Posted on 07/31/2011 12:08:15 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
A Syrian Major-General has deserted Assad's army along with a group of other officers and joined the rebels.
In an Arabic video clip posted on Youtube on July 29, 2011, the officer, Major-General Riad El As'ad is seen in the company of other officers, announcing the establishment of the "Free Syrian Army whose main goal will be to fight the army of oppression headed by President Bashar Assad".
As'ad accused the Assad regime of crimes against the Syrian people and called on the officers and soldiers in the Syrian army not to aim their weapons at the people. He further called on them to join the Free Syrian Army.
The major-general warned that the Free Army will eliminate any soldier who acts to harm his own people. The present army commanders do not represent the army, he continued, they are acting for the criminal gang that controls the media and prevents the people from obtaining truthful information on what is happening.
In recent weks, a large number of officers and soldiers have deserted the regular Syrian army. In once instance, there was a mutiny and over ten of the soldiers participating were shot and killed. Assad continues to control the country, but the violent protest against him goes on and has even reached the outskirts of Damascus. Tension is high between the Alawites, the minority Shite sect to which Assad belongs that controls the country, and the majority Sunni sect which is 70% of the Syrian population.
The former Vice President of Syria, Abd Al-Halim Khaddam, Assad's bitter enemy, speaking from France, opined that Assad will fall only if the army disintegrates. That disintegration may have begun...
(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...
That's been the issue for the survival of the Assad family dictatorship from the beginning. That's the reason for Baathism, pan-Arab socialism, the vicious hostility toward Israel, anything to divert the people's attention toward outsiders and unify them in hatred.
It could only last so long.
If I were an Alawite or Christian or Kurd in Syrian, I'd be making "getting the heck out of Dodge" plans. When the Sunnis takeover, they're going to take it out on the inside 'outsiders'.
———The YouTube clip has him down as a Colonel.-——
When I read the piece I thought “major Generals don’t lead coups, Colonels lead coups”
it’s time for the state Dept to step in and take credit
Unlike that other Jew-hating anti-Israel communist tyrant in Libya,Assad has borders with Israel and tries to murder her Jews at every opportunity.
Our antisemitic Islamophile president can't let an ally like that perish.
Hard enough for him to protect Iran by threatening to more or less starve Israel to death if they even THINK about protecting themselves from Iranian nukes.
He needs to be stung up.
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Stake him out on a fire ant bed, he’ll be stung up plenty.
However we can cheer the further fighting between different branches of the same cesspool....tis hasten the end of Assad and hopefully the end of his US State Dept cankle-istas.
Damn, how do cartoon characters come to be dictators so often? Nobama fits right the mix.
There's no need to unify Arab Muslims in hatred of non-Muslims (Israel, US, et al) - they already do. The pan-Arab ideology exists to (1) show Arab Muslims that non-Muslims in Arabia are not their enemy, (2) distract Muslims from the fact that non-Muslims continue to exist in Arabia over 1000 years after Muhammad conquered all before him from what is now the southern part of Saudi Arabia and (3) these non-Muslims in Arabia are not paying the jizya tax for the privilege of living among the (Muslim) faithful. The unpalatable truth is that the Arab Muslim has been fed a steady diet of infidel hatred along with mother's milk since Muhammad imposed his rule and his religion on the region over 1000 years ago. Any dictator, Baathist or not, who breaks from that orthodoxy will incur the wrath of the populace and be toppled or killed.
Give him a job in the British National Health Service.
They already employed on of Saddam Husain's doctor torturers for the last 7 years.
YouTube must have erred.
The man in the clip clearly had two stars on his epaulets.
Assad is certainly not our friend. He has worked consistently with our enemies against us, and he has kept Lebanon under his boot heel.
But what we have is essentially a corrupt balancing act. If he goes, then we will get the terrorist fanatics themselves in charge. I don’t know if that’s better.
I certainly wouldn’t do anything to defend him, but we would be VERY stupid to help his enemies and get involved in yet another war.
Let them batter each other bloody. Whoever takes over will not be a friend of Iran or Hizbollah, because the majority of the country is Sunni. The lesser of the two evils is the devil we don’t know. The Kurds might conceivably be friendly, should they gain some territorial concessions through the agency of the US.
Assad’s wife is a former Wall Street banker, when she bugs out you’ll know he’s doomed. Trust that she knows all about soft landings and she didn’t sign on for the Mussolini ending.
