Turkey afraid of Democratic Changes in Syria...?

[JohnsonE]

.
- "Unwillingness, shared by Turkey", to react to deadly aggressions (even with Tanks !) against civilian demonstrators, arrests, imprisonments, etc. by the Syrian regime of unexperienced Junior Assad, (close to Ankara, contrary to his Historic Father), marks Obama's current Foreign Policy on Syria, provoking growing criticim both inside and ourside of the US, reveal recent publications, including by Washington Post :

- "Turkey fears that Syria’s Kurds may seek to break away if Assad is toppled, reanimating Turkey’s Kurdish separatist movement", notes WP, inevitably provoking a detrimental "Double Standards" impression on Western world's policies vis a vis Mediterranean democratic changes' movement, particularly when People's complaints are numerous and focused on much lager revendications for  Human Rights' respect.

But Key "members of (US) Congress may push for stronger sanctions against Syria ... : . Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said earlier this month that the administration had “ignored” serious Syrian threats to U.S. security. “Rather than returning our ambassador to Damascus and upgrading the U.S. relationship with this pariah state, as the current administration has done, the U.S. must impose tough sanctions against the Syrian regime,” Ros-Lehtinen said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/escalating-protests-in-syria-put-obama-administration-in-a-bind/2011/04/21/AFwHWTLE_story_1.html


In consequence, the Editorial Board of mainstream Newspaper "Washington Post", in an unusul move, denounced Obama Administration's "inaction" vis a vis the aggravating killings and jailings of demonstrators by the oppressive Syrian Junior Assad's regime, as "Shameful" :
=> A New, coherent US Foreign Policy is apparently needed urgently..

Editorial Board Opinion

Washington Post

Shameful U.S. inaction on Syria’s massacres
 
By Editorial, Friday, April 22, 5:16 PM

FOR THE PAST five weeks, growing numbers of Syrians have been gathering in cities and towns across the country to demand political freedom — and the security forces of dictator Bashar al-Assad have been responding by opening fire on them. According to Syrian human rights groups, more than 220 people had been killed by Friday. And Friday may have been the worst day yet: According to Western news organizations, which mostly have had to gather information from outside the country, at least 75 people were gunned down in places that included the suburbs of Damascus, the city of Homs and a village near the southern town of Daraa, where the protests began.

Massacres on this scale usually prompt a strong response from Western democracies, as they should. Ambassadors are withdrawn; resolutions are introduced at the U.N. Security Council; international investigations are mounted and sanctions applied. In Syria’s case, none of this has happened. The Obama administration has denounced the violence — a presidential statement called Friday’s acts of repression “outrageous” — but otherwise remained passive. Even the ambassador it dispatched to Damascus during a congressional recess last year remains on post.

Syrian security forces fired bullets and tear gas on pro-democracy demonstrators Friday, killing at least 49 people in the bloodiest day of the uprising against the current regime. (April 22)

The administration has sat on its hands despite the fact(s)...

 Like people across the Middle East, the protesters in Syria say that they are seeking the establishment of a democratic system. A statement issued by organizers of the protests Friday called for an end to torture and killings by security forces; the release of all political prisoners; an investigation into the deaths of those killed so far; and reform of the constitution, including a limit on presidential terms. The mass demonstrations on Good Friday were called to show that the cause is neither Islamic nor sectarian.

Yet the Obama administration has effectively sided with the regime against the protesters. Rather than repudiate Mr. Assad and take tangible steps to weaken his regime, it has proposed, with increasing implausibility, that his government “implement meaningful reforms,” as the president’s latest statement put it. ....

As a practical matter, these considerations are misguided. Even if his massacres allow him to survive in power, Mr. Assad will hardly be a credible partner for Israel. And no matter what happens, Syria will not return to the police-state stability it has known during the past several decades.

As a moral matter, the stance of the United States is shameful. To stand by passively while hundreds of people seeking freedom are gunned down by their government makes a mockery of the U.S. commitment to human rights.

