Did that quote come out of some Syrian pro-regime propaganda demonstration in Damascus?
No, it came from Dearborn, Michigan.
The Detroit Free Press: Hundreds of local Syrians support regime at Dearborn rally
In a loud and lively rally, more than 500 Syrian and Lebanese people packed a Dearborn hall Tuesday night in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose government has cracked down on protesters in recent weeks.
"With our blood, with our souls, we will sacrifice for you, Bashar," the crowd chanted several times in Arabic during the nearly three-hour rally.
You have to love that kind of local support for such a reformer. Nice to see the crazy doesn't just stay in the Middle East.
Inside the Lebanese-American Heritage Club, a standing-room-only crowd that was mostly Christian or Shia Muslim banged drums, chanted pro-Assad slogans and whistled as speakers declared their support for Assad. In Syria, more than 1,400 people are said to have been killed by government forces and thousands others detained, human rights activists say.
But at Tuesday's rally, speakers slammed the uprisings in Syria and said Assad was trying to prevent his country from turning into Iraq. Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab-American News [and a well-known Hizballah and Hamas supporter, but the Freep forgets to mention this], said it's important to support Syria's government because the alternative would lead to chaos in the region.
....
The other sizable group at the rally were Shia Muslims of Syrian and Lebanese descent. Assad is Alawite, which is considered a part of Shia Islam, and he has been close to the Shia leadership in Iran and in Lebanon. For years, Assad and his father backed Lebanese Shia groups [read Hizballah].
Some speakers and people declared their support for both Assad and Hassan Nasrallah, the Lebanese Shia leader of the group Hizballah.
You know, those nice Hizballah fellows that:
a) in 1983 killed 241 Marines, navy personnel and 3 Army soldiers in Lebanon;
b) committed the torture-murder of CIA station chief in Lebanon William Buckley in 1984;
c) committed The 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and the torture-murder of Navy diver Robert Stethem;
d) The 1988 torture-murder of Col. William Higgins;
e) the group that did the bombings of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, killing 29, the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994, killing 96, and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, killing 19 U.S. servicemen.
Heck, Hizballah is even defined by even the US State Department as a terrorist group.
That is the anti-American group along with Assad that this fine bunch are proudly supporting in Dearborn.
Meanwhile, Bashar's Syrian regime killed at least 7 people the same day as this local love fest.
Hopefully Siblani and his friends' support for Assad and Hizballah will be remembered the next time they try to claim to be pro-American and credible suporters of peace.
4 comments:
I read an article yesterday (though I can't find it now) that talked about Syrian Christians supporting Assad, as bad as he is, because the "Arab Spring" kind of stuff invariably brings the radical Islamists to power. Assad has apparently protected the Christians in Syria, something that the Islamists likely (certainly) would not do.
A difficult choice, to be sure.
Yes, just because Assad might be deposed doesn't mean his replacement will bring in western-style democrarcy.
But, we certainly can't continue claiming Gaddafi has to go because he kills his own people and then keep Assad in place as he kills his people and acts far more harmfully against American interests and actively colludes with our enemies in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere.
Supporting the overthrow of Assad would send a strong message and also exhibit some foreign policy consistency.
In any case, his sucessor can also be deposed if they prove worse.
From a foreign policy standpoint I completely agree with you. It is inconsistent in the extreme how O is handling this. Not that I would expect any competence from him anyway. There was no compelling national interest for us to intervene in Libya, and the same is true for Syria. Unless one considers the rise of Radical Islam a compelling national interest. (Not saying one way or the other, just making the statement) Of course, the Libyan rebels either are or are paving the way for radical islamists, just like in Egypt, so the consistently inconsistent foreign policy of O continues on.
It's the Europeans want Quadafi to go. They don't want thousands of refugees crashing on their shores.
That problem does not exist in the case Syria.
Post a Comment