US-NATO "humanitarian" military campaign against Syria

[edward99]

Hidden US-Israeli Military Agenda: "Break Syria into Pieces"

by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, June 16, 2012

A timely article in the Jerusalem Post last month brings to the forefront the unspoken objective of US foreign policy, namely the breaking up of Syria as a sovereign nation state --along ethnic and religious lines-- into several separate and "independent" political entities. The article also confirms the role of Israel in the process of political destabilization of Syria. The JP article is titled: "Veteran Kurdish politician calls on Israel to support the break-up of Syria' (by Jonathan Spyer) (The Jerusalem Post (May 16, 2012)
The objective of the US sponsored armed insurgency is --with the help of Israel-- to "Break Syria into Pieces".

The "balkanisation of the Syrian Arab Republic" is to be carried out by fostering sectarian divisions, which will eventually lead to a "civil war" modelled on the former Yugoslavia. Last month, Syrian "opposition militants" were dispatched to Kosovo to organize training sessions using the "terrorist expertise" of the US sponsored Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in fighting the Yugoslav armed forces.

 

[edward99]

The Pentagon's Salvador Option: Death Squads in Iraq & Syria

The Pentagon's Salvador Option: Death Squads in Iraq & Syria

Tuesday, 23 August 2011, 3:41 pm

Column: Michel Chossudovsky
The Pentagon's "Salvador Option": The Deployment of Death Squads in Iraq and Syria

by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
August 16, 2011

The program was implemented under the tenure of John D. Negroponte, who served as US ambassador to Iraq (June 2004-April 2005). The current ambassador to Syria, Robert S. Ford was part of Negroponte's team in Baghdad in 2004-2005.

Syria: Overview and Recent Developments

The Western media has played a central role in obfuscating the nature of foreign interference in Syria including outside support to armed insurgents. In chorus they have described recent events in Syria as a "peaceful protest movement" directed against the government of Bashar Al Assad, when the evidence amply confirms that Islamic paramilitary groups have infiltrated the rallies.

Israel's Debka Intelligence news, while avoiding the issue of an armed insurgency, tacitly acknowledges that Syrian forces are being confronted by an organized paramilitary:

"[Syrian forces] are now running into heavy resistance: Awaiting them are anti-tank traps and fortified barriers manned by protesters armed with heavy machine guns." DEBKAfile,

Since when are peaceful civilian protesters armed with "heavy machine guns" and "anti-tank traps"?

Recent developments in Syria point to a full-fledged armed insurgency, integrated by Islamist "freedom fighters" covertly supported, trained and equipped by foreign powers. According to Israeli intelligence sources:

NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime's crackdown on dissent. Instead of repeating the Libyan model of air strikes, NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011, emphasis added)

In recent developments, Islamist death squads have penetrated the port city of Latakia's Ramleh district, which includes a Palestinian refugee camp of some 10,000 residents. These armed gunmen which include rooftop snipers are terrorizing the local population.

In a cynical twist, the Western media has presented the Islamist paramilitary groups in Latakia as "Palestinian dissidents" and "activists" defending themselves against the Syrian armed forces. In this regard, the actions of armed gangs directed against the Palestinian community in Ramleh visibly seeks to foment political conflict between Palestine and Syria. Several Palestinian personalities have sided with the Syrian "protest movement", while casually ignoring the fact that the "pro-democracy" death squads are covertly supported by Israel and Turkey.

 

[edward99]

BBC caught framing Assad regime using 2003 photo of dead Iraqi children

With the shock of the Houla tragedy ringing across the world, the BBC has released a story with a harrowing picture of rows and rows of children's bodies awaiting burial… But isn’t that post-Saddam Iraq?

Photographer Marco di Lauro who took the shot grabbed by the BBC says he nearly “fell off his chair” after finding the picture on the network’s website with a caption reading: “Photo from Activist. This image – which cannot be independently verified – is believed to show bodies of children in Houla awaiting funeral.”

The picture was actually taken on March 27, 2003; it depicts an Iraqi boy jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad. The image, which is published on Marco di Lauro’s website, is part of his story Iraq, the Aftermath of Saddam.

Marco di Lauro takes photographs for Getty Images picture agency, his works have been published across Europe and the US. But the indication that the BBC picked his image from the internet, not from official stock worries him somewhat.

“What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn't check the sources and it's willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That's all,” the photographer told The Daily Telegraph.

“Someone is using someone else’s picture for propaganda on purpose,” he added.