In recent months President Obama has pledged repeatedly that he would support the aspiration of Arabs for greater freedom. In Syria, he has not kept his word.

--------------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/shameful-us-inaction-on-syrias-massacres/2011/04/22/AFROWsQE_story.html

[JVJ]

- "Unwillingness, shared by Turkey", to react to deadly aggressions (even with Tanks !) against civilian demonstrators, arrests, imprisonments, etc. by the Syrian regime of unexperienced Junior Assad, (close to Ankara, contrary to his Historic Father), marks Obama's current Foreign Policy on Syria, provoking growing criticim both inside and ourside of the US, reveal recent publications, including by Washington Post :

- "Turkey fears that Syria’s Kurds may seek to break away if Assad is toppled, reanimating Turkey’s Kurdish separatist movement", notes WP, inevitably provoking a detrimental "Double Standards" impression on Western world's policies vis a vis Mediterranean democratic changes' movement, particularly when People's complaints are numerous and focused on much lager revendications for  Human Rights' respect.

... Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said earlier this month that the administration had “ignored” serious Syrian threats to U.S. security. “Rather than returning our ambassador to Damascus and upgrading the U.S. relationship with this pariah state, as the current administration has done, the U.S. must impose tough sanctions against the Syrian regime,” Ros-Lehtinen said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/escalating-protests-in-syria-put-obama-administration-in-a-bind/2011/04/21/AFwHWTLE_story_1.html


...the Editorial Board of mainstream Newspaper "Washington Post", in an unusual move, denounced Obama Administration's "inaction" vis a vis the aggravating killings and jailings of demonstrators by the oppressive Syrian Junior Assad's regime, as "Shameful" :

Editorial Board Opinion

Washington Post

Shameful U.S. inaction on Syria’s massacres
 
By Editorial, Friday, April 22, 5:16 PM

FOR THE PAST five weeks, growing numbers of Syrians have been gathering in cities and towns across the country to demand political freedom — and the security forces of dictator Bashar al-Assad have been responding by opening fire on them. According to Syrian human rights groups, more than 220 people had been killed by Friday. And Friday may have been the worst day yet: According to Western news organizations, which mostly have had to gather information from outside the country, at least 75 people were gunned down in places that included the suburbs of Damascus, the city of Homs and a village near the southern town of Daraa, where the protests began.

Massacres on this scale usually prompt a strong response from Western democracies, as they should. Ambassadors are withdrawn; resolutions are introduced at the U.N. Security Council; international investigations are mounted and sanctions applied. In Syria’s case, none of this has happened. The Obama administration has denounced the violence — a presidential statement called Friday’s acts of repression “outrageous” — but otherwise remained passive. Even the ambassador it dispatched to Damascus during a congressional recess last year remains on post.

Syrian security forces fired bullets and tear gas on pro-democracy demonstrators Friday, killing at least 49 people in the bloodiest day of the uprising against the current regime. (April 22)

The administration has sat on its hands despite the fact(s)...

 Like people across the Middle East, the protesters in Syria say that they are seeking the establishment of a democratic system. A statement issued by organizers of the protests Friday called for an end to torture and killings by security forces; the release of all political prisoners; an investigation into the deaths of those killed so far; and reform of the constitution, including a limit on presidential terms. The mass demonstrations on Good Friday were called to show that the cause is neither Islamic nor sectarian.

Yet the Obama administration has effectively sided with the regime against the protesters. Rather than repudiate Mr. Assad and take tangible steps to weaken his regime, it has proposed, with increasing implausibility, that his government “implement meaningful reforms,” as the president’s latest statement put it. ....

.....    As a moral matter, the stance of the United States is shameful. To stand by passively while hundreds of people seeking freedom are gunned down by their government makes a mockery of the U.S. commitment to human rights.

In recent months President Obama has pledged repeatedly that he would support the aspiration of Arabs for greater freedom.

