The Myth of the Moderate Syrian Rebels September 9, 2013 By Daniel Greenfield
The moderate Syrian rebels, like the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, are a myth; an imaginary character used to tell soothing stories to children. Unfortunately the storytellers think that we’re the children.
The Syrian Civil War is a religious war. It’s not a war over democracy or freedom. It’s a conflict between two totalitarian systems, one loosely based on a mixture of Islam and Socialism, and the other more rigidly based on Islam. Both are brutal and merciless to anyone who doesn’t belong. Both have their death squads and extensive corruption on the inside.
Both are evil.
It’s also an ethnic conflict being played out between Iran and the Arab world. And it even has elements of Ottoman revivalism on the Turkish side of the border where its Islamist rulers dream of reclaiming an empire.
None of that is a recipe for moderation. There are no moderates in a religious war. There are no moderates in an ethnic conflict. There are no moderates among those who would start such a war or those who intend to finish it. Neither side is seeking freedom. Both are seeking absolute supremacy. . . . Slaughter in Syria will go on with the unrestrained savagery that can only be carried out by men who believe that other men are subhuman. It will go on with knives, with machine guns and with nerve gas. It will go on whether we bomb Assad or write him a sternly worded letter.
It will go on because there are no moderates in a religious war. Only the killers and the killed."
The whole Muslim identity thing is a problem for us Westerners. And we purport to want to help because we, in our simplicity, see suffering and want to alleviate suffering.
Of course we do! We're appalled and we see the gassing of civilians as a crime.
But beyond knowing someone released a chemical weapon on civilian population, we know precious little.
History tells us that savages really enjoy killing ...by definition we know this to be true.
That's as much understanding as we can provide.
There's no longer an anti-war Left. There's only an anti-Right Left
Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #3"It will go on because there are no moderates in a religious war. Only the killers and the killed."
Really distills the whole thing.
I would suggest we look to the more simple ways to solve this problem, .....from the animal kingdom.
"If you have ever witnessed a fight between two dogs, you know how frightening it can be. Dogs can do serious harm to one another during a fight or attack. In some cases, dog fight injuries can even lead to death. This instinct to jump in and stop dog fight can be hard to resist. However, trying to break up a dog fight the wrong way could land you in the hospital. What's a concerned dog owner to do?
Stopping a Dog Fight
First things first: NEVER physically get in the middle of two dogs fighting. If you put your hand (or other body part) anywhere near the heads of these dogs you WILL be injured. This includes trying to grab their collars. Don't be foolish enough think a dog will not bite its beloved owner."
"Qaeda tells Syria fighters to shun secularists in sign of deeper rebel rift
DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has told the Islamist militants who are some of Syria's toughest opposition forces to avoid alliances with other rebel fighters backed by Gulf Arab states and the West.
His comment reflects a deepening rift between groups of the Western- and Arab-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) and guerrillas sympathetic to Zawahri's ultra hardline network, which seeks to wage a transnational armed campaign against the West.
Division among rebel fighters, as well as the influence of hardline Islamists, is one reason Western powers have hesitated to intervene in Syria's two-and-a-half-year-old conflict, in which more than 100,000 people have been killed...."