What is really happening in Syria? I have all along found odd that dictatorial regimes like the Saudis and the Qataris will ask another dictatorial regime (Syria) to stop attacking its own people. I have also found odd and suspicious that the Syrian dictator has been asked by Obama and Sarkozy to "step down" for killing its own people, while the military rulers of Egypt and other arab dictators, like Bahrain, get essentially a free pass and our support (because they are our allies of course).
The reason given for all that is that supposedly there are several thousands of deaths there with dozens killed daily by the Assad regime. However, all of the reports have been coming from the opposition and are all reported from news agencies with the disclaimer "unconfirmed".
Now that the Arab league delegates finally entered yesterday Syria, we may start learning the real story:
"Nothing frightening" seen in Syria protest hotbed: monitor"
and from BBC News:
Syria unrest: Arab monitors reassured by Homs visit.
From the links above:
Arab League monitors checking if Syria is ending a military crackdown on popular unrest said they saw "nothing frightening" in an initial visit to the protest hotbed of Homs, although a longer investigation would be needed.
It now remains to be seen whether the Assad regime is as horrible as it has been suggested or whether the reported mass killing of civilians were exaggerations hyped by neoconservatives/neoliberals to start a new "humanitarian" war in the middle east. I suspect that the second will be the case. Although Syria has a dictatorship, it is not worse than the dictators of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, etc who we support because they are our "allies".
Lets not forget that when the Iraq war started the media were hyping in a similar manner the weapons of mass destruction of Saddam Hussein. The Syrian regime is a dictatorship like almost all regimes in the middle east, but at least they have there a secular society and not a theocracy. An intervention there could make things worst. It may well be that Dennis Kucinich has been all along right about the situation in Syria.