Mainstream Media Ignores Sectarian Killings In 'Liberated' Syria While Jolani Plays Nice For Cameras
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Mainstream Media Ignores Sectarian Killings In 'Liberated' Syria While Jolani Plays Nice For Cameras

Since the rapid collapse of the Assad government and the takeover of Damascus by US-designated terror group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on December 8, Syrians by the hundreds or even thousands have been filmed in city streets celebrating, expressing hope for a new era.

But for every scene of hundreds gathered in a city square in front of Al Jazeera or CNN cameras, the reality is that there are many tens of thousands more families holed up in their homes, deeply fearful of venturing outside, with the more fortunate ones having stocked up on supplies just prior to Abu Mohammad al-Jolani's army of mujahideen fighters entering the capital.

With the basically overnight and shock collapse of a state system earlier this month which had been in place for over a half-century, Syrians whether in Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Latakia, or Damascus have no clue which armed factions might be patrolling the neighborhoods just around the corner from their apartments.

Illustrative: Prior scene in northern Syria earlier in the war. Jihadists mock a Syrian soldier's cross necklace.

A big looming dark fear is the possibility of "reprisal" killings meted out by the jihadists against any community, especially along religious lines, merely perceived as 'loyalist' or at least which never came out openly against the Assad government. We and others have been documenting that this is already taking place.

Political alignment aside, all communities of the capital have historically been "Syria first"—that is, the common populace tends to frame identity foremost along nationalistic lines. The ideology of the conquerors, in their own words and patches/symbols on their tactical vests, are without doubt Takfirism, Salafism, and Wahhabism. This has been exhaustively documented over many, many years of the tragic proxy war in Syria - yet now suddenly Western leaders and media lackeys have 'forgotten' it all. Non-Sunni Muslims are especially being targeted, for nothing else other than religion and identity

Mainstream media cameras in Damascus have been carefully trying to hide or at least downplay this reality. They present the euphoria of those few on the streets praising the 'revolution' and downfall of Assad while ignoring the many more who are bracing for a sectarian bloodbath at the hands of the jihadists.

American correspondents have even been caught 'coaching' bearded militants waring ISIS patches on how to improve their image in front of an international audience... Watch: Syrian 'Moderate Rebel' Removes ISIS Patch At Prompting Of American Journalist.

This fear of being targeted for ethno-religious genocide is perhaps greatest among Christians, Alawites, and Druze. Dread or anxiety at what tomorrow will bring is also a reality among some business-oriented Sunnis of Aleppo and Damascus.

Major urban centers in Syria had always had a definite secular and pluralist public vibe—with liquor stores and nightclubs a common sight in central areas—and women in the Islamic veil a little bit more of a rarity. Some liquor stores especially in Aleppo and the north have already been smashed and destroyed.

Now, for the first time in Syria's modern history, women who dare to venture out in the city center of Damascus are being asked their sectarian affiliation: Are you Sunni, Shia, Christian, Druze? Or else they are being told to put on the Islamic veil, by bearded militants from outside cities or villages, or worse who are from other countries. Latakia, as well as parts of the countryside, are already witnessing armed jihadist gangs conducting summary executions.

Gruesome videos (too horrific to link to) are filling up social media platforms like X and Telegram, in some instances with unidentified victims being dragged to death behind vehicles.

Others show HTS-linked factions or else foreign jihadist groups cleansing entire villages of 'Nusayris'—a derogatory term for Alawites, which is ethno-religious background of the Assad family. Jolani's officials have recently tried to urge for militants to not film their atrocities or upload them to the internet.

* * *

Rania Khalek is an independent journalist who has long reported from the region. Her contacts across Syria are telling her that the jihadists are killing civilians in various places far away from CNN or Al-Jazeera cameras. Below is a report she posted to X [emphasis ZH]...

Some concerning developments in Syria that were being largely ignored or dismissed until horrific videos of sectarian violence and executions began emerging in recent days…

In some mixed Syrian towns and villages as well as minority neighborhoods around Homs, Hama and on the coast, security was breaking down and people felt scared to speak about it, according to multiple contacts. The Hama-Homs highway had decapitated bodies strewn about, according to one contact. He wanted to take pictures of the bodies on the highway but he didn’t dare out of fear.