Oops, BBC: Iraq photo to illustrate Houla massacre? — RT

 

[edward99]

SYRIA: NATO's Next "Humanitarian" War?

SYRIA: NATO's Next "Humanitarian" War?


Michel Chossudovsky (Editor)


February 2012


NOTE TO READERS: This I-Book was completed in February 2012. In view of recent developments, this collection has been updated (June 15, 2012) with additional articles, largely pertaining to the killings of civilians by the US-NATO sponsored Free Syrian Army (FSA). These killings and atrocities perpetrated by US-NATO sponsored death squads are casually blamed on the government with a view to justifying an R2P military intervention.

Our objective is to dispel the tide of media lies and government propaganda, which presents the events in Syria as a "peaceful protest movement".

The "protests" did not emanate from internal political cleavages as described by the mainstream media. From the very outset, they were the result of a covert US-NATO intelligence operation geared towards triggering social chaos, with a view to eventually discrediting the Syrian government of Bashar Al Assad and destabilizing Syria as a Nation State.

Since the middle of March 2011, Islamist armed groups --covertly supported by Western and Israeli intelligence-- have conducted terrorist attacks directed against government buildings including acts of arson. Amply documented, trained gunmen and snipers including mercenaries have targeted the police, armed forces as well as innocent civilians. There is ample evidence, as outlined in the Arab League Observer Mission report, that these armed groups of mercenaries are responsible for killing civilians.

While the Syrian government and military bear a heavy burden of responsibility. it is important to underscore the fact that these terrorist acts --including the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children-- are part of a US-NATO-Israeli initiative, which consists is supporting, training and financing "an armed entity" operating inside Syria.

The evidence confirms that foreign intelligence operatives, according to reports, have integrated rebel ranks:

"As the unrest and killings escalate in the troubled Arab state, agents from MI6 and the CIA are already in Syria assessing the situation, a security official has revealed. Special forces are also talking to Syrian dissident soldiers. They want to know about weapons and communications kit rebel forces will need if the Government decides to help.

“MI6 and the CIA are in Syria to infiltrate and get at the truth,” said the well-placed source. “We have SAS and SBS not far away who want to know what is happening and are finding out what kit dissident soldiers need." " Syria will be bloodiest yet, Daily Star). (emphasis added)

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is a creation of the US and NATO. The objective of this armed insurrection is to trigger the response of the police and armed forces, including the deployment of tanks and armored vehicles with a view to eventually justifying a military intervention, under NATO's "responsibility to protect" mandate.

SYRIA: NATO's Next "Humanitarian" War?

 

[edward99]

US-Backed Rebels Committing Christian Genocide In Syria

US-Backed Rebels Committing Christian Genocide In Syria


Christians are being systematically targeted for genocide in Syria according to Vatican and other sources with contacts on the ground among the besieged Christian community. According to reports by the Vatican's Fides News Agency collected by the Centre for the Study of Interventionism, the US-backed Free Syrian Army rebels and ever more radical spin-off factions are sacking Christian churches, shooting Christians dead in the street, broadcasting ultimatums that all Christians must be cleansed from the rebel-held villages, and even shooting priests.

French Bishop Philip Tournyol Clos, a greek-Catholic Melkite Archimandrite, traveled through Syria and, according to the Holy See's press agency, reported back that Western press was spreading disinformation about the real nature of the uprising in Syria and thereby prolonging and deepening the conflict. Reported Bishop Clos:

In Homs, "opposition forces have occupied two areas, Diwan Al Bustan and Hamidieh, where there are all the churches and bishoprics. The picture for us is utter desolation: the church of Mar Elian is half destroyed and that of Our Lady of Peace is still occupied by the rebels. Christian homes are severely damaged due to the fighting and completely emptied of their inhabitants, who fled without taking anything. The area of Hamidieh is still shelter to armed groups independent of each other, heavily armed and bankrolled by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. All Christians (138,000) have fled to Damascus and Lebanon, while others took refuge in the surrounding countryside. A priest was killed and another was wounded by three bullets."

US-Backed Rebels Committing Christian Genocide In Syria


Matthew 25
"Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'

 

[edward99]

Wall Street Journal admits CIA aiding 'Syrian rebel' terrorists

MIDDLE EAST NEWS Updated June 13, 2012, 9:10 p.m. ET

U.S. Bolsters Ties to Fighters in Syria
CIA Helping With Logistics but Not Arms, Officials Say

BY JAY SOLOMON AND NOUR MALAS

WASHINGTON—U.S. intelligence operatives and diplomats have stepped up their contacts with Syrian rebels in part to help organize their burgeoning military operations against President Bashar al-Assad's forces, according to senior U.S. officials.

