Posted on 12/19/2013 5:32:33 AM PST by SJackson
It is the natural tendency of radical movements to be outflanked by radicalism.
On Tuesday the UN announced that it was seeking an unprecedented influx of cash to facilitate aid operations in Syria and for Syrian refugees. More than 60 percent of the aid is to be spent on the burgeoning refugee camps of Syrian civilians in Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey. The refugees are currently suffering through harsh winter conditions and unprecedented sums are needed to support several million Syrians.
The tragedy of the refugees is underscored by increasing failure of the Syrian rebels to make any gains against the regime. Since the summer, and especially after Hezbollah fighters began to flow into Latakia in northwest Syria, the regime has scored impressive victories against the rebels and is increasingly inching forward in the battle for Aleppo. On December 13 the BBC asked whether it was “time to rethink a future with Assad.” Another BBC article noted, “Western hopes of helping construct a unified, moderate, politically obedient rebel movement, sidelining Islamist hardliners and leaving them to wither away, could hardly be further from realization.”
The rebel command in Syria is falling apart. This was apparent to anyone who saw the graphic Al-Jazeera published several months ago that claimed to show all rebel groups in Syria. Browsers could click on any area, which would lead to dozens of dots appearing in each town showing the various groups involved. From Kurdish nationalist groups to al-Qaida affiliates, the gaggle of little groups supposedly fighting the regime were endless.
Recently six of these groups formed a new alliance called the “Islamic Front” which has sought to displace Free Syrian Army positions along the Turkish border in order to control the supplies funneled to the rebels. This Sunni Islamist alliance is anti-democracy and anti-secular, but is supposedly made up of “non al-Qaida” affiliates. According to reports, even the al-Qaida affiliated “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant” is forced to fight with the “Nusra Front” for the title of who is the “real” al-Qaida. This fracturing of the opposition has resulted in western governments withdrawing aid from the FSA .
When we look at the Syrian rebel experience what is clear is that the increasing Islamisization has put the focus on Islamic purity as opposed to actually fighting the government. Reports are not always accurate, but what is clear is that there is a grotesque underside to these rebels. First there were videos of them beheading and ethnically cleansing minorities. There were also numerous kidnappings of journalists undertaken by them, journalists who were usually there to show the rebels in a good light. One report claimed that radical Islamists were recruiting innocent girls in Tunisia to wage a “sexual jihad” by being mistresses of the “pure Islamic” fighters, who were evidently spending more time raping Tunisian beauties than fighting.
In a recent case Islamists kidnapped a rebel commander and filmed his beheading, only to then issue an apology for having beheaded the wrong person. A more telling story related the experiences of foreign, mostly European-born, jihadists who were transferring through jihad-hostels on their way to loaf around in Syria. “We are all al-Qaida... there are thousands of us, literally from every corner of the world,” boasted the fighters. One former student from France claimed he served with a brigade of 8,000 foreigners.
According to the FSA these foreign jihadists are not very effective fighting Hezbollah or the regime, but are good at sitting behind the lines and murdering FSA fighters.
One commander claimed his unit was captured by members of the Islamic State of Iraq. “They told us we were not true Muslims” he told a BBC reporter. “I saw how they beat my friends with iron bars, smashed their faces with ammunition boxes and then killed them.” The picture painted is of unknown numbers of French students, disaffected British youth and former football hooligans from all over the EU are taking part in the “glorious jihad” of slaughtering actual FSA fighters while ostensibly fighting the Syrian regime.
The savage, blood-drenched story now playing out in Syria, in which the rebel movement is cannibalizing itself, has played itself out among many Islamic movements. It is the natural tendency of radical movements to be outflanked by radicalism.
Wherever there is a Hamas there is an Islamic Jihad and Salafi movements to the right of it. In Egypt there are the Muslim Brothers, and then the “real” Muslims of the Salafi Al-Nour party, which supported the military in its toppling of Mohammed Morsi.
WHEN WE think of the life-cycle of the radical Islamic movement and its tendency toward implosion, it bears clear resemblance to the failure of the “popular front” in Spain’s Civil War. The war broke out in June when Francisco Franco led an army revolt against the Popular Front government of leftists running Spain in 1936.
Ostensibly united as “Republican Spain” opposing “Fascist Franco,” the Spanish government was deeply divided between its socialist leaders, and the communists, anarchists, social revolutionaries, regional nationalists (Basques and Catalans), trade unionists, workers’ collectives, international brigades and Trotskyists (termed Workers Party of Marxist Unification-POUM) that made up its supporters.
After a year of fighting, the Republicans began to disintegrate. An uprising in Barcelona by anarchists and POUM members was brutally suppressed by the Republican government. A mark of worse to come, the POUM leader Andres Nin was arrested along with other Trotskyite Spaniards, at the behest of the Communist party and their Soviet supporters (the Soviets were supplying the Republic). Nin was secretly tortured to death and “disappeared” by Soviet agents.