At one roadblock they forced him to open his phone and they went through it. He said they spoke Arabic but it was a hybrid fusha accent he could barely understand. A contact reported being stopped by HTS at a barricade. He then had to wait for his business partner who is Sunni to come and vouch for him. Not a good sign.

Flyers have been disbursed in multiple areas informing women how they should dress and act. Minorities in mixed villages have been subjected to robberies, killings, kidnappings, etc. Some have responded by organizing armed men to protect their neighborhoods from raids. This is not everyone’s experience of course. But these sorts of incidents were increasing. And they reached a fever pitch after the video of the destruction of an Alawite shrine surfaced.

Reuters: "Rebel fighters ride in a vehicle after they seized Damascus and ousted President Bashar in Syria, December 9, 2024."

While the random violence and score settling speaks to the chaos that comes with a regime change like this, the sectarian violence is much more concerning. There are militias HTS either has no control over because they’re spread too thin or they don’t care to stop them. Some expressed that they suspect HTS is secretly calling the shots and then playing dumb.

Whatever the case, there is deep distrust of HTS in many minority communities due to their past violence combined with recent events. "I don't trust them at all, the fact that they are so insistent on collecting guns from people is so worrying, they even want licensed guns, and this is actually scary. They are always trying to appear as nice people talking about peace, but yet every day someone gets killed and they do nothing about it," said one contact in Latakia.

The sectarian violence is reminiscent of post 2011 days when the regime would be kicked out of an area and extremist militias would quickly take over and then chaos and sectarian violence would ensue. The pro-HTS side is framing any pushback or measure of self defense in vulnerable communities as Iranian-provoked or Assadist, which isn’t helpful and exacerbates the sectarianism. As the gun battles heat up, it’s hard to ignore the signs of potential civil unrest to come with violent zones of state collapse. I hope stability wins the day but it doesn’t look good.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/27/2024 - 17:40
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Marc Andreessen: 'Every Signal Is Being Sent' Trump DOJ Official Harmeet Dhillon Will Drop Hammer On Woke Corporations
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Marc Andreessen: 'Every Signal Is Being Sent' Trump DOJ Official Harmeet Dhillon Will Drop Hammer On Woke Corporations

Billionaire investor and Donald Trump adviser Marc Andreessen thinks corporate culture is about to undergo a radical change. Speaking with Erik Torenberg on the Moment of Zen podcast, Andreessen said that the reign of extreme wokeness, particularly in corporate America and the media, is rapidly coming to an end.

The catalyst? A combination of rising legal risks, the deflation of wokeness as a cultural force, and a change in leadership at the Department of Justice. Andreessen highlighted that with the appointment of Harmeet Dhillon to head the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, the federal government may soon begin to challenge and reverse many of the DEI-driven policies that have dominated corporations, universities, and other large institutions over the past decade.

This shift, he argues, could trigger a major pullback in DEI initiatives across the private sector, as companies scramble to comply with the law and distance themselves from policies that may now be seen as legally and culturally untenable.

Erik Torenberg: You're optimistic now that this reign of soft authoritarianism, aka extreme wokeness, is over. There's a question of will it just come back again in four years? Now that Trump will take power, will they sort of summon the resistance antibodies again? Talk a little bit about your perspective.

Marc Andreessen: I think that "wokeness is over" is a little bit too glib, and the main reason why that's the case I think, you know, maybe is self-evident, which is basically the bureaucracies of corporate America and of the government and of nonprofits, foundations, schools, universities, the media companies, the press — basically, the big bureaucracies, what we refer to as sort of the managerial class. The cathedral, Curtis' term, or James Burnham's term, the managerial class, the managers who sort of run everything — and by everything being like basically all of the large incumbent institutions — like, wokeness has become standard policy, right? And in like every large organization in the country, like the mandate number one is be compliant, right? Whatever is required to be compliant is like holy, right? It's like the thing that cannot be — you must be compliant. You must check off all the compliance boxes. Whether you win or not in the market is kind of optional, but you must be compliant. Whether you actually teach students anything is optional, but you must be compliant.

