Steve700

To my knowledge, Not one Liberal Democrat has criticised Trump for his retaliation on Assod. Not a single negative peep out of even the most crazy of the Trump Haters like Maxine Waters, Pelosi, Schumer, or Feinstein. Even the constantly exaggerating, Trump hating and slandering news media seem to have no problem on this one. That's the 1st indicator that there is something wrong here. Beyond that, it's the United Nations that should be dealing with that, not the United States. Secondly, Assod kills terrorists and protects the Christians. The exact reason Obama wanted him out in the 1st place. And what right did Obama have any way, to be telling the leader of a sovereign nation that he had to go ??? (Saddam Hussein and more of Marimar Qaddafi also killed terrorists and protected the Christians) a sure indicator that there is something nefarious in our foreign policy and that there has been for some time. Qaddafi said "If you kill me, Libya will descend into chaos with Islamist war lords controlling various regions of my country" and that's exactly what happened there and in Iraq thanks to Obama (obviously deliberate) foreigh polocy to take down moderate Mideast governments while supporting and financing jahadists and calling moderates, like, for instance, in Irac by ignoring the advice of both military and civilian advisors, with his resulting actions giving our long fought for victory away to the murderous hard-core Muslim haters. Now it seems that somebody does not want Putin and Assod to be successful in producing peace --- as also seems to be the case, as I have just shown, by what I pointed out about Iraq and Libya, as well as for the Mideast in general. And of course, Obama was thrilled with the Islamization that newly elected Morrissey was bringing about in Egypt, and went crazy complaining when the Egyptian army took him out for trying to make himself in Islamic dictator. Yet even now, I am sorry to say, it seems that the Globalist directed Deep State Shadow Government is still running the show. (& they are a globalist entity that has an investment in chaos because they follow the UN's agenda, which includes a 90% of reduction of the world's population) . Also, If you want to look into it, I think Chaney's "Project For A New American Century" makes a lot of sense of all this.

Also, it is very apparent that Assod is winning with almost No remaining pockets of rebels remaining between him and complete victory (that is, Islamist jihadist -- You know, the ones that Obama was supporting and sending weapons to, while calling them moderates, which they absolutely were not) --- What does Assod have to gain by using chemical weapons and turning the whole world against him. What Does he have to gain ??? I haven't believed he did it the 1st time when America retaliated and certainly he must know a coming reprisal would have to be worse on the 2nd time around. Beyond that, presuming that these so-called rebels are not moderate but Islamist jihadist, wanting to see a Islamist government in Syria, personally, my criticism of using chemical weapons against these ISIS type of mentality barbarians, is limited. The collateral damage is unfortunate but an unavoidable consequence of war. (The videos below also offer pretty convincing proof that it didn't even happen at all , and that the rebels have used gas and Syria a few times before.

If you would be interested in knowing a little more about this, like about numerous facts that strongly indicate this is a false flag event and what would be the motivation for our government doing this and why Trump would involve himself, see at least one of these 3 videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTtAm0OHW24 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHsfc49Y_Fk or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHsfc49Y_Fk
.

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Thank you, Steve, for writing much of the truth about the Syrian civil war.

I have believed since Day One of this last claim of a "poison gas attack" by Assad, that he is being framed, just as he was last year.

I have heard it suggested that in our "response," our military was testing new weapon systems, a training exercise looking forward to larger and more complex military engagements looming against ever more technologically armed and threatening future major would-be foes on the world's stage.

It would have made no sense for Bashar al-Assad to have attacked his people when he is on the very eve of winning back the historical territory his country had lost, no sense at all. He is an Eye Surgeon, a medical doctor, trained in London, England, and not a savage.

The United States has been on the wrong side of this war since its inception, - not too surprising when Barack Obama was at the helm, but our policies should have changed when or shortly after President Trump took control.

Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria for forty years before him, are members of Syria's Alawites, who are historically a secretive and persecuted sect.

The revolt against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, inspired by uprisings which toppled three Arab leaders in 2011, has a sectarian slant as most of the protesters trying to topple the president are Sunni Muslims.

The Alawites are the religious sect of President Bashar al-Assad. Assad is from Syria's minority Alawite sect and critics say the president has filled senior political and military posts with Alawites to protect his rule from the Sunni Muslim majority, through sectarian loyalty.

The Alawite Sect, the Christians, the Yezidis, and other ancient minorities in Syria would have been genocidally destroyed decades ago were it not for the rule of the al-Assads.

-- Sunni Muslims make up 74 percent of Syria's 22 million population, Alawites only12 percent, Christians 10 percent and Druze 3 percent. Ismailis, Yezidis and a few Jews make up the rest.

The minority group is the power base for President Bashar Assad's government. -- The clannishness, secrecy and tenacity of Syria's minority power base around Assad have deepened Sunni Muslim suspicions about the enigmatic Alawite faith.

The Alawites are an ancient faith, commonly believed to be an offshoot of Shia Islam 1,000 years ago.

They are a composite, however, of many religions, for they believe in the transmigration of souls. They do not observe the five pillars of Islam. Their women don't wear head scarves, are quite brash by Sunni standards, and they are not considered Muslims traditionally. For that reason, they have been ostracized for most of Islamic history.

