The Folly of Arming Rebels
sabato 29 giugno 2013 English 0 commenti
Il Giornale, June 29th, 2013It is still unclear whether or not the victims of the horrible executions we can watch on You Tube are Franciscan friars. It seems that the news, denied by Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Custodian of the Holy Land, overlaps with other awful news: Halim Noujaim, regional minister of the Church, did, in fact, announce that, the day before, a group of rebels had penetrated the convent of Ghassanyie to plunder and destroy it, before, according to the communiqué, killing Father François, a Catholic hermit. As a consolation, they tell us that the body of Father François is intact, but we do not know about the others. That they were friars is, therefore, not at all certain. But, according to the Custodians of the Holy Land, the video was made to terrorize Christians and is not a coincidence. Again, we have here innocents massacred in the name of Allah, and this time because they were “on the payroll of the regime.” The address book of one of the victims listed the number of a member of the Syrian Army. Thus the three were accused, the communiqué says, of providing arms to Bashar el-Assad. The nine-minute video is long enough, as we watch the intolerable, to take note of the fact that the “rebel” militiaman, the killer, speaks with a Chechen accent. The rebels now are part of international brigades -- just as their adversaries include Iranians and the Hezbollah. We have seen other horrible videos like this. The killers have different origins and dialects, shades of different creeds even insiede the Sunna and the Shiah.. But the abyss between Sunnis and Shiites persists. The jihadist activity and carnage that both of them carry out are fanatic and cruel, even though Assad has been fighting the enemy at the cost of 100,000 dead.
But cutting off heads is a jihadist, even Sunni, hallmark, justified by holy texts (as interpreted by extremists, of course). Daniel Pearl in 2002 is probably the most famous example, along with Nick Berg, personally decapitated by Al Zarqawi, along with the Tunisian "infidel" in 2012, a Polish guy in 2009…and, sadly, so many others.
Jihadist executions always are tied to primary identity, real or presumed. Pearl was a Jew, like Berg. Others are infidels, unbelievers, Christians, imperialists…In other words, a clutch of unfortunate innocents who, because of religion or geographic origin, found themselves buffeted between the two large factions that, now, are fighting for the Middle East. In Syria and in the rest of the Middle East contaminated by war (take Lebanon, already in shreds), it is plain to see: there are the Sunnis (numerically and economically in the majority, at least partially attracted by the siren call of Al Qaeda) and there are the Shiites (mostly very poor, led by Iran and armed by Hezbollah). But the extreme wing , the qaedists in the Syrian revolt are never clearly taken into account by the badly conceived fantasy that Obama, and even Europe, can put an end to Assad’s cruelty with western weapons. It is almost impossible today, even more than yesterday, to put a stop to the growing arms race, to the rise of al Nusra (an organization that probably even carried out this last bestial massacre). General Albtaish, a moderate, who defected from the Alawite Army, tries hard to convert al Nusra, lately author of a suicide attack in Damascus, and to demonstare to OBama that the opposition to Assad is viable.But Al Nusra overwhelms his efforts. Who can rationally support people who cut off heads in the middle of a cheering crowd, with children filming with their portable phone?? If you examine the call of the famous Sunni sheikh Yussef al Qaradawi, his words echo snd parallels the rage of Hezbollah on the other side. Even the Sunnis want and even own today their international army. Qaradawi said: Every Muslim who knows how to fight should join and support the Syrian rebels. The leaders of the "Party of Satan" (Iran and Hezbollah, this time, not America, as usual) are in Syria to fight the Sunnis, but we will beat them, says Qaradaqi. He certainly prefers the Jabat al Nusra Front, the most extreme anti-Assad group, and anybody who goes to fight with them will receive a red carpet jihadist treatment. Blood red. Welcome to the killing, with weapons, training and studies at the improvised mosque. The poor Free Syrian Army condemns the beheadings, saying that these extremist groups have nothing to do with Islam or the Syrian people. But even Obama and, finally, the Europeans, who move only according to prescribed values and ideologies, know that, in the wake of Assad’s bestial exterminations, the most violent rebels continue to gain strength. Betting on the Sunnis can deliver surprises. Look at the tiny Egyptian Shiite village of Zawiyat Abu Muslim. Shiites are less than one per cent of the Egyptian population. They do not bother anybody. Yet, a crowd of 3,000 Sunnis attacked a peasant meeting there. Five Shiite houses were set on fire. Molotov cocktails exploded. Four people were killed and many seriously wounded. Remember the attacks on Coptic churches --but this time, on the grounds of having insulted Mohammed. Every day, opposing factions throughout the Middle East display unprecedented cruelty. But, first, the victims are the Westerners: Christians, Jews, imperialists… So, no weapons, please. Instead, just stop both sides, speak up the truth: we cannot continue standing this new kind of general mattanza.