I don't know where I sit with Syria

I'm Lebanese, Sunni, hear me out.
I don't have Internet at the mo so I cannot fully contribute to this but I will try my best over my mobile.

This whole saga dates back far longer than just Bashar Al Assad, his father Hafez Al Assad was just as bad.

There has always been a large percentage of Syrians who hated Assads tyrant regime. A lot of them emigrated to Sunni-friendly places like Tripoli, Lebanon. Sayda, Lebanon and others also emigrated to Jordan. Reason being is because Sunnis - who are the majority of Syrians - always have been treated like utter dog poop. It is permitted in the Alawi/Shia religion that "the killing of Sunnnis is halal" since they are the supposed special ones.

The Assad regime(s) always have been mass murdering tyrant ones since day 1. 40,000 massacred in Hama for example. Thousands of Lebanese people were killed for no reason during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. Tens of thousands of Lebanese people are trapped in Syrian jails as we speak.

Syria, Iran & Hezbollah all come from the same toilet America & Israel do.
Assad always goes on and on about how Syria are anti-Israeli. Well, when was the last time a Syrian bullet was fired at Israel & when was the last time a Syrian bullet was aimed at Syrians & Lebanese people?
Let's not forget Hafez sold the Golan Heights to Israel.

If America really wanted Assad to step down then they would've done something about him ages ago. Saddam, Mubarak & Gaddafi went under the "American" treatment, enjoyed it and after they were no longer needed, they were taken care of.
Syria is a massive obstacle in the middle east, why do something about Assad when he's demolishing it for them?

I really want to go into more detail but I can't over the mobile. Point is, I know tons of Syrians who hate Assads guts out. The only ones who like him are the Alawites & a minority of Christians. Then you get the majority who strongly dislike him but can't speak out because THIS would happen to them.
Whenever I talk to my Syrian mates whether it's Internet/fb or over the phone we can't mention anything about Assad because it's all recorded and they will get in trouble.
The fact that if u are found with a copy of COD4 in Syria you go to jail sums it all up really..

The Lebanese lived through years of being tortured by Assads rad3 army... all animals who used to fire their guns at us for fun.
The regime needs to be taken down otherwise Syria will crumble.
Syria crumbling will strongly affect countries like Lebanon.
A week ago there was over 2 weeks of street fighting between Sunni fighters and Syrian Alawi fighters in northern Lebanon. The man hates Sunnis, Wcyd?

There are also many videos on YouTube interviewing Syrian Alawites who repeatedly say they worship "Assad before Allah". That should sum them up...




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his father was worse

and now Bashar's brother maher is worse

only i the alawi religion not shia (im sunni)

you find that alawis are not even considered muslims

alawi are not muslim - they belive in a trinity Muhammah (PBUH) Ali (RA) and Salman al farsi (RA) and they believe Allah is Incarnate in these three individuals (agstufirullah)

whereas shia at least dont commit blatant shirk and you cannot paint all of them with the same brush and there is a lot of debate even amongst the ulama whether they are muslim so lets not go there.

im not arguing whether alawis are or not im distinguishing the differences between shia and alawi

I know where I sit. Intervention should happen. The only difference between NATO intervening and the Arab league intervening are the reactions to them. If the Arab league intervene, westerners will be applauding them for their intervention whereas if NATO intervenes we expect liberal youths and leftist to start shouting imperialism! imperialism! no blood for oil! and right-wingers to start shouting "wtf David Cameron, stop investing British money into foreign countries, their country their problems their responsible". NATO has better technology and more money to invest. NATO also has Turkey.

The Arab league are a bunch of spineless people and most of them are hardly role models, the only country that seems sincere in wanting to intervene seems to be Kuwait and it's far too small to hold any real power within the league. They're supposed to be holding some event to discuss what to do about the massacre, £100 says they're going to do jack **** and continue making vague statements in support of military intervention without acting.

This is just going to be another example of our failure to help our fellow men. The quicker the world becomes globalized and the quicker we become united as humans, the quicker we stop allowing such injustices to go by.