Until the French arrived in Syria in 1920, the Alawites were locked in the coastal mountains of Syria. And the Alawites used to be the lowest of the low. They were the poorest Syrians, uneducated. The Sunnis thought of them as bandits. They weren't allowed to give testimony in a court of law, for example, because they weren't considered people of the book - unlike Jews and Christians, who could. Alawites have had to overcome this history of really severe discrimination, and they found their way up through the military.

The reason that Alawites came to power in Syria was because of the French occupation between the First and Second World War. The French faced an Islamic insurgency, a nationalist insurgency in Syria. The Sunni urban notables led an uprising, and in order to put them down, the French built a local army , recruiting minorities, largely, and the Alawites were heavily recruited into this army.

Within 10 years - by 1955, Alawites made up almost 60 percent of the noncommissioned officers. By the mid-60s, Alawites took over the military and with the military they took over the country. An oppressed minority for most of their history, Alawites suddenly cemented their control in Syria in 1970 when Assad's father Hafez staged a coup, and sidelined the Sunnis. He consolidated Alawite power in his own family, built a ferocious security apparatus based on fellow Alawite officers, and there had been a very stable Syria since then, before this war.

-- Allying with Sunni merchant classes in Damascus and Aleppo, the Alawite elite expanded their influence to the economy as well as the security apparatus and the military. The core of the respected and feared pro-Assad Shabiha militia is Alawite.

-- This bloody struggle between Assad forces and militant-Muslim protesters splits Syria along a minority-majority gulf made deeper by the fact many Sunnis call Alawites heretics.

-- Like most Arab countries, Syria has seen conservative Islam spreading by terrorism in recent decades. This has sharpened Sunni differences with the Alawites, who claim to be mainline Shi'ites and sometimes copy Sunni practices to play down differences and avoid persecution.

-- Sectarian killings have racked the central city of Homs, and Alawites have been targeted because they were the same sect as the president. Many Alawites live around or in Homs and Hama, another restive city, and the port of Latakia.

-- Not all Alawites support the Assad dynasty and only a few have profited from Assad's rule, with many living in poverty in Syria's central mountains. The sect extends north to the Turkish city of Antakya, near the ancient city of Antioch, in Turkey, an early center of the Christian faith, where there are up to 12 million Alawites.

BELIEFS:

-- The Alawite religion is often called "an offshoot of Shi'ism," Islam's largest minority sect, but that is something like referring to Christianity as "an offshoot of Judaism."

-- Alawites broke away from Shi'ism more than 1,000 years ago and retain some links to it, including the veneration of Ali, the cousin and son-in law of the Prophet Mohammad. Alawi literally means "those who adhere to the teachings of Ali."

-- But several of their beliefs differ sharply from traditional Islam. Named after Ali, Alawites believe he was divine, one of many manifestations of God in a line with Adam, Jesus, Mohammad, Socrates, Plato and some pre-Islamic sages from ancient Persia.

-- To orthodox Muslims, this eclectic synthesis of Christian, Gnostic, Neoplatonic and Zoroastrian thought violates Islam's key tenet that "there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet."

-- Alawites interpret the Pillars of Islam (the five duties required of every Muslim) as symbols rather than duties. They celebrate a group of holidays, some Islamic, some Christian, and many Alawite practices are secret. They describe themselves to be "moderate" Shi'ites.

HISTORY AND LIFESTYLE:

-- Oppressed during the Ottoman period, Alawites have played down their distinctive beliefs in recent decades to argue they were mainline Shi'ites like in Iran. This is partly to satisfy the constitutional rule that the president must be a Muslim.

-- The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood called Alawites infidels for decades. Leaders of the Sunni movement no longer say this openly, but nobody knows whether the rank and file is convinced.

-- Isolated in the mountains near Syria's Mediterranean coast, Alawites taught that the Qur'an was to be read allegorically and they preferred to pray at home rather than in mosques.

-- They were also highly secretive, initiating only a minority of believers into their core dogma, including reincarnation and a divine Trinity, and into rituals including a rite of drinking consecrated wine similar to a Christian Mass.

-- French colonial administrators tried to classify Syrian Alawism as a separate religion despite resistance from Alawite leaders who were more interested in identifying with Islam, for their own protection against persecution.

-- Like the nearby Druze, Alawites adopted the ancient practice of "taqiyya," - or hiding their beliefs to avoid persecution. "Taqiyya makes a perfect qualification for membership in the mukhabarat, the ubiquitous intelligence/security apparatus that has dominated Syria's government for more than four decades," the British Islam expert Malise Ruthven wrote recently.

The Assad family has managed to keep itself in power by keeping the support of not just the Alawites but other minorities whom they had traditionally protected, but during this terrible conflicts, increasingly, it has been the Alawites that have been loyal to the Assad family.

The Assads had figured out the key to ruling Syria was to rely on traditional loyalties. They patched together all these other alliances, particularly the rural poor Sunnis and the minorities. That has frayed now, to a certain extent. Others have hived off and defected from the regime. Christians, in as far as possible, have fled to other lands.

Since the beginning of this uprising, Sunnis, and particularly the enlisted soldiers, have defected. Because much of the army was not reliable, the regime began cycling in the Shabiha, who were smugglers and related to the president's family, but strongmen who weren't previously in the military system. Increasingly, this evolved into a much more sectarian division of labor.

Sources:
Reuters/Jamestown Foundation/Dictionary of Beliefs and Religions
www.minorityrights.org
www.britannica.com
www.religiousfreedom.com
www.muslimhope.com

Steve700

Thanks for the thanks and thank you for the interesting information