Meet the secular, US-approved Fee Syrian Army

This from a UN source: "the rate of school attendance at Zaatari is dropping drastically because FSA in the camp is asking parents to send their kids to the mosque instead where they get religious teaching... what a future!

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

Rendition project

""They beat me and kicked me, roughing me up badly. Another person took pictures of me, and then one of them forcefully stuck his finger into my anus. I was in severe pain and began to faint.""

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

"Sexual assaults in South Korea by U.S. military"

"The report paints a grimmer picture of the climate surrounding sexual assaults in Korea than that portrayed by U.S. military officials." (thanks Amir)

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

a regime that bombs its people: the US II

From Jon:  Hey As'ad, Re: Harding bombing miners... The US attacked its own people from air more recently in at least two other cases,  i) Attica, 1971: the prison assault began with an Army helicopter
dropping gas into the courtyard... Wiki: The New York State Special Commission on Attica wrote, "With the exception of Indian massacres in the late 19th century, the State Police assault which ended the four-day prison uprising was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War." ii) In 1985, Philly police ended a siege on MOVE by bombing them with plastic explosives dropped from a helicopter, burning 11 people to death, including five children, along with the entire city block (65 homes). There are probably others that are just as instructive, too, eh?"

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

The Syrian-Qatari Observatory for Human Rights must have stumbed on Nicholas Blanford’s secret Hizbullah’s sources

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, cited unidentified "sources close to the militant group" for its Hezbollah death toll Monday." Is this statement not enough to discredit anything that comes out of this Center? I mean, really.  (thanks Basim)

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

Flash. Syrian regime ends state of war with Israel

Read all about it. The lousy Syrian regime declared an end to the state of war with Israel and said that by firing yesterday at an Israeli military vehicle in the Golan it fulfilled its promise back in 1974 to determine "the time and place of the battle with Israel" and considers the conditions of liberation to have been met.  The firing ends the state of war with Israel, as far as the Syrian regime is concerned.

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

`Abdul-Rahim Murad and Anne Barnard

It is funny if you think about it.  Ms. Anne Barnard sat I don't know how many times with Murad, the pro-Syrian regime Lebanese politician, but she cited him several times in recent weeks and she thought that he was a member of parliament.  What would happen to a Le Monde correspondent in Washington, DC if she/he interviewed some one in DC and mistakenly introduced him to readers as member of Congress? Think about it.

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad


He changed his name from Bashshar

"Ms. Rifai said that among the refugees, she had encountered a 4-year-old boy named Bashar who said he was ashamed to have the same given name as Mr. Assad and had decided to call himself Mohammed instead."  Yes, because he would be beaten up in that camp and in that vicinity for that name, just as families who named their children Saddam in Iraq later had to changed the names of those sons especially that some of the parents switched sides and fought with the "liberators.

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

Which is more terrorist?

I was thinking about this this morning: which is more terrorist? The Fee Syrian Army or the Nusrah Front? I think a strong case can be made that the Fee Syrian Army is in fact more terrorist than the Nusrah front and has committed far more acts of terror than the Nusrah front? 

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

Media claims on Syria

"The fierce fighting in Qusayr pits mainly Alawite and Shiite fighters on the side of President Bashar al-Assad against rebels who are mostly Sunnis..." Not only Anne Barnard, who can't really be faulted given her lack of training in Middle East studies and reporting, but all the rest: notice that they still insist that only `Alawites are fighting in the Syrian regime army when most soldiers are in fact Sunnis.  The reality really bothers their narrative so they simply invent a new reality to fit their sectarian picture fed to them by the armed groups.

