in the Mideast.

That's worked out really well in the past. Do we ever learn?

See, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/al-qaeda-infiltrating-syrian-opposition-us-officials-say/2012/02/16/gIQA9LDJIR_story.html

Lovely how some people on DU are always out to be more cynical, paranoid, and contrarian than the next.

A group of Salaafist (Sunni) clerics just declared a fatwa against the minority Shi'ia (Allawite) leadership of the Ba'ath Party regime in Damascus. First, here's the report (from a Sunni paper) and then look at the nice folks we're allied with:

Al-Qaradawi has also described Shi'ites as heretics ("mubtadi'oun&quot . Fellow member of International union of Muslim Scholars, Mohammad Salim Al-Awa criticized Qaradawi for promoting divisions among Muslims. In response, the Iranian Press Agency has described Qaradawi as "a spokesman for “international Freemasonry and rabbis".

Qaradawi accused what he called "heretical" Shias of "invading" Sunni countries.


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Al-Qaradawi has long had a prominent role within the intellectual leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian political organization, but twice (in 1976 ...
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Ali Gomaa, who as the grand mufti (chief Islamic jurist) in Cairo is the senior Sunni Muslim figure in Egypt, was one of the Common Word signatories.
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Not to be confused with Mohamed Ghannouchi. ... Religion, Sunni Muslim. Rashid al-Ghannushi or Rached Ghannouchi (Arabic: راشد الغنوشي? (born 1941) is a Tunisian Islamist .... "Global Muslim Brotherhood Claims Victory In Tunisia".
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Sh. Haitham al-Haddad Haitham al-Haddad is a London-based Islamic Scholar and Muslim community ...
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London-based radical Muslim cleric Haitham Al-Haddad — who sits on the UK's ... Muslim Brotherhood's Egypt: village evicts 8 Christian families ... London-based cleric Haitham Al-Haddad is a member of the pan-global Sunni organization ...
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Jan 13, 2012 – The Muslim Brotherhood states that its ultimate aim is global Sharia. ... Haitham al-Haddad Claims Women Are Begging Him to Get Stoned ...
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Feb 9, 2012 – During the uprising against the Mubarak regime, a Muslim website published ... al Qaradawi, the highly influential Muslim Brotherhood theologian, in Qatar Saturday. ... Haitham al-Haddad Claims Women Are Begging Him to Get Stoned ... Righteous Sunni Muslim Bombs 32 Shia Rafida to Jahannam · The ...
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5 days ago – Al Qaeda is a spin-off of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, and Egypt & Syria ... are considered by many Sunni to be heretics - i.e. essentially non-Muslim. ... Haitham Al-Haddad is a Muslim scholar who teaches what is the Islam of ...
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Arguing that the Serbian government and Russian intelligence were in bed with the Germans. Total BS.

Calling it BS and "anti-western propaganda" doesn't refute my facts or conclusions. Thanks for the heads up in the PM this morning, but I expected something more substantial.

Standing alone, it's just rude and dumb. If you have a meaningful response, make it. Otherwise, keep it to yourself.

what is happening in Syria is agonizing to watch from afar. Something has to be done, and if the US doesn't have to be the one to clomp our way into the midst of this, so much better.

That asshole has to go, though. People having to dodge sniper fire to get a loaf of bread? Madness.

Really, for hundreds of years. The Shi'ias, (Allawite) are a minority (about 15 percent) in Syria who for centuries during the Ottoman Empire were persecuted by the Sunni Turks. In the mid-1960s, the Ba'ath Party led by the Assad family took power in a coup, and in the 1970s and 1980s there was a "long war of terrorism" by Sunni insurgents supported by the Saudis. Tens of thousands on both sides died, but the Allawite regime remained in power. This is just a continuation of that - nothing new, its sectarian religious warfare.

The Shi'ia fight because they have good reason to fear genocide if the Assad regime falls. We should not take sides in this one - we're setting up the preconditions for genocide.

I appreciate the perspective, but acquiescence to what we have seen clear photographic and video evidence of cannot be right.

How can any of this justify a well-armed military firing on unarmed civilians?

Since Assad Sr's atrocities in 1982 when 40,00 people were massacred, the people of Syria have been cowed into submission.

Outside intervention has not helped the people of Syria. It's only kept the Sunni insurgency going.

