Weak: Maher Barotchi and Bonnie Kipperman

The Weak, In Review

June 2, 2018

In my most recent round of Houla Massacre re-education - at the 6-year anniversary, and upon the liberation of Houla from terrorist forces - I alerted several people to my latest article repeating our findings on the event. Several people get the weakest of all rating, not even responding. Maybe they never saw my comments? Nothing to say from:
Hope Sarout https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1001779948485427200
Nino Fezza https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1000757995150589953
Thomas van Linge https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1000756542839259136
Asaad Hannaa https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1000755160170180609
Amer almohibany https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1001329535017598976

One at least responded, and brought in a friend. They both display an unwillingness to even consider the evidence, clearly locked into their consensus view regardless of all logic and evidence. Bonnie Kipperman is a social media warrior taken in by hoaxes - like Damning Assad to Hell over the unclear fate of two little Berber kids from North Africa, as FriedmannWo dug in and discovered. She popped in to promote the Houla Massacre lie, and I helpfully informed her:

Some things they still haven't told you in six years. It may take courage to accept the facts at hand. Here's your chance.  http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/05/how-terrorists-were-given-al-houla-in.html … Taking questions, accepting challenges (none yet, just crickets)

She lacked the courage to really look, and replied under another tweet linking to that article that this proved I needed mental help or even commitment. That was her challenge. (can someone send me a screen-grab? I can't see it now.)

Kipperman apparently fetched her Syrian smart tough guy to bail her out, that being Maher Barotchi, an exiled Islamist, apparently, living in the UK  @MaherBarotchi. His LinkedIn profile (apparently) says he's Dr. Maher Barotchi: Managing Director at Universal Computers Ltd (hardware company) in Sheffield, and a fundraiser for The Syria Campaign, an anti-government agency with hands in many aspects of this disastrous intervention.

He too failed to address the specifics, very well anyway, and resorted to insults, repeatedly demanding that I should be ashamed and must stop. And he kept saying "bye" as if blocking me or as if I would just stop on demand. But then I didn't and he didn't; I just explained how that didn't answer any of the valid questions I raised, and Barotchi just insulted me again, demanded I stop, and again bid farewell.

I considered blocking his worthless ass myself, but first I looked him up. I found this hit piece on the Syrian Working Group on Propaganda and Media (of which I'm a signatory last I checked but not much of an active member)

Aha - this clicked with what he was doing. I suspect he deliberately provokes people into blocking him, so he can whine he's been "shut down" by people who "clearly" can't handle being challenged by "facts." As I responded: "lol. and here you are: ignore dismiss, insist stop, bid farewell, over and over. "but I tried so hard." To provoke me into blocking you, which I almost did. Would be worth it [deserved] but fat chance, trapper - whiner - liar."

And then I upped it to a public attack: "Maher Barotchi fake debate methods exposed: see my call here and preceding tweets to bear it out." So I exposed his methods, after he used those methods and insulted me repeatedly. I tried to engage him on the facts, he refused and finally blocked me. Did I win his game? (check out "who to follow")

Weak-minded Bonnie followed suit. She did teach me a line from Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit that I never understood: 'when logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead.' What a cool line. Ironically, the woman with no grasp of the evidence, to whom Barotchi is an expert to fetch, used it against me.

Amin2511 noted Barotchi's tantrum-like responses, put it well, and was swiftly blocked himself.

These weaklings could, if they chose, un-block me at any time, and engage me on the evidence in earnest. Or they could keep me out of it and just review the material on their own and show what's wrong (I would appreciate a heads-up if so). But I highly suspect they won't want to do either of these things; they blocked me to shut the issue out of their minds, where it was before and will remain forever, if they have their way. If terrorists really did knock out state security so they could slaughter Shia families and loyalist Sunnis, and fob it off on neighboring Alawites fit for epic "revenge" ... these people really don't want to know about it. They don't like taking even the slightest risk of becoming aware of that. 

So Far Review
What of substance was said? Little, but some. I should have taken more screen-grabs, but I think I remember it all. None came from Bonnie, just from Dr.Barotchi.

Witness Ali: Not Fake?
Here I bring up star witness Ali Al-Sayed, the super-cute 11-year-old miracle survivor I exposed as an apparent fake back in July 2012.


I explained that I know about names now, but didn't in 2012, and this isn't the issue here. Most people there remember their father's given name just fine.  The accepted version is Aref is his father, and Shaoqi his brother. Or rather, I'll add here, he should be a cousin  - he has the middle name Adel in opposition lists, should have a father named Adel, who by some sources this Adel has the same middle name (Mohamed) as Aref (see here, Adel Mouhammed Al-sayed family: 82- Shouqi Adel Al-Sayed, 25 years old, son). So Aref and Adel are likely brothers and Sahoqi would be Aref's nephew. But then the body they refer to is called Imad Mohamed Al-Sayed, Aref's brother, according to SANA, while Ali calls him brother and another son of Aref.

So it's all disputed and remains confused. I may tackle this confusion some more if time allows. Ali should know the answer directly, yet he remembers it a few different ways.

In fact, upon reflection, I have a new question regarding names that I didn't have as clearly in 2012:

Here he tacitly acknowledges Ali's middle name Adel was wrongly chosen to be a son of Aref as he claims,  just blames the boy's shattered nerves. But he's introduced by this name by those who spoke with his adult handlers as well - adults refer to him as a "baby, Ali Adel Al-Sayed" who "miraculously survived." He also gives his father's name as Ali Adel; no one names their son after themselves like this in Syria, that I've seen (and it's a good bit). No one lists an Adel al-Sayed as dying, but the VDC do list an adult Ali Adel Al-Sayed as dying, but no one else does (possible phantom entry resulting from some confusion? see comparison list here). Ali takes activists to his home where the killings happened, in a later video. It's the same home where Aref and the rest were seen dead on May 26 videos. So he does claim to be a son of Aref, and he names the younger kids seen there. But some people think/thought his father was named Adel, and the kid thinks it should be Ali Adel, and/or Shaoqi and/or Aref. Hm.

Barotchi seems to agree this isn't correct, but it must be an honest error and I damn well know that and had better just stop. I was being "inhumane." Like the three different ways the men with the scrambled names were killed... must be honest confusion.

Or ...(I got rusty) doesn't he also forget one brother sometimes? The one named Adel or Aden that he might be meant to replace? Except he appeared on video? Yep. He forgets "Aden":

Ali’s mother is always dead and never named, and his younger siblings are a bit more stable. Rasha, 5, and Nader, 6, both killed before his eyes, both mentioned in the video and in both early interviews. To the AP he also adds another brother, Aden, age 8. That’s seven murders minimum, eight if there were two uncles taken. But when he saw the soldiers later “they were describing six people dead in my house. They included me. They thought I was dead.” [7] By this he thinks there were only five people killed, forgetting at least two.

