Why Homs?

The corporate media keep saying that the Syrian military is “shelling” Homs.  Of course, the “shelling” consists of Syrian troops moving through the streets, battling terrorists who are firing from houses.

But why are so many terrorists concentrated in Homs?

Answer: oil.

NOTE: In the text below I will use “Alliance” to refer to the GCC / Israeli / Western nexus.

Syria has two major oil refineries. One is near an export terminal in Baniyas on the Mediterranean cost, next to Tartous (which has that Russian naval base). Syria exports most of its oil from Baniyas. On 15 Oct 2012 a tanker, the Negra Hipólita, departed from a Venezuelan refinery complex at Puerto La Cruz, and reached Baniyas on 1 Dec 2011. Onboard was gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and fuel components for an embattled Syria.  On 25 Jan 2012 the same tanker departed from Venezuela, and docked in Baniyas on 15 Feb 2012. Assad had asked Hugo Chavez for these shipments because the terrorists keep blowing up pipelines in order to starve the government, and to starve the Syrian masses in Damascus and Aleppo. (More about this below.)

The other refinery, much larger, is in the Bab Amr district of western Homs. This is in western Syria, near the Lebanese bordrer, and is a key center for Syria's entire oil industry.  The 347-mile-long Tel Adas-Tartous pipeline carries 250,000 barrels of crude per day from the Rumeila oil fields in the eastern Syriac Desert (northeast Syria) to the Homs refinery. The refinery in turn sends gasoline, natural gas, and petrochemicals (via pipeline) to southern Syria, and also to the Baniya export terminal on Syria’s western coast.

Homs also hosts the South Central Area gas plant, which produces 7.2 million cubic meters per day of natural gas, 4,000 barrels of hydrocarbonic condensate, 50 tons of cooking gas, 4 tons of propane, and 5,000 cubic meters of nitrogen per day.

Homs is close to the Lebanese border and has 823,000 people, eighty percent of which are Sunni. These comprise most of the workers in the Homs oil and petrochemical industry. In addition there are two sections to the east of the downtown area (or Homs Old City) where the majority are  Alawites, who have long been managers in the oil industry. 

When Sunnis in Homs saw the “Arab Spring,” plus the NATO attack on Libya, they figured that with Western arms and support, they could displace the Alawites and get better jobs in the oil industry. They might rule Syria altogether if they could exterminate Jews, Christians, Shiites, and Alawites. (Plus any Kurds who got in the way.)

Sunnis, which make up 74 percent of Syria's 22 million people, have legitimate complaints, and Bashar al-Assad has never denied this. Assad hates the corruption and bureaucracy of his own government; its waste, its intrigues, its racism, and its bullshit (the same as we see in all governments). 

In 2006, however, Assad made the same disastrous error that Qaddafi made. Both leaders tried to reform their governments and make friends with the West by allowing foreign bankers from the IMF to come in and institute neo-liberal “reforms.” The result was the same as always. Bankers and corporate lords become gods, most people lose their jobs, the masses becomes saddled with lifelong debt, and the gap between rich and poor becomes extreme. This creates civil unrest, which the Alliance is happy to inflame and exploit. 

(On the banker angle, see Sullivan's blog post titled "SYRIA: NATO's Next "Humanitarian" War?") 

Before the “Arab Spring,” the Syrian and Libyan masses lived better than the Arab masses in most other nations. (Indeed they lived better than most Western masses.) Then the Western bankers and neo-liberal “reformers” screwed them. The next step was to arm sections of the masses and inflame their hatred so the Alliance could get regime change, and install a puppet dictator. 

Thus, with the help of NATO bombardments, the masses in eastern Libya became terrorists. Now it’s Syria’s turn.

The Alliance has no intention of helping Arabs who think they have been discriminated against. The Alliance just wants regime change, so it can install puppet dictators. Then the masses will live in greater poverty than ever.

The result of all this is destruction, chaos, and mass slaughter.  A nightmare ruled by warlords and murderous roving gangs. In Africa it is easy to spark civil wars and to install puppet dictators, so that foreign corporations may steal the natural resources. The Middle East, however, is more complex.  So far, the Alliance has not been able to fully accomplish its goals. Libya remains in chaos, and Iraq has never been fully under control.