This isn't true about the Arab League. Whilst I'm with you that the Arab League is full of joke dictatorships they have responded very well to the uprisings in both Libya and Syria. Of course, Gaddafi and Assad are both hated by the Arab League regimes and Syria is the final frontier for Iran's influence in the Arab world which is despised so much. Qatar and Saudi have already been smuggling weapons to the rebels as they did in Libya and Qatar even sent troops to Libya (which they only admitted afterwards). Iran has recently admitted sending troops to Syria and Russia have continued selling arms to Assad even after the recent massacre.

As of now, the only people actively supporting the rebels on the ground are some Arab states. Turkey and the NATO countries have been providing other forms of assistance (mainly sanctions on Assad, potential economic assistance, diplomatic power etc.) but they haven't provided any weapons or resources to the FSA. Turkey has provided refugee camps and may intervene if Syrians start firing over the border but only to create a buffer zone and safe passage. Turkey is militarily the strongest power in the region and could easily defeat Assad's troops.

We're in a very odd position now similar to last year where Arabs favour intervention (whether western or not) more than the west does. This is largely due to the trainwreck that was Iraq and the damaging impact it had on leaders at that time and Cameron/Obama et al. don't want a similar blot on their reputation - just look at what happened to Bush/Blair's reputation. One thing I've noticed is that most of the support for intervention is coming from people who are centre-left. The far left are insane as are all of the right.

minority of Christians.

Yeah, I guess you're right, they have cooperated with the western effort in Libya. I don't think there's any evidence to suggest that Saudi are arming rebels, I know the whole point of arming rebels is that it's done in secrecy just in case Assad stays and to avoid any international problems but it still doesn't show that they've done it. And yeah, I think if NATO do get involved Turkey should play a bigger role, who knows it might even decrease the criticism.

I don't think any intervention would drastically reduce support. It just depends on the type. Libya's intervention has been pretty short in comparison to Iraq/Afghanistan. Syria seems like it will go the same way Libya did if an intervention does happen, instead of NTC in the case of Libya we have SNC for Syria who will take control.

Elaborate.

I'd like to hear an answer from anyone closer to Syria about why there a demonstations with people in the tens of thousands who support assad, that are happening all over syria, in neighbouring countries, and in lots of countries around Europe, and in Australia (smaller numbers).

Thanks Kya

I am one of these people who thinks that the West should not take matters into owns hands, we tried with Iraq and failed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jffUNQw8Fl8&skipcontrinter=1

If this has no impact for you, I truly feel sorry for you.

That video was disgusting. Not only because of the brutal murders of those children, but the way in which their lifeless bodies were dangled in front of the camera for political gain. Whoever filmed that showed us that they, like the killers (whether you want to believe that it was Assad's men or rogue fragments of the opposition) have absolutely no regard for life whatever the age.

The guy was clearly emotional and showing what Assad's men done. Just because it was for political gain doesn't mean it's wrong. In this case, political gain will reduce the lives being killed. Wow, real bad motive that.

That video was disgusting. Not only because of the brutal murders of those children, but the way in which their lifeless bodies were dangled in front of the camera for political gain. Whoever filmed that showed us that they, like the killers (whether you want to believe that it was Assad's men or rogue fragments of the opposition) have absolutely no regard for life whatever the age.

Good to see that there is much consensus for blind intervention. We never learn, do we.



Balls. If something horrible happens, then by all means it should be recorded and shown to the rest of the world. How else are we to know what is happening there? Imagine if everyone forgot about Auschwitz or similar horrible places in the name of respecting the dead. Far from it, they would certainly roll in disgust wherever they lie for they would suffer the greatest injustice of being forgotten.

I'm getting a bit annoyed now that nearly every time I post on here, people reply to points I havent actually made. I agree that recording such horror shows the world what, to an extent, is happening. I never said otherwise. I was instead disgusted at the way in which the bodies were treated. Instead of panning the camera across the corpses, they were picked up and shaken about as if they were of a doll as opposed to innocent children who had been caught up in a conflict that they had no participation in.

I agree with your first sentence though. Note how as soon as reports filtered of the massacre, certain leaders were using it as proof of Assad's crimes despite no real clarification having been made as to who was responsible at that time.