Russia Sending Missile Systems to Shield Syria

New York Times ^

[willibeaux]

If he makes another “gutsy” call, you can bet your sweet bippy that the “Ax” and Val will have a CYO memo ready to go if it blows up in his face.

Hoorah!!

[Chances Are]

This is another little-known and little-noticed aspect of Obamanomics, which seems to have crept in to what passes for the administration’s “foreign policy” apparatus - “A day late and a dollar short”.

To wit: “We’ll get there...eventually...I guess! and when we do, we’ll come terrifically underfunded for the job! Of course, now that the Russians are introducing these new toys for Assad’s devoted Army legions, may be we won’t show up at all...maybe...we’ll see!”

“And NO! I’m not taking any questions on the subject! Ignorant peasants...”

CA....

[steve86]

Russia can’t even fix it’s streets ,roads and buildings ,but it’s going to Shield Syria , right

Are you very young and/or naïve for some other reason? Russia historically has been weak on civilian projects because so much of their expenditures were going to the military. Very dangerous to underestimate Russia's military capability.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Alawites are Shiite. Assad is an genocidal islamofascist waiting for the Mahdi.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Now Assad is a protector of Jews as well as Christians!? Where do you people get this garbage!?

The mass murderer Assad has made his feelings plain about the Jews when he said they "tried to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad." - Bashar Assad

Is this the kind of "Christianity" that Russia and their muslim allies are promoting?

[Nowhere Man]

You are absolutely right. People at Middle East won’t get an idea of a free republic in a lifetime. Their idea of liberty is a freedom to rob a neighbor or rape a young girl at school, to kill a Jew etc.

It is a different world and mentality over there, they do not understand how a Western Republic works. Also, adding to that, "freedom" to them means voting in a radical Islamist into office.

They need strongman to cut the most extreme haters from their testicles and make others play peace and love.

Yeah, it seem the only thing they respect and to keep them inline is a powerful strongman. It is a hard choice to make but between a strongman who has a more modern outlook vs an Islamic one, I'd take the former.

It was absolutely clear long time ago and for that reason all that neocon Spreading Democracy crap made me barf since the very beginning. The real question was they really that stupid or was it a treason.

To impose nation building to something like we have here in the West takes time and strength/will as well as money. We have the time, but we don't have the strength, we are too wussy to play the strongman role needed. We don't have the money either. I know in World War II, we did nation build in Germany and Japan, but Germany was a western nation, we did have a foundation to build on, same with Japan who did have quite a bit of exposure to the West. We also had the strength/will too which help a great deal as well as oodles of money and resources.

We don't have that now and I still say it is far better to have not kicked these hornet's nest and leaving Kadaffy, Mubarak (he was the most reasonable out of all of them) and even Saddam in power as long as they generally behave themselves.

We could have just had Iran and a smattering of terrorist groups gunning for us but now we could have the entire region joining in too. Thanks to Obongo, this will certainly backfire and make things worse.

[Para-Ord.45]

Yeah whatever. I`ll just go with what the scholars tell me:

” ‘Alawis reject Islam’s main tenets; by almost any standard they must be considered non-Muslims.

‘Alawi doctrines date from the ninth century A.D. and derive from the Twelver or Imami branch of Shi’i Islam (the sect that predominates in Iran). In about A.D. 859, one Ibn Nusayr declared himself the bab (”gateway to truth”), a key figure in Shi’i theology. On the basis of this authority, Ibn Nusayr proclaimed a host of new doctrines which, to make a long story short, make ‘Alawism into a separate religion. According to Ibn Kathir (d. 1372), where Muslims proclaim their faith with the phrase “There is no deity but God and Muhammad is His prophet,” ‘Alawis assert “There is no deity but ‘Ali, no veil but Muhammad, and no bab but Salman.”

Some ‘Alawi doctrines appear to derive from Phoenician paganism, Mazdakism and Manicheanism. But by far the greatest affinity is with Christianity. ‘Alawi religious ceremonies involve bread and wine; indeed, wine drinking has a sacred role in ‘Alawism, for it represents God. The religion holds ‘Ali, the fourth caliph, to be the (Jesus-like) incarnation of divinity. It has a holy trinity, consisting of Muhammad, ‘Ali, and Salman al-Farisi, a freed slave of Muhammad’s. ‘Alawis celebrate many Christian festivals, including Christmas, New Year’s, Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost, and Palm Sunday. They honor many Christian saints: St. Catherine, St. Barbara, St. George, St. John the Baptist, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Mary Magdalene. The Arabic equivalents of such Christian personal names as Gabriel, John, Matthew, Catherine, and Helen, are in common use. And ‘Alawis tend to show more friendliness to Christians than to Muslims.

For these reasons, many observers - missionaries especially - have suspected the ‘Alawis of a secret Christian proclivity. Even T. E. Lawrence described them as “those disciples of a cult of fertility, sheer pagan, antiforeign, distrustful of Islam, drawn at moments to Christianity by common persecution.”

Beyond specific divergences, non-conformity to the Shari’a means that ‘Alawi life follows its own rhythms, fundamentally unlike those of Muslims. ‘Alawis do not act like Sunni Muslims, with only slight differences; rather, they resemble Christians and Jews in pursuing a wholly distinct way of life. Matti Moosa notes that, “like the other extremist Shiites... the Nusayris had total disregard for Muslim religious duties.” Ignaz Goldziher put it succinctly: “This religion is Islam only in appearance.” It is important to make this point very clear: ‘Alawis have never been Muslims and are not now.”

http://www.danielpipes.org/191/the-alawi-capture-of-power-in-syria

[cunning_fish]

In short, Alawis are as muslim as mormons and Jehova’s witnesses are Christian.

[Tailgunner Joe]

So you're telling me that they worship mohammed but they're not muslims? Whatever. The Shiites and Sunnis don't consider each other “real” muslims either. What is Daniel Pipes the freakin pope of islam now and gets to decide who is muslim and who isn't? They are all just moon worshiping goat-humping haji ragheads to me.