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

the miraculous claims of the Syrian armed opposition

It is quite amazing that Western media still manage to reproduce verbatim without any critical scrutiny the bizarre claims of the Syrian armed groups:  "The combat of the past three days, including nearly continuous artillery shelling from the army, has left scores of civilians dead, he said, estimating the toll at 64 civilians killed and more than 500 wounded..." Whenever they are engaged in combat, they produce claims of death and injury that seem to only affect civilians.  Miracuslously, the fighters never seem to suffer casualties by their claims.  If you follow the claims of the armed groups in Western media, you reach this conclusion: that bombs and bullets of the Syrian regime only kill and injure civilians, while bombs and bullets of the armed groups only kill and injure regime soldiers (and shabbihah--don't forget).  Who in his right mind would believe those claims--I mean, other than Anne Barnard?

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

"Why Is Russia Still Arming Syria?"

"Why Is Russia Still Arming Syria?"  Simple. For the same reason that US, Germany, UK, France, UAE, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain are arming the Syrian armed opposition movement.  I mean, you did not know that at the Times?

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

dumb response to Massad’s article

Not pleased that this piece appears on Mondoweiss: "What is interesting about the article is that it – as is usual – identifies Jews as Ashkenazim only.  For all that Massad has relationships with Mizrahi Jews, his thinking remains monocausal and racist. Jews never lived in the Middle East and all discussion of Jewish identity and Zionism must be tied exclusively to Europe."  Comrade Joseph has written extensively on the distinction between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, but he is talking about the leadership of Zionists who were and are still Ashkenazim. 

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

Zionists: they abuse humans and animals

"Israeli food giant admits to abusive slaughterhouse conditions"

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad


House of Saud media: they feign sensitivity to anti-Semitism

Al-Arabiyya, the mouthpiece of King Fahd's brother-in-law dares to refer to Joseph Massad's anti-Zionist article as "anti-Jewish".  It is rather ironic that House of Saud media feel qualified to comment on whether something is anti-Jewish or not.  Has there ever been a media, since the Nazi era, that has vomited more vile anti-Semitism that House of Saud media?  This is a media that has specialized in producing hatred of Jews and others.  This is a media that still talks about Marxism as a Jewish conspiracy an that borrows heavily from Nazi propaganda on the subject.  They now want to comment on the matter? 

PS These are the most read articles in this sleazy House of Saud website:  "Amina Tyler, Tunisia’s ‘topless jihad’ activist, caught and under arrest".

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

The other side of American "liberation" in WWII: GIs just wanna have "fun"

"This isn’t the “greatest generation” as it has come to be depicted in popular histories. But in “What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American G.I. in World War II France,” the historian Mary Louise Roberts draws on French archives, American military records, wartime propaganda and other sources to advance a provocative argument: The liberation of France was “sold” to soldiers not as a battle for freedom but as an erotic adventure among oversexed Frenchwomen, stirring up a “tsunami of male lust” that a battered and mistrustful population often saw as a second assault on its sovereignty and dignity."

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

The US is outraged: why would a Russian polling organization be required to register as a foreign agent?

"In a letter, prosecutors said Levada could not continue to release its work without identifying itself as “a foreign agent,” as required under a new law...The prosecutor’s letter, dated Wednesday, details a series of grants the center received from the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Institute Foundation, amounting to around $800,000 over a three-year period. Mr. Gudkov said foreign sources accounted for no more than 3 percent of the center’s funding."  Correct me if I am wrong, is it different in the US? If a US research group were to receive Russian funding in any amount, would it not be required to register as a foreign agent?

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

Aljazeera fabricates

"According to audience data produced for Q1 2013 by Ipsos and Sigma, two independent media research agencies, Al Jazeera's daily viewership across the MENA region was 34 percent higher than all the other pan-Arab channels combined." Can you tell us more about the audience data research by the two groups, please? thanks. (thanks Omar)

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

Rashid Ghannushi’s daughter

You may want to follow on my personal (not Angry Arab) account on twitter the responses by Rashid Ghannushi's daughter, Yusra, to my latest Al-Akhbar English article on the era of Arab atheism.

Posted on May 22, 2013 by As'ad

The Kennedy children bother me much more than the Kardashian sisters.

Read above.

Posted on May 21, 2013 by As'ad