From SANA video, the bodies of Nader and Adel Aref Al-Sayed, as opposition sources give them. Was Ali supposed to be one of them?

If his mind is that unreliable, why should we accept him as a witness to things like the "Alawite accents" of the attacking Shabiha from the Alawi village less than a mile away? Can we trust his story of the evil uncle who worked with the Shabiha to have his kin killed? Ali says he ran there in time to secretly witness that discussion, and then he saw the same uncle go on TV and lie, blaming "terrorists". That's also where he learned his dad and brother and uncle had been killed - taken alive in that story, shown dead on TV (in the home's entry, as the only videos I know of show).

Did he maybe dream these parts? Or maybe some other parts? And why is he so clear on the R2P doctrine, and the world community's obligation to come and "fight for us"? He didn't go into a detailed spiel on expanding Iranian influence and its geostrategic implications, but he's about halfway there, at age 11 (or visually, about 9), and still in such shock he can't even remember how the massacre unfolded or what his or his father's name is or should be. Or was he coached on that part? or, perhaps on other parts?

Videos of Rebel Offensive: Fake?
Obviously if video and eyewitness evidence clash on a point, the video wins; in and of itself, the camera doesn't lie. Barotchi suggested at one point the videos I cite are faked by regime supporters to make their case (screen-grab or quote, anyone? This was my response). But this makes little sense. Most of the videos are uploaded by the FSA's Arabad Bin Souriya Battalion. One scene of interest has 2 videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xovR6GZOauM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqXscOnCUh8
These and others were posted on June 23, 2012 and said to be part of a "battle to liberate freedom circle," meaning the central roundabout with the clocktower and army post.  There were no reports of any fights or victories in Al-Houla on this or the few preceding days, and the only time this spot was "liberated," that I know of, was May 25. The UN's Commission of Inquiry “determined that the clocktower checkpoint was overrun at some point” in the May 25 FSA offensive. It was clearly part of "rebel-held Al-Houla" when Alex Thomson passed it on May 27. It was government held up to mid-day on May 25, but at no time since then that I know of prior to 2018.

We geo-located the scenes to this spot (Wikimapia), so firing roughly south or SSE. The apparent sunlight angle - estimating shadow proportions (from the north vs. east walls) gives two fairly extreme options, giving 212 and 232 degrees - 1:08-1:40 (error in image, giving 2:08-2:40). So I had said 1:25 +/- 20 minutes as a fair and loose range. Re-examining it now, I'm adjusting it a bit. Considering the low wall along the river is not lit on the near face, the azimuth is probably close to right along that wall, so the upper end is likely out; 1:10-1:20 is a better middle.

Add 6/3: Michael Kobs weighs in: I might have measure the wrong stretch of wall, making the time more like 12:50 pm. Will update as needed...

If this video can be placed on another day (a specific day with some reason is a minimum requirement - 'could be anytime' won't cut it), if it's at another spot, or a different time than we or I decided, it might be significant. But until I see otherwise, this seems to be here, on May 25, somewhere between 1:00 and 1:30 pm. And this matters.

The CoI dismissed witness we dubbed Arifah, but they missed this video, and probably wouldn't have bothered analyzing it to see it shows just what she describes. Attackers first fired on the clocktower post and/or Baath party headquarters (they're next to each other) at around 1 or 2 pm (she gives both times, rounded off or unclear). They attacked from the northwest, in fact. She says they fired a mortar from here first, then kept up with gunfire, which these videos show, at around 1:15.

This video probably isn't faked to fit her story, nor is her story faked to fit the video; it was only posted June 23, just shy of the one-month anniversary of the events it probably portrays (or exactly one month by the Islamists' lunar calendar?). Arifah's account was already published 20 days earlier. Therefore, I conclude this is genuine vide evidence in support of her narrative. She says this was a distraction attack to allow others to bypass the checkpoint and move down Saad road towards the bulk of the massacre victims. At 2 pm the clocktower post remained in government hands, but she says they attacked it more fiercely and overran it later, around 7pm.

Another case: this video widely cited as a Houla Massacre scene showing horrible army shelling - no one has called this fake, and it's posted by another account, not that suspected video fakery brigade. It was released on and claims to show May 25, and The Guardian used it heavily in their "reconstructing the events" report. Yet pre-government activists also cite this video as proof of a terrorist offensive that led to the massacre, and they have a better case. The only shelling is a blast very nearby, just about where a dude tips over, losing his white jihadist headscarf. He stands up with the RPG launcher he just fired, suffering recoil. Was the RPG launcher added? It's about 6:15 pm by sun angles, just south of "freedom circle" on Saad Road, as 70+ from the Abdulrazaq families were being finished off a ways south. The same video shows some Abdulrazaq-related victims dumped on the sidewalk, loaded into a van that drives south. The same bodies are seen later alongside their slain relatives.
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Houla:_Saad_Street_RPG_Incident

L: falling, head scarf, a friend covers his ears - R: After rising, no scarf, speaking w/friend, who then runs off-screen

rising, with a thing at shoulder-level - walking towards us with .. what is that? Oh, is that why he tipped over?

This guy doesn't seem worried about being identified. The resolution doesn't seem to allow that. But maybe he didn't realize his head cover had fallen off?

Shutting Down Debate and Critical Thought

Dr. Barotchi presented me several times with the UN CoI findings (or news reports about them anyway) as proof, and all I should need, and therefore "bye." He was appalled to learn I already read their TWO reports and assessed the problems with them, like the one I just explained (dismissing "Arifah" when the video evidence agrees with her), among many others. Shame on me! What kind of whitewashing is that? That stuff was meant to be TRUSTED, not critically analyzed! (so long as it blames the "Assad regime" anyway).

Some closing remarks I left:
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1001832129590845441
Bye, and thanks for the delayed ignore. (right?) If I can, you still don't know how the regime lies got into rebel videos. Don't worry your head about why. Your heroes got the bodies, told a story, folks acted like they believed it, all's good. Peace.

https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1002515740224716800
other than to say what a jackass: "Hi, I can't address a single point coherently but hey, I'm the boss o something and some die-hard Islamist, and you, stop! I demand it! Just stop now!" Well, SIR!! Uh, no. And as you say, bye.

