In conflicts it is so often the young and the old who suffer most. Yes, all generations suffer but those at either end of life are the most vulnerable, and least able to protect and nourish themselves. In the case of young people there are additional concerns.The children of Syria are a prime example. Living in an unstable country many children are lacking basic education, nourishment and care. Those in their formative years will be learning little apart from hate and an unsatisfied need.

Whatever is going on in Syria, be it a revolution by the people, an uprising by a minority of citizens or a created conflict by outside forces, there will be many losers. A protracted period of unrest is not productive to anyone.

By the time this conflict is resolved the infrastructure of Syria will be wrecked, buildings destroyed, lives lost, and hearts hardened forever, We will have sympathy for the children living through this terrible time in Syria's history but once they become violent teenagers or adults we will not. Yet in many cases they will have grown into the type of person they are because of this conflict.

We are already seeing in Libya and Egypt that once dictators are ousted it is not plain sailing. Without knowing who is going to take over interfering in such civil wars in merely destructive.Yes foreign forces such as the US, the UK, Germany or whoever may feel happier knowing that Gaddafi, for example, has gone but are the people really any better off?

Today Sky News has carried a report on those who have fled the conflict in Syria. More than 250,000 Syrians have fled the country. At least half of the Syrians in refugee camps are children. That is a sad and sorry state of affairs. They may be away from the direct harm of conflict but their lives will not be good.

In Islahiye, Turkey, 4,500 children are reliant on the Turkish authorities for the basics of life, that is water and food. Their lives for now are played out in a "tent city" behind a barbed wire fence. Whilst it is good that these refugees have shelter it is a prison. The adults are not allowed to work. They can only leave the camp for a few hours each day..

Not all children though have parents with them. There are some children who are alone. Orphans whose parents have died in the conflict. The longer the Syrian uprising continues the tougher it will be for these children. They have already had to grow up fast.

How will they cope with adulthood, assuming that they survive.

Secrets and lies

It has been more of the same in Syria this week. There have been deaths on all sides, rebels and regime supporters, There has been killing by the hands of both sides, rebels and regime supporters. This week though events have taken Syria a step closer to all out war.

Early in the week TEK reported on video footage broadcast in the UK apparently showing rebels brutally killing pro regime militia. There was no verification but it was hard to cover up the shootings as they were so graphically captured on a mobile phone and uploaded to the Internet. There has been more killing by the regime, done in the name of stopping terrorism and more.

Finally yesterday August 2, 2012 UN special envoy for the Arab League in Syria Mr Kofi Annan resigned in frustration at his inability to make any inroads in the Syrian conflict.

The World was left wondering what now for Syria?, and today we are beginning to find out what the country's future could be.

It is no secret that Syria will never be an easy problem to solve. World leaders such as those in Russia, China, the US, The UK and beyond all have their own agendas. This means that all will view Syria in a different way. 

Israel wants Assad and his regime ousted. That does not necessarily mean the majority of Syrian people do. After all it should be they who ultimately decide the future of their own country.

The West continues to say that it supports democracy and Assad as a non elected dictator should go. That may be true but it must surely be up to the people of Syria to decide. The West has chosen to ignore many similar regimes which are dictatorships. We do not interfere in Russia, China, Korea et al demanding democracy, do we?

We choose which middle eastern country to interfere in as far as democracy goes, don't we? Atrocities continue in Bahrain, for example, but remain off the mainstream media's radar for most of the time.

The Syrian civil war is hard to assess but the situation has worsened. The problem is that the Regime still attempts to ban media reporting from Syria. The rebels are made up of at least two hard line groups, at odds with each other.

The West is over confident about what it can do in Syria, following its apparent success in Libya. Syria is not Libya though. Many are starting to wonder just why the west appears to want a broken Middle East. A region which will be unstable.Is it all part of a master plan involving Iran?

The day after Mr Annan's resignation already western leaders are plotting. In the UK foreign Secretary William Hague has announced that the UK will step up its practical help for the Syrian rebels. Just when and why we begun to support rebels around the world is not clear. It will not be for the reasons given, such as to widen democracy, but rather for a hidden agenda.

Mr Hague has said that Britain is giving its support to the Syrian rebels but in truth he should have said, "The British Government is giving support" This blogger for one does not want more conflict in her name. Hague told media sources that he would make more announcements in the coming days and weeks. For now he has said that the UKs help will be "mainly advice and expertise, help with communications and capacity to plan."

Hague denied that there would be any "boots" on ground or weapons involved. However we have heard all of that before, in Libya for example. When such a person lies continually you tend to look at all such announcements with more than a touch of scepticism.

Hague went on to say that Great Britain will be asking other countries to tighten their sanctions on Syria. He also said that human rights abuses would be noted, no doubt for war crime trials at a future date. Will that include abuses by all sides? 

Whilst we agree with Hague that the Syrian people were not happy with Assad by and large we are less believing of his other claims. According to Hague there has been no foreign intervention in Syria, period. Reports that some Libyan rebels had joined the Syrian rebels, that members of the American CIA and others were in Syria and that some in the West were manipulating the situation were simply not true, according to Hague. Mr Hague claims that is all a myth started by Assad.

To convince most people Mr Hague will have to prove that his words are true and we doubt he could do that, even if it were possible to try. In Libya we were told much the same but the truth was we were guiding and directing the rebels. 

Today also the US Security Council will hold another vote on Syria. This time it will be to condemn its own Security Council for failing to end the unrest. 

So what now for Syria. Tough sanctions which will hit the people as much as the regime and western interference in a civil war? That after all is what is happening. Will it go that step further though? Are we looking at the start of World War Three?

