A different perspective of Syria

[HALL85]

The link below was sent to me by someone who is a Christian Syrian, emigrated here 15 years ago and is a leader in their community here in the Lehigh Valley. He also still has family there and has some very strong feelings and opinions about Assad and the U.S. involvement.

http://webtv.un.org/watch/bashar-ja...tives-on-syria-press-conference/5077088426001

The press conference is rather long (50 minutes), but if you have a genuine interest in what is going on in Syria, it does provide some starkly different points of view as to what we are hearing from the Obama administration, politicians (both Reps and Dems), and the news media. My friend also indicated that these are views shared by the Syrian community here. If you don't watch it, the major takeaways are:

* The Syrian population never wanted U.S. intervention and they believe we have significantly emboldened ISIS and other terrorists.
* The news media is totally misrepresenting what is happening there. The group from the U.S. Peace Council that provided the observations are highly critical of the mainstream press.
* The Syrian people as a whole would rather put there support behind Assad considering the alternatives.

You can believe it or not; you can certainly dismiss it, but the fact that it supports what I hear everyday in this community (which has one of the largest Syrian populations in the U.S.), makes this much more credible than any other information I read.

I know we all want to get wrapped up in partisan bullshit, but sometimes we need to open our minds and just listen and realize there are voices we never hear. He also has some interesting opinions on the refugees, how it's been handled today and what's being proposed by the candidates. I'll save that for a later post though.

 

[Section112]

I did not listen to the press conference but am not surprised at all by the takeaways. We have now a Repub Administration and now a Dem Administration that has continued the same exact policies and thinks they can intervene and change things in a country where they have no business doing so. Syria is on Obama and Hillary for thinking they can have regime change with Assad. Did we not learn anything from the huge mistakes Bush made in Iraq and US leaders before them? This goes all the way back to Carter and we the US citizens continue to allow it. Terrible stuff all around and we need to stay out of it. Problem is now we have to deal with ISIS even if we helped embolden them. What a mess!

 

[cernjSHU]

Syria is such a difficult problem. The options for the US are one bad choice and one worse choice. If you remove Assad, you create a power vacuum that ISIS will fill. ISIS is certainly the worse of two evils. While Assad is not want is good for American interests since he is propped up by the Russians, we have no real options. The only thing we can do is join forces with Assad with the caveat that we need to carve out territory for the Kurds. We have to protect the Kurds from being wiped out by Assad and the Russians. Can the US strike that type of deal? Incredibly difficult and complex issues.

 

[cernjSHU]

Are the US and Russia moving to an agreement that I mentioned in the above post? Step one is the cease fire that has just been announced.

 

[SHUMA04]

Hall85, what you've posted is absolutely spot on.

I wish more of our fellow Americans (regardless of political persuasion) would realize what your friend is telling you.

I've also had years of jarring first-hand accounts of what's happening on the ground there. I can attest to the same (for whatever that worth to those who read this).

I'm very sorry to say that everything we've done in Syria (and Iraq and Egypt and Libya etc etc) has had the effect of both strengthening ISIS and wiping out some of the oldest Christian communities in the world.

The last president we had that stuck up for Christians in the region was Reagan. Since then, every Republican and Democratic president has directly contributed to an effective genocide of Christians (even if unknowingly).