SpiralDragon's Blog

So the Russians do not want Bashar to step down because they have a lucrative business going on with them, and also because it is their hand in the Middle East. The Turks don’t want Bashar to step down because they are terrified of a Kurdish uprising and probable declaration of independence. the Israelis do not want Bashar to step down because they are terrified of a free Arab world much more than they are of a despot who terrorizes his own people. So they, the Israelis, are doing the best they can to make the Arabs look as bad as possible to thwart the efforts of the Palestinians of gaining recognition for their statehood ... can any one remember the price that was paid by the Palestinians for recognizing Israel as a state?  the Israeli government of Netanyahu where taken by surprise when they had an uprising of their own ... a terrorist attack , followed by a bombing of Gaza , followed by the accidental killing of Egyptian border patrol . Following that, elements in Gaza ...

The Hypocrisy of the Lebanese; the Still Uncured Plague that Rapes my People On the 30th of July 2011, my wife and I attended a candle light vigil march in Montreal, in solidarity with the protesters in Syria, and especially with the children of Syria. I met a young Lebanese compatriot who was also participating in the march. I thought to myself that it is good that some Lebanese are liberated from the homeland mentality of follow-the-sectarian-leader-no-matter-what, and has decided, for himself, to participate in a march for dignity and true solidarity with the oppressed. Then I spoke with him and was severely disappointed. From the start he flaunted his diseased mentality to me, claiming that what “these people” need is the sage guidance of the Hakim (the doctor or Wise Man). A reference to one of Lebanon’s extremist Christian leaders, Samir Geagea , leader of the infamous Lebanese Forces . I was utterly stunned to see someone living in North America with such an anachronistic sen...

According to an article from the UK based The Guardian . It would seem that the US has been poking its head where it does not belong again, back dealing with the Syrian regime at the expense of the Syrian people. The US, the article claims, is promoting a roadmap for Syrian reforms, which is a good idea in itself, but not when it involves keeping Bashar al-Assad in power. The proposal does not even mention any Syrian official by name. How can the US propose such an unacceptable notion after the atrocities perpetrated by the Syrian Bathist regime of Bashar al-Assad and his butcher of a brother, Maher al-Assad? How can the US make such a preposterous proposition when the blood of more than 1,300 civilians is still freshly spilt on the streets of Syria? How can the US even suggest the idea of keeping Assad in power when he and his regime stand accused of torturing the Syrian people for voicing their grievances? How can such a proposal even leave the table when children are being tortu...

The question though who is he offering this amnesty to? To the protesters whom have been protesting and demanding what is rightfully theirs? The Syrian people whom have lived under the oppressiveness of the regime most of their lives? The Syrian people who have been subjected to torture and random abduction long before the protested started? The Syrian people who did no more than blog about the conditions in syria and edned up being charged with espionage and convicted and sent to prison like Tal al-Mallohi , too young to believe that she, a veiled Muslim girl, could doing any sort of spying for the west? Or maybe the amnesty is for Hamza and Thamer , the 13 and 15 year old kids (respectively) who where abducted, tortured, mutilated, castrated and then cold bloodily murdered?  Or is the amnesty for those soldiers who refused to abide by the regime's criminal orders to kill the people, the soldiers who did their duty and defend...

In Northern Lebanon 600 Lebanese and Syrians staged a protest in solidarity with the Syrian people after Friday prayers. Knowing the way things run in Lebanon, there were probably some hot headed idiots who thought they could take matters in to their own hands and defend the Butcher of Syria, Bashar al Assad, the illegitimate president of Syria, against those who wish him rightfully gone. This happened in and around Bab al-Tabaneh and Jabal Mohsen, in the environs of the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. I am someone who believes that people are entitled to their opinion, as a basic human right. But it is one thing to exercise that right peacefully and totally a different thing to take out a gun and start shooting people who disagree with that opinion. Supporters of the Assad regime in Lebanon have gone too far this time..... not that they or any of the other hot headed Lebanese don’t usually do so whether they are pro Assad or pro anything else for that matter.... but as a matter...

