UnrepentantLiberal
UnrepentantLiberal's JournalSyria rebels overrun Aleppo military base
Source: BBC News
Rebel fighters are reported to have captured large parts of a big military base in northern Syria, the latest in a string of losses by government forces.
The attack on Base 111 at Sheikh Suleiman, about 25km (15 miles) west of the city of Aleppo, on Sunday, was said to have been led by Islamist militants.
Video posted online showed them seizing military vehicles, including a tank.
Rebel forces are said to have entered Base 111, whose headquarters are in Sheikh Suleiman, on Sunday afternoon after weeks of fighting.
The videos posted online showed rebels driving around in a captured tank and manning anti-aircraft guns. They also showed the rebels sporting the insignia and black flags of radical jihadist militants.
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20666047
Someone here is picking on the disadvantaged
Being sarcasm impaired is a terrible thing.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1240182485
Syrian rebels unify, create new 30-member council
Source: AP
BEIRUT — Syrian rebel commanders have elected a new 30-member leadership council and a chief of staff, a senior rebel said Saturday in a major step toward unifying the opposition that is fighting to oust President Bashar Assad.
The Supreme Military Council, which was chosen Friday during a meeting in Turkey, will work with the political leadership that was chosen last month in Qatar.
But the al-Qaida inspired group Jabhat al-Nusra, was excluded, the rebel official said, as the rebels apparently move to sideline the extremists who have proven skilled fighters but raised concerns among Western allies.
The rebel official, a senior member of the main rebel group the Free Syrian Army, said more than 550 rebel commanders and representatives began meeting Wednesday in the Turkish resort of Antalya. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal the meeting's outcome.
The fight to oust Assad has long been hobbled by the opposition's inability to forge a united front and command structure. The move was the most serious attempt by the rebels, who are backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, to fix that. If successful, it could be a turning point in the conflict as the rebels close in on the capital Damascus, Assad's seat of power.
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/12/08/chemical-weapons-syria-assad/1755377/
The PSY scandal: singing about killing people v. constantly doing it
Americans would benefit from less outrage at anti-US sentiment and more energy toward understanding why it's so widespread
By Glenn Greenwald
The Guardian
Dec 8, 2012
Which of these two stories is causing more controversy and outrage in the US?
New York Daily News, Friday:
"Fiercely anti-American lyrics from Korean rapper Psy have been unearthed just two weeks before the star is scheduled to perform for President Obama.
"The 'Gangnam Style' singer calls for US soldiers to be killed in one song, prompting a short-lived petition to ax Psy from the bill at the Christmas in Washington celebration.
"In 2004, Psy rapped on a South Korean metal band's song, 'Dear American', at a protest concert, The Washington Post reported. 'Kill those f---ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives', he said. 'Kill those f---ing Yankees who ordered them to torture. Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers. Kill them all slowly and painfully.'
"Two years earlier, after a pair of Korean schoolgirls were mowed down by a U.S.-operated armored vehicle, Psy again expressed vitriol toward America. Onstage, he smashed a plastic model of a U.S. tank into pieces as the crowd cheered, The Korea Herald reported.
The Guardian, Friday:
"The US military is facing fresh questions over its targeting policy in Afghanistan after a senior army officer suggested that troops were on the lookout for 'children with potential hostile intent'".
"In comments which legal experts and campaigners described as 'deeply troubling', army Lt Col Marion Carrington told the Marine Corp Times that children, as well as 'military-age males', had been identified as a potential threat because some were being used by the Taliban to assist in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces. . . .
"In the article, headlined 'Some Afghan kids aren't bystanders', Carrington referred to a case this year in which the Afghan national police in Kandahar province said they found children helping insurgents by carrying soda bottles full of potassium chlorate.
"The piece also quoted an unnamed marine corps official who questioned the 'innocence' of Afghan children, particularly three who were killed in a US rocket strike in October. Last month, the New York Times quoted local officials who said Borjan, 12, Sardar Wali, 10, and Khan Bibi, eight, from Helmand's Nawa district had been killed while gathering dung for fuel.
Whatever else one wants to say, the US is a country that, for more than a decade, has loudly and continuously declared itself to be a "nation at war". It's not "at war" in any one county, but in many countries around the globe.
In the last four years alone, it has used drones to end people's lives in six predominantly Muslim country (probably more). Under its Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader, it has repeatedly wiped out entire families (including just this week), slaughtered dozens of children at a time, targeted and killed people rescuing and grieving its victims, and either deliberately or recklessly dropped bombs on teenagers (including its own citizens), then justified it with the most foul and morally deranged rationale.
