Posted on 11/17/2015 11:47:04 PM PST by 11th_VA
Syrian President Bashar Assad considers Russia's Vladimir Putin as the "only defender of Christian civilization one can trust."
"When I look at the present state of things in the world I realize that Vladimir Putin is the sole defender of Christian civilization one can rely on," Assad said in an interview with French magazine Valeurs Actuelles.
The Syrian leader also said that he would step down only if asked to by the Syrian people and the Syrian parliament, adding that the issue of his possible resignation had not yet been raised on an international level.
Syria will only share intelligence information with France if Paris changes its policies in the region, President Assad said.
"If the French government is not serious in its fight against terrorism, we will not waste our time collaborating with a country, government or an institution that supports terrorism," he noted in the interview carried out the day after Friday's deadly attacks in Paris.
"You have to first change policy so that it is based on one criteria, to be part of an alliance that joins countries only fighting terrorism and not supporting them," Assad added.
More than 220,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war.
More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from Islamic State and the al-Nusra Front.
That's something to think about ...
Ironical, no?
To quote the Wicked Witch in Wizard of Oz “What a World!, What a World!”
What a crying shame he’s correct
Sad but true.
Wouldn’t it be something if Russia turns out to be the ones that get islamics to turn toward Christianity? With Hussein we sure won’t be.
the true reason why obama want assad removed was because christians are protected
But but but Putin and Assad are evil gangsters. Didn’t you read all those op-eds?
With Obama, it’s more likely the US is pushing Christians to Islam
What is truly unfortunate is not just the irony of someone like Assad calling someone like Putin the 'only defender of Christianity,' but the fact that in many ways it is not a wholly inaccurate statement. At least in Syria, where thousands of Christians have been slain, and many more enslaved, and all the West can do is open the European borders to migrants (most of whom are not Christian/Yazidi).
The West needs a real leader to stand up - someone who is a real Leader of the Free World.
The current one has been tested and found lacking.
Not just that, but you find FReepers fawning over Kremlin press releases.
Yes that’s why Putin isbscrewing over the Christian Armenians in favor of the Muslim Azerbaijanis. That’s why he is doing the Iranians bidding in Syria. Because the Iranian government is Christian. That’s the ticket. That’s why Putin is attacking the Ukraine and currently allies with the Chechens.
Yes that’s why Putin isbscrewing over the Christian Armenians in favor of the Muslim Azerbaijanis. That’s why he is doing the Iranians bidding in Syria. Because the Iranian government is Christian. That’s the ticket. That’s why Putin is attacking the Ukraine and currently allies with the Chechens.
OMG....he’s right.....I’m agreeing with what ASSAD said about Putin!! The world is upside down!
Assad’s word is worth thinking about?
I guess threatening to nuke certain Christians is defending them, in the new “Eurasian” paradigm.
Sure, let’s see him try to turn the Iranian Ayatollah Christian. After helping to further entrench his regime and all.
September 2014
(excerpt from a long, detailed article)
First and foremost, in any review of the basics regarding Putin, the most outstanding fact is that he is a creature of the Soviet KGB, a truly diabolical organization nonpareil, which stood for murder, terror, and grand deception.
It was the Soviet Communist Party's tool for the brutal suppression of religion, including the persecution of Christians: denying them jobs and education; spying on and entrapping them; arresting and imprisoning them; torturing them in unspeakable ways; desecrating and demolishing their church buildings; infiltrating their agents into churches to subvert them. The KGB destroyed thousands of Christian churches, monasteries, convents, and schools, and slaughtered millions of Christians.
But it did not destroy the churches utterly. There remained an underground church, whose members were always at risk of discovery, arrest, torture, and martyrdom. Above ground, the KGB took control of the Russian Orthodox Church, which became a very useful organ of the Soviet atheist state.
In January 2009, Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyaev, better known as Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, was elected, from a short list of three candidates, to be the 16th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, the highest position of authority in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). The election was called to fill the post that had been left vacant by the death of Patriarch Alexy II, who had headed the ROC since 1990.
Documents from the KGB archives have confirmed what sensible observers had long ago deduced from his actions: that Patriarch Alexy II (also spelled Alexi or Alexei) was a long-serving KGB agent (code-named Drozdov, "Blackbird"), in other words, a traitor to his Christian brethren and the God he claimed to serve. Putin's KGB/FSB was taking no chances with his replacement. All three candidates - Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk (code-named Topaz), Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk (code-named Ostrovskii), and Metropolitan Kirill (code-named Mikhailov) - also have been reliably identified as agents of the KGB/FSB.
Russia expert David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times (of London) and the Wall Street Journal, wrote of the election in 2009 for Forbes:
According to material from the Soviet archives, Kirill was a KGB agent (as was Alexei). This means he was more than just an informer, of whom there were millions in the Soviet Union. He was an active officer of the organization. Neither Kirill nor Alexei ever acknowledged or apologized for their ties with the security agencies.
Because Patriarch Kirill is of central importance to the myth of Putin as the Saul-to-Paul, Christian persecutor-to-Christian champion, it behooves us to more closely examine the man. He has publicly presided over, and provided official benedictions and exhortations for, Putin's cynical and Stalinesque exploitation of Russian nationalism and Russian Orthodoxy. Josef Stalin, who had very nearly consummated the annihilation of the Russian Orthodox Church begun by Vladimir Lenin, reversed course in 1941. The reason? His erstwhile partner in crime, Adolf Hitler, had turned on him and had invaded Russia.
Stalin, needing all the help he could get, cut a deal with ROC Metropolitans Sergius, Nikolay, and Alexy. In exchange for their support in rallying the Russian people, he would cease (temporarily) the persecution and allow the reopening of churches and theological schools. In fact, Stalin's Soviet government paid for the rebuilding of many of the churches. The ROC was thus placed even more firmly under the control of the NKVD, which was later to be reorganized and renamed as the KGB. ..."
much more at link
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"For 16 years Putin was an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991.
He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election, despite widespread accusations of vote-rigging,[3] and was reelected in 2004."
"On 25 July 1998, Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin head of the FSB (one of the successor agencies to the KGB), the position Putin occupied until August 1999. He became a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation on 1 October 1998 and its Secretary on 29 March 1999."
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