[Nettime-nl] Laying a Wreath of Wrath: Bashar al-Assad visits Martyr Monument of 1973 "War of Liberation" on October 6th 2012

[Tjebbe van Tijen via Chello <t.tijen@chello.nl>]

The illustrated and documented version can be seen/read at The Limping Messenger

http://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/laying-a-wreath-of-wrath-bashar-al-assad-visits-martyr-monument-on-october-6th-2012/

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LAYING A WREATH OF WRATH

BASHAR AL ASSAD = ABSOLUTE STATE OF DENIAL

âOn the 39th Anniversary of October Liberation War (*), President al-Assad Visits the Martyrâs Monument on Qassyoun Mountain (October 6th 2012)â and there is again almost the same photo reportage as last year and the year before.. as if there is NO war now in Syria to take in account.

On top of a screenshot from this Syrian state agency web page, I have montaged a screenshot of the latest âdeath countâ of the âCenter for Documentation of Violations in Syriaâ (CDVS), of  today October the 7th.

Note the numbers by CDVS fail to give the death count suffered by government related troops and personnel; this in spite of announcing for a month or more that they will do so (**).

The âcivilianâ and ânon-civilianâ classification of men that died by CDVS, remains questionable. We can be sure that of the 25.365 âcivil malesâ a fair number from another perspective should be classified as âcombatantsâ. Any death, combatant or not, is a tragedy, but we all know that the body count is part of the war games played by all these factions and behind the scene powers, so we can not take the Syria body count at face value.

Absurd it remains this ceremony yesterday with laying a wreath at an eternal burning flame and everybody in clean suits and uniforms, not a stain of blood around, just the blood red of the flowers on the wreath that symbolises the wrath aroused by his regime.

(*) What Syria calls the âOctober War of Liberationâ is called by Israel the âYum Kippur War of 1973â, being the joint attack by Egypt and Syria to regain lost territory they lost to Israel in the âSix Day War of 1967â. This attack surprised Israel, that this time had a hard time to fight back. In the end one can say that Israel won the battles, but for the Syrians and the Egyptians it was a seen nevertheless as some sort of honourable victory. The commemoration of this war is especially for Syria a moment of self-assurance and fits in their vision of a Great Syria somewhere in the future without any Israel and with the Palestinians embedded in the new Great Syria.

(**) On the web page of the âCenter for the Documentation of Violation in Syriaâ under the clickable heading si said for a few weeks now the following, but there is no overview of  the âRegime fatalitiesâ mentioned:

"New Classifications

The new website classifies victims in two major types, according to the regime authority that committed the crime. Consequently, we have two separate tables and statistics for the revolutionsâ martyrs and the regimeâs fatalities.

In the first type, âThe Revolutionâs Martyrs,â there are two sub-classes: Civilian and Non-Civilian. The latter contains information on defected recruits and officers, and Free Syrian Army (FSA) non-military volunteers. Those types of Non-Military victims can be easily differentiated via the âMilitary Rankâ field: if it has a value, the victim is a recruit or an officer. If it does not, the victim is an FSA volunteer.

In the second table, named âThe Regimeâs Army,â a value in the âMilitary Rankâ field indicates that the fatality was one of a recruit or an officer. If no value is associated, the the fatality is non-military."


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