by John Reimann

NOTE: sparked by a critixism of another article on use of poison gas in Syria, we are reviewing other early articles on the Syrian revolution and counter-revolution. This article is partially correct, but the war in Syria was not a war by proxy. It was not the US manipulating one side and Russia the other. In fact, the US to some degree sided with Russia and Assad in fighting the Islamic fundamentalists. Overall, we stand by much of what is in the article, but we got wrong the degree of involvement and the role of the US.
The world powers are playing out a drama in Syria. In this drama, the human beings are but bits of scenery on the stage of history. The young child who has suddenly become an orphan, the widowed mother of three who is forced to flee over the border to Turkey to seek some chance of survival, the young man moaning in pain as he dies a hideous death on the battle field — these are mere numbers. The fact that they add up to an estimated 100,000 deaths by June, 2013 and 28,000 reported missing and as many as 1.5 million forced to flee to neighboring countries — what does this matter to these forces?

Read more: 146 Syria pdf