The Military Solution in Syria (Updated)

Der Spiegel is in despair over what appears to be an impending victory for the Assad regime over its opponents in the civil war in Syria:

Aleppo has been a horrific place for some time now and few thought that it could get much worse. But things can always get worse — that’s the lesson currently being learned by those who have stayed behind in an effort to outlast this brutal conflict. People who have become used to dead bodies in the streets, hunger and living a life that can end at any moment.

“For the last two weeks, we’ve been living a nightmare that is worse than everything that has come before,” says Hamza, a young doctor in an Aleppo hospital. At the beginning, in 2011, he was treating light wounds, stemming from tear gas or beatings from police batons. When the regime began dropping barrel bombs in 2012, the injuries got worse. But now, with the beginning of the Russian airstrikes, the doctors are facing an emergency. Every two or three hours, warplanes attack the city, aiming at everything that hasn’t yet been destroyed, including apartment buildings, schools and clinics. Often, they use cluster bombs, which have been banned internationally.

Somehow the article manages to ignore the many firsthand reports of life going on peacefully and as usual in Aleppo outside the areas held by the opposition and the multiple reports of large numbers of foreign fighters in the opposition, many from the Gulf states but also from Chechnya and even Uyghurs from China. It’s pretty darned hard to characterize an invading army as a popular revolt.

Also ignored is that Russia is operating within international law while Western support and training for the opposition is going on without Security Council approval or, indeed, any kind of approval other than the policies of the countries involved. It’s getting harder and harder to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

Update

Stephen Kinzer at the Boston Globe provides a little supporting testimony:

COVERAGE OF the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why.

For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents: “Don’t send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin.” Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey and sold it.

This month, people in Aleppo have finally seen glimmers of hope. The Syrian army and its allies have been pushing militants out of the city. Last week they reclaimed the main power plant. Regular electricity may soon be restored. The militants’ hold on the city could be ending.

We’ve been supporting Al Qaeda. Our allies in the field have been largely financed and supported by foreigners with relatively little domestic support. And Der Spiegel is calling what’s happening now a tragedy? The tragedy has been running rampant in Aleppo for three years.

6 comments… add one
  • ... Link

    It’s not harder & harder to tell the good guys from the bad guys in Syria. You just don’t like the answers.

  • michael reynolds Link

    There are no good guys with the exception of the Kurds. Everyone else is one type of asshole or another. You might as well look for good guys in a brawl at a maximum security prison.

    I still say we should invite the North Koreans in, just so we can collect the entire set.

  • Andy Link

    Aleppo is so peaceful because most of the population has fled.

    ” multiple reports of large numbers of foreign fighters in the opposition, many from the Gulf states but also from Chechnya and even Uyghurs from China. It’s pretty darned hard to characterize an invading army as a popular revolt.”

    That depends on what you’re talking about. If it’s the ISIS controlled areas, then that’s correct. If it’s the other opposition areas which are the areas the pro-government forces are primarily attacking, then it’s not correct.

    Secondly, Russia’s and Syria’s conduct in this conflict is not consistent with international law, though you wouldn’t know it from the lack of press coverage. There is clearly a double-standard – if the US conducted the kind of campaign that Russia is conducting, the howls of “war crimes” would be endless.

  • steve Link

    I have decided that the press reporting on this is extremely anti- Russian or pro-Russian. Pro-Assad or anti-Assad. That we mostly don’t know what is really happening. The narrative is being heavily controlled by all sides. Anyway, I don’t think we have really allies in Syria. Maybe the Kurds, but they also have their own agenda.

    Steve

  • If it’s the other opposition areas which are the areas the pro-government forces are primarily attacking, then it’s not correct.

    Do you have evidence for that, Andy? My understanding is that five years ago the opposition fighters were mostly Syrians but that has changed, particularly in the last year, and Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda in Syria) and the Free Syrian Army now have lots of foreign fighters.

  • TastyBits Link

    The press is a business like everything else, and like everything else, it is subject to the working of the free-market. In the free-market, all participants, everything and everybody, can be bought and sold.

    When your economic, political, and ethical frameworks conflict with your philosophical foundation, you have a problem, and destroying the foundation does not solve the problem.

    I have mostly stopped caring about the Middle East, and I do not follow it very closely. I keep tabs on Col. Lang’s site, but I never really vetted it. When I vet something I check out as much of their output as possible, and I check their linked primary sources.

    It is a time consuming process, but it is the only way to ensure there is good information. You also tend to become really well informed about the subject matter. Even then, it is possible for something to get through, but if it agrees with my position too much, I want to know why.

    A few days ago there was a post at Col. Lang’s site about a Senate Letter, but I only saw part of it in my RSS reader. Before I could get to it, another post was added that retracted the previous post due to the questionable source of the letter. I do not want to disparage him or any of his contributors, but I find this profoundly disturbing. This is not intel from the backwaters of third world country.

    To many people, “fake but true” is a valid premise to am argument, and this includes the traditional media. If it seems true or if it fits the agreed upon narrative, it must be true no matter how false it is, and it is not the customers simply accepting this. It is the customers demanding it, and in the free-market, those demands will be met.

    As to the actual situation in Syria, I am sure it will be another “nobody could have known”, or it will be blamed on bad intel.

Leave a Comment