But I remain open to more constructive engagement. I remain dedicated to what I see - with good reason - as the truth. I'll accept any valid, relevant criticism or corrections. (Insisting I had no right to ask these questions or find these answers is not relevant. What's relevant is the truthfulness of those answers.) But no one has yet tried. Like these two weaklings, the best I can get so far is self-assured ridicule and shaming. Even worse, total silence.

All these terrorist apologists cannot explain why their witnesses are so unreliable, nor how these regime lies got worked into rebel videos of the day's events. They can't say why the government would shell the area they controlled on the same day as an Islamist offensive on the same area, and massacre people there the same day, when they could have done it easier at any other time, with less chance of the left-behind bodies being found as proof by mobile militants with enough access to the crime scenes to load truck after truck with corpses.

I mean, how can you explain all that, within the confines of their inadequate view of the situation? Obviously, they can't, and don't want to be seen trying and failing. So they find a way (easy) to put the issue out of mind. It's just super-crazy, ignore it. Giggle, have a cup of tea. So nice to be comfortably certain you're on the good guy side in all this, and being so vigilant against those who whitewash horrific crimes like this.

Everyone knows it's those damn Shi'ites/Alawites who are hacking up the other sect. Sunnis just don't do things like this ... except maybe in revenge, which this could be... but they say Alawites did this to Sunnis and Sunnis don't lie to us infidels ... but those damned Shi'ites would ... Hey, have another giggle. The heroes got the bodies and told their story and it's all "documented" and "proven." We know who started the worsening sectarian war in the Middle East, who killed the randomly-picked Sunni families in Taldou, Al-Houla on May 25, 2012. We'll make Iran pay, and Saudi Arabia will keep on helping.

Now go feel good about yourselves. That's the easy, prepared answer anyway. All you have to do is stand back and LET IT HAPPEN. Like you have been.

But no, I don't like that formula. Now in order to let it happen unchallenged, you have to stand back and you also have to push back people like me. We're here to make this harder to ignore.

Suspected Tree Farm Reveals Houla Massacre Deception

December 14, 2015

I think the first concrete debunk we made with the Houla Massacre was this exposé of shoddy journalism in service of regime change by the BBC. It was first published in shorter form at the CIWCL site, June  19, 2012, here re-written a bit and updated to reflect the years of research in between
---

Shortly after the Syrian government made official their refutation of responsibility for the “Houla massacre,” the ever-diligent BBC unearthed "Satellite image clues” to refute them with a "suspected artillery site." Once reported by the Beeb, this claim was bound to be echoed forever by the credulous. But the first time it was said by a supposed expert, it was a bunch of crap.

First, there were the clear activist reports of prolonged shelling, generally thought to mean heavy artillery only the army was thought to possess. It was after this chased away rebel defenders that the Alawite "Shabiha" militia moved in and massacred entire families. But ... The UN’s Commission of Inquiry (CoI), in its “oral update” report of June 26 noted “much of the damage appeared to be caused by mortars, including large caliber mortars, heavy machine guns or light artillery.” The first two rebels had at the time, and the last one only possibly, but it's attached with an "or." So well-armed rebels could easily explain all the damage at least as well as army shelling could. 

Further, the damage afterwards is not random like distant shelling would be, but rather precise damage to security posts and the homes of pro-government and Shia convert families, and a deliberate massacre of civilians somehow rendered defenseless.

But the BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner presented images suggesting masses of artillery had moved in the area, leaving “tell-tale tracks.” “All the images were taken on the morning of Saturday 26 May, within hours of the massacre ending,” he reported. One is to presume that’s relevant, and shows things that hadn’t been there on May 24, and were put there by the events of the massacre day. 

They called on military analyst Forbes McKenzie, a former military intelligence officer. He pointed out, in the forested area labeled “H,” what he “believes are the caterpillar tracks left by a mobile artillery battery that fired on the civilian houses.” McKenzie told the BBC: “This would be standard Soviet bloc tactics, firing from woods and then withdrawing.” 

It took about one minute looking and five thinking to put that claim to rest. Google Maps public imagery (at the time of writin, June 2012) shows the same tracks already there at a different, earlier time. According to Goole Earth, the imagery was taken on February 22, 2012, three months before the attack. I'm not sure why Mr. McKenzie failed to catch this.

It is possible these are artillery tracks, where cannons are routinely driven all around the forest here, almost up to each and every one of the trees. Evidence that happened on May 25 in particular, and that these cannon fired on Taldou that day? Zero. 

We can’t even say these are cat tracks. They seem rather to be worn dirt roads, but in an unusual pattern - organically dense like veins. What they seem to be, in fact, are access roads in a tree farm, used to plant, tend and harvest each of their little sunlight factories when the time is ready.

If we could be sure heavy weapons were used, from this vicinity (as the Beeb noted, it's near an army checkpoint), this location is as good a guess as any. But the only spot specifically blamed as the main shelling origin - and much closer to the area in question - is the "Water company" base at the crest on the southeast edge of town (position G in the BBC graphic at right).

But of course nothing in the damage proves who did it, while motive and some witnesses point to rebels, and our video research has by know shown beyond much doubt they overpowered the town's security posts just before the massacre. Only the Water co. base withstood the assault. The other four bases were overrun, the evidence suggests. Here's our better and more relevant map showing massacre sites in relation to these posts. The white ones in the north are the two the UN's investigators agree were overrun by rebels. Wi disagree on 2 of the other 3.

Rebels took over Taldou on May 25, 2012, and the government still hasn't gotten it back. But they held onto the water co. post at the edge of town, maybe just to hwlp prevent a move south on the Alawite villages there. (Above, the Beeb shows two "reported Shabiha militia positions" there, where rebels say the killers came from. But there's still no evidence for Alawite Shabiha coming in from the south or anywhere, and some evidence for fresh terrorist mercenaries moving from the Turkish border area to just north of Houla, between May 22 and 24, already slaughtering children along the way)

But we can finally see (at right) tank or artillery tracks at the right spot visible by March 9, 2013 (next new images to be published by GeoEye/Google Earth). There were no such tracks visible in the Beeb's day-after images.


As for the BBC's site H: It's right on a main road, but has some tree cover. It is miles from town, so range issues come into play. It would suggest big guns, little good use against a terrorist takeover. But maybe the regime did pound the town with heavy cannons that day as well, the kind that leave tracks, and they were based here. But again, UN's investigators also felt the damage looked like "heavy mortars, heavy machine guns or light artillery," with nothing about heavy artillery - and they were trying to implicate the government.