In Syria, he has not kept his word.

--------------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/shameful-us-inaction-on-syrias-massacres/2011/04/22/AFROWsQE_story.html

It's natural : Just by seeing those "glamorous" Syrian Government TANKS make Deadly Attacks against the People, the Turkish regime inevitably remembers those ECHR judgements which have condemned Ankara even for Killing a young Boy (on his way from School to his Family Home) by .. Canon Shots fired by a TANK behind the Back of the victim....

Since the Turkish regime never implemented such ECHR judgements, leaving the coward Criminal Killer scandalously Unpunished, i.e. practically covering up even odious Deadly Crimes with dangerous total Impunity, what else would you expect from it when Mr. Assad junior imitates Ankara by sending more and more Tanks to attack civilian People ?

[JohnsonE]

.....

It's natural : Just by seeing those "glamorous" Syrian Government TANKS make Deadly Attacks against the People, the Turkish regime inevitably remembers those ECHR judgements which have condemned Ankara even for Killing a young Boy (on his way from School to his Family Home) by .. Canon Shots fired by a TANK behind the Back of the victim....

Since the Turkish regime never implemented such ECHR judgements, leaving the coward Criminal Killer scandalously Unpunished, i.e. practically covering up even odious Deadly Crimes with dangerous total Impunity, what else would you expect from it when Mr. Assad junior imitates Ankara by sending more and more Tanks to attack civilian People ?

>>> Therefore, some Mass Media tricks, on May 1st, divert attention far away from developments in Syria, (See : http://www.eurofora.net/forum/index.php/topic,470.msg570.html#msg570 ) and hinder everybody from knowing what is really going on there, practically hidding all the killings .. :

