Unreasonable!

Jimmy Carter and Robert Pastor wrote:

“These preconditions should not be controversial, but they mean that Syrian factions — and their supporters — would have to back down from their former unreasonable demands.”

Yeah, I guess demanding freedom from tyranny is really quite unreasonable. That’s why I guess, the U.S. did not support us, and pro-democracy activists and moderate rebels were left to face Assad’s killing machine, oiled by Russia and Iran, on their own, seeing that Saudi, Qatar and Turkey supported the other extreme.

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Syrian rebels have taken iconoclasm to new depths, with shrines, statues and even a tree destroyed – but to what end?

Robert Fisk: Syrian rebels have taken iconoclasm to new depths, with shrines, statues and even a tree destroyed – but to what end? – Comment – Voices – The Independent.

While #Assad embarks on a wholesale destruction of our cultural heritage by bombing places like Old Damascus, Old Aleppo and Old Homs, Al-Qaeda adopts a more piecemeal approach, destroying our heritage one statue at a time, garnering more public attention and generating more publicity in the process, so that the likes of Fisk can use it to smear and defame the entire rebel movement.

Secret detention part of Syria ‘campaign of terror:’ U.N.

Secret detention part of Syria ‘campaign of terror:’ U.N. | Reuters.

The regime is still the worst offender. But ISIL and others (as we have seen in the case of Razan, Samira and their colleagues) are committing similar abuses now making the lives of people in liberate areas even worse. We have to fight demons and fiends as well as our own battered sense of humanity for a long time before we get to the “promised land.” But we can never get there living in a cage. WE need to find our colleagues and secure their release.

Al-Qaeda leader in Syria speaks to Al Jazeera

Al-Qaeda leader in Syria speaks to Al Jazeera – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.

Thanks to inaction by the Obama Administration and other Western leaders, Al-Qaeda now has made a pulpit and an operational base for herself in the Holy Land of Syria. Sunni Jihadis will listen and will flock to her, just as Shia Jihadis are listening to Nasrallah and are flocking to fight for Assad. But those who think that the showdown will be contained within Syria’s borders, or the region’s, are fooling themselves. Soon, the same Jihadis will realize the importance of the “external dimension” of this war and will take the fight to all corners of the world. This is a war of identity now, and the 1.5 billion Muslims on this Earth don’t all live in Syria and the Middle East. The different conditions they live under will not shield them from the fallouts, one way or another, the identity of each Muslim is at stake now. This moment in time has been long in the making. But we are here now. Welcome to the really Hot Phase of the Islamic Reformation.