Wokeness has become part of the compliance regime, also what they refer to wonderfully in great Orwellian terms as the 'risk management regime,' the 'trust and safety regime.' Yeah, you know, just take all these words and reverse them. This stuff has gotten wired very deeply, and then it's been well-documented at this point that the foundation for a lot of what we call wokeness is actually baked deeply into the law. And a whole bunch of people have done great work, like Richard Hanania, Christopher Caldwell, and Wesley [Yang], who have all done great work in documenting kind of how deep this stuff is sort of embedded in the law, which is a whole other topic.

There's an institutionalization that took place that's going to take optimistically 30 years to get out or something like that. And by the way, maybe never. Having said that, there's that. But then there's what we've been dealing with for the last decade, which is beyond that — which is sort of the idea of wokeness being like the cultural vanguard, yeah, and basically being the thing that's like the coolest, highest-status, highest-fashion thing you can possibly be, and the thing that you have to be if you want to aspire to rise in the hierarchy and among the managerial class and run things. And then, if you want to get like really good press coverage, and if you want people to think that you're a moral person—that whole thing.

Then there's the power component of it. I use the Tolkien metaphor here, the 'ring of power,' which is the ability to call somebody a bad name under the wokeness regime and like instantly vaporize them and blow them out of their job and take their job. Like those second parts are like, I think, fading very fast. And in a lot of ways, it's sort of inevitable that would happen, because it's just like in fashion, whatever is cool and trending now looks dated five or ten years later. And you wonder how people possibly could have worn bell bottoms or whatever. Like, you know, it's that kind of phenomenon. And there's no question, the election basically punched a giant hole in the side of that balloon, and it's deflating incredibly quickly. And by the way, you see it in the reaction. You see it in the reaction to the election itself, which is the polar opposite reaction to 2016, which is just like complete deflation taking place. And I think wokeness is losing altitude quickly. But let's come back to the legal part, because that's also — there are very interesting things that might happen there that we could also talk about."

Erik Torenberg: Say more about this.

Marc Andreessen: If you wanted to pick the most extreme possible attorney to put in charge of the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department to reverse DEI, it would be this lawyer named Harmeet Dhillon. She's been a California lawyer and has been the scourge of woke corporations for the last decade. As it happens, she has just been appointed to run the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department. For those who don't track this, the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department is the federal government’s prosecutorial arm that basically enforces wokeness. They’re the ones who have made sure that, for the last decade, these companies have had all these crazy policies under the penalty of being investigated, subpoenaed, and ultimately prosecuted.

There have been lots of prosecutions and court cases. The most famous case that the current head of the Civil Rights division brought was the case against SpaceX for not hiring enough refugees—despite the fact that SpaceX is a military contractor and is not permitted to hire non-American citizens under a separate law.The person running that division has been a true activist, as you'd expect from this administration. And then Dhillon, who, by the way, I don’t know but I’ve been following for years, and is clearly brilliant, she is the exact opposite of that. Every signal is being sent that they’re going to do a 180 on all these things, and they’re going to begin prosecuting companies for violations of civil rights laws in the form of reverse discrimination—discrimination against white people, Asians, Jews, and other unprotected classes.

So, signals are being sent by these appointments that there is going to be an assault to reverse the assault that companies and universities have been under. And then, of course, the Supreme Court ruled not that long ago that private universities are not allowed to do race-based admissions. It’s actually really funny because there’s some question as to whether the demographic shift of admissions in the last year was starkly different than the year before, as these institutions claim they’re coming into compliance with the Supreme Court. There’s some question as to whether discovery will show they’re actually in compliance or whether they’re still playing games. That’s another thing we may find out.