And this is the same guy who used to regularly deliver profanity-laced diatribes about Dubya, comparing him to Hitler and whatnot? But Assad is merely misunderstood and really cares about the people. If the government listens to the people, then and only then there can be progress. The people at this point ought to hang him naked by his feet from a lamp post, and shoot him full of lead. That would be progress and a positive development.
Sure. Qadaffi was a colonel. So was Phedopholis in Greece, back in the day. Batiste was just a freakin’ sergeant.
Oh, Damascus will be destroyed in the not so distant future.
And how exactly do you know this? I mean if you are privy to advanced intel of the death and destruction of six million people, why are you leaking it here when no one else is mentioning it?
well you asked so here it is .....
Isa 17:1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from [being] a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap
Jer 49:23 Concerning Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad: for they have heard evil tidings: they are fainthearted; [there is] sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet.
Jer 49:24 Damascus is waxed feeble, [and] turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on [her]: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail.
Jer 49:25 How is the city of praise not left, the city of my joy!
Jer 49:26 Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be cut off in that day, saith the LORD of hosts.
Jer 49:27 And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall consume the palaces of Benhadad
Amo 1:3 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away [the punishment] thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron
Amo 1:5 I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.
well you asked so here it is .....
Thanks for the sources. Lets vet them out a bit.
"Isa 17:1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from [being] a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap"
Did you read just that sentence and then stop reading? The next passage talks about the cities of Aroer which have been gone for over 2700 years. The section (vv 1-11) refer to Ephraim as Israel and Damascus as Aram. Assyria under Tiglath-Pileser III defeated Aram (and Damascus) in 732 and Israel in 722. (see: 2 Kings 16:9, during the fourth year of Ahaz, we read that Damascus was taken.) According to the Assyrian Annals, we read that the destruction of Damascus was so great that it left hundreds of sites looking "like hills over which the flood had swept". It is well known fact among historians that the reduction of the much of city to rubble was widespread and extended into Syria and the Transjordan.
Thus it is prophecy that has been fulfilled over 2700 years ago. That is a historical, demonstrable, and irrefutable fact. This is also the event that is referred to in Amos 1:3-5 and is mentioned specifically in Kings
Jeremiah 49:23-27
You have made a bit of a problem for yourself because this is commonly recognized as a separate prophecy that was fulfilled during the time of the Neo Babylonian era (circa 595 BC). A very prominent clue is in v27 "the palaces of ben-Hadad" which was a name of dynasty rather than a particular king (not Aram in the previous). Another very significant clue is the "waxed feeble" in v24, even Wikipedia acknowledges that Damascus declined as Assyrian influence gave way to Egypt (under Neco). Another clue is in its proximity to other kingdoms mentioned in the prophecy. Its really difficult to make a case for a modern "kingdom of Hazor" when we know that it was sacked and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.
It is really sad to see such a disregard for biblical/ancient history and a lack of exegetical skill that failed to recognize that these prophecies against Damascus were describing two totally different events separated by hundreds of years and fulfilled just as the prophets said. Even if the Futurist were to categorically reject the historical facts and insist on a future fulfillment, the prophecies themselves refer to different actors, different sins and differing judgements so that it can't possibly be speaking of on and the same event.
Performing a word search on "Damascus" or "Libya" or "Egypt" and automatically isolating and projecting these statements exclusively as future events regardless of context, language, references, Scriptural historical confirmation or even archaeological evidence doesn't make it true. The skilled student of Scripture would at least harmonize the prophecies with known events and established doctrines.
There is also the more disturbing element of rejecting the doctrines of Redemption in such a way that it leads people to think that a capricious god will destroy millions of people today for sins committed by a king 2500 years ago. The Gospel message is not just for white Westerners, it is for men and women of all nations, tribes and tongues. The Gospel is to go out to all people, and for that reason God has preserved the world for a future judgment, not isolating and intermittently judging nations separately for no reason other than satisfying some blood lust of modern day evangelicals.
I would hope that you would rejoice in that we don't have to guess about some horrible calamity yet to come, but that we literally have fulfilled prophecies that have edified countless believers over the millennia. We know that it rains on the just and the unjust (but apparently not on Texans) which means that Christians living in the Middle East need not worry that God will send down judgment on them for merely living in Damascus or Egypt for sins committed by idolators thousands of years before.
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