And again, these are preexisting dirt roads in a tree farm, so you can't tell if artillery had driven on it. These tracks could have hosted a dirt bike rally there that day, or done nothing. The BBC's expert's decision was pure imagination, wishful thinking from the blame-Assad crowd.

Joshua Landis Proves He's Not Weak

I Hope.
December 8, 2015

My Take on Landis
Dr. Joshua Landis is the director of the Center for Middle East Studies and a professor at the University of Oklahoma, and runs the respected Syria Comment blog. He's not an overt partisan hack but a real expert in the region, with an Alawi wife from Latakia. But he's been put in a tough spot these last years to provide credible analysis in a raging sea of disinformation, under pressure to be both truthful and anti-government. Do you want to go down as the expert in and apologist for old Syria if the rebels win? Or tough out the criticism or worse for voicing support to the government until their eventual victory? Or do you want to do like most high-profile supposed experts, and demonize the regime and demand its collapse, lionize all rebels possible, and go with that flow?

He seems to have taken a mostly-ambiguous middle course - calling Syria's government a "regime" and crediting a majority of its alleged crimes, but offering more realism and nuance than most who do that, and criticizing the rebel side more than most would. He's seen by many who support Syria as a gatekeeper, who guards his "credibility" with the mainstream, using selective expertise ... There is this aspect, and previously it's about how I saw him. But I'm not in the mood to check that record or dig for many examples now, just the one below will do. But he's also seen by others, for example by Tony Badran, as the "Professor of Propaganda," "To read Landis’ commentary about Syria over the past half year is to track the development of Baath propaganda." Or, alternately, Ba'ath propaganda follows the truth more than he'd like to admit, as does Landis.

Badran's complaint was from late 2011, and indeed Landis solidly challenged some early lies like the shooting of soldiers in Baniyas on April 10, 2011 "for refusing orders" (see my coverage of it featuring his, and note he even "liked" my tweet about it). And he's kept a relatively even keel in the storms of disinfo since, surely pelted from both sides to trade some of his credibility for stronger support to one side or the other (and I'm guessing this was 10:1 from the opposition side).

Recently, since Russia has opened its own air campaign in Syria, he's issued comments (like in his interview on RT) taking a stronger line against the ongoing regime change campaign/anti-ISIS effort,. Now that it can be compared to Russia's anti-ISIS campaign, which hangs on supporting, not destroying, the government there... As he named it at Syria Comment, Regime-Change without State Collapse is Impossible in Syria. And for those who don't know, state collapse is a bad thing (see Iraq, Libya, and now much of Syria).

Houla Blind Spot: Time to Correct it

In between, Landis is lacking in what we have - detailed event analysis to see through some of the bigger lies, like the hideous massacres blamed on "Assad" and his "Shabiha" militia. It's these, from the earliest Homs massacres to the Ghouta alleged sarin attack and beyond, that ensure decent people would have a hard time ever accepting that kind of "regime" to continue existing.  Obviously, after all this, "Assad" (meaning ??) has to go.

And so these stories underpin the continued destabilization of Syria. They'll do that truthfully, untruthfully, or probably some mixture. Do "we" really know the true mix? Rebels blamed the government for the Dec. 2012 Aqrab massacre, the first Ma'an massacre right after that, besides so many others, which were clearly their own crimes (to the extent they even happened, which people remain vague about. But they happened.). Other massacres, they just never reported (Latakia, Aug. 2013, etc.)

Landis was/would be able to easily see through those three lies (one by omission). He knows Sunni extremists (and not just the boogeyman ISIS) kill civilians, especially Alawi ones. For example, in this early 2014 article, Landis countered the prevalent claims of regime-ISIS cooperation, pointing to plenty of other groups who commit atrocities like the recent (second) Ma'an massacre.

That's right on, but he screwed up by following that with:

None of this is to deny sectarianism exists on the regime side, as evinced by sectarian massacres perpetrated by forces fighting for the regime, whether by Alawite irregular militiamen (the Houla massacre) or foreign Shi’a militiamen (the Nabk massacre in rural Damascus province...

I haven't really studied Nabk, but should have - that's around the same time as the Adra massacre, and pretty nearby, isn't it? Must be Iranians, maybe in both cases </sarcasm>. But this is our specialty, imperfect but quality work dissecting massacre marketing claims - not all, but many.

I asked him some months back to have a look at our Houla research, but the response was vague and seemed like an attempted permanent dodge. I was tempted to right then declare him weak, but more review led me to think maybe not. 

Again, our findings - which add to other evidence brought by other witnesses, journalists, and researchers, comes from a careful study of the most reliable, evidence - video. The rebel-supplied videos (most of them presented as proof of the government shelling attack) do little to prove much on a singular basis; naturally, they would try to avoid showing too much of the truth. But taken as a whole they show enough of the picture to be pretty clear what's going on. We see rebel fighters firing guns and RPGs towards the clocktower, qaws, and water co. posts (see map), clearly on the offensive and not the retreat, and we see the clocktower and MIHQ posts and the hospital burning and belching smoke by sunset.

In context, this means rebels took over the exact massacre area, immediately before the massacres happened there. These massacres happened at no other time than when rebels took over. The reasonso few get that disconnect is they've never heard that rebels took over. Rebels never told us about that, and they're the only people in Syria "we" believe. Luckily, they provided a few videos that - with careful decoding - disprove their own case. 

Here's the map showing security posts and massacre in relation - white security posts are acknowledged as overrun by UN's Commission of Inquiry investigators. What's new/contested is that the next two orange posts seem either overrun as well, or circumvented. Pink dots are reported massacre sites, red dots ones we can verify by video evidence (there were more than this, but the rest can't be mapped yet). The yellow-green letters indicate where different videos were filmed.

Now consider the competing narratives compared to this:

Rebels/activists/"survivors" version: Rebels were in charge of the whole "village of Houla" until the army chased them out of the Taldou part on May 25 with shelling that started at mid-day. Some claim there were limited clashes before this, but no mentioned victories. They had to run away and leave the village undefended. Then the Shabiha moved in and massacred apolitical Sunni families for clearly genocidal reasons, before they withdrew, leaving over 100 bodies behind. Rebels came back and documented the truth.

Government/other witnesses version: Rebels ran all towns of the Houla region except the southern half of Taldou, still lightly held with five security posts. Rebels attacked these on May 25 starting at mid-day, overran most or all of the posts, killed and captured soldiers, and then massacred pro-government Sunni and/or Shia convert families. Also, they attacked the Alawite village of Shumariya to the south that same night, killing ten (a different group of rebels did that, though). They used the Houla victim bodies and false witnesses (largely their own family members) to blame the government and demand foreign intervention. After this day, rebels did control all of the Houla area, and do so until the present day.

