Mark Durie: Islam’s Second Crisis: the troubles to come

"Fasten your seat-belts: the world will be in for quite a ride in the years to come, as Muslims – who constitute around a quarter of the world’s population – struggle to make theological sense of the trashing of their [false] religion’s utopian vision."

by Mark Durie, Feb 13, 2014

In What Went Wrong, Bernard Lewis charted the decline of Islam in the modern era and the resulting theological crisis for the Muslim world. 

Now Islam is going through a second crisis, caused by the repeated failures of revivalist responses to the first crisis.  This second crisis, combined with the cumulative effect of the first crisis, which remains unresolved, will lead to a long drawn-out period of political and social instability for Muslim societies.

The first millennium of Islam was a period of expansion through conquest.   However for five centuries from around 1500, Western powers were pushing back Islamic rule.  There were numerous landmarks of the ascendancy of the West (which includes Russia), such as:

• the conquest of Goa in India by the Portuguese in 1510; 
• the liberation of Christian Ethiopia in 1543 with the aid of the Portuguese soldiers; 
• the defeat of the Ottomans at the gates of Vienna in 1683 and 
• the ensuing liberation of Hungary and Transylvania; 
• Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt in 1798; 
• the USA-Barbary State Wars of 1801-1815, which put an end to tribute payments by the US to the north African states to prevent piracy and the enslavement of US citizens; 
• a long series of defeats for the Ottomans in Russo-Turkish wars stretching across four centuries and culminating in the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish war, 
• which led to the independence of Romania, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria; 
• the overthrow of Muslim principalities in Southeast Asia by the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and English; 
• the final destruction of Mughal rule in India at the hands by the British in 1857; 
• the defeat and dismantling of the Ottoman Empire as a result of WWI; 
• and finally, the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948, in territory formerly ruled by Islam, which was considered by many Muslims to be the crowning humiliation in this long line of defeats.

We are not just talking about Western colonialism.  Some of the victories over Muslim principalities involved the occupation or colonisation of primarily Muslim lands, but many involved the liberation of non-Muslim peoples from the yoke of Muslim rule, such as in Ethiopia, Hungary and India, and some were defensive responses to Islamic aggression, such as the defeat of the Ottomans at the gates of Vienna.

While the external borders of Islam kept shrinking, its position of dominance within its own borders was also being challenged.  During this same period there were in many places improvements in the conditions experienced by non-Muslims under Islamic rule – a weakening of the dhimmi system – which communicated to Muslims an impression of their own faith’s loss of dominance and its loss of ‘success’. A landmark in this long process was the Paris Peace Treaty of 1856, which settled the Crimean War.  As part of this settlement the Ottomans were compelled to grant equal rights to Christians throughout their empire.  

The gradual process of improvement of conditions for Christians and Jews under Islam was regretted by Muslim scholars, who saw it as evidence of Islam’s decline.  For example a request for a fatwa from a Egyptian Muslim judge in 1772 lamented the ‘deplorable innovations’ of Christians and Jews, who were daring to make themselves equal to Muslims by their manner of dress and behavior, all in violation of Islamic law. 

In a similar vein, the Baghdad Quranic commentator Al-Alusi complained that non-Muslims in Syria during the first half of the 19th century were being permitted to make annual tribute payments by means of an agent, thus escaping the personal ritual degradations prescribed by Islamic law.  He concluded:  “All this is caused by the weakness of Islam.”

Why would Islam’s lack of dominance be evidence of weakness? 

Islamic doctrine promises falah ‘success’ to the religion’s followers, symbolized by the daily call to prayer which rings out from minarets: ‘come to success, come to success’. The success promised by Islam has always been understood to be both spiritual and material: conquest and rule this life, and paradise in the next. The Qur’an states that Allah has sent Muhammad “with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may cause it to triumph over all (other) religions” (Sura 48:28).

Islam’s theology of success meant that the global failure of Islamic armies and states at the hands of ‘Christian’ states constituted a profound spiritual challenge to Islam’s core claims. Just as Muslim scholars had always pointed to the military victories of Islam as proof of its divine authority, this litany of defeats testified to the failure of its failure as the religion of the successful ones.

U.S. “Chose to Stay Silent” on Muslim Persecution of Christians: November 2013

President Obama, at the recent National Prayer Breakfast, mentioned American pastor Saeed Abedini (tortured and held in captivity by the Iran government under an 8-year sentence) and U.S. missionary Kenneth Bae (imprisoned and sentenced to hard labor in North Korea). It was such a shock to hear Obama to discuss persecution of Christians in any context, let alone mention specific cases and call for their release, that the story made headlines.

Alas, that's about as far as it will go. Mr. Obama has proven time and time again that he is siding with the Muslim Brotherhood, the so-called "rebels" in Syria (whether ISIS, ISIL, al-Nusra, or the FSA, they are all waging jihad to cleanse Syria of Christians), Boko Haram in Nigeria, and Muslim hardliners everywhere. These choices are more than a mere pattern. They are proof of a much larger, more ominous choice. Obama has led the United States to openly choose to side with Muslims waging jihad against Christians, even when the Christians plead, "Why is America at war with us?"