It embraces and props up the world's most repressive tyrants. It isolates itself from the world and embraces blatant double standards in order to enable the worst behavior of its client states. It continues to maintain a global network of prisons where people are kept indefinitely in cages with no charges. It exempts itself and its leaders from the international institutions of justice while demanding that the leaders of other, less powerful states be punished there. And it is currently in the process of suffocating a nation of 75 million people with an increasingly sadistic sanctions regime, while proudly boasting about it and threatening more.
More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/08/psy-lyrics-anti-us-anger
Second Circuit case on DOMA may be high court’s strongest contender for deciding law's fate
(Don't know if this was posted here or not but it sunk like a stone in GD.)
By Dr. Suzanne B. Goldberg
American Constitution Society for Law and Policy
While marriage equality supporters have been giving thanks for the recent ballot box victories and the Second Circuit’s Windsor v. U.S. decision, the most recent Defense of Marriage strike-down by a federal court in mid-October, the law-focused among us are also looking ahead to the next big question: What will the U.S. Supreme Court do on Nov. 30, when it is scheduled to decide on the marriage-related cert petitions pending before it?
Notably, Windsor is now looking, to many, like the leading candidate among cert-worthy marriage cases and, for marriage equality advocates, a particularly promising one for at least three reasons.
Perhaps most importantly, Windsor presents a powerful – and personal – story of DOMA’s discriminatory effects on lesbian and gay married couples. Edie Windsor and Thea Clara Spyer were together for 42 years, from the early 1960s through Speyer’s death in 2009, two years after the couple married in Toronto, in a relationship so committed and moving that it became the subject of a widely acclaimed documentary, Edie and Thea.
Yet because of DOMA, the United States refused to recognize their relationship and, when Thea died, sent Edie a $300,000+ tax bill that would have been $0 had the government acknowledged their marriage.
More: http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/11/second-circuit-case-on-doma-may-be-high-courts-strongest-contender-for-deciding-laws-fate/
Second Circuit case on DOMA may be high court’s strongest contender for deciding law's fate
By Dr. Suzanne B. Goldberg
American Constitution Society for Law and Policy
While marriage equality supporters have been giving thanks for the recent ballot box victories and the Second Circuit’s Windsor v. U.S. decision, the most recent Defense of Marriage strike-down by a federal court in mid-October, the law-focused among us are also looking ahead to the next big question: What will the U.S. Supreme Court do on Nov. 30, when it is scheduled to decide on the marriage-related cert petitions pending before it?
Notably, Windsor is now looking, to many, like the leading candidate among cert-worthy marriage cases and, for marriage equality advocates, a particularly promising one for at least three reasons.
Perhaps most importantly, Windsor presents a powerful – and personal – story of DOMA’s discriminatory effects on lesbian and gay married couples. Edie Windsor and Thea Clara Spyer were together for 42 years, from the early 1960s through Speyer’s death in 2009, two years after the couple married in Toronto, in a relationship so committed and moving that it became the subject of a widely acclaimed documentary, Edie and Thea.
Yet because of DOMA, the United States refused to recognize their relationship and, when Thea died, sent Edie a $300,000+ tax bill that would have been $0 had the government acknowledged their marriage.
More: http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/11/second-circuit-case-on-doma-may-be-high-courts-strongest-contender-for-deciding-laws-fate/
Rebels circle Damascus airport; Russia, U.S. downbeat
Source: Reuters
BEIRUT - Rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad declared Damascus International Airport a battle zone on Friday, while Moscow and Washington both sounded glum about the prospects of a diplomatic push to end the conflict.
Fighting around the capital city has intensified over the past week, and Western officials have begun speaking about faster change on the ground in a 20-month-old conflict that has killed 40,000 people.
-snip-
The past week has brought a war previously fought mainly in the provinces and other cities to the threshold of the capital.
Cutting access to the airport 20 km (12 miles) from the city center would be a symbolic blow. The rebels acknowledge the airport itself is still in army hands, but say they are blockading it from most sides.
Read more: Link to source http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/07/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8AJ1FK20121207
Violence intensifies around Syrian capital
Source: AP
Violence has intensified around Damascus, the Syrian capital, amid reports of shelling by government forces on rebel controlled towns and fierce street fighting.
President Bashar al-Assad forces shelled the towns of Douma and Zabadani to the northeast of the capital and the town of Moadamiyet al-Sham to the southwest, official and activist sources said on Thursday.
Battles reportedly continued near Damascus International Airport. Activists told Al Jazeera that the main road to the airport has been cut off at several instances when clashes had intensified.
Activists also said fighting was raging near Akraba Military Airport, located near the main road leading to the international airport.
Read more: http://aje.me/WLZxx1
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