As part of the efforts, the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department—working with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and other allies—are helping the opposition Free Syrian Army develop logistical routes for moving supplies into Syria and providing communications training.

U.S. Bolsters Ties to Fighters in Syria - WSJ.com

 

[edward99]

YNET: Syria: Rebels use Israeli arms

Syria: Rebels use Israeli arms
Syrian media showcase images of weapons allegedly produced by Jewish State

Syrian media outlets reported Friday that President Bashar Assad's security forces seized huge quantities of weapons used by rebels across the country, including Israeli-made arms.

According to the unconfirmed reports, Assad's troops seized a machinegun, Israeli-made bombs, automatic rifles, various explosive devices, protective vests, night-vision equipment and military uniforms, among other things.

Syria: Rebels use Israeli arms - Israel News, Ynetnews

 

[edward99]

Lieberman: " The sooner [Assad] goes, the fewer innocents will be killed

MUNICH: The United States should look at providing weapons and other aid to Syrian rebels if Russia and China refuse to reconsider their vetoes of a UN resolution against Damascus, a top US senator said Sunday.

Senator Joe Lieberman, a former Democratic presidential candidate, said the Syrian people "have shown extraordinary courage in the face of a government much stronger than they are" and "they are not going to be denied."

"The question is not whether (President Bashar Assad) will go, but when he will go. The sooner he goes, the fewer innocents will be killed," he said at security conference in the southern German city of Munich.

THE DAILY STAR :: News :: Middle East :: US should mull arming Syria rebels: senator

 

[edward99]

Indigenous Christians will be caught in the [NATO] meat grinder

19 January 2012
The American Conservative

Giraldi: 'NATO and CIA secretly arming Syrian rebels with Libyan weapons'

Americans should be concerned about what is happening in Syria, if only because it threatens to become another undeclared war like Libya but much, much worse. Calls for regime change have come from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who several weeks ago predicted a civil war. That is indeed likely if the largely secular and nationalist regime of Bashar al-Assad falls, pitting Sunni against Shia against Alawite.

Indigenous Christians will be caught in the meat grinder. Ironically, many of the Christians in Damascus are Iraqis who experienced the last round of liberation in their own country and had to flee for their lives.

DeepJournal - the news behind the news

 

[loveme1]

Yes, how different the world looks when we lift the flags from our view of the world.

 

[edward99]

CBS: Syria's Christians stand by Assad

February 6, 2012 5:11 PM

Syria's Christians stand by Assad

DAMASCUS, Syria -- As the announcement was made Saturday evening that Russia and China had vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the actions of the Syrian regime, some Christians inside the country celebrated.

One man from the western Syrian town of Qatana called his relatives to say "mabrook," or congratulations, on the result of the vote. A lounge bar in Damascus offered two alcoholic drinks for one in a happy hour offer.

But in Christian homes around the country the prevailing sentiment is one of relief rather than delight -- they link the survival of the Assad regime to their own.

"Thank god for Russia. Without Russia we are doomed," said a Christian woman from Damascus recently.

Syria's Christians stand by Assad - World Watch - CBS News

 

[edward99]

Large scale insurgent massacres blamed on Assad may trigger war

Washington's Imperial Brinksmanship
By Stephen Lendman - Posted on 17 June 2012

Washington's Imperial Brinksmanship


by Stephen Lendman

Syrian violence rages. Washington bears direct responsibility. Regime change plans are longstanding. Military intervention is planned. Expect it. It's coming.

Pretexts are easy to create. Large scale insurgent massacres blamed on Assad may trigger war. False flags always work. So does intense propaganda. More on that below.

On June 14, CNN said:

"The U.S. military has completed its own planning for how American troops would conduct a variety of operations against Syria, or to assist neighboring countries in the event action was ordered...."

"In recent weeks, the Pentagon has finalized its assessment of what types of units would be needed, how many troops, and even the cost of certain potential operations...."

Pentagon officials spoke on condition of anonymity. Joint Chiefs head General Martin Dempsey said the Pentagon expedited plans to intervene militarily if asked.

Expect Britain, France, other NATO states, and regional involvement.

"US special forces are training and advising Jordanian troops on a range of specific military tasks....to undertake if (Syrian) unrest....spills over into Jordan or poses a threat to that country...."