The map alone, from UN investigator info mainly, shows how the rebel story was never anywhere near as credible as people (including the UN investigators) made it seem. They wound up blaming the government, but had to admit along the way rebels launched a successful offensive that day, and overran two posts, but no more. Rebels never mentioned that. And when we examine the video evidence compared to those orange security posts next to the red and pink dots, it gets downright creepy... 

The challenge: Dr. Landis should endeavor to analyze it or at least encourage a team member or some readers to have a look at the report:

The Battle for the Houla Massacre: the video evidence explained, and the rest re-considered (PDF)

Someone else on the Syria Comment team might do the actual analysis, but in the end, I'd like a Landis opinion. A mention on Syria Comment might even be warranted.
.
- The core video evidence is all that really matters. If time is limited, ignore the last sections and focus on the "exhibits" - who's shooting, where, when, what's burning, etc. Other issues are fair to critique, but not as a replacement for reviewing the video record and our reading of it.

- The relevant work is video analysis, geolocation - someone experienced is best, but anyone can do this, compare video to satellite images and see if it is or isn't a match, challenge the time readings, implications, our reading what's happening at that place and time, etc.

- The important question mark over the June videos we decided show event of May 25 might be worth challenging. That counts as a core video issue (should they even be included? We think so and explain why). Other side-issue relating to the video readings are equally fair game and totally relevant.

- In the end, I need to hear what's wrong with our case, what's right with it, what now seems to you the best supported narrative? We started with very different views, and after re-visiting it, who should change viewpoints?

- No set time-frame. Done the best way, it could be a bit of a project, preferably with a team.I'm not threatening a weakling write-up, just hoping to see a response.

- Format: open to suggestions, but to start I offer the comment space here.

Someone should make the best effort they can to find a real error, and maybe if they can't find one, to say so - endorse this battle-tested work, and help it move forward from neglected to relevant. This is supposed to be the age of the citizen journalist and blogger-investigator, open-source intel and "geolocation." And you aren't supposed to have to be a Brown Moses type to matter.

An Iranian Hand in the Houla Massacre?

August 11, 2015
(incomplete)

One of the more widely-read pieces on the May, 2012 Houla Massacre remains this piece in the Guardian I haven't explicitly tackled yet: Houla massacre: US accuses Iran of 'bragging' about its military aid to Syria  Chris McGreal in Washington Tuesday 29 May 2012 16.51 EDT

Victoria Nuland, the state department spokeswoman, said that Iran's hand is clearly visible in the killing of more than 100 people, including scores of young children, by a Syrian militia group, the Shabiha, which closely resembles an Iranian militia, the Basij.
...
"We took this action (expelling Syria's ambassador) in response to the massacre in the village of Houla – absolutely indefensible, vile, despicable massacre against innocent children, women shot at point blank range by regime thugs, the Shabiha, aided and abetted by the Iranians who were actually bragging about it over the weekend," said Nuland.

This accusation of a clear "Iranian hand" in the massacre might sound about like the picture at right, minus the question mark; the Mullahs in Tehran directly and knowingly assisted in sectarian slaughter like the rebels allege happened in Taldou that day. But the argument - and the Guardian's reason for attaching "Houla Massacre" to this report about general military aid - is kind of roundabout.

The actual accusation, which accompanied the expulsion of Syria's ambassador, was that Iran was helping Syria in general with boosting its local paramilitaries now called National Defense Forces. The derogatory nickname for these - "Shabiha" - does not mean "thug" as widely believed, or anything exactly. It's apparently derived from the militia's original name, Lijan Shabiya, or Popular Committees (sometimes called Local Committees, I think) distorted maybe to imply "ghosts" or the act of tearing a person apart (see here). And they are not an Alawite death cult as widely claimed, but of whatever faith the locals are, and secular in operation. After the Iranian-aided boost, they became the more official and capable NDF we see today fighting and often dying in the field. 

The purely Sunni and largely foreign rebels hate the "Shabiha" and from 2011 forward have blamed them for a slew of horrific crimes, most notably this Houla Massacre, creating a mythical, cartoon villain version of the real militias. This is the version Nuland is talking about.

It's never alleged that Tehran helped directly in the operation of the massacre itself, just that they sent their barbarity over to take root as its own Syrian version, with continued general assistance, and that led to the killings. The State Department analysis, as passed on by Nuland, found similarities between the "Shabiha thugs" and the Iranian Basij militias. But if "the Basij and the Shabiha are the same type of thing," as Nuland says, that does not mean they're definitely organized by the same people. Models can just be copied, or naturally wind up the same, as with adaptation in the wild.

But there was a more concrete sign of a connection alleged: The Guardian piece continues:

Nuland further implicated Iran by drawing attention to the timing of a claim by the deputy head of its Quds force, Esmail Ghani, that it has played a "physical and non-physical" role in Syria, and that if it were not present "the killing of citizens would be greater."

Nuland noted the timing of this, coming over the weekend immediately after the killings in Houla. This "Bragging" just then could have one of two non-coincidental reasons, depending how the evidence pans out:
1) They were excited to be involved in the genocide against Sunnis and hoped to help expand the killing (the implication of State's allegation)
2) They were excited to help the local militias prevent more destabilizing terrorist massacres like that, in their allied nation of Syria.

The quote included "if (Quds) were not present "the killing of citizens would be greater."" Well, that's not option 1) unless they're talking in code, as State probably meant to imply. These were candid, intercepted calls? And that's the juiciest quote they could find? Sounds to me like they're talking, honestly, about option 2, expressing worries that wind up being the ones supported by the best evidence.

It turns out rebel-supplied video evidence of the events of May 25, carefully analyzed, contradicts the rebel-supplied narrative on which all the Shabiha blame is based. Opposition sources said rebels were in charge in the "village" of Houla (but were really in charge of most of the 3-town area), but they ran away under regime shelling of the "village." This let the local Shabiha, mostly from a few nearby Alawi (Alawite) villages, march in to murder random Sunni families. This is the version Nuland referred to.

Taldou, security posts vs. massacre sites

But the scant video shows no government attack, and instead shows that Sunni rebels shouting Allahu Akbar attacked security posts on the day of the massacre, overrunning the last government-held part of the Houla region. This was the southern half of the southernmost town of Taldou, and it was immediately before the lamented families were massacred in southern Taldou, behind that erased line of protection. (see The Battle for the Houla Massacre, report with all lodged challenges and updates, here).