Its been a long time coming, but news now is beginning to trickle in of soldiers defecting and protecting the unarmed civilians being slaughtered by the Syrian regime. Brave men who know the true meaning of being a soldier are doing what is required of them; sacrificing their lives to protect, not Bashar al Assad and his tyrannical regim, but those whom they have sworn to protect; the Syrian people. Details are a little sketchy, but from what little real news we have, un-collored by the syrian state news outlests, and spoken by the voice of syrian citizens fleeing the violane in the north of the country, it would seem that several tanks and their crew turned around on the advancing forces of the regime and fiered upon their comrads in order to prevent them from murdering any more citizens at Jisr al-Shughur. These are unarmed citizens which the regime insist...

I'cant say I am not disappointed. For weeks I, and other like me have been following the blog of one Amina Arraf, supposedly a half American half Syrian gay girl living in Damascus and actively participating in the Syrian uprising. we all thought "she" was courages to come out as a gay, a girl, and a protester and be so vocal in her criticism of the  Syrian regime and the Butcher of Syria, the Tyrant Bashar al Assad.  We followed "Amina" with a great deal of interest, never doubted her credibility. "She" wrote with a passionate fluency, and caught our hearts, not just with her criticism of the Syrian regime, but also with her stories of love, life and coming out as a lesbian in the Arab world, normally considered to be too conservative and intolerant of homosexuality. The details in "her" writing where too good, too clear, and to...

The Syrian regime keeps insisting that it does not torture its people and that they are fighting dangerous Islamists. How dangerous is a 15 year old boy? Thamer al-Sahri was a friend of Hamza Ali al Kahteeb , the 13 year old kid whose body showed sever singes of torture, burn marks, bullet wounds, and castration, Thamer's fate was not different, his body showing singes of sever torture, burn marks, bullet wounds.... and castration. who ever theier tormentor is, he seems to enjoy inflicting pain in a most perverse way. And these are the thugs that the Syrian regime employs to quell the "islamists".  This is what the Syrian people endure on a daily basis these days. people disappear without a trace only to show up later either dead from sever torture or still alive but mutilated and broken.  This is a regime that will not spare anyone its brutality to quell the uprising of a people whom have had enough and who will no longer be silent or accept to be oppressed by thi...

It has been three days since Amina was abducted. She rose to prominence through her blog, G ay Girl in Damascus , where she wrote not only of her sexual orientation, but also of the atrocities in Syria as an activist against the regime. new of her abduction had spreed like a wild fire in the last two days only to recently discover that the photos that the media have been using of her where not of her but of some other lady who lives in the UK and has no connection to Syria in the remotest way. obviously someone, mucked this up pretty badly, probably some news reporter somewhere someplace. So naturally, now that there is no news from our heroin or any of her relatives, doubtful minds have taken over to challenge even her existence.. So what is the truth? Does Amina exist or does she not? No one but a handful really know the truth at this point but...

Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari is still missing a day after she was abducted by the Syrian regime thugs. Amina, the editor of A Gay Girl In Damascus blog , had been in hiding since the last time the thugs tried to "arrest" her for being critically vocal of the Syrian regime's crack down on the Arab Spring protesters. Followers of her blog are spreading the word as far as they can to generate media attention and apply political pressure against the regime to free her and the thousands of innocent Syrians who are being held without trail in the prisons of the Syrian regimes, where they reportedly brutally tortured and murdered. Amina is an "out" lesbian, a Muslim, and holds dual Syrian and American citizenships.  She was brave to openly declare herself a lesbian in a world that is more conservative than the bible belt of the america, but considerably less conservati...

Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari, has been abducted off the streets of Damascus by the criminals of the Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad. Amina has been a very vocal opponent of the Assad regime since the start of the popular revolt against him in Syria earlier this year. The Gay Girl in Damascus blog  has been a rare window in to the atrocities that are taking place in Syria, where the regime is killing protesters at random. A few weeks ago a 13 year old child, Hamza Alkhateeb  was brutally murdered after he was severely tortured, severely beaten, electrocuted, castrated, and then shot dead. A man  who was caught during one of the protests has come out and spoken of the kind of brutality exercised against him, and others like him by, the criminals of the Assad regime. Details were also conveyed by the Aljazeera journalist, Dorothy Parvaz ,  who was detained, about a month ago by the very regime, and who has witnessed the atrocities of Syrian jails. Amina, the gay...

