Sorry Nimrod; pot-addled hillbilly beats RT to the story by three years

RT, known in some circles as Putin's propaganda network, has a timely feature on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on view at the moment.

Seems that Rami Abdulrahmen is still running his one-man show out of his apartment in Coventry. Never before in the history of media has a one-man show garnered so much mainstream attention. Rami has been the go-to guy for info on the Syrian civil war ever since it started.

That a one-man operation should get such a massive following among the mainstream press is a curiosity indeed. In fact, it may even be more of a curiosity now than it was over three years ago, when the think tank here at Falling Downs brought you the exact same story!

Syrian rebels behead imam, drag corpse through streets of Aleppo

You'd think a Sunni imam would be a champion of the so-called rebels. You'd be wrong.

The Sunni majority in Syria are not at all united in their opposition to the Assad regime, and even most of those who oppose Assad are loathe to see their country descend into the kind of barbaric violence we are witnessing today.

Judging from the tone of the article, even our friend Rami Abdulrahmen at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is getting cold feet about some of his confreres in the Free Syrian Army.

UN reveals startling new Syria death toll

After almost two years of having no idea what the death toll in the Syrian civil war might be, the UN has waded in with an estimate that seriously ups the ante.

Till now the most accessible estimates have been from the London based "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights," a one man show run by Rami Abdul Rahman, a guy who assembles the numbers while working in his wife's dress shop.

It's safe to say that most observers of the Observatory were somewhat skeptical of Mr. Rahman's statistics. For one thing, he is an avowed opponent of the Assad regime and therefore had ample motive for inflating his figures.

Secondly, because the nature of his in-country network could not be independently verified, it was assumed in many quarters that it amounted to little more than wishful thinking. The consensus was, until yesterday, that the death toll publicized by the Observatory was to a greater or lesser extent exaggerated.

So here comes the UN, and bumps Abdul Rahman's numbers by a healthy 30%!

What is the UN up to? Does this signal a more activist role for the UN? Note that this information comes directly from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay. Would her office be foregrounding this issue if there wasn't pressure from certain security council members to raise the profile of the Syrian conflict as a prelude to more explicit  involvement?

Look for anti-Assad resolutions coming from the UN soon.

Just in time for Friends of Syria Conference, Assad unleashes Scud missiles on his own people

Now that's a convenient coincidence of timing, wouldn't you think?

Just as the 114 representatives of the Friends of Syria sit down in Morocco to discuss how to divvy up the spoils post Assad, along comes the NYT with a blockbuster expose about the depraved madman Assad firing Scud missiles against his own peaceful protesters.

Any evidence? Nope, just the say-so of a couple of unnamed US security officials. The story is at this moment a staple of Syria coverage throughout the Western world.

Oddly enough, there has been no confirmation from the ever-alert "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights," nor has there been any cell-phone video coverage that the Syrian opposition typically has uploaded within minutes of recording any images that might help their cause.

And while far away US security officials seem to have the goods on the story, its only mention in Lebanese news sites sources those same Americans, and Turkish news site Hurriyet at this writing hasn't mentioned the story at all.

I could be wrong, but it sounds like made-up news to me. Meanwhile, the 114 delegates to the Friends of Syria's Treasury seem to be bogged down in squabbling about who is and is not an acceptable "rebel" with yesterday's announcement that the US had branded Jabhat al-Nusra a terror group not going over well with the SNC. The Free Army folks on the ground know who is doing the heavy lifting, and understand full well that a ban on al-Nusra effectively means victory for Assad.

So in spite of all the congratulatory press coverage of the Morocco conference, all that has been agreed is that the West will continue to fan the flames of Syria's immolation for the time being.

Meet the Syrian Human Rights Observatory

From left to right: Rami Abdulrahmen, reporter; Rami Abdulrahmen, editor; Rami Abdulrahmen, producer; Rami Abdulrahmen, researcher; Rami Abdulrahmen, fact checker

Yup, it’s a one man show, that Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Never before in the history of journalism has a one man show got this much face time on major media.

Apparently Rami hasn’t been to Syria in at least ten years. He has no network and no fact-checkers. He just passes on stuff that somebody may or may not have made up. He has no way of knowing. We have no way of knowing either. Maybe he just makes stuff up himself.

But Rami’s Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gets major face-time on Fox, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, BBC and al Jazeera.