Raymond Ibrahim addresses one example of this choice in his Muslim Persecution of Christians report below.

U.S. “Chose to Stay Silent” on Muslim Persecution of Christians: November 2013

by Raymond Ibrahim, The Gatestone Institute — Feb 12, 2014

The endemic rise of Christian persecution in the Middle East was noted in November when Pope Francis declared “We will not resign ourselves to imagining a Middle East without Christians” and stressed the importance of “the universal right to lead a dignified life and freely practice one’s own faith” after he met with patriarchs from Syria, Iran, and Iraq, all countries where Christian minorities are under attack.

On the other hand, powers best placed to do something about the plight of Mideast Christians—namely, the U.S. Obama administration—made it clear that they would do nothing, even when well leveraged to do so.

In November, the wife of American pastor Saeed Abedini, who has been imprisoned in Iran for over a year for practicing Christianity, said she and her family were devastated after learning that the Obama administration did not try to secure the release of her husband as part of the newly signed deal on Iran’s nuclear program.

“The talks over Iran’s nuclear program were seen by his [Abedini’s] family and those representing them as one of the most promising avenues yet for securing his release,” said Fox News. “But the White House confirmed over the weekend that Abedini’s status was not on the table during those talks.”

“I don’t think we have any more leverage,” said Abedini’s wife. “We now have to consider other avenues and having other countries speak out because our country when we could have used our leverage chose to stay silent.”

The rest of November’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country in alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity: 

Islamic Attacks on Christian Places of Worship 

Lebanon: An unidentified attacker firebombed the reception area of the newly built Christian cathedral of the town’s patron Saint, Mar Zakhya.  Despite the loud boom heard in the town’s main square, there was limited damage; some building material used for the building process of the cathedral was destroyed.  Although Lebanon was Christian-majority in the mid-20th century, today it is roughly 60% Muslim, 40% Christian.

Sudan: Police and security forces used a truck and two land cruisers to batter down the fence around Khartoum Bahri Evangelical Church, before breaking into the church and beating and arresting the Christians present as Muslim onlookers shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is greater”).  The government, which has been destroying or taking over church buildings in retaliation to the secession of the mainly Christian South Sudan in July 2011, is believed to be behind the move, on the pretext that parts of the church’s property actually belong to a Muslim business investor.

Syria: Nine children were killed and 27 people wounded after Islamic rebels targeted and fired mortar rounds at the St. John of Damascus Christian School and the school bus. Also, the aftermath of the rebel invasion and occupation of the city of Qamishli in the northeast near the Turkish border revealed and included—among other atrocities such as killing and beheading Christians and their clergy—the destruction of all Christian icons in the local church and theft of the church’s most prized possession, a reportedly two-thousand year-old icon of the face of Christ.

Jihad Migrating to America — Christian Refugees Rejected

The US State Department is not welcoming fleeing Christians in the Middle East as they should. Most of the visa applications submitted by the desperate and oppressed Egyptian Christians are denied. It was reported that only about 800 to 900 applications [4.5%] were approved by the US for Christian Egyptian immigrants out of 20,000 applications.

Translation?  Obama to Persecuted Christians: "You're on your own. We don't want you."

Jihad Migrating to Red States — With Obama’s Blessing

by Nonie Darwish,  FrontPageMag via Creeping Sharia — February 10, 2014

President Obama has unilaterally changed the immigration law to allow asylum-seekers and refugees who provided “limited material support” to terrorists, to immigrate to the US. This is happening at a time when force is being used in Egypt — and elsewhere in the Middle East — against the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, terrorists and their sympathizers. This is a time when Islamists have few places to go to in the wide-open desert atmosphere of the Middle East, except perhaps to join the mess in Syria and Iraq, or otherwise reform and become ordinary citizens.

Obama could not have picked a worse time to ease immigration requirements for those linked to terror, and who have nowhere else to go and have suddenly found themselves, after the counter-revolution in Egypt, as targets for imprisonment, contempt, or even shooting.

Islamists are now undoubtedly celebrating Obama’s decision to ease the pressure on immigration of terror-linked individuals. Indeed, where else can they go to practice their fanaticism and find newly found respectability and hospitality? To America.

By weakening immigration laws that protect Americans from Islamic terror, Obama is now sending the wrong message both to his own citizens and to the Muslim world. He is basically saying that he does not mind taking in fleeing terrorists and their sympathizers. And he does not seem to care at all about appearances or if he casts more suspicion on his reputation, despite the constant rumors we all know about, that he is a secret Muslim and that his brother Malik has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Testimony of a Child Martyr in Syria: 'I'm Gonna Tell God Everything'

This short essay by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos comes as it were from the Other World, and is a devastating indictment of not only those who killed this innocent little boy and so many thousands of innocents, only three years old — think of it! — but of those foreign governments (primarily the United States and Britain) who aid and arm the Muslim jihadists committing genocide and religious cleansing of Christians, and shamefully ignore the pleas of the