So who would be best positioned to carry out a massacre there on that day? Maybe the same folks who wound up with all the bodies after? That would be the anti-government forces, FSA and probably al-Qaeda, supported in myriad ways by the United States and its allies. With actual video evidence, not just words, ... well I wouldn't say Washington's hand is clear in this massacre of whole families in Syria, but... that would be way way closer to the truth than blaming Iran and the defenders they were supporting.

Taldou defenders, Iranian-backed

Any proto-NDF Popular Committees fighters involved in the battle for Taldou would be local defenders who, like their colleagues in the Army, were unable to stop that unprecedented rebel assault. In fact the guy in civilian clothes laid out here, with some soldiers killed in the Battle for the Houla Massacre, might be one of them. (Source: ANNA News video, Taldou, May 26 - composite view)

We don't know for sure who the civilian victims really were, but the more credible witnesses and sources - the ones who mentioned the rebel attack rebels themselves deny - have a prevailing explanation. According to them, the victims were of 2 types, one being Sunnis (mostly named al-Sayed) accused of rejecting the rebellion, being in the military, or having a family relation to a member of parliament (secretary Mashlab, just sworn-in).

But the major part of the victims were former Sunnis who converted to Shi'ism That was the extended Abdulrazaq families, with intermarried others totaling as many as 90 of the 100+ civilian victims (see here for that little-known tidbit). The most credible version says they were Shia (Shi'ites), members of the same majority religion in Iran, of which Assad's Alawi faith is a localized offshoot. Sunni extremists hate Shi'ism worse than anything, and faith traitors who would willingly embrace it.

 
So ... 

"We find it interesting that it was on this very weekend that the deputy head of the Quds force decided to take credit for the advice they're giving to Syria," she said.

No one could deny it was likely the Houla Massacre that spurred Ghani to this discussion. On the weekend following a great loss of civilian lives, of coreligionists no less, massacred by rampant Sunni extremists, they were overheard discussing how to boost local defense forces to stop further massacres. This is Nuland's idea of shady timing, but they "brag" only that if they and their help weren't there, "the killing of citizens would be greater."

State suggests that's code for wanting to kill more. But it's far more likely Nuland and so many others are seriously talking in an established code when they go on about saving lives. The Houla Massacre had to give Victoria Nuland a hard-on. This bleeding of Syria - by destabilizing terrorist events just like that - is essential to the script, and she knows it.

Three Years After Houla: Lessons Remembered, Forgotten, and Never Known

May 26, 2015
(edits 5-29, last edits May 20, 2017)

It's now been three years since the once-pivotal "Houla Massacre" of about 110 civilians in the last government-held part of the al-Houla region, on May 25, 2012. To this day, our work (the research by A Closer Look On Syria (ACLOS - overview post), the two reports from that in 2013 and 2014, this site, and related articles) is still the best reading of the evidence anyone has ever assembled towards understanding the event. With my improvements, the Wikipedia page is not quite as horribly misleading as it was (still planning on other revisions). And nearly a year after I published the challenge space, still no errors called out even where I sought it out. Many can still claim they've just never seen this but no one can claim it's been addressed or debunked.

To mark the date, I will finally upload to the CIWCL site Houla Massacre Victims, 2014 Morgue Photos (graphic), 30-page PDF document collecting victim photos from a short-lived opposition site on Facebook (PDF direct download link). The family-grouped names, with name-linked photos, was a bit of a treasure-trove of (alleged) information I cited in the 2014 report and in later findings on this site. I finished this PDF, and meant to publish it, back in January. But now, about a year after they were published on Facebook and some months after they were pulled back down, I've made sure these images and attached notes can still be seen and used to help understand the crime.

2017 note: after two years and few views, I've taken down the previous images of one victim.

For newbies, I could re-cap what we've been able to establish. But that's summarized somewhat in the long comment below, and explained in more detail all over this site. I guess a link to Houla Massacre Primer could help for anyone really behind.

And I'll check around to see if any liars or sadly mistaken folks are exploiting the anniversary to push further punishment of Syria's people and the government they rely on. Upon looking, I see Gareth Bayley, UK Special Representative for Syria, is doing that. He penned an Orwellian little piece called "Remembering Houla - Why Sectarianism Cannot Be Part of Syria's Future" May 25, 2015 - at Al-Arabiya and/or Huffington Post - and also on the FCO blog

Three years ago today, a massacre took place in the Syrian village of Taldou in Houla, in northern Syria. According to the UN, 108 civilians were brutally murdered, including 34 women and 49 children. More even than the death toll, the clear sectarian nature of the killings sparked an international outcry. The UN and twelve other countries, including the UK, expelled Syrian diplomats. Three years on, as we look to Syria's future, we mustn't forget the shock and horror of that day, 25 May, 2012.

... (highly slanted and inaccurate political boilerplate to support his upside-down point)...

Final point. Let's keep firmly focused on the need to bring perpetrators of massacres like Houla to justice....

Of course, continuing on the Islamist rebels' fictitious script like this jackass and so many other propose, is putting the perpetrators in power over more and more of Syria's people. They're still in charge of Houla, the first prize the "world community" handed them in thanks for the massacre.

Knife allegedly left behind by Shia (Shi'ite) killers at one of the Houla Massacre sites. Inscription may say "we will sacrifice ourselves for you, Hussein" - the UN's investigators mention this being brought to their attention by rebels who happen to be, or work with, Sunni extremist propagandists.

So I'll also mark the anniversary with a hefty comment there (at the Huffington posting), and also here in case it disappears.
---

In the months after the massacre, Mr. Bayley's government along with others was encouraging the rise of a Sunni extremist "prinicipality" in the desert between Baghdad and Damascus, to "Isolate" the "Assad regime." Now he goes on about that terrorism-beleaguered government as the purveyor of the sectarianism leading to ISIS in just that area. Considering what we've heard about the Houla massacre and the like, it makes some sense. However, we hear total nonsense and Orwellian inversions of the truth all the time, whether we recognize it or not ... 

Saad st. RPG incident

I for one am all for remembering the heck out of the Houla Massacre. What we're supposed to forget is that we never did really figure out what happened - we just decided. Gen. Mood's missing report with conflicting stories just went quiet, as everyone heard the other story anyway and blithely dismissed it. Rebel "terrorists?" "What lies!" Not everyone knows this yet, and lucky for people like Mr. Bayley, the Houla Massacre was done immediately after a rebel victory taking out 4 of Taldou's 5 security posts, as careful video analysis all but proves (please see my report The Battle for the Houla Massacre and the associated challenge space that sits empty). The UN's probe (CoI, led by a Washington policy think-tank director) managed to fudge the rebel victory down to two bases, but did so with inadequate reason. These overrun posts were in some cases across the street from massacre sites. 