"ArabTimesOnLine" : ... Syria

 Blood spurts from the heads of shot teenagers, staining the asphalt, in amateur video obtained by Reuters from inside the besieged Syrian city of Deraa where government forces are trying to crush weeks of protests.
 “He has a pulse. He has a pulse,” one teenager shouts next to the blood-soaked body of a youth in jeans. “No, no. Martyr. Martyr,” he says as his comrades rush to carry the body under a hail of machinegun bullets.
 The footage was believed to have been taken on Friday in the southern city where protests broke out in March, the start of a six-week-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. Troops and tanks stormed into Deraa on April 25.
 More footage shows a similar scene at a road leading to Deraa, where young villagers on motorcycles rushed on Friday to support their relatives under the week-long siege.
 “God is greater. Down with Bashar,” the villagers chant as a hail of bullets hits the crowd. A youth falls down with a bullet in his back.
 “Say the shahadeh,” whispers one youth in the ear of a comrade, referring to the Muslim declaration “There is no God but Allah”.
 Foreign correspondents have largely been excluded from Syria since a government crackdown began, and Reuters was not able to verify the content of the videos independently.
 But the smuggled material appeared to support witnesses’ and rights groups’ accounts of dozens of civilians killed by live fire from snipers, security forces and an army unit commanded by Assad’s feared brother Maher.
 After a six-day campaign in which Assad sent dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles into the centre of the old city in the fiercest assault on the pro-democracy uprising, witnesses recounted an eerie silence on Sunday in the area, replacing days of heavy shelling.
 Syrian authorities are  meanwhile carrying out a wave of arrests in the city of Deraa in their latest move to crush protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, residents said on Sunday.
 The residents said they had seen packed busloads of handcuffed and hooded young men being taken in the direction of a large detention centre in the city run by the security services.
 “They are arresting all males above 15 years. They only have old security tactics and they are acting on revenge,” said a prominent lawyer in Deraa who did not want to be further identified.
 “Bullets are their response to the people’s revolt. The security forces who came to Deraa told us ‘Go buy bread from a bakery called Freedom. Let’s see if it feeds you,’” he added.
 A Deraa witness who identified himself as Adnan al-Hourani told Al Jazeera television that security forces had divided the southern Syrian city into four sections, each cut off from the others, and had gathered all the detainees in schools and were preparing to transfer them.
 Assad sent troops backed by dozens of tanks into Deraa on April 25 to silence revolt against his 11-year rule. Protests began there in March and have escalated into an uprising in the country of 20 million people which is now into its seventh week.
 Power and communications in Deraa have been disrupted. On Saturday, tanks shelled the old quarter and security forces stormed the Omari mosque, a focal point for protests.
 “It is a ghost city this morning. At dawn we heard machinegun bursts that scared birds. But it’s mostly quiet now,” said Abu Haytham, a government employee, on Sunday.
 Residents said dozens of corpses stored in two refrigerator trucks parked near the mosque, where snipers were seen standing near the minaret, had started to decompose after the trucks ran out of diesel.
 Overnight rain diluted the pools of spattered blood on the streets, spreading it into wider patches, residents said. Women and children had chanted from rooftops until the early hours, shouting “God is greatest against the tyrant.”
 The uprising, unthinkable only months ago, flared after mass protests swept across the Arab world, toppling authoritarian leaders in Egypt and Tunisia. A Syrian rights group said at least 560 civilians have been killed.
 Foreign correspondents have largely been excluded from Syria since the protests escalated and the crackdown began.
 Newly appointed Prime Minister Adel Safar was quoted on Saturday by state news agency SANA as saying his government would in the coming weeks draw up a “complete plan” of political, judicial and economic reforms.
 The pledge was unlikely to dampen the intensity of protests. A severe crackdown followed the once-unthinkable gesture of lifting a decades-old emergency law last month.
 The government also has little influence as Assad, his family and the security apparatus have a stranglehold on power.
 Syria blames armed groups for the violence. SANA quoted an official military source as saying on Saturday that army and security forces units had been chasing “armed terrorist groups” who had attacked properties in Deraa.
 Tanks
 Syrian army tanks shelled the old quarter of a city at the heart of the country’s six-week-old uprising Sunday, as military reinforcements rolled in to join a siege that has lasted for nearly a week, a witness said.
 Residents have remained defiant: Unable to leave their homes, they have chanted “God is great!” to each other from their windows in the evenings, infuriating security forces and raising their own spirits.
 “Our houses are close to each other, so even though we can’t go outside, we stand by the windows and chant,” said a Daraa resident, speaking to The Associated Press by satellite phone. “Our neighbors can hear us and they respond.”
 Daraa has been without water, fuel or electricity since Monday, when the regime sent in troops backed by tanks and snipers to try to crush protests seeking an end to President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian rule.
 Tanks and armored personal vehicles have cut off neighborhoods, and snipers nesting on rooftops throughout the city have kept residents pinned in their homes. Other areas of the country have also come under military control, but Daraa has faced the most serious stranglehold.
 The death toll has soared to 545 nationwide from government forces firing on demonstrators — action that has drawn international condemnation and US financial penalties on senior figures in Assad’s regime.
 Tanks fired shells into the heart of Daraa’s ancient Roman quarter Sunday, said a resident who lives on the outskirts of the city. He said he could identify the weaponry because he was a former soldier.
 Men were forbidden to leave their homes but women were allowed out in the early morning to search for bread, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear that Syrian forces would identify him.
 The witness’ accounts could not be independently verified. Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots, making it almost impossible to confirm the dramatic events shaking one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Arab world.
 The unrest has repercussions far beyond Syria’s borders because of its alliances with militant groups like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Palestinian Hamas and with Shiite powerhouse Iran.
 If the regime in Syria falls, the instability has the potential to upend the regional power balance in a part of the world already riven by strife.
 In recent weeks, there have been small signs that cracks are developing in the regime. ...

http://www.arabtimesonline.com/NewsDetails/tabid/96/smid/414/ArticleID/168648/t/Nato-kills-Gaddafi-son,-grandchildren/Default.aspx