A Mediterranean Battlefield - Syria

[Peter Lemkin]

Was just watching an Al Jazeera piece on Aleppo. Yes, AJ has a certain bias, but the camera often doesn't lie....large parts of the city are in total ruin. Other parts are not. [It is a large city]. They interviewed a few people who didn't seem to happy with the FSA soldiers with AJ journalists, but they said they were too afraid to leave the city [though they would like to]; they felt the chances of being killed trying to leave were greater than staying [where the dangers were also great]. Food is now also in short suppy; gas for cars even more so. It seems to me Assad and his forces won't relent and will level most of the cities until somehow this mess ends....but it looks like when that happens, however it does, it will make the damage in Libya look light. The AJ team filmed an areal bomb from a plane clearly hit a large apartment block, then filmed terrified survivors running out for shelter - some too frightened to speak. Very sad. While the People are most important, is is also notable that there are MANY historical monuments and buildings, castles, forts, mosques et al in Syria that are being destroyed and looted now.