Related reading here

The Middle Eastern country of Syria has been torn apart during the last year. The Arab Spring of 2012 which heralded change in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya spread from one country to another. Syria has experienced a virtual civil war during the last year but President Bashir Assad has clung on to power. Whilst his restrictive dictatorship will not suit all Syrians it is claimed that he still has support from the majority.

So much remains a puzzle in this strange conflict. Who are the rebels? What sort of government could they form? Are outside forces at work behind the scenes? How many people have actually been killed by the Assad regime and how many by the rebels?

,Around 11,500 people have died during this uprising. Syria is proving to be a difficult problem to solve. The West claim that Russia is supplying the regime with weapons and more. A shipment of helicopters heading for the Syrian regime was intercepted in Scotland last week. Who is supplying the rebels with arms though?

In the last week a Turkish plane which it is thought strayed into Syrian airspace was downed and reports of defections by senior military personnel have continued. Whether these defections are real is hard to assess. In such troubling times propaganda is used by all sides.

Today an email received by TEK;s Peter B Meter makes for interesting reading.:

"Syria: US in hypocrisy of the highest order, and in a crime against humanity."

"The New York Times claims that, "the C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said," an unsubstantiated claim that was similarly made in Libya before Al Qaeda flags were run up poles in Benghazi by rebels flush with NATO cash and arms used to collapse the government of Muammar Qaddafi. In fact, it is confirmed that Libyan LIFG rebels, led by Al Qaeda commander Abdul Hakim Belhaj, have now made their way by the hundreds to Syria (and here). 

Despite months of the US claiming the "international community" sought to end the violence and protect the population of Syria, the New York Times now admits that the US is engaged in supporting a "military campaign" against the Syrian government aimed at increasing "pressure" on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Efforts to impose an arms embargo on Syria is now revealed to be one-sided, aimed at giving rebels an advantage in the prolonged bloodbath with the intent on tipping the balance in favor of Western proxy-forces - not end the violence as soon as possible as claimed by the UN, and in particular, Kofi Annan.

The Times also reported that Turkey has been directly delivering weapons to terrorists operating in Syria - Turkey being a NATO member and implicating NATO as now being directly involved in perpetuating bloodshed in the Middle Eastern nation. For months, Turkey has been allowing terrorists to use its border region as a refuge from which to stage attacks against Syria.

Despite this, however, the so-called "Free Syrian Army," according to the New York Times, consists of only 100 or so small formations made up of  "a handful of fighters to a couple of hundred combatants," betraying the narrative that the Syrian government faces a large popular uprising, and revealing that the "Free Syrian Army" is in fact a small collection of mercenaries, foreign fighters, and sectarian extremists, armed, funded, and directed by foreign interests solely to wreak havoc within Syria. It should be noted that these terrorist proxies were organized as early as 2007 by the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, specifically to enact regime change and transform Syria into a Western client regime.  

As the West's propaganda campaign imploded after a torrent of unsubstantiated claims of "massacres" and "atrocities," all unverified, some in fact being revealed as the work of the West's sectarian proxies themselves,  it appears that sidelining Syria in headlines while pursuing a clandestine proxy war is now the tactic of choice for the time being. 

For the United States to claim Syria has "failed" to protect it population while simultaneously fueling the very armed conflict it claims it is seeking to end is not only hypocrisy of the highest order, but a crime against world peace - punishable under the Nuremberg precedent."

Whilst it is true that some of the reports linked here are not current, as in today's news, they are relevant to Syria. Some may be unverified or more propaganda but they all pose interesting questions. More than one points the finger at the US and appears to be a verified report.

Syria is a conflict which could easily take the World into its third global war. Is that what we really want?

Related reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/middleeast/index.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9334707/US-holds-high-level-talks-with-Syrian-rebels-seeking-weapons-in-Washington.html

Mainstream media is today reporting on the Syrian massacre Friday May 25, 2012, and many are including terrible images. Syria is proving a tricky one for world leaders to resolve. In some ways it would seem that the West has turned a blind eye to the civil war raging in that country.

Part of the problem is what to do and how. Russia and China continue to use their veto at any UN votes on intervention which leaves few options. Of course world leaders could choose to wade in as they have done in the past in countries such as Iraq but the outcome this time could be more than damaged reputations. UK PM Tony Blair lost all credibility once he joined forces with US President  George Bush and untilised Bill Clinton.

If you coldly look at the crisis in Syria it is plain to see that many world leaders fear action. Most of these leaers are facing elections this year and people have no stomach for yet another damaging War. In some ways then the UN vetoes give these leaders a breathing space. However, in truth, they could be wringing their hands, frustrated that they are unable to act further.

But all of this of course does nothing to help the people of Syria.

In Houla Friday more than ninety people were killed including 32 children. Images displayed on the front page of Sunday Tabloids in the UK show the terrible truth. They include bodies with their throats cut and skulls split open, What is the truth is still hard to ascertain though. The Syrian regime are still attempting to blame ongoing killings on terrorists or insurgents whilst the rebels claim the regime is responsible. The military are still using heavy weaponry in residential areas which has been widely condemned.

Friday's massacre came after skirmishes between Syrian forces and protesters. A protester was killed which led to both sides fighting on the streets. The military brought out the big guns and waded in causing mayhem in a residential area. UN observers are finding that their work in Syria is unmanageable. They appear to be having little impact but things could be much worse without their presence.

The Syrian regime continues to say that it will respond to violence with violence. Propaganda is rife and determining the truth is almost impossible. There is no denying the deaths in Houla though and the thousands more who have died since the Syrian uprising in 2011.

RIP