There’s also an open question as to whether this decision has essentially already been made or will be made for private companies as well. And there’s a lot of private companies that have been trying to figure out quietly how to distance themselves from DEI, both for legal reasons and for cultural reasons. Now, there's another very interesting thing kicking in. I think there are a lot of large companies that were already done with DEI to start with. They were done with DEI for their own reasons because it’s backfired in many spectacular ways. But now, any large company that wants to distance itself from DEI has the best reason in the world: compliance. It’s illegal.

Let me just say for the record... I think every major corporation in the country is just in flagrant violation of actual civil rights law. You cannot have these hard quotas and racially, ethnically, and religiously biased hiring practices. It’s flat-out illegal. These companies have gone so extreme on this that they’ve ended up in what I think is clearly mass illegality. So, as Dhillon steps into her job, she’s not going to lack for a shortage of targets. If you don’t want to be a target, it’s a great 'get out of jail free' card to just voluntarily shut all this stuff down.

My guess is that starting pretty quickly, we’re already starting to see it. Boeing and a bunch of other companies have already put a bullet in their programs. Even the University of Michigan, which went completely overboard with this stuff, has actually shut their whole thing down. I think we’re going to see, my guess is, a run of companies that will take dramatic action here.

Watch the entire exchange here:

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15 Facts About The Growth Of Crime In The US That Will Blow Your Mind
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15 Facts About The Growth Of Crime In The US That Will Blow Your Mind

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

We live in a high crime society.  Nobody can dispute that fact, and it has been this way for a long time.  But the crime wave that we have witnessed in recent years has been truly breathtaking.  Tens of thousands of gangs are running wild in our major urban areas, and the growth of those gangs has been supercharged during the past four years thanks to the reckless border policies of the Biden administration.  Now we have rampant lawlessness in our streets, and it certainly isn’t going to be easy to clean up this mess.

The following are 15 facts about the growth of crime in the United States that will blow your mind…

#1 The number of shoplifting incidents per year in the United States is up 93 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels…

The average number of shoplifting incidents jumped 93% in 2023 compared with pre-pandemic times and monetary losses for retailers have risen 90%, according to the nation’s largest retail trade group.

With its “Impact of Retail Theft & Violence 2024” study, the National Retail Federation (NRF) is highlighting the severity of this issue. For instance, despite the continuous efforts by retailers to combat such crimes and a growing number of states that have updated their laws to prosecute organized retail crime as felonies, the number of retail theft incidents continues to climb.

#2 Bakersfield, California is the car theft capital of the country…

Bakersfield is a city with less than half a million people, making it the 9th most populous city in California. It also has the distinction of having the most car thefts of any U.S. city.

#3 Denver, Colorado is closing in on Bakersfield very quickly.  In fact, the car theft rate in Denver increased by 37 percent in just one year…

Denver is the capital and most populous city in Colorado which incidently made the NICB’s hot spot list for the top state by number of auto thefts. Not only did Denver experience 964 thefts per 100,000 residents, but the theft rate increased by 37%. As with most places, Kia and Hyundai vehicles make up a large percentage of those cars stolen.

#4 When it comes to car theft, Pueblo, Colorado only ranks third, but a 47 percent increase in just one year has it climbing the chart fast…

Well south of Denver and with a much smaller population, the city of Pueblo takes the third spot on our list. The city experienced auto theft at a rate of 891 per 100,000 residents. Additionally, the theft rate increased by a whopping 47% in one year. Pueblo police cite driver apathy as a reason behind the record levels of theft.

#5 According to the FBI, more than 14 million crimes are reported in the United States each year…

The FBI released detailed data on over 14 million criminal offenses for 2023 reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program by participating law enforcement agencies. More than 16,000 state, county, city, university and college, and tribal agencies, covering a combined population of 94.3% inhabitants, submitted data to the UCR Program through the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and the Summary Reporting System.

#6 There are more than 1.9 million people sitting in our prisons…

Further complicating matters is the fact that the U.S. doesn’t have one criminal legal system; instead, we have thousands of federal, state, local, and tribal systems. Together, these systems hold over 1.9 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,323 juvenile correctional facilities, 142 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories — at a system-wide cost of at least $182 billion each year.

