generalspeaking

Miracles and Barbarism

"It's a miracle that we are still alive. Bombs fall day after day."
Gabriel Daoud, Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, Saint George Church, Damascus

"[They have been] evicted from their homes and native lands, sold as slaves, killed, beheaded, crucified or burned alive, under the shameful and complicit silence of so many."
"There is another threat, that of state terrorism. Each state, for its own part, feels it has the right to massacre terrorists. But so many innocent people perish at the same time as the terrorists."
Pope Francis

The arch at the entrance to the Dakhaniyeh neighbourhood of Damascus is damaged in fighting in Syria. Despite the destruction, ruin and constant danger, many in the city do not want to leave the place that is their home.   Photograph by: STR, Getty Images , London Daily Telegraph

The Old City of Damascus remains yet, despite the Syrian army bombardments, its ancient walls reverberating. Inhabited for over four thousand years, the residents wonder how much longer they will be able to live there, their lives in constant danger. Christians were largely neutral in the war, but they know they are targeted by the jihadists They have been kidnapped, churches desecrated. Pope Francis has spoken of the "barbaric acts of violence", to which he says force can be used to stop an "unjust aggressor".

The Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad may not have given permission to The U.S. to fly aerial assaults on ISIS over Syrian territory, holding out for an agreement between the U.S. and Syria which Assad may have thought would be forthcoming, but which the U.S. would certainly view with the horror it deserves, but that bombing of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham is certainly to the benefit of Damascus.

It's difficult to really discern which is the worst human-rights offender; the regime or ISIS. Nothing has been beyond Bashar al-Assad's arsenal of pay-back to his majority Sunni population for the rise of Sunni opposition to his Alawite Shiite rule disentitling Sunnis. The abduction and torture of children, the rape of women, the helicopter warships, the chemical weapons attacks, the barrel bombings, the deliberate starvation, and the routing of millions of Syrians from their homes.

There is no area of Syria in which Syrian Sunnis live or once lived that was immune from artillery fire, from bombing, leaving vast swathes of its capital along with other cities in absolute ruins. The city of Damascus, lived in for thousands of years, parts of which represented a living archaeological treasure, forever destroyed. Revenge attacks against the Sunni population for harbouring rebel Syrian Sunni insurgents continue unabated.

If the Syrian Free Army once thought they had a chance to defeat their murderous oppressor and in the absence of aid from the West to help arm them to match their defences against those of the regime, welcomed foreign jihadis, that hope was dashed with the steady incursion of Islamist jihadists with their own agendas, from all over the Sunni world of terrorism and vengeance against the minority Shiites. Who had their own militias from which to match the barbarism of the invading terrorists.

Hezbollah and the Republican Guard came to the regime's rescue to help it regain positions it had lost to the rebels. And the rebels began to suffer losses both at the hands of the regime and at those of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamists. And now, the United States and its allies have been persuaded to help the regime even further, even if by default, by attacking ISIS from the air.


The U.S. and its allies know that Raqqa is the stronghold in Syria of the extremists whose presence they are anxious to eradicate. They know as well that the city is one of civilian residence who have had no option but to live there with the Islamic State terrorists among them, now governing every aspect of their civilian life through fanatical religious edicts. Where Western morals restrain the U.S. from considering bombing the city, no such constraints concern Bashar al-Assad.

Over 63 Syrians died when Syria's war planes struck on Tuesday. At least half of those who died in the strikes were estimated to be of the civilian population. But a victory for the regime which hasn't bothered commenting, since half of those whom they killed were obviously ISIS jihadis.  According to Rami Abdulrahman of the Observatory for Human Rights in Britain, ten war planes struck ten targets in Raqqa.

"The majority of the strikes were in the eastern part of the city. At least 36 of those killed are civilians. As for the rest, we are not sure yet if they were fighters." The Local Coordination Committees, according to the Associated Press, commented that at least 70 people were killed in the strikes, while the collective naming itself Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered claim it had documented over 80 deaths.

Since the U.S.-led coalition began its attacks on Islamic State positions, the regime's air force has responded by an increase in its strikes right across Syria. There may be no cooperation between the Syrian regime and the West but by default the United States is working alongside the Islamic Republic of Iran in both Iraq and Syria to defeat the Islamic State. Of huge benefit to the Syrian regime.

However the situation turns eventually, should Turkey's demands on the United States prevail and a coalition begin to turn its attention to the Syrian regime once the situation with ISIS levels off, (though there is concern that could very well take years to effect), there is little doubt that the regime is concerned to weaken the rebel forces even more than their current parlous state of ineffectiveness before the U.S. can make good on its promise to train and arm them.

Labels: Conflict, ISIS, Jihad, Syria, United States

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, November 29, 2014