Jews are uneasy about all this. They enjoy working with Arab dictators, but in the case of Egypt, Libya, and Syria, the terrorists are Islamists (e.g. the Muslim Brotherhood). Islamists are whores and butchers, which is okay, but the Israeli government has trained the Jewish masses to fear and hate Islamists.  The Israeli government prefers Arab dictators like Mubarak, or the GCC oil emirs. Ultra-corrupt, power-mad psychopaths who only pretend to be Muslim. GCC oil dictators constantly rail against Israel and Zionism, but this is only for public consumption. In reality they are extremely tight with Israel and the West – especially Western bankers. This is necessary so that the oil sheiks can continue to oppress their own masses.  

Meanwhile the Alliance itself is ruled by bankers, investors, corporate lords, puppet politicians, and Arab dictators that are loyal only to monetary profit.  They are globalists who despise any hint of nationalism (except Israeli nationalism).  They cannot tolerate state-owned banks and oil companies.  Syria, for example, has many private banks, but the central bank and the central oil company (General Petroleum Corporation) are government-controlled. Libya was the same. Venezuela is the same. Further, Syria sells its oil via Syria Trading Oil, a state-owned company that resists valuing its oil in US dollars.

The central General Petroleum Corporation (state owned) oversees a dozen private oil companies in Syria, all of which had agreements to work with foreign oil companies. But when the EU put sanctions on these private firms, the foreign oil companies were forced to move out. Now the General Petroleum Corporation has taken over everything in an attempt to keep the oil flowing.

The Alliance can not stop its attack, because if Syria survives this, then Western oil companies will probably never get back in. Instead, Syria’s private oil companies will partner with Chinese and Russian firms.  (Syria produced around 350,000 barrels of oil per day before the Western assault, of which a third was exported, mostly to Europe.)

Worse, Syria Trading Oil (again, state-owned) will link up with the Iran Bourse on Kish Island, thereby posing a serious challenge to the Western petro-dollar empire.  This will also threaten the GCC oil dictators, since their billions come not only from oil, but from trading and speculating in oil, most of which is dollar-denominated.

So the campaign against Syria’s government must continue at all costs. The die has been cast, and the Alliance cannot back off even if it wanted to.

In Homs, terrorist activity is especially concentrated in all the neighborhood districts that have oil pipelines, namely Inshaat, Qusur, Bayada, Deir Baalbeh, and especially Baba Amr.

Baba Amr is also the location of the main oil refinery. This is where British journalist Marie Colvin was killed on 22 Feb 2012 (the one-eyed bitch-pirate) along with French photographer Remi Ochlik. They had illegally snuck into Syria from Lebanon, and were in a house that caught a rocket or a tank shell. (The West claims that Assad specifically ordered them assassinated!) Many other journalists have snuck into Homs from Lebanon, hoping to aid the Western propaganda effort (e.g. Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro, who is injured in the leg, Paul Conroy of Britain's Sunday Times, also injured in the leg, William Daniels, a French photographer on assignment for TIME, and others). Now they are trapped by the fact that the Syrian and Lebanese governments have increasingly sealed the border between the two nations to stop the flow of terrorist arms. If the reporters are caught by the Syrian or Lebanese government, they will be imprisoned. Reporters who also work for the CIA may be tortured for information, and used as bargaining chips. The Homs terrorists are videotaping them issuing desperate calls for NATO to send in commando teams to save them. Below is French journalist / agent Edith Bouvier, who illegally snuck into Homs, became wounded in the leg, and is now begging for help...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d15GLNHYF-c

The Homs terrorists, under Western guidance, have repeatedly blown up the oil and fuel pipelines in and around the city.  The giant refinery in the Baba Amr district of Homs is too heavily guarded to be attacked, but NATO will target the refinery if NATO starts bombing.   

One of the terrorists’ favorite targets is a 30cm-wide (12in) diesel fuel pipeline that runs through the Baba Amr and al-Sultanieh districts of Homs. YouTube has many videos of these oil fires.  The last major attack on this pipeline was on 17 Feb 2012.  The pipeline supplies the Homs Fuel Company, which processes oil, and sends fuel southward to warehouses in the Adra district of Damsacus. 

