It seems appropriate today being September 11 to take a look at who our president’s new friends are. I’m referring to the Syrian rebels. So many things to cover…
Last week in Congressional hearings Secretary of State John Kerry testified that Islamic extremists are just marginal players in the Syrian civil war and are unlikely to benefit much from any bombing done by the United States. Rep. Michael T. McCaul (R-TX) disagreed with Kerry, saying that the classified briefings he received as chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security indicated that “the majority now of these rebel forces – and I say majority now – are radical Islamists pouring in from all over the world to come to Syria for the fight.”
A Catholic nun who lives in the St. James Monastery in Qara, Syria has been reporting what has actually been happening in Syria and she had some not so complimentary things to say about the rebels.
In the village of Estreba they massacred all the residents and burnt down their houses. In the village of al-Khratta almost all the 37 locals were killed. Only ten people were able to escape.
A total of twelve Alawite villages were subjected to this horrendous attack. That was a true slaughterhouse. People were mutilated and beheaded. There is even a video that shows a girl being dismembered alive – alive! – by a frame saw. The final death toll exceeded 400, with 150 to 200 people taken hostage. Later some of the hostages were killed, their deaths filmed.
The Mail Online has reported what happened when the rebels ‘liberated’ a village.
One Maaloula resident said the rebels, many of whom had beards and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is great), attacked Christian homes and churches shortly after moving into the village.
‘They shot and killed people. I heard gunshots and then I saw three bodies lying in the middle of a street in the old quarters of the village. Where is President Obama to see what has befallen us?’
Another Christian resident said: ‘I saw the militants grabbing five villagers and threatening them and saying, “Either you convert to Islam, or you will be beheaded”.’
Another said one church had been torched, and gunmen stormed into two other churches and robbed them.
Business Insider has a report that Saudi Arabia sent 1,200 death row inmates to fight against Assad in Syria. The inmates were given a choice of decapitation or going to Syria to join the rebels. A leaked memo had the details of the arrangement.
We have reached an agreement with them that they will be exempted from the death sentence and given a monthly salary to their families and loved ones, who will be prevented from traveling outside Saudi Arabia in return for rehabilitation of the accused and their training in order to send them to Jihad in Syria.
The New American has reported that one of the most prominent and powerful rebel groups fighting in Syria has formally announced that it was merging with al Qaeda in Iraq. Pictures posted on the internet show the rebels displaying black al Qaeda flags and heaven weaponry. Two days before the announcement, al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called on all Islamic fighters in Syria to join and fight together to oust Assad and seize power. He told them, “Do all you can to ensure that the fruit of your struggle, God willing, is an Islamic state.”
And who can forget the rebels executing captured Syrian soldiers as they stood over their kneeling captives? The New York Times has the story.
The Syrian rebels posed casually, standing over their prisoners with firearms pointed down at the shirtless and terrified men. The prisoners, seven in all, were captured Syrian soldiers. Five were trussed, their backs marked with red welts. They kept their faces pressed to the dirt as the rebels’ commander recited a bitter revolutionary verse.
“For fifty years, they are companions to corruption,” he said. “We swear to the Lord of the Throne, that this is our oath: We will take revenge.”
The moment the poem ended, the commander, known as “the Uncle,” fired a bullet into the back of the first prisoner’s head. His gunmen followed suit, promptly killing all the men at their feet.
These are the people President Obama wants us to support with our military? These are the people to whom we have been covertly supplying weaponry? These are the people who would be running Syria if Assad was overthrown? These are our new friends? People who either belong to or have joined up with the group responsible for the image below?
These may be the people Obama wants to call ‘friends’ but the American people will never support this. In his speech to the nation last night Obama made the comparison between Assad using gas and Hitler gassing the Jews. I disagree wholeheartedly with the comparison and consider it an insult to Jews. Obama would have the American public believe the people he wants to help are being led to the slaughter by the evil Syrian forces. From what I have read there is slaughter happening on both sides. I see no reason at all to put one American soldier in jeopardy or spend even one dollar of our defense budget to help any of these people, on either side. We have not one friend there. But apparently, the al-Qaeda supported rebels do have a friend in our White House. And any friend of theirs is no friend to the American people.