Replicating the Sebia/Kosovo/Iraq/Libya model looks likely. Senators John McCain (R. AR), Joe Lieberman (I. CT), Lindsey Graham (R. SC), and other congressional hawks urge direct intervention regardless of international and constitutional law.

Earlier this year, McCain said:

"NATO took military action to save Kosovo in 1999 without formal UN authorization."

"There is no reason why the Arab League, or NATO, or a leading coalition within the Friends of Syria contact group, or all of them speaking in unison, could not provide a similar international mandate for military measures to save Syria today."

NATO's Yugoslavia, Afghan, Iraq and Libya wars violated international and constitutional law. War crime charges are called for.

Military intervention requires Security Council authorization.

US wars need congressional approval. Extrajudicial attacks are lawless.

International law prohibits intervening in the internal affairs of other nations, except in self-defense. Attacking nonbelligerent states is absolutely forbidden.

Syria threatens no one. Saying so is spurious misinformation.

Advocating lawless intervention crosses the line. So do media and other propaganda reports promoting it. More on that below.

On June 15, DEBKAfile headlined "Big powers move in on Syria: Russian troops for Tartus. US forces ready to go," saying:

According to Pentagon officials, "Russian special forces" are heading for Tartus. They're "coming by ship." They include "naval marines." Their arrival is imminent.

Defense Department sources said America's military "completed its own planning for a variety of US operations against Syria...."

Other regional countries are involved. They include "Turkey, Jordan and Israel." So are Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf states.

Syria's conflict "is moving into a new phase...." It includes "major power military intervention."

Sending Russian troops "without UN Security Council approval," sets a precedent for US intervention.

Russia denies sending any troops or warships. More below.

Washington's Imperial Brinksmanship | War Is A Crime .org

 

[edward99]

NATO and the GCC are preparing a coup d’état and a sectarian genocide in Syria

NATO preparing vast disinformation campaign

by Thierry Meyssan

Member States of NATO and the GCC are preparing a coup d’état and a sectarian genocide in Syria.

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) | 11 JUNE 2012

In a few days, perhaps as early as Friday, June 15, at noon, the Syrians wanting to watch their national TV stations will see them replaced on their screens by TV programs created by the CIA. Studio-shot images will show massacres that are blamed on the Syrian Government, people demonstrating, ministers and generals resigning from their posts, President Al-Assad fleeing, the rebels gathering in the big city centers, and a new government installing itself in the presidential palace.

This operation of disinformation, directly managed from Washington by Ben Rhodes, the US deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, aims at demoralizing the Syrians in order to pave the way for a coup d’etat. NATO, discontent about the double veto of Russia and China, will thus succeed in conquering Syria without attacking the country illegally. Whichever judgment you might have formed on the actual events in Syria, a coup d’etat will end all hopes of democratization.

The Arab League has officially asked the satellite operators Arabsat and Nilesat to stop broadcasting Syrian media, either public or private (Syria TV, Al-Ekbariya, Ad-Dounia, Cham TV, etc.) A precedent already exists because the Arab League had managed to censure Libyan TV in order to keep the leaders of the Jamahiriya from communicating with their people. There is no Hertz network in Syria, where TV works exclusively with satellites. The cut, however, will not leave the screens black.

The first meeting assembled PSYOP officers, embedded in the satellite TV channels of Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, BBC, CNN, Fox, France 24, Future TV and MTV. It is known that since 1998, the officers of the US Army Psychological Operations Unit (PSYOP) have been incorporated in CNN. Since then this practice has been extended by NATO to other strategic media as well.

They fabricated false information in advance, on the basis of a “story-telling” script devised by Ben Rhodes’s team at the White House. A procedure of reciprocal validation was installed, with each media quoting the lies of the other media to render them plausible for TV spectators. The participants also decided not only to requisition the TV channels of the CIA for Syria and Lebanon (Barada, Future TV, MTV, Orient News, Syria Chaab, Syria Alghad) but also about 40 religious Wahhabi TV channels to call for confessional massacres to the cry of “Christians to Beyrouth, Alawites into the grave!.”

The second meeting was held for engineers and technicians to fabricate fictitious images, mixing one part in an outdoor studio, the other part with computer generated images. During the past weeks, studios in Saudi Arabia have been set up to build replicas of the two presidential palaces in Syria and the main squares of Damascus, Aleppo and Homs. Studios of this type already exist in Doha (Qatar), but they are not sufficient.