In that context, government loyalist claims - that rebel "terrorists" had murdered government-supporting Sunnis, relatives of the parliament's news secretary, and former Sunnis who converted to Shi'ism - make more sense than most would like. In fact, in lining up with the video evidence of a rebel victory, it becomes the leading theory. It carries far more weight than do the illogical and inconsistent stories from rebel-supplied "witnesses" and "survivors." Consider: everyone cites the UN and the rebel witnesses, but they disagree; the CoI mentions half of the Battle for the Houla Massacre while the "survivors" deny it altogether. It seems the CoI was fudging between the truth and the rebel lie, carefully coming out closer to the lie side.

It's an un-realized scandal, the whitewash of the rebels' Houla Massacre. And we don't know who drew the blades here. Jabhat al-Nusra - the first beneficiary of the West's pro-Islamist strategy in Syria and Iraq - in an early form is quite likely. This al Qaeda group now runs much of the north of Syria, getting regular help from the "White Helmets" Mr Bayley lauds. He presumes since they're a Western PR stunt they must be pro-freedom and equality like they say, but the "White Helmets" often wave the black flag behind which JaN (aka not-ISIS) executes government loyalists and Alawites at will. And so in all corners of Syria, Sunni extremist sectarianism is increasingly a part of Syria's future as British/Western/allied policy works like intended - that is, the more and more Syria as a sovereign nation ceases to exist.

Thanks for allowing this contrary view to be aired.

---

(shorter version also at al-Arabiya in 2 parts - but these don't appear and bizarrely, links to the article always say 404 not found error - you have to search it and click the link from Bayley's page to see it - at least I do. Can anyone else try? Click the link http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2015/05/25/ or paste into a new window and you get 404? Same exact url you see once you do find it) (a couple day later: still did not appear - only one comment, also critical. I left a third saying "I submitted a comment in two parts, the second one ending with a thanks for allowing a contrary view. They weren't approved." Headed "thanks for nothing?"
---

I also have some thoughts coming (not ready yet) about the recently classified DIA documents showing conscious plans to foster an Islamist menace between Syria and Iraq - what eventually spawned ISIS/Daesh and before that and some hope after that, spawned al Qaeda's Jabhat al-Nusra - and how this strategy sits in the timeline: after the Houla Massacre but before the emergence of JaN and its captured chlorine and "kitchen sarin" - and before the escalating string of chemical massacres leading up to the Ghouta alleged Sarin attack of August 2013 that supposedly killed over 1,000 civilians and nearly got the rebels a direct foreign military intervention.

Also we could say it's to mark Houla that I'll re-mention a recently revived investigation of some finer points of the Ghouta Chemical Massacre(s) (the hub for that) and a recent re-publication of al-Bayda massacre findings - for a powerful Houla-Ghouta-Bayda triumverate. These three primate massacres are arguably the three most called on in support of eliminating the "Assad regime." And to varying degrees (high to extreme) we have reclaimed all three - besides many others of less influence - from slavery to rebel lies, and set them on a better path towards truth and maybe even justice. That hasn't been widely noticed yet, but it's true.

Houla Massacre Images that Weren't (Graphic)

January 10, 2015
(modified from ACLOS)
last edits June 2, 2015

Everyone knows the photo at right is not from the Houla Massacre as the BBC had briefly said, but from Iraq, following the exhumation of a mass grave in May, 2003. Did no one even notice this shows several times the reported number of dead bodies in Houla? It was quickly called out and redacted to a different photo. The photographer who captured that image, Marco DeLauro, told the UK Telegraph on May 28 “What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn't check the sources and it's willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever. ... Someone is using someone else's picture for propaganda on purpose.”

From there, we'll focus on more horrible images, without professional photographers involved, that still have people fooled. Some of the most appalling violence displayed by other activists as part of the Houla Massacre, especially that done to children, is genuine; torn-off jaws and hacked skulls at least happened to kids that day. But some of that worst of the worst imagery in that category was added with more recycled images.

1) Mohammed Family: The "Examiner" for example includes in an emotive slideshow a particularly horrible (graphic!) scene, captioned: "A family, all victims of the Houla massacre." In the video on youtube, you can hear the cameraman from the Free Syria army break into tears (courtesy of Days of Syrian Rage Facebook English Facebook page unless noted)" Actually, that's from from a mini-massacre in the dark days of Homs, January 30, 2012. This was in the Karm al-Zaytoun district of Homs city, they say say. Father, mother, four young children, mutilated, apparently tortured before death.

2) March KaZ Victims: One room full of men, women, and mangled children turns out to have been already aired after the March 11, 2012 Karm al-Zaytoun Massacre, same district as above. These extra-gruesome images have been used by both sides to blame each other for the Houla Massacre, and wrongly so (eg Vox Clamantis, Oweiss-Reuters, see below). A girl with her eye shot out/brain protruding, in a pink coat, is the most famous victim. If she's in the spread, it's from this massacre, with fascinating research backing it - see the link. Rebels are heard calling the KaZ victims "sheep" on one video, and it's said they were herded to one apartment in batches to be slaughtered.

3) Khaled al-Fares, May 17: VDC lists 10 Homs martyrs on May 17, including 5 from Houla (sub-town not specified). One is the executed pharmacist discussed here, shot or hanged, the rest killed by "shelling" A woman, a man, another man named (as given)  Mohammad Al-Faris, and his possible son, Khaled Abdulkarim Al-Faris, age 4, mother's name Nafia. Of the "shelling" victims, only the last has, or had, supporting imagery.

Video of the martyr video 1 (unavailable) - video 2 (private) - from elsewhere, another video (unavailable) - another yet at Daily Motion is still viewable, and could be the same child with shirt still on - dated May 17. It looks like his throat has been massively torn, and he lived long enough to stuff his hands in the wound and get that dismayed look on his face, which can be seen clearer in a set of two photographs.

This image is what Alex Thomson must mean when he says a local man showed him video on his cell phone, “of two children, their throats slit so deeply they are virtually decapitated.” There are two famous photos of Khaled, looking almost like two different children. As once seen here, (now gone - still at this Kuwaiti forum post) there's also a photo where he's rolled over - he's got a serious wound in the side and middle of the back, plus little nicks all over from exploding fragments, maybe, and then the throat elimination.

