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Assad Targets Civilians, Hospitals Amid Defeats in Syrian War
Free Beacon ^ | June 18, 2015 | Daniel Wiser

Posted on 06/18/2015 10:00:52 AM PDT by lbryce

The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad is systematically targeting civilians and hospitals, often with chemical weapons, to reverse recent setbacks in the country’s civil war, witnesses told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday.

Assad’s forces have suffered a number of battlefield defeats in recent months, with the Islamic State and the al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra gaining ground north of the capital Damascus and more moderate rebel groups achieving victories in the south.

The Syrian army has also lost about half of its soldiers throughout the course of the four-year civil war and has increasingly relied on outside militant groups such as Hezbollah.

(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...


TOPICS: Egypt; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Israel; News/Current Events; Russia; Syria; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: assad; axis; damascus; egypt; iran; israel; kurdistan; lebanon; poisongas; putinsbuttboys; randsconcerntrolls; russia; soviet; syria; waronterror; wot
Although I wouldn't put it passed Assad to use gas against his own people, especially when his very existence is in jeopardy, this thread is
TTIUWP


1 posted on 06/18/2015 10:00:52 AM PDT by lbryce
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To: lbryce

Assad may be a son of a bitch but are we better off with ISIS in charge?


2 posted on 06/18/2015 10:09:16 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: lbryce

Pick your poison. More like, choose your pedo head-chopping regime.

Assad is getting more and more help from Iran.


3 posted on 06/18/2015 10:16:47 AM PDT by lurk
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To: MinorityRepublican

Now that the Kurds are striking back in the north, that might give Assad some time. He’s a brutal dictator, but Shias, Druze, Jews, and Christians were not burned alive and sold into sexual slavery by his troops. There is a reason the minority factions of Syria fight with him.

If the tribes fear you more than hate each other then there will be peace. The Russians know this, but we stupidly think every culture wants democracy and the rule of law.


4 posted on 06/18/2015 10:18:11 AM PDT by Azeem (There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and ammo.)
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To: MinorityRepublican
Assad may be a SOB but are we better off with ISIS in charge?

These stories about Assad always seems to appear when ISIS is losing ground, as if we're supposed to perceive Assad as the worst evil. I don't believe it. Assad protected Christians and other minorities who have lived in Syria for centuries.

Meanwhile, the US either by design or by ineptitude has indirectly provided an unbelievable arsenal of weapons and transportation to ISIS.

5 posted on 06/18/2015 10:18:53 AM PDT by grania
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To: lbryce

Considering that fanatical Muslims fight from and in civilian areas this is no surprise.

I remember watching a news report about those mean old Israelis bombing civilian houses and hospitals. The reporter was outside a hospital interviewing all these Palestinians saying how they are being targeted by the mean old Israelis for no reason whatsoever and Hamas would NEVER resort to using hospitals as a launching pad for their rockets. As soon as the reported started talking again, no more than 50 feet from the entrance to the hospital, Hamas launched a rocket right outside the hospital door.


6 posted on 06/18/2015 10:24:34 AM PDT by Organic Panic
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To: lbryce

Smells like BS.


7 posted on 06/18/2015 10:25:54 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: dfwgator

It’s been smelling that way since 2008.


8 posted on 06/18/2015 10:43:45 AM PDT by lbryce (Obama:Misbegotten, Godforsaken Bastard Offspring of Satan and Medusa)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...
There's nothing new about it, but Assad can *always* count on his apologists and astroturf.

The biggest single reason for Assad's steady downward spiral these past four years has been his bloodthirsty tactics which show he doesn't distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. The enemy is always the most recent attacker, and when it's the self-appointed gov't, support will not be forthcoming in the future. The same failing led to his having his occupying troops and his own ass kicked out of Lebanon.

Even the regime's transparently obvious photo-op offensives -- where they pull out of a Christian village, let the jihadists rampage back in, then send in troops to 'liberate' it again, with compliant 'journalists' there to cover the story -- have backfired among the victims, and of course are no longer worth the effort as the walls close in.

9 posted on 06/18/2015 11:18:28 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW)
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To: lbryce
Remember that the Soviet Union with its approved Mother Church of Russia supplied Israel's enemies and instigated the Six Day War. Don't side-up with a foreign religious demographic only because it resembles yours in name. Some are very different. Background info:

Ground to a Halt (Research shows: Suicide-bombers Communists, not Islamists
New York Times ^ | August 3, 2006 | ROBERT PAPE

Posted on Wed Aug 9 01:23:46 2006 by GodGunsGuts

...

In writing my book on suicide attackers, I had researchers scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and the biographies of the Hezbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon.

...

Robert A. Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, is the author of “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.”


Harb pledges to be forceful president [Maronite "ready to fight" Israel, "protect Hezbollah"]
Lebanese Lobby (Lebanon) ^ | 11SEP07 | Francis Matthew

Posted on Wed Sep 12 03:12:26 2007 by familyop

"Beirut: Boutros Harb, long-serving Maronite Lebanese Member of Parliament, is standing for president and reaching out to the Shiite Hezbollah, across the political divide in the country.

[...]

"I have proposed that the Lebanese army and government must be in control of declaring war, and that we should find a way to incorporate Hezbollah's forces into the army. But this has to be on the condition that the Lebanese government and army accept the full duty of being ready to fight and protect Hezbollah if Israel attacks," he said, adding that it was also important that Lebanon had to liberate the occupied territory of the Sheba'a Farms from Israel."



Lebanese leaders call for unity [All of them support the terrorists. ...always have.]
CNN International ^ | 20JUL06 | CNN
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1668991/posts

"The ship is sinking and all of us, the Lebanese, should stick together and work together to stop the Israeli aggression," Amin Gemayel, a Maronite Christian who served as president from 1982 to 1988, told the Arabic-language TV station Al-Jazeera . . . Michel Aoun, a one-time commander in Lebanon's 15-year civil war who now serves in parliament, said . . . "I don't think that Israel has the capability to destroy Hezbollah militarily because Hezbollah is not a group of armed men," Aoun said. "Hezbollah is a major part of the Lebanese social fabric."


Lebanon says army ready to fight [The truth about Lebanon.]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1670344/posts

Aoun is also a Maronite Christian.


Lebanon Turns to the Vatican to Halt Israeli Offensive
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1668754/posts

Vatican Condemns Israel for Attacks on Lebanon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1665678/posts

On the Syrian-Lebanese-Iranian alliance.

Lebanon Is NOT Innocent (David Horowitz Slams The Lebanon “Innocent Bystander” Myth Alert)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1671142/posts


10 posted on 06/18/2015 2:45:50 PM PDT by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of corruption smelled around the planet.)
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To: MinorityRepublican
"Assad may be a son of a bitch but are we better off with ISIS in charge?"

Free Syrian Army
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Syrian_Army

Allies

Islamic Front[6]
People’s Protection Units[7]
Syriac Military Council[8]

Opponents

Syrian Armed Forces
National Defense Force
al-Nusra Front[9][10][11][12]
Jund al-Aqsa[13]
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant[14]

11 posted on 06/18/2015 2:48:45 PM PDT by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of corruption smelled around the planet.)
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To: grania

Please don’t call it the US. It is an NWO Occupation Government.


12 posted on 06/18/2015 5:43:19 PM PDT by cowboyusa
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