Read up on it, tabatha, and come back with something that bears some basis in the facts:

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reason to fear genocide if the Assad regime falls"? Is this an argument that Syrians hate each other so much that they can only be governed by a repressive dictatorship dominated by one group or the other? Too bad, Syrians. Not only do you have no rights now, but your future holds no possibility that you ever will have any.

Is that similar to arguing that the white South African government had the right to commit genocide to perserve their minority-based (15%) government under apartheid because the white rulers were afraid of retribution if they lost power?

In each case (South Africa and Syria) I see that the minority rulers would have reason to fear retribution for their years of oppression against majority groups. But it would seem a more liberal policy would be to support the majority (oppressed) groups, preferably in a way that promotes non-retribution in the event that they eventually take power, rather than support the minority-based governments committing abuses.

That doesn't mean that the support for the majority has to be military in nature. In South Africa it wasn't. But the support needs to be real and long-lasting since change will probably not come quickly.

I'm trying to explain why the Assad regime uses force to suppress the opposition -- there has been armed insurrection for decades -- and why outside intervention is setting up the potential for genocide of the Sunnis overthrow the Ba'ath regime. I'm not endorsing either side. I just know the arming of the opposition, and the introduction of Sunni Jihadist militants, is just making a bad situation worse.

exactly because some foreign powers decided to conduct a regime change in Syria and armed gangs
of mercenary terrorists for that purpose. Not to mention, they sent their own special forces military
into Syria on a mission to destabilize and ultimately overthrow its government. How is Assad supposed
to react to that? The best thing one can do for the people of Syria and for peace in the country is to
demand immediate removal of all foreign military from the country and cessation of all foreign support for
armed gangs operating in the country. Without such support from abroad Syrian military and police
would restore order and peace in the country within days and with minimal civilian casualties. Those
orwellianly named "Friends of Syria" are, in fact, its worst enemies who care nothing about suffering
and death of Syrian people in pursuit of their illegal and violent agenda of regime change.

Only after that, did groups form to protect women and children. Much of their weaponry UNTIL NOW was bought on the black market or form corrupt regime forces. See Nir Rosen's reports on AJE.

And where the hell in the world, do you bomb people's homes to get "terrorists". What would you think if the US did that?

The Syrians are sophisticated enough to locate foreign journalists, they should be able to target "terrorists".

And if they were armed terrorists, why would they need help now?

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Why does a government have to commit war crimes against innocent women and children to fight so-called "terrorists"? Surely, they could just hunt them down, and kill them alone. They are easy to find - they are out in the streets, while the women and children are cowering in basements to avoid their homes being bombed to bits. And why is the shelling random, and why has it gone on for 20 days? It makes NO sense. The only explanation is total annihilation of families.

Some protectors those terrorist killers are. Those "Friends of Syria" can start by getting all the foreign
troops the hell away from Syria first. Then maybe Syrian army wouldn't need to shell and bomb anyone
at all. As long as Qatari and Saudi aggressors are in Syria waging war against its legitimate government,
there may be no peace in the country.

for decades. It's also a proxy religious war that threatens to spread regionally, and to blow back on us.

The regime is brutal, but so are the insurgents.

No need for us to get involved in arming the rebels. One less war.

Not that I'm sympathetic to the Assad regime.

Alawite vs. Sunni vs. Christian vs. Kurd

In a nice little proxy war of Shia Iran and Iraq vs. Sunni Saudis, Turks, and Gulf States

Which in turn will provide a nice little competition of Russia and China vs. US and the West

No support, no weapons, nada.

And I guess genocide is OK.

Unless you mean not directly intervening militarily or not supplying arms, and it looks like we're slip-sliding closer to the latter every day.

Our secretary of state is meeting with the other "Friends of Syria" Friday to try to coordinate the opposition.

I don't know that what the Assad regime is doing in parts of Homs qualifies as genocide, but would certainly seem to qualify as war crimes or crimes against humanity. If the regime survives, it will have to live under that shadow.

There is a quite revealing article about Syria in the New Yorker this week. The author went all over the country and talked to people across the political spectrum. He quoted one long-time dissident as saying 30% of the population was in rebellion, 30% supported the regime, and 40% wanted change, but not at any cost.

But I don't know how you can go back from where things are now.

Here's a link to the story.... http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/02/18/195343.html

I just find it incredulous that anyone would think the US is standing idly by. We already know we're flying drones overhead (which are sending movements of the battling parties back to... who?), I'm absolutely certain we have people on the ground as well. It's extremely naive to think we're staying out of it....

wants a coup in Syria. He didn't even hide it.