When a tyrannical regime begins torturing and killing children as young as 13 years old, accusing them of being agents of terrorist organisations, one begins to wonder how sane that regime is. Hamza al Khateeb was a decent young man who embodied the kindness and hospitality of the Arab youth.  Hamza, put others, even strangers and especially those less fortunate, before himself. a 13 year old who shamed his parents in to giving a homeless person $2, not a fortune by western standards but for Syrians $2 can mean a descent meal. for a long time we, the Arab people, have been told of the atrocities committed by the Israeli armed forces; the slaughter of children, women and elderly at the hands of the "zionists". Tal al Zaatar. Sabra and Shatila. Qana. the first and second Lebanon War. there is no doubt that the Israelis have killed mercilessly.  The imag...

so the mighty US has spoken and, for once, I agree in principle with this thought. Right now, the best thing Hamas could do for the cause of the Palestinian people is to actually recognize Israel, as there is no logical or realistic way that Israel is going to cease to exists, the proverbial ignored pink elephant flying all around the room, must now be faced. with honesty and honor. condoning and conducting the murder of innocent children, women and elderly citizens of Israel is no better than the merciless slaughter of Palestinian children, women, and elderly citizens. Hamas would be no better than the IDF and certianly very un-Islamic if it contijnues to condone and conduct such barberous acts. it is time to face the facts; Israel is not going to go away; killing inocent children, women and elderly is unjustifiable and will never acomplish anything significant what soever. it is time for Hamas to wake up and realize that the now hav...

As a human being, I can never condone what has been done against the Jewish sematic people over the past two thousand years, culminating in the demonically atrocious holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis against them during the second world war. Equally, I cannot condone the Israeli nation’s atrocities that have perpetrated against the sematic Palestinian people. Just as I can equally not condone the atrocities carried out by the Palestinians and Hezbollah against Israel and the West. Just as I can never condone the west’s atrocities, under the falls guise of the war against terrorism, against the eastern world. Violence begets violence begets violence begets more violence, a never ending spiral of despair and desolation. Militant Hezbollah must go and they must go peacefully rather than at the end of a gun. If Hezbollah does not relinquish its militancy then they will be guilty of dragging, unwillingly, the entire region into a war that will dwarf the atrocities of the Second World War....

I have never agreed with Hezbollah, especially not with their militant reason d'etre, I have never even sympathized with Hezbollah, always maintaining that they should be disarmed, regardless of the Israeli occupation. For to allow a faction in Lebanon to be the only one that bares arms is an invitation for that faction the right to impose its hegemony. Especially when dealing with the other feudal lords.  However, I have, or had, respected Hezbollah, because they, at least politically, where far less corrupt, and far more honest than all the other pseudo Lebanese politicians, aka feudal lords.  That however, does not mean that I ever agreed with their principles or that I would have allowed myself to follow them.  I did however, respect them, because they were to only force that stood in the way of Israeli aggression and championed the cause of the underdog, the David, manifested in Palestinians, against the goliath, manifested in the Israelis.  But I never had ...

Most Lebanese where not happy with the fact that there still existed a relic of the civil war, armed to the teeth, governing its own territory despite the existence of a national and sovereign Lebanese government, by principle, even amidst the current power vacuum. But we accepted it because the Lebanese military, after the divisive civil war, had been made week and a non-entity and could not face the Israeli or Syrian occupiers. This is not to say that the other factions, the feudal lords of the Christians, Druze or Muslims, where any better. They were corrupt to the core and did not do much for the nation. They were still a menace; it’s just that they were no longer armed. Only Hezbollah remained armed. And only Hezbollah remained standing in the face of a brutal invader who killed, heedlessly, children, women and unarmed civilians under the guise of defense against those who would “drive them in to the sea”, and that is how they sold their war to the west, and especially to the A...