#7 The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world by a very wide margin.  We have approximately 5 percent of the world’s population, but we have approximately 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population.

#8 According to the FBI, 33,000 criminal gangs are operating inside the United States today…

Some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs are criminally active in the U.S. today. Many are sophisticated and well organized; all use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug and gun trafficking, prostitution and human trafficking, and fraud. Many gang members continue to commit crimes even after being sent to jail.

#9 Collectively, it has been estimated that those gangs have about a million members.

#10 Gangs account for about 80 percent of the violent crimes that are committed in the U.S. each year.

#11 In 2023, there were 127,436 rapes reported in the United States.

#12 For the most recent year that we have data, it was being estimated that more than 550,000 U.S. children “were victims of abuse and neglect”…

An estimated 558,899 children (unique incidents) were victims of abuse and neglect in the U.S. in 2022, the most recent year for which there is national data.

#13 If you can believe it, there are 795,000 registered sex offenders in this country.

More than 795,000 people were listed on state sex offender registries as of August 2024. This is about 8,000 more people than in 2023.

#14 There are 75,710 registered sex offenders in the state of Texas.

#15 There are 60,615 registered sex offenders in the state of California.

What in the world is wrong with us?

What would cause people to behave this way?

At this point, our society is literally teeming with evil.  In my brand new book entitled “Why”, I take a look at the root causes that motivate people to do what they do.  It isn’t an accident that our society has gone completely and utterly nuts.  It is simply a result of cause and effect.

As a society, we have been doing the wrong things for a very long time, and so now we have a giant mess on our hands.

Let us hope for better things in 2025, because right now lawlessness is thriving all around us.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

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9-Year-Old Arrested In Baltimore For Armed Carjacking, Robbery Spree
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9-Year-Old Arrested In Baltimore For Armed Carjacking, Robbery Spree

If you want another reason to avoid the crime-ridden Democratic stronghold of Baltimore City, well, look no further than mobs of kids running around and committing senseless armed carjackings.

Local news Fox Baltimore reports three juveniles, including a 9-year-old, and two adults were arrested last Sunday in connection to an armed carjacking near the 3900 block of East Lombard Street. 

"Once there, officers spoke with a 32-year-old woman who stated while stopped at a stop sign at Grundy at Bank Street, four male suspects approached her vehicle. One suspect, described as a white male, produced a metal tool, smashing her window. The suspect then proceeded to drag the woman from the vehicle and fled the location in the victim's car," the local outlet said. 

Officers arrested a 21-year-old man, a 15-year-old boy, a 19-year-old man, a 16-year-old boy, and a 9-year-old boy after a short foot pursuit. The 21 and 16-year-olds were taken to the Central Booking Intake Facility, while the 15-year-old was taken to the Department of Juvenile Services. The 9-year-old was released to his parents.

In a separate report, Fox Baltimore warned listeners in the area about an epidemic of juvenile carjackings plaguing the metro area. 

Violent crime, chaos, homicides, drug overdoses, robberies, de-industrialization, and high taxes under decades of radical leftists in City Hall have transformed the once-beautiful city into a lawless metro that, quite honestly, 'The Wire 2.0' should be filmed again... 

Lawless chaos... 

All this chaos has sparked a massive citywide exodus of residents, moving to surrounding counties or elsewhere, plunging the latest Census population data for the metro area to a 100-year low. Smart money has been leaving for decades. 

Fiscally irresponsible policies rammed through Annapolis by far-left Democrats are set to tip the state known for crabcakes, football, and murders into a "deep recession." 

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What Was So Different This Time About Trump's Election?
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What Was So Different This Time About Trump's Election?

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

In the weeks before the 2016 Trump Electoral College victory, Trump was polling between 35 and 40 percent.

He would average only about 41 percent approval over his tumultuous four-year tenure.

No one knows what lies ahead over the next four years. But for now, Trump already polls at well over 50 percent approval.

Trump’s inauguration in a few weeks likely will not resemble his 2016 ceremony.

In the 2016-7 transition, Democratic-affiliated interests ran commercials urging electors to become “faithless” and thus illegally reject their states’ popular votes and instead elect the loser, Hillary Clinton.

