regime of using Shiite Hezbollah and Iranian operatives in the crackdown.

The origin of the protests, far from urban centers, makes Syria's uprising similar to Tunisia's, in which demonstrations in towns and villages spread to cities, said Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East studies program at George Mason University.

That doesn't necessarily mean the regime is in danger, he said. "If this continues at the level we see right now or if the regime finds a way to deal with the protests at this level, the Syrian regime will be able to weather the storm." But he said the bloodshed could only cause protests to expand.

The White House urged Syria's government to cease attacks on protesters and Turkey said its neighbor should quickly enact reforms to meet legitimate demands. The U.N. said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke to Assad Friday morning and underlined "that governments had an obligation to respect and protect their citizens' fundamental rights."