Buildings in Damascus were heavily damaged last week by airstrikes from the Syrian army. (Goran Tomasevic, Reuters photo / January 19, 2013)
Posted on 01/23/2013 7:52:24 PM PST by SunkenCiv
As secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, I have always sought to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states, but the brutality and enormous loss of life in Syria has compelled OIC to take a moral stand to aid the critical needs of its people. I am encouraged that President Barack Obama and his administration together with the majority of nations have recognized the National Coalition for the Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces in an effort to bring peace and stability.
In many years of private meetings with Assad, I consistently advised him to trust and embrace the patriotic forces of the country and insisted that reforms were necessary. He opted to not initiate any meaningful political reform. When pro-democracy protests started in March 2011, he treated his own people as enemies of the state and sent his tanks to crush protesters instead of taking advantage of the popular demonstrations to initiate real political reform...
The international community and members of the UN Security Council have not been able to speak with one voice, and the crisis in Syria has evolved into a full-fledged civil war, leaving 60,000 Syrians dead and hundreds of thousands displaced or living as refugees. As government-sponsored violence continues to escalate and the specter of sectarian violence is raised, Assad jeopardizes the future of all Syria's people...
The biggest responsibility falls on the shoulders of Assad. The government cannot reign over the opposition forces. Assad must end the violence and put the interests of his country and the principle of sanctity of life before the existentialist struggle of his regime. When a nation is at the brink of disaster, it is the leader's duty to sacrifice for his nation; the time for sacrifice has come for Syria.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Buildings in Damascus were heavily damaged last week by airstrikes from the Syrian army. (Goran Tomasevic, Reuters photo / January 19, 2013)
and let al quaida walk right in, uh yeah right
[Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov: No success while Syria opposition is fanatical about ousting govt
Published: 23 January, 2013, 11:42
http://rt.com/news/lavrov-syria-conflict-550/
Russian Minister Backs Assad, and Adoption Ban
[also denies the evacuation has started]
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/world/europe/russia-criticizes-syria-rebel-obsession-with-assad-exit.html?_r=0
Russia denies plans for mass evacuation from Syria, defends U.S. adoptions ban
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russia-defends-adoption-ban-denies-plans-for-mass-evacuation-from-syria/2013/01/23/6d2436e0-6559-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7_story.html
Russia says no large-scale evacuation of its citizens from Syria planned for now
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/first-russians-evacuated-from-syria-land-in-moscow-the-possible-start-of-a-rescue-mission/2013/01/22/eb901908-6505-11e2-889b-f23c246aa446_story.html
Syria Evacuation Hints at a New Russian Attitude
(Russians Fleeing Syria Cross Into Lebanon)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/world/middleeast/russians-fleeing-syria-cross-into-lebanon.html
Russia evacuates some families from war-torn Syria
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-russia-syria-evacuees-20130123,0,4695623.story
Italy envoy: Assad in way of Syria peace
January 24, 2013 01:33 AM
By Mirella Hodeib
The Daily Star
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2013/Jan-24/203530-italy-envoy-assad-in-way-of-syria-peace.ashx
Fund Syria’s Moderates
We can’t say that helping the Syrian rebels didn’t work, because it has never really been tried.
By Robin Yassin-Kassab
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/23/fund_syria_s_moderates_rebels_civil_war
An islamist oufit takes a “moral” stand?
That’s rich.
It takes two to tango. Assad is killing revolutionaries, and revolutionaries are killing government troops and supporters. And both sides are killing noncombatants who happen to get in the way.
There are terrorists on both sides. But, bad as Assad is, the opposition is even worse.
Assad must step down to end the fighting? How about if the revolutionaries stepped down and ended the fighting, instead?
This column could have been written by a Syrian about Obama; the picture looks like many downtown areas today.
I have to admire the way Assad negotiates — the moment peaceful protests started, he turned live fire on the crowds, which poured gasoline on the whole smoldering hellhole of a country.