By repeatedly blowing up this pipeline, the terrorists deprive Damascus industry of fuel, and deprive the Syrian government of revenue. The goal is to spread so much fear and chaos that the masses and the merchant class beg for the West to install a puppet dictator who will restore order.  Then 1% of Syrians will live in splendor, and 99% will live in a nightmare.

Oil is the reason why the fighting is especially concentrated in the Baba Amr district of Homs. The terrorists want to disrupt the oil system, and the government wants to protect it, and also protect the 165,000 non-Sunnis in Homs, who the terrorists have vowed to exterminate.

The Sunni terrorists also attack telephone, cell phone, and Internet connections. The Western media falsely claims that the Syrian government does this. The media even claims that the Syrian government blows up its own pipelines. (!)

Most of the people in Damascus and Aleppo support the Assad government. They regard the Sunni terrorists as Islamist killers who want to take power and plunge Syria back to medievial times.

(Qaddafi, Assad, and Chavez have all promoted secularism and women’s rights, meaning freedom to dress comfortably, own property, and so on. This is anathema to Islamists, whose male insecurity stems partly from economics, and partly from basing their lives on fanatical bullshit religious dogma. They are haters, and hate is merely fear with an attitude.)

As noted above, the Sunni terrorists have legitimate complaints. All of Syria’s masses got screwed when Assad let the Western bankers in (a serious blunder) but poor and rural Sunnis were especially burned. Assad is aware of all this, and wants to change it, but his first priority was the urban poor.  Some of those urban poor are Sunnis who sympathize with the terrorists. Thus, not all public demonstrations in Aleppo and Damascus are pro-Assad.

Assad faces the same problem as that faced by many leaders who want to enact reforms that benefit the masses.  The more he tries to help Sunnis, the more impatient the Sunnis become. And reforms become even more difficult when outside interests (the GCC / Israeli / Western alliance) arm the terrorists.

Nonetheless, on 26 Feb 2012 the Assad government will hold a national referendum on a new constitution that no longer gives primacy to the Baath Party. This is necessary because the old order – even without the Western attack – has become ossified. Assad is sick of the bickering and intrigues of petty government bureaucrats that only want to hold on to their little niches.

Indeed, Assad’s passion for reform is one of the main reasons why the Alliance decided to attack. If Assad successfully passes reforms, then he will become more popular than ever, and thus more difficult to remove than ever. 

NATO could begin bombing, but no one is sure how Russia and China will react. Libya finally woke them up to the fact that the more they give in, the more the West demands from them. If NATO starts bombing, then Russian and China may become involved. Not to protect Syria or Iran, but to protect themselves.  Russia is supplying Syria with satellite and eavesdropping intelligence on the terrorists.

Meanwhile Western military forces are geared for “humanitarian intervention” (i.e. slaughtering defenseless women and children).  They are not prepared for a real war with Russia and China. Israel could not even defeat Hezbollah, and Georgia could not take South Ossetia.

NATO’s rape of Libya killed any possibility of  “shaming” Russia into submitting to the Alliance’s murderous and imperialistic demands. So for now the Alliance strategy is to keep supporting the terrorists in the hope of wearing down the Syrian masses and government. In the coming weeks the Alliance will send drones, fighter planes, and warships closer and closer to Syria to probe Russia’s reactions.

ONE MORE THING: Don’t let anyone seduce you into thinking that oil is not crucial to the Alliance. Modern finance capitalism depends on endless growth, which requires slave labor and cheap energy. That means fuel, fertilizer, pesticides, petrochemicals, and so on. When the oil runs out, then modern finance capitalism will probably end. Billions will die in famines, but the current system will crash. Nothing can stop this, since the financiers will continue eating until they kill themselves and their host.  

In the meantime, a fifth of the world’s oil is transported through the Strait of Hormuz, and a third of that goes to China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil. Today China must import 55 percent of its oil. By 2020 this will increase to 70 percent. And most of China’s imported oil is from the Middle East and North Africa. Thus, China was forced to join Russia in vetoing the latest farce at the UN Security Council.