Law, Power, and Justice

SATURDAY 7 DECEMBER 2024

Syria

After decades of support, Iran is abandoning Syria.  Rebels are expected to advance soon on Damascus.  Iran seems unable to muster a defense of Assad and his government.  Iran “operated military bases, weapons warehouses and missile factories” in Syria.  The Iranians were shocked with how quickly the rebels gained ground and the Syrian Army abandoned its bases.  (Note: Podcast comment that Assad was paying soldiers with badly inflated currency, so they were broke.) 

Some commented that this would make Israel the “dominant force” in the region.   (NYT, 12/7/240

SUNDAY MORNING 8 DECEMBER 2024

Syria (Telegraph, 12/8/24)

Russian ships left days ago from the port of Tartus in Syria.  Tim Collins, former British Army officer, writes in the Telegraph that the Russians are “desperately evacuating their warm-water naval base” in Syria.  Collins continued, “this is a disaster for Putin.”  He now has no warm water naval access. 

Collins at one point years ago thought that the separate Kurdish groups could unite, but it seems they are now characterized by infighting and disunity.

Regime change in Tehran is now a possibility.

Iranian embassy in Damascus has been stormed. 

Assad has left the country.  There were reports on Reuters that his plane had crashed, but the reporting was later taken down.

Sources are not sure where Assad is, but one plane that took off from Damascus flew toward the western coast of Syria toward a region which is a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect, then the plane did a u turn and disappeared. 

The Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia.  The new rebel group is part of the Sunni Arab majority.

CNN

• Nobody knows where Assad is.  CNN is reporting that he left the country in a Russian plane.  Even though Russia is saying that he gave orders to hand over power peacefully, CNN is reporting that as recently as yesterday, Assad was telling his forces to fight. 
• 54-year reign of the Assad family.
• It is a “momentous” set back for the allies of Syria.  Nic Robertson, CNN.  For Iran, Russia and Hezbollah, it is a massive “blow.”

Podcast: BBC Global News. (12/8/24) Damascus Special.

• HTS (rebel group) says Assad has fled the country.  (Note: I don’t understand surviving a civil war and then risking everybody’s life by shooting bullets in the air.)
• BBC Arabic reporter says, Assad and his family have left.  It is returning to an “Arab Spring” (Note: Note sure I understand this reference to the Arab Spring?) after more than 14 years of civil war.  Russia was not willing to fight for the Assad regime anymore.  (Note: Podcast comment, Syrian military forces wouldn’t fight and the Russians told them, you won’t fight?  We aren’t fighting for you.)   Whenever the rebels conquer a city, they release the prisoners believing they are political prisoners.  (Note: As a criminologist and sympathetic to inmates, this is an assumption that will come back to bite you.)  The rebel group now controls the official TV.  Who is going to deliver the message for the group and what will that message be?
• Some of the actors were affiliated with DASH or IS.  There were no atrocities when they entered these cities.  They may have reinvented themselves into a more moderate group, but that is only speculation. 
• HTS (rebel group) is head of this offensive.
•   
• Frank Gardner, BBC Security Correspondent:
• If they (HTS) do rule fairly and for all Syrians and not persecute minorities, they will get that designation (as a terrorist group) removed by the UN Security Council, but if they do what the Taliban did – push the country back to a dark age – the future is going to “be bleak.” 
• A big question is what Russia will do.  Russians made an official statement: We will do whatever it takes to combat this terrorist organization. 
• They are losing their protégé in Syria and an airbase and seaport. 
• Syria is a cosmopolitan county – there are a great number of factions, and for the group that supported Assad, there is likely fear among the Alawites.  They have been loyal to Assad.  Turkey, backing the rebels, said to Assad regime – we offered you a way out of this and you didn’t’ want to hear.  (Note: I’m not sure what he was talking about here.)
• This is Russia’s and Iran’s problem.  And Turkey because they backed the rebels.  There is a small contingent of US forces.  (Note: Biden said today in a dreadful example of how he cannot read a teleprompter anymore, that we would protect the American troops there.)
• If chaos ensues, ISIS will try to take advantage of it.  There are thousands of prisoners guarded by Syrian Kurds in Syria.
•  
• International Correspondent:
• Negotiations were going on into the night on Saturday, trying to find a compromise. 
• The HTS has tried to reassure Syrians and the international community that they are not as radical.  The concern may be about the leader and his transition to a less radical fundamentalist, but there is also concern about the people around him.    
• Lavrov said that terrorists cannot rule Syria, but there is a new reality.
• In 2011, people were not even calling for Assad’s ouster, but just for more democracy.  Assad never moved an inch.  Most Syrians are living in poverty.  Some family members have disappeared into the prison system.
• (Note: The State Department released a statement documenting the fact that Assad had built a crematorium in the prison just outside Damascus to burn the bodies of all the people he was killing.  Where is the f…ing media?  I never heard of this.  We get no international news and it is only worse since the election.  Joe and the dreadful Mika have taken to talking more and more about sports.)

MSNBC

• US strikes on ISIS in Middle East. 

Well, I’m out of it for tonight. I am livid actually. Rep. James (did a deal to keep Bernie Sanders from being the Democratic nominee) Clyburn is publicly advocating a pardon FOR DONALD TRUMP. I am so mad I can hardly contain myself. Clyburn is spouting this “healing” nonsense. No, we do not need a pardon for Donald Trump to heal. We need to see that he is not above the law. I am 73 and if they pardon Donald Trump and the rest of the Democratic elite (see Laurence Tribe) I will start a revolution myself.

Night from the snarky old lady.