Blogmocracy in Action
Guest Blogger: Doriangrey
Assad Bashar’s Syrian Government is known to have a very large stockpile of Chemical Weapons. This is neither breaking news, nor is it surprising. That chemical weapons are suspected to have been used in the Syrian Civil War likewise is neither breaking news nor surprising. Before we get into exactly who, if anyone used those chemical weapons, we must first take an honest and hard look at who is involved in the Syrian Civil War.
Let’s start with…
Bashar Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: بشار حافظ الأسد Baššār Ḥāfiẓ al-ʾAsad, Levantine pronunciation: [baʃˈʃaːr ˈħaːfezˤ elˈʔasad]; born 11 September 1965) is the President of Syria and Regional Secretary of the Syrian-led branch of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party. He has served as President since 2000, when he succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had ruled Syria for 30 years prior to his death.
Al-Assad graduated from the medical school of the University of Damascus in 1988, and started to work as a physician in the army. Four years later, he attended postgraduate studies at the Western Eye Hospital, in London, specializing in ophthalmology. In 1994, after his elder brother Bassel, the heir apparent to their father, was killed in a car crash, Bashar was hastily recalled to Syria to take over Bassel’s role. He entered the military academy, and took charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 1998. In December 2000, Assad married Asma Assad, née Akhras. Al-Assad was elected as President of Syria in 2000 and 2007, unopposed each time.[1][2]
Initially seen by the domestic and international community as a potential reformer, this expectation ceased when he ordered a mass crackdown and military sieges on protesters during the Arab Spring, which gave way to the events of the Syrian civil war.[3] The domestic Syrian opposition and large parts of the wider international community have subsequently called for al-Assad’s resignation from power.[4]
The long and short of Bashar Assad is this. Bashar Assad is a dynastic Arab ruler. Though he rules under the nominal title as Syria’s President, that title is more fiction that reality. In reality he is more closely related to a Constitutional Monarch where the Monarch still retains majority ruling authority. By western standards Bashar Assad is a tyrannical dictator. However, one must never ever forget, Syria is not a Western Nation. It is an Arab Nation, with the word “Nation” placed very carefully in parenthetical brackets.
Arabic Culture is one that can only really be described as Tribal/Clanish with a highly significant nomadic element to it. Socially it is structured as a Aristocratic Caste System. The individuals place in society is dictated by which Tribe or Clan they are blood related to, and where their tribe or clan falls within the authoritarian hierarchy of the land that they live on. The major tribes or clans are genetic lines that have thousands of years of history. Consequently modern national borders are not genuinely reflective of the tribe or clans loyalties.
Within the context of the Arab World, Bashar Assad’s greatest crimes are not that he is a tyrannical dictator. Since one of the most significant aspects of Arab political ideology is not an actual political ideology at all, but a mentality often referred to as the “Strong Horse” mentality.
Since Arab loyalties are dictated primarily not by political ideology, but by genetic blood lines, nearly all Arab political loyalties that are not direct genetic blood ties are loyalties of convenience. Hence the “Strong Horse” concept, wherein an individual or tribe supports whichever individual or tribe is in the strongest position but only as long as they are in that position of strength.
Which brings us to Bashar Assad’s greatest crime in the Arab World, his grip on power appears to be diminishing. The more his grip on power diminishes, the more of his supporters switch allegiances to whomever seems to be the new ascending power. It really is as simple as understanding that in the Arab world the single greatest sin that a man can commit is to be one the losing side.
Now let’s look at the Syrian Rebels.
The Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra (Arabic: جبهة النصرة لأهل الشام Jabhat an-Nuṣrah li-Ahl ash-Shām, “Support Front for the People of Greater Syria”), is an Al Qaida affiliate operating in Syria. The group announced its creation on 23 January 2012 during the Syrian civil war.[7] It is described as “the most aggressive and successful arm of the rebel force”.[3] The group was designated by the United States as a terrorist organisation in December 2012.[8] In April 2013, the leader of the Islamic state of Iraq released an audio statement announcing that Jabhat al-Nusra is its branch in Syria.[6] The leader of Al Nusra, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, said that the group will not merge with the Islamic state of Iraq, but still maintain allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri.[9]
al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), also known as al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, is the Iraqi division of the international Salafi jihadi militant organization al-Qaeda. It is part of the Iraqi insurgency.
