Draft Posts (I): Love and Longing

I suspect that many bloggers like me start writing a post and for one reason or another never finish it and yet let it linger as a draft never to see the light of day. I have now decided to post some of them.  Some are personal expressions that I felt I needed to transmit, while others, mostly regarding Syria, retrace some of my thoughts leading up and including the Syrian uprising. Some are left unfinished and some are recently finished (blue font). The posts will be grouped in themes.

Love and Longing:

11/20/2010: I turn onto the gravel...

I turn onto the gravel yard a short distance from the horse stables, turn off the engine and wait.  Lehman farm is not unlike many in rural upstate New York, modest and unpretentious.  The barns are old and disheveled in appearance, but functional; and strewn behind the main building is the requisite assortment of derelict farm equipment.

About ten minutes later, I recognize the silhouette of my daughter against the late afternoon light, walking slowy towards the car. She had just finished her riding lesson. Along the path, a kitten trots up to her and rubs against her leg demanding her attention.  Yasmina cannot resist; she stops to pet the kitten for several minutes oblivious to my presence. Tired after a long day's work, I wanted to get going.  Then it occured to me as I watched my first born gently pet the kitten, that next year she will be an adult and away at college. A jumble of melancholic thoughts cloud my mind; it seemed like yesterday that I was rocking my baby girl to sleep. The clouds lifted quickly, however, when Yasmina, with her disarming smile, came up to the car window to show me her new feline friend.

12/6/2011 Hubbi

It had only been two days since you left and yet seeing your smiling face in the email picture was like a warm tonic for my heart. I felt like a teenage boy, smitten by a mixture of longing and love. There was something in your smile I had not seen in a while, a sense of ease, of contentment. Perhaps it was that levantine sun and blue Mediterranean in the background that has reinvigorated you or just the warm comforting embrace of your family. It is a funny thing about our respective places of birth, as much as they have been sources of grief, tragedy and displacement in our lifetime, it is where we feel most comfortable, most at ease. 

"Father Forgive Me": Young Aleppan Demonstrator Dies in his Father's Arms

As the UN Security Council deliberates about unarmed observers to be sent to Syria to oversee the Annan brokered ceasefire, or what's left of it, Bashar Al Assad's regime continues in its mendacity, ignoring the ceasefire when it deems convenient to continue killing it own unarmed civilians.  Below is perhaps one of the saddest and most poignant video clip from the Syrian uprising.  During demonstrations in Aleppo, a young boy, not older than fourteen is shot by security forces. In the clip the injured boy, ashen faced and his shirt blood stained, is seen running up to his father saying "forgive me father" as he lays his head on his father's shoulder and seems to lose ocnsciousness as he is quickly carried away by other demonstrators.

According to the Local Coordination Committee website, 27 Syrians lost their lives today, eight of whom died in Aleppo including the young boy in the video clip.  Not only has the killing gone on, the tanks and heavy artillery remain in place in violation of the Annan agreement.  It will take more than 30 unarmed observers to deal with this criminal regime!

The Real Bashar Al-Assad: War Criminal

The title is a different take on Camille Otrakji's recent post on Creative Syria titled: "The Real Bashar Al-Assad". That post seeks to whitewash Bashar's reputation with tired old irrelevant arguments.  Studiously absent from the arguments is the plain fact that Bashar Al-Assad, the authoritarian president of Syria and its commander in chief, has unleashed the full fire power of  the regular Syrian army as well as that of a non-uniformed militia loyal to him, indiscriminately against his own citizens. That very fact trumps any other argument about his actual versus perceived popularity, the actual size of any particular anti- or pro-Assad militia, any laudatory statements made about him by anyone prior to March 2011 and certainly not the fig leaf of his being the keeper of the flame of resistance against Israeli hegemony . In fact, based on the scale and the mutlifaceted abuse of his own citizens, Bashar Al Assad has become, by any of several definitions, a war criminal.

What constitutes a war crime has evolved over the last century. Encyclopedia Britannica's definition of war crime, in international law, it that of serious violation of the laws or customs of war as defined by international customary law and international treaties.  War crimes were initially meant to codify the rules of conduct between two uniformed armies from two countries in a armed conflict  The definition has expanded to include the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts.  These rules were codified in Geneva in 1977 in the protocol II addition to the 1949 Geneva Convention.  The rules of protocol II, which Syria signed and ratified, are specifically applicable to the events of the Syrian uprising starting in March 2011.  As you read the list the principal articles of protocol II, it becomes evident that the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad has violated if not all, certainly the majority of the relevant articles of the protocol. This ranges from the lack of due process, forced confessions and torture of prisoners; brutal violence against civilians including children, collective punishment, failure to provide medical care for the wounded; attacks on places of worship and attacks on medical personnel.

The documentary evidence to support the contention that war crimes were committed in Syria re overwhelming.  There are tens of thousands of amateur videos showing the misconduct of the government towards its own citizens.  The Local Coordinating Committees (LCC) has compiled numbers and eyewitness reports. Syria Tracker, a crowd sourced effort by US-based Syrians, re-purposed a health care software accurately track the number of victims of the Syrian uprising. The numbers they generate are said to be the most valid estimates of the number of casualties.  As of March 25, they count 11,813 deaths across Syria. In addition, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights commission have all come out with reports outlining the human rights abuses in Syria. Most damning has been the recent report by Amnesty International entitled: 'I want to die':Syria's torture survivors speak out. The report is based on extensive interviews of  dozens of ex-detainees who fled to Jordan and who hail from across Syria. This report is not for the faint of heart; the brutality of the regime's henchmen is vividly outlined including a description of the various modalities of torture used in the Syrian regime's detention facilities.

Bashar Al-Assad may think he is winning as he uses the last three days before the agreed upon UN cease fire deadline to inflict maximum pain on his citizenry -127 died today Saturday, April 7th.  However, to all objective observers, he stands no chance of reestablishing his authority. So whether he is gone in six months or in a year, the world will be waiting with a massive trove of evidence against him that will surely land him a spot in that rogue gallery of convicted war criminals.

Syrian Activists' Internet Radio

April 2, 2012

We can't tell you where Hussam and Rania live, but we can tell you they used to live in Syria's capital, Damascus.

Hussam was a creative director at a small marketing company he founded with a friend. Rania was the morning host for a radio station owned by the cousin of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Then came the protests all around Syria. Then came the phone call.

"The radio station called me, at home, and they said, 'Rania we have to say the truth,' " Rania says.

The "truth," they said, was that there were no protests and no demonstrations in Syria. Rania maintained it wasn't her job to talk about politics on the air, but her bosses persisted (read more)

New Beginning