Thanks ETL, Olog, Mad Max and everyone, sorry if I forget some names, remember, we can’t really hash it out unless we talk about things. I’m calling it a day.
And yes, I know we hear Assad protects Christians but you do get some counter stories and even one “healthy” opposition leader is Christian.
Assad emptied his jails of Jihadists to fight the American forces in Iraq; Saddam did similar.
There’s a whole lot to this. That’s all I’ve got to say, I do consider the Islamo-Nazi ISIS and Al Qaeda fighters to be more of a threat.
I know Michelle Bachmann even wanted to give Obama a blank check to fight Iran. I’m just not there though on this.
The caliber of Christians in Syria that have gone along with the Ba’ath Party are not the kind of Christians I would associate with. The Ba’ath doctrine is national-socialist, literally (thus a Nazi doctrine, albeit more centered around so-called pan-Arabism than specifically Islamic, but still accentuates the supremacy of Islam and the dhimmitude of Christianity). Any non-Ba’ath Christian would be regarded as an enemy by the regime.
#87. Good comments about Assad sending jailed jihadists to fight the US in Iraq. Well worth noting.
However, forgotten in this discussion is that in the 1990’s, we a probable, very dangerous situation arising in the Middle East (also the Osirik nuclear facility that Israel destroyed in Iraq, I think it was 1988 or ).
This was the development of a “Nuclear Triad” of radical Arab/Moslem states - Iran, Iraq and Syria. We know that Iran definitely had a program (with aid from Pakistan - which could have also involved No. Korea, possibly Red China and even Russia (some equipment).
Syria, we know, has tried to build secret nuclear facilities for decades. Fortunately the Israelis keep taking them out.
Saddam had dreams and physical plans for a nuclear arsenal eventhough a lot of his speeches were bluster at that time, but IN THE 15 years from the time the Israelis took out a basically functioning nuclear weapons research facility in Iraq, to the invasion in 2003, Iran and Syria were definitely trying to build nuclear weapons.
If the US hadn’t taken out Saddam’s invasion forces of Kuwait in 1991, no one knows how far along his nuclear program, even if in its infancy, would have been.
Jump forward to the 2010’s and what would we have been facing if Saddam’s program wasn’t stopped and Syria’s program wasn’t destroyed.
You guessed it. Three totalitarian Middle Eastern regimes with some basic to advanced nuclear bombs and missile systems (Syria is only a missile throw from most major Israeli cities).
If you don’t think that Israel was going to stand by and allow their own annihilation, then have I got some news for you.
Today we have the psychopaths of Teheran with nukes or nukes on the verge of birth, but the real threats from Syria have been destroyed and the potential threats from Iraq obliterated.
Just an assessment of what was out there that people too often forget about when viewing Iran, Syria, etc.
The game was bigger than most could comprehend, and the stakes higher. But do to the cowardice of Obama (or a clever plan to make Iran the balancer of power in the ME as against Israel and the US), we are now faced with the rise of ISIS, the Russian saving of the Assad regime in Syria, a Russian expanded presence in the Middle East/Iran, and an Iran hell-bent on destroying Israel and anyone else they are pissed off at.
Sleep well, my friend. It is only going to get worse.
By the way, to all Freepers, a Happy New Year from us oldie Jews, celebrating the year 5777 on our calendar.
Printing Jewish calendars is one of the world’s oldest professions, next to politics and prostitution.