As the Republic weakened in 1938 and 1939 its leadership spent as much time on internal “ideological purity” as they did fighting the fascism they claimed to oppose. Franco didn’t win just because of his soldiers, whose best contingents were made up of Moroccan Muslims he brought from Africa, but because the Republic crumbled internally due to Communist zeal that sought ideological purity over the larger goal.
The Syrian Civil War is similar: An ostensibly democratic fight against a tyrannical regime is being undermined by ideological Islamist extremism. Western governments are cutting off aid, as they did to Spain’s Republic, and Syrian President Bashar Assad is drawing on foreign soldiers, as Franco did. As in Spain, brigades of “international volunteers” are coming to fight.
It is unfortunate, for those who thought Syria might emerge better from this, that the rattlesnakes took over the war and are in the process of killing themselves. It is most horrific for the refugees suffering through the winter. They are being let down by extremists who are more interested in beheading each other, beating each other with iron bars and accusing one another of not being good Muslims.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Supply both sides with just enough intel, ammo and logistics to annihilate each other.
These are international fighters who would OTHERWISE be focusing their attentions on Madrid, Rome, London, and Washington subways and railroads. Oh, and airplanes.
I prefer to leave Assad in power. At least he was fair to all religions and protected them from the radical Muslims.
islam is arabic in origin. Of the first Arab, God said that he would be a wild donkey, everyone would be against him, and he would be against everyone else.
Untameable, without cohesion. See some liveleak videos of the islamists fighting in Syria. Unorganized, uncoordinated, without unified movement, and not really concerned for the guy next to him.
I agree , let Assad crush the rebels for the next 30 years by the tens of thousands.
For the longest time I was really unsure which side was worse in the Syria conflict .
Now it ‘s clear that opposition is far worse than Assad which is hard to do.
In this conflict, both sides need to fight each other until they are all dead and gone.
Nut job Jihadist killing Nut job Jihadist.....win win contribute to both to keep it going!!!!
The Syrian Civil War is no longer a civil war, it’s a tourist destination for psychopathic murderers who want to act on their murderous impulses without inhibition
Prayer for Peace in Syria
God of Compassion,
Hear the cries of the people of Syria,
Bring healing to those suffering from the violence,
Bring comfort to those mourning the dead,
Strengthen Syria’s neighbors in their care and welcome for refugees,
Convert the hearts of those who have taken up arms,
And protect those committed to peace.
God of Hope,
Inspire leaders to choose peace over violence and to seek reconciliation with enemies,
Inspire the Church around the world with compassion for the people of Syria,
And give us hope for a future of peace built on justice for all.
We ask this through Jesus Christ,
Prince of Peace and Light of the World,
Amen.
Petition: For the people of Syria, that God may strengthen the resolve of leaders to end the fighting and choose a future of peace.
Anyone have a good estimate of how many foreign fighters we lured into Iraq and killed? Thousands? More? I wonder how much damage those radicalized young men would have done in other parts of the world if they had not died in Iraq?
best post!!! Islam main theme here in Syria... is about “acting out” on murderous pathology and impulses. Your parents and uncles did crazy-ass sh** to you so you will do this to others to kind of cleanse yourself. But there is no cleanse so you are still screwed. (not my predicament btw)
tragedy and comedy at the same time
UNRWA will take the refugees and never let them go. They will pass their refugee status from generation to generation as a perverse aristocratic title. This is worse than a pox.
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On Tuesday the UN announced that it was seeking an unprecedented influx of cash to facilitate aid operations in Syria and for Syrian refugees. More than 60 percent of the aid is to be spent on the burgeoning refugee camps of Syrian civilians in Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey. The refugees are currently suffering through harsh winter conditions and unprecedented sums are needed to support several million Syrians.That is where the non-lethal aid money goes.
The tragedy of the refugees is underscored by increasing failure of the Syrian rebels to make any gains against the regime.The rebels have been 100 percent successful, as they've established control over large areas of Syria, and even when the regime manages to regain control over some town here or there, it doesn't manage to retain it. The rebellion has face changes, but continues to exist.
Since the summer, and especially after Hezbollah fighters began to flow into Latakia in northwest Syria, the regime has scored impressive victories against the rebels and is increasingly inching forward in the battle for Aleppo.IOW, the regime hasn't scored *any* victories -- it has been defeated time and again, but is being propped up by foreign mercernaries. Thanks SJackson.
Ruh roh. Some how, some way:
Dark's fault..........
I ask again: What’s up with this talk about a terrible winter in Syria? I thought global warming was a serious problem.
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