It’s not a negotiation, he made sure of that. And it can only end one way. He will leave office, whether he goes under his own power is the only decision he can make at this point. Thanks to Assad, jihadists are going to take over by force, and won’t easily let go.
No, it doesn’t take two to tango. It takes Assad being advised and encouraged by his Russian and Iranian allies not to deal with the original protesters and try to implement some reforms. Now it’s a mess, and it’s entirely the fault of Assad and his allies.
time will tell
Assad plays the same card always: “Do you really want to reap the results of a failed state in Syria?”
If we think Libya was a mess, Syria will start a holocaust.
The Arab Spring is becoming a winter nightmare.
>>>and let al quaida walk right in, uh yeah right
Or whomever and every other whomever with all their proxies and allies. The flames will spread quickly and last long.
From North Africa to Egypt to Syria, the whole ME is being transformed - and not for the good.
Well, the revolutionaries are being abetted by the Saudis and Gulf State Sheikhs, and are connected with al Quaeda. They aren’t interested in compromising, and I don’t think they ever were.
I have long thought that Assad and Syria were a serious problem. Back after Bush nailed Saddam, I thought that he should have taken the Syrian government out, although there was a limit to how much he could do with the Dems and the press pulling another anti-Vietnam type protest against him. But I now think the current uprising represents dark forces that are even worse. It would be disastrous for the remaining Christians in Syria and Lebanon.
You have to take everything you read about there with a grain of salt. Remember the media breathlessly reporting daily that Assad was ready to use chemical weapons on his own people? Obama was ready to act- to step in and help the muslim Brotherhood . . er, rebels. Then Russia stepped in and said that they would guard the chemical weapons, pulling the rug out from under The One. I don't like Assad but so much of this has been a setup and a pack of lies. They just want to expand the Caliphate.
Iran will never allow Assad to resign.
You should take everything you read from Syrian, Russian, and Iranian sources with a grain of salt, but you won’t.
The Syrian regime was also part of the international coalition to kick Saddam out of Kuwait, which was what that operation was there to do, so that wouldn’t have been on the table.
After the bombing of the fleeing column of Iraqi armed forces, public opinion might have turned had the obvious next step — rounding up and overthrowing Saddam — been carried out. But that would have worked better at that time, and had Iraqi public support, and kept basically the same regime in power, minus Saddam.
And it wasn’t as if the Partisan Media Shills were suddenly going to change their tune about Republicans.
And saying it would be disastrous for remaining Christians in the easiest room in Hell is a broken record. Christians have been getting massacred, slaughtered, etc etc for the better part of a year, and yet they actually haven’t been, they’ve had to flee, some have been murdered, and yet the regime has killed 60,000 Syrians without checking their affiliations.
And like the rest of the Arabs, Syrian and Lebanese Christians will back whatever Islamic despotate is in power, and continue to deny that 9/11 was al-Qaeda, and danced in the streets when it happened.
The Big Mo started the slaughter, and until the last of his followers is bayonetted, or repudiates Islam, the slaughter will continue. The Arab Spring is the result of the continual struggle for power among muzzie states and financed by crude prices near or over $100 a barrel. And yet, when crude prices drop, that can (and has) lead to invasions by and of OPEC brethren to grab more market share (Saddam did that three times, once in Iran, twice in Kuwait). Regime change in the muzzie world never results in change, other than a change in names on the door.
So, a question or two for you then and this is not rhetorical.
Do you see the change of government in Egypt Yemen and Libya as a good thing as our administration does?
Do you think that the uprisings in Sudan, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Mali, Yemen and Syria were just spontaneous uprisings for democracy?
Do you think that the outcome for Syria would somehow be different than Egypt and result in a more stable country?
Do you think that the "rebels" are just freedom loving souls who yearn to be free?
Do you not think that our administration and it's lapdog media is not spinning stories to give them an excuse to go in and "help the masses" like we did in Libya? There are two sides being reported on all of this. the truth is somewhere in the middle. In my opinion, the US is on the wrong side of this.
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