The group was founded in 2003 as a reaction to the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, and first led by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who declared allegiance to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network in October 2004. It first operated under the name Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Arabic: جماعة التوحيد والجهاد, “Group of Monotheism and Jihad”); since 2004 its official name has been Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (“Organization of Jihad’s Base in Mesopotamia”).[6] Foreign fighters from outside Iraq are widely thought to play a key role in its network.[7]
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri,[2] (Arabic: أيمن محمد ربيع الظواهري ʾAyman Muḥammad Rabīʿ aẓ-Ẓawāhirī, born 19 June 1951) is an Egyptian physician,[3] Islamic theologian and current leader of the militant Islamist organization al-Qaeda.[4] Ayman al-Zawahiri is a former member of Islamist organizations which have both orchestrated and carried out multiple attacks on the continents of North America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
The U.S. State Department has offered a US$25 million dollar reward for information leading to al-Zawahiri’s apprehension since the 9/11 attacks and remains in effect.[5] He is under worldwide sanctions by the United Nations Security Council 1267 Committee as a member or affiliate of al-Qaeda.[6]
Syria’s al-Nusra Front swears allegiance to al-Qaida leader Ayman al-ZawahiriThe US-based SITE Monitoring Service reported Wednesday that the leader of Syria’s al-Nusra Front has pledged allegiance to al-Qaida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in an audio message, whilst distancing the group from claims they had merged with al-Qaida in Iraq.
“The sons of al-Nusra Front pledge allegiance to Sheikh Ayman Al-Zawahiri,” Abu Mohammed Jawlani said in the message.
He also said “we were not consulted” on an announcement made by al-Qaida in Iraq chief Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi on Tuesday that the groups had merged. “We inform you that neither the al-Nusra command nor its consultative council, nor its general manager were aware of this announcement. It reached them via the media and if the speech is authentic, we were not consulted,” Jawlani added.
He stated the group would maintain its flag and not change its behavior.
“Al-Nusra Front will not change its flag, though we will continue to be proud of the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq, of those who carry it and those who sacrifice themselves and shed their blood for it,” said Jawlani, who fought in Iraq alongside al-Qaida’s Iraqi arm. “We reassure our brothers in Syria that al-Nusra Front’s behavior will remain faithful to the image you have come to know, and that our allegiance to al-Qaida will not affect our politics in any way.”
And there you have it, Al-Nusra Front, is an Al Qaeda affiliate. Receiving support and strategic tactical guidance from none other than Osama bin Laden’s successor Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
Now to the Chemical Weapons.
Where Did Syria’s Chemical Weapons Come From?
As the news stories mount regarding Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s decision to move his chemical weapons stockpile from storage to areas closer to rebel locations, there is one thing the mainstream media is not commenting on: How Syria acquired what is reported to be one of the world’s largest arsenals of bio-chemical WMD? More to the point, what they are not reporting is this: From where did the Assad regime acquire their bio-chemical WMD?
In 2006, former Iraqi general, Georges Sada, who served under Saddam Hussein before he defected, wrote a comprehensive book detailing how the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria, before the US-led action to eliminate Saddam Hussein’s WMD threat, by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.
As reported in the New York Sun on January 26, 2006:
“‘There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands,’ Mr. Sada said. ‘I am confident they were taken over.’”
“Mr. Sada’s comments come just more than a month after Israel’s top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam ‘transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.’
“Democrats have made the absence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq a theme in their criticism of the Bush administration’s decision to go to war in 2003…
“The discovery of the weapons in Syria could alter the American political debate on the Iraq war. And even the accusations that they are there could step up international pressure on the government in Damascus. That government, led by Bashar Assad, is already facing a UN investigation over its alleged role in the assassination of a former prime minister of Lebanon. The Bush administration has criticized Syria for its support of terrorism and its failure to cooperate with the UN investigation.”
Anyone whose head has not been firmly up their own ass for the last 12 years has figured out by now that Al Qaeda does not adhere to the Geneva Conventions, nor give a rats ass about western morals or ethics. They do all of their strategic and tactical planning in accordance with the Qur’an. In other words, they fight to win using any and every tactic. They do not consider killing innocent civilians unacceptable, nor do they consider perfidy unacceptable. There are no out of bounds places to fight, wherever they find advantage, that is where they fight.
U.N. has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator
(Reuters) – U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.
The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.
“Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.
“This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities,” she added, speaking in Italian.
Normally I would automatically discount anything said by the UN, since the UN is by and large an utterly corrupt and useless organization run by incompetent imbeciles who couldn’t find their own assholes in a doctors office surrounded by a dozen proctologists. However this looks like a classic “Stopped Clock” case. There is absolutely no possibility what-so-ever that Al Qaeda would not use Chemical or Biological weapons should they somehow obtain them.
The evidence is absolutely incontrovertible that the Syrian Rebel Forces are Al Qaeda.
No one is ever going to claim that by western standards Bashar Assad is the good guy. Bashar Assad is nothing more or less than the average typical Arab Strongman leader. By Arabs standards, Assad was a good President, but he committed the one sin that Arab Muslims are incapable of forgiving. He appears to have lost his grip on power.
The Syrian Civil War is between a predominately secular Arab government (Bashar Assad) and the religious fanatical terrorists Al Qaeda. The question of what to do comes down to whether the west should get involved or not. In other words, it’s a choice between two evils. Support the Rebels who are unquestionable the greater evil in the utterly insane hope that they will be less repressive than the Assad Government, or support the lessor of two evils because he is, the lessor of two evils.
It is at this point that I shall quote a line from the Hollywood Marxist progressive psychobabble propaganda movie “War Games”.
“Joshua: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?”
(Hat Tip: The Wilderness of Mirrors)
