Syrian Communist Party (Unified) - Report on the Crisis
The dangerous situation in which our country is living makes us highlight the basic points made public by our party from the time the crisis has broken out until now:
1. To defend our homeland against any foreign intervention regardless of its name and justification, and to consider this mission as the fundamental circle and a compass guiding our political stances.
2. To restore security, stability and tranquility for citizens; through putting an end to devastation, sabotage murder and terrorism against citizens, public and private installations.
3. The emphasis that a political solution should be based on dialogue with all patriotic powers, which raise the following (no’s); no to foreign intervention; to violence, and sectarianism and ethnic orientations, on one hand and, to persist political dialogue with their powers, on the other.
4. To put an end to all security irregularities, to avoid hurting innocent civilians and to pay attention to the humanitarian and living conditions in areas where tension prevails.
5. To take all measures necessary for regaining the confidence of citizens, through releasing political prisons and detainees holding those who committed security transgressions accountable, and to make public the findings of the committee formed to investigate out law deeds, and to punish those who committed them severely.
6. To quicken the steps taken for the purpose of declaring an all embracing national reconciliation, spread the spirit of tolerance and forgiveness and to remove all the remains of the sorrowful fighting which took place in those areas.
7. - To have the articles of the constitution instantly implemented in letter and spirit once it has been adopted and to continue applying reforms in every field.
8. - To take to take all measures necessary for putting an end to the chaos in prices, to use an iron fist against “war merchants” who exploit the current circumstances to achieve narrow material gains at the expense of citizens.
9. - To strengthen the militancy of the party, widen its contacts with the masses as well as all patriotic forces and parties, whether they be old or new under the motto “Homeland is First”.
Politbureau of the Syrian Communist Party (Unified)
Damascus 22-2-2012
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Wikileaks: U.S. forces already in Syria, training opposition forces
I spent most of the afternoon at the Pentagon with the USAF strategic
studies group - guys who spend their time trying to understand and explain to the USAF chief the big picture in areas where they’re operating in. It was just myself and four other guys at the Lieutenant Colonel level,
including one French and one British representative who are liaising with
the US currently out of DC.
They wanted to grill me on the strategic picture on Syria, so after that I
got to grill them on the military picture. There is still a very low level
of understanding of what is actually at stake in Syria, what’s the
strategic interest there, the Turkish role, the Iranian role, etc. After a
couple hours of talking, they said without saying that SOF teams
(presumably from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the ground focused on recce missions and training opposition forces. One Air Force intel guy (US) said very carefully that there isn’t much of a Free Syrian Army to train right now anyway, but all the operations being done now are being done out of ‘prudence.’ The way it was put to me was, ‘look at this way - the level of information known on Syrian OrBat this month is the best it’s been since 2001.’ They have been told to prepare contingencies and be ready to act within 2-3 months, but they still stress that this is all being done as contingency planning, not as a move toward escalation.
I kept pressing on the question of what these SOF teams would be working toward, and whether this would lead to an eventual air camapign to give a Syrian rebel group cover. They pretty quickly distanced themselves from that idea, saying that the idea ‘hypothetically’ is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within. There wouldn’t be a need for air cover, and they wouldn’t expect these Syrian rebels to be marching in columns anyway.So. There you go.
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January 26: Down with “Australia Day” (equivalent to U.S. “Thanksgiving”) and its celebration of the genocide of Indigenous peoples! Long live the Aboriginal resistance!
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