Monday, December 31, 2012

Syrian armed rebels are civilians too, damn it

Austin sent me this:  "I thought you might "appreciate" this dumb article about Syrian casualties which relies exclusively on unverifiable (and uncaveated) claims made by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The ENTIRE thing is replete with stupid non sequiturs, starting almost from the very beginning. For example: "The civilian toll of 28,113 includes those who have taken up arms against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, it said." Huh? So now people who carry arms are considered civilians? What next? Well, more dumbness:

"Government troops suffered heavy losses, with 9482 people killed, while 1040 military defectors also were killed in action. Another 727 people in the 2012 toll were unidentified.
"The death toll of the regime forces is actually higher, but the government keeps these figures under wraps," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
On the other hand, he said, "the rebels are discreet about their total losses of life in order to keep up morale, while the deaths of foreign fighters are not announced in their home countries"."
I mean... seriously? Seriously?"