Massive demonstrations met Trump on Inauguration Day.

In less than four months after assuming the presidency, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate the hoax of Russian collusion.

That wasted 22-month, $40 million investigation found no collusion but did derail the first two Trump years.

What followed the collusion ruse was a consistent effort to undermine the Trump presidency—two subsequent impeachments, the laptop “disinformation” hoax, the COVID-19 nationwide lockdown, and news suppression of any mention of the Chinese lab origin of the virus or questioning the closing of schools.

In the Trump administration’s last summer of 2020, 120 days of riot, arson, looting, assault, and murder followed, with the denouement of the January 6 turmoil.

In contrast, during the 2024-2025 transition, Trump has all but assumed the presidency. Over 100 foreign leaders have elbowed each other to be invited to Mar-a-Lago or to phone in their congratulations to the newly elected Trump.

Remember that in 2016 the left screamed “Logan Act” if a Trump transition appointee even talked with foreign officials.

So why is newly elected Trump a veritable cultural hero in 2024 in a fashion unimaginable eight years ago when the media had rendered him a near demon?

One, Trump is now seen as a welcome relief.

A departing and unpopular Joe Biden will leave with about a 36 percent approval rating.

The prior Biden years are now seen as abnormal, if not disastrous.

The left’s cultural revolution championed fringe policies never quite seen before: destroying the border, welcoming in 12 million illegal aliens, nihilist critical race and legal theories, institutionalizing a third sex, and mandating woke/DEI quotas and indoctrination sessions.

Yet Biden had inherited from Trump a secure border, an economy rebounding after the COVID quarantines, 1.23 percent inflation, no wars abroad, and cheap energy.

Four years later, the outgoing Biden administration is widely unpopular. Almost every one of its policies polls below 50 percent.

In response, Trump promises not just to restore his first-term success but to expand it.

Two, Trump personally remains transparent, upbeat, and energetic—eager to meet with anyone, anytime, anywhere, to talk about anything.

His energy offers a sharp contrast with the era of the non-compos-mentis Biden. The change is welcomed by an electorate exhausted by past presidential stumbling, wandering, incoherence, mind freezes, and angry, “get-off-my-grass” aged fragility.

Three, Trump is grudgingly admired, now even by some of his enemies who once sought but failed to destroy him.

He endured two impeachments, five civil and criminal court indictments, incessant lawfare, a 95% negative media, attempts to remove him from states’ ballots, and two assassination attempts.

Yet all these unprecedented hostile efforts to end Trump may only have made him stronger—and more empathetic when seen as a target of increasingly fanatical enemies.

Four, Trump has expanded his MAGA base and permanently branded it as an ecumenical movement that welcomes shared class interests rather than fixates on the tired old tribal racial and ethnic chauvinism.

Trump also brought in disaffected Democrats, independents, and minorities in a way the Democrats could not with the evaporating and bitter Never Trump dead-enders.

Trump’s veritable campaign menagerie of RFK, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Dana White, and Kid Rock made it impossible for the left to demonize MAGA Republicans as right-wing aristocrats, warmongers, or laissez-faire capitalists.

Fifth, the endorsements of the Biden-Harris legacy media, calcified Hollywood endorsers, blowhard university faculties, and tech barons proved overrated.

It was trumped by more popular and dynamic internet influencers, podcasters, bloggers, and maverick entrepreneurs.

Sixth and finally, Trump himself proved more experienced and reflective than in 2016. His team too was more disciplined and street smart, led by savvy chief of staff Susan Wiles.

2024 saw truly pivotal moments of Trump as everyman—posing for a mug shot after being railroaded by a weaponized lawfare indictment, serving McDonald’s drive-through customers, riding in a garbage truck cab, and raising his fist and yelling “fight, fight, fight”—after having his head near blown off by a would-be assassin.

Add all of these once unimaginables up, and the people trusted more—and liked better—the Trump reboot than grouchy Joe Biden or inane, inauthentic Kamala Harris and their shared extremist agendas.

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