 

The alternate views of Khaled Alex Thomson may have
taken for a second child

These moving images have been re-used many times since for subsequent Syria massacres, and according to this Urdu site, exposing efforts to use this to blame Shia killers in Pakistan, in November 2013, and sow fresh discord there. One wonders if it was used to rile up or inspire the Houla Massacre perpetrators a week later, as they tore the jaw-necks off at least two kids to a similar horrifying effect.

This Houla local talking to Alex Thomson should know the video is from a week before the alleged Shabiha assault. Little Khaled did have a possible relative - Osama Fares - killed on the 25th in the Houla Massacre (first listed as killed by shelling, later changed to field execution - unlike Khaled), possibly on the militant side, possibly not. But Khaled was not slaughtered May 25, but on May 17, less likely by "shelling" than by, say, a claw hammer. We do not know who, in rebel-held al-Houla, would have done this, nor why.

Oweis Double-Whammy: Reuters' Khaled Yacoub Oweis got all the horrible ones, as if he needs any help short-circuiting logic in favor of emotive regime-blaming. He cites three extra-grisly videos, one of which sounds like a May 25 video ("Saad Street RPG Incident"). The others are exactly the two above:

Other footage and pictures posted on the day of the killings showed a child with its throat slit, with what appear to be burn marks near what may be an entrance wound on the upper rib cage.

That sounds like Khaled al-Fares. A Houla kid, but killed a week earlier and not to worry, by "shelling," not "Shabiha."

Another showed a girl, apparently shot in the right eye, blood soaking the right side of her clothing.

There's a similar-looking girl in Houla, but covered. The blood down the right side clarifies he's talking about the famous pink-coat girl from the Karm al-Zaytoun scene. Oddly enough, the report citing that photo for the wrong event was titled "Families herded "like sheep" to die in Houla massacre." - when - and this is worth repeating here - rebels are heard calling the KaZ victims "sheep" on one video, and its said they were herded to one apartment in batches to be slaughtered. Despite the event mismatch, the title and one cited picture wound up lining up pretty well.

Another Double-Whammy: Lebanese forum A Separate State of Mind shared Houla victim photos that inluce the KaZ scene (third row, middle) and Khalid (fifth row, middle). The picture to the left of Khalid is also questionable, but hasn't been pinned to anything else yet. Their second batch of photos seems to be all legit.

Add: Government loyalists do it too. This picture of what appears to be a boy from a loyalist family, from a video, has been widely pushed as a victim of the Houla Massacre. It was even considered by the UN's CoI (see June, 2012 report) as evidence for possible rebel guilt over the events of May 25. However, he's a victim of an April 5 Houla Massacre, about 6 weeks too early, as early postings and contemporary records bear out. The stricken home is geo-located in Taldou, east of town center. Rebels blame the government side for this as well, but clues suggest it was the rebels who killed this loyalist family. An uncle of the Farouq Brigade's Abdulrazaq Tlass (a leader of the May 25 attack) was killed in fighting in the "Houla countryside" at this time.

2014 Report: Main Challenge Space

Post created July 6, 2014
last edits February 12, 2015

July 20 Note: The report is now available and discussion could start anytime - but no rush. Have a read first.
---
Here I start my call to challenge the CIWCL's new report I just authored:

The Battle For The Houla Massacre: The Video Evidence Explained (and the rest reconsidered)

(PDF direct download/view link - 60 pages but digestible and with lots of
pictures and extras - download page with short summary here).

This post will gather links to specific arguments/challenge points, suggested by myself or readers, and gather the best challenges and note any corrections thus forced. I anticipate correcting a few things myself, but hope that others will join in.

Especially helpful would be anyone from the millions of people pre-conditioned to discredit the report's findings, but patient enough to actually show why one should, rather than just presuming it. It's a sacrifice to get specific and run the risk of being specifically wrong. I ask people to now take that risk, as we are with this report and other research.

July 12: Challenge Approach
I'm open on just how to approach this, but this is my first thought:
1) Readers who read the report and think they have a serious challenge - or even a question - can first do so here, in a comment.
2) If it turns out interesting enough, that and the related discussion could then be copied or even moved (you can run out of space here!) to a new post where it's related, with space below for further discussion on that narrower subject.
3) Each of these would be given a link in this post and brief notes as warranted. Any corrections we consider sufficiently justified will be made, noted, and become their own parts of the investigation thereafter.
4) If you're not sure you have a point but think you might ... it's a question. Go research to find out, or ask me. Ex: "this part ... sounds like it can't be right. What is that based on? You cite "x" but I don't get how..."
5) A better idea on approach would be a better idea. So bring that too if you have one.

July 20 Ground Rules: 
I hope to get people from different perspectives commenting and debating here, and over an emotive topic (and maybe off onto related emotive topics) So ... let's keep it on or close to topic. Attack the argument, not the arguer. Swearing is fine, but let's be respectful to each other, try to find even small agreements when possible, and stay constructive.

Serious, engaged efforts are preferred, obviously, to the kind of self-amused drive-by "duh-bunking" I've encountered so often when engaging with mainstream "skeptics," mindless defenders of the status quo (some call them "government plants," but I think "corporate media vegetables" captures the essence better).

December 12, Broad Response Invitation: Six months in ... to help get things moving, you can mention
- a typo or suspected error you spot
- statements of agreement or disagreement (specific)
- suggestions (NOT soliciting new source material unless it's a video and you've checked it against all those cited and know it's new - let's not clog the comments with reposts and guesses - I doubt it will be an issue)
- questions (like how we decided on a point), etc.

The best comments will directly discuss videos we cited and the content of them.

---
Special Challenge Spaces
* Eliot Higgins: Brown Moses on the Hook
If anyone else feels inspired to really review in detail and would like extra space, well there's plenty here now but that will change. I'm open to giving you your own post with fresh slate like Mr. Higgins gets (probably without the snarky set-up). First request should be made in at least one initial comment below.
---
Collected Updates:
C1 July 21: because I already know it's needed, a space to review Abdulrazaq-Abbara-Clocktower Connection? re: page 34 in the report.
C2 Dec. 12: (minor)page 41, left-hand graphic: the orange arrow should point to the smaller building just south of the one indicated.
Otherwise, none yet as of December 23 (just started really trying about a week ago).
C3 Feb. 12 2015: I challenged my revised time zone decision. It was right to reflect DST, but that was on top of a wrong time zone, an old error that got set in stone. I thought Syria was in UTC+3 with Iraq, but it's in UTC+2 with Lebanon. I'm embarrassed that underpins most of my/our Syria research. All times given, from sunset across, back down an hour, with minor effects on narrative lineup.