The third meeting was held by General James B. Smith, the US ambassador, a representative of the UK, prince Bandar Bin Sultan (whom former U.S. president George Bush named his adopted son so that the U.S. press called him “Bandar Bush&#8221. In this meeting the media actions were coordinated with those of the Free "Syrian" Army, in which prince Bandar’s mercenaries play a decisive role.


The operation had been in the making for several months, but the U.S. National Security Council decided to accelerate the action after the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, notified the White House that he would oppose by all means, even by force, any illegal NATO military intervention in Syria.

The operation has a double intent: the first is to spread false information, the second aims at censuring all possible responses.

The hampering of TV satellites for military purposes is not new. Under pressure from Israel, the USA and the EU blocked Lebanese, Palestinian, Iraqi, Libyan and Iranian TV channels, one after the other. However, no satellite channels from other parts of the world were censured.

The broadcast of false news is also not new, but four significant steps have been taken in the art of propaganda during the last decade:

NATO preparing vast disinformation campaign [Voltaire Network]

 

[edward99]

NATO preparing vast disinformation campaign - Syria

The broadcast of false news is also not new, but four significant steps have been taken in the art of propaganda during the last decade.

• In 1994, a pop music station named “Free Radio of the Thousand Hills” (RTML) gave the signal for genocide in Rwanda with the cry, “Kill the cockroaches!”

• In 2001, NATO used the media to impose an interpretation of the 9/11 attacks and to justify its own aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq. At that time already, it was Ben Rhodes who had been commissioned by the Bush administration to concoct the Kean/Hamilton Commission report on the attacks.

• In 2002, the CIA used five TV channels (Televen, Globovision, ValeTV and CMT) to make the public in Venezuela believe that phantom demonstrators had captured the elected president, Hugo Chávez, forcing him to resign. In reality he was the victim of a military coup d’etat.

• In 2011, France 24 served as information ministry for the Libyan CNT, according to a signed contract. During the battle of Tripoli, NATO produced fake studio films, then transmitted them via Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, showing phantom images of Libyan rebels on the central square of the capital city, while in reality they were still far away. As a consequence, the inhabitants of Tripoli were persuaded that the war was lost and gave up all resistance.

Nowadays the media do not only support a war, they produce it themselves.

NATO preparing vast disinformation campaign [Voltaire Network]

 

[edward99]

The Houla Hoaxsters

The Houla Hoaxsters
Another “Benghazi moment” – this time in Syria

by Justin Raimondo, June 04, 2012


In funding and arming rebel groups, whose violence is now being unleashed on civilians caught in the middle, the US and its allies are actively undermining Kofi Annan’s peace plan, which the Syrians have accepted. The rebels are determined to destroy the plan, which leaves them out of power: they won’t be happy until they’ve given the West a pretext to intervene militarily. As Hillary Clinton’s public pronouncements acquire a certain shrillness, that prospect is becoming increasingly likely.

By supporting the “Free Syrian Army,” the US and its allies are openly engaged in another Libya-style intervention, with the same radical Islamists as their armed wing, while a supposedly “secular” and “democracy”-oriented “youth movement” serves as the public face of a deeply reactionary rebel army.

Imagine, for the moment, that some group of foreign powers were involved in financing and arming a “Free American Army,” which launched attacks on US army bases and carried out terrorist acts – car bombings, as have occurred in Damascus, for example – in Washington, D.C. Imagine this rebel army had acquired footholds in key areas, and called for the overthrow of the “regime” in Washington. Do we even have to ask what would be the reaction of the US government?

The Western powers are intent on establishing international rules of governance they have no intention of applying to themselves, and, in this instance, are utilizing the United Nations as their chosen instrument. However, it is by no means certain the UN will go along with the game plan, as Annan’s peace plan – which calls for mutual disarmament and an end to hostilities – would indicate. In which case, the West will do everything it can to undermine the Annan plan and destabilize Syria to the point where they can declare it a “failed state” – and move in for the kill.

The “activist”-authored narrative of a ruthless dictator slaughtering his own people – complete with fake photos, phony videos, and tall tales legitimized as “news” – is aimed at a Western audience. In Syria – where the majority fears the opposition as much, or more, than the dictator Assad – they know better. Unfortunately for them, they have no power to stop the Western-initiated juggernaut headed in their direction.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

Today’s column brings to mind Wesley Clark’s 2007 revelation, proffered in a speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, that he was privy to a classified US government plan to overthrow seven governments – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Iran. Gen. Clark told his audience this was prefigured by a 1991 conversation he had with Paul Wolfowitz, in which the then-Undersecretary of Defense gave the project a timeline of five years. While they may be a bit behind schedule, it looks like the War Party is today on the brink of success.

The Houla Hoaxsters by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com

 

[edward99]

90% of Homs' Christians expelled - by NATO run terror groups

Armed men from the Faruq Brigade have succeeded in expelling most of the Christians of Homs and have seized their homes by force.

Al-Haqiqa has learned from church sources in Homs that the city has been emptied of almost 90% of its Christians. It is expected that a complete "cleansing" of buildings owned by Christians will occur within a matter of days or weeks by armed men from the Wahhabi "Faruq Brigade." A source in the Orthodox metropolitan's office told al-Haqiqa that armed men from the Faruq Brigade went to the homes of the Christians, house by house, in the neighborhoods of Hamidiya and Bustan el-Diwan, informing them that they must immediately leave their homes and the city of Homs. The source revealed that the lastest [sic] attempt to expel Christians by force of arms occured [sic] yesterday. It included Dr. Taleb Mashhour Gharibeh, professor of mathematics at Baath University in Homs, his brother the musician Marwan Mashhour Gharibeh (a musician in Sabah Fakhri's group), both of whom live in the Hamidiya neighborhood, their sister Marie Mashhour Gharibeh, who lives in the Bustan el-Diwan neighborhood, as well as their father and his wife the schoolteacher Maha Habou, who live in the new neighborhood el-Wa'ar. This wave of expulsions also included the residents of a six-story building in Hamidiya, whose residents include eighteen families, almost all of whom are from the village Uyoun el-Wadi.

The church sources said that the armed men informed the owners of the homes before they departed that if they did not leave immediately they would be shot and pictures of their corpses would be sent to al-Jazeera with the message that the government had killed them. The source emphasized that all those who were expelled "were not allowed to take any of their possessions with them, not even extra clothes. Immediately after they left their homes, the buildings were occupied by armed men who considered it 'war-booty from the Christians!'"

It should be noted that the Faruq Brigade is operated by armed elements from al-Qaeda and various Wahhabi groups and it includes mercenaries from Libya and Iraq. Last month they destroyed two churches with rocket fire, burning one and severely damaging the other.

Syria: Sunni jihadists expel 90% of Christians from Homs - Jihad Watch

 

[Spartacus1122]

The Western world's meddling in the Middle East is equivalent to a cat in a litter box:

The more it messes around in it, the dirtier it gets.

 

[RachelBibleStudent]

Re: CBS: Syria's Christians stand by Assad

February 6, 2012 5:11 PM

Syria's Christians stand by Assad

DAMASCUS, Syria -- As the announcement was made Saturday evening that Russia and China had vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the actions of the Syrian regime, some Christians inside the country celebrated.

One man from the western Syrian town of Qatana called his relatives to say "mabrook," or congratulations, on the result of the vote. A lounge bar in Damascus offered two alcoholic drinks for one in a happy hour offer.

But in Christian homes around the country the prevailing sentiment is one of relief rather than delight -- they link the survival of the Assad regime to their own.

"Thank god for Russia. Without Russia we are doomed," said a Christian woman from Damascus recently.

Syria's Christians stand by Assad - World Watch - CBS News

so basically syrian christians are saying 'forget our neighbors who are getting killed all around us...we need to put ourselves first and side with evil so we can preserve our privileges'

widespread and persistent attitudes like this are one of the reasons i think christians in the middle east are probably being punished by God...

 

[1still_waters]

Re: CBS: Syria's Christians stand by Assad

so basically syrian christians are saying 'forget our neighbors who are getting killed all around us...we need to put ourselves first and side with evil so we can preserve our privileges'

widespread and persistent attitudes like this are one of the reasons i think christians in the middle east are probably being punished by God...

Unfortunately, strongmen in the ME are what have protected Christians. Saddam protected them in Iraq. Mubarik in Egypt. Assad in Syria.

 

[RachelBibleStudent]

Re: CBS: Syria's Christians stand by Assad

Unfortunately, strongmen in the ME are what have protected Christians. Saddam protected them in Iraq. Mubarik in Egypt. Assad in Syria.

i thought christians were supposed to put their trust in God for protection...

christians in the middle east have been putting their trust in human dictators instead...and the results have been predictable...they have been sold into the hands of their enemies...

judges 10:14..."But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!"

you could replace 'other gods' in this passage with 'dictators' and you would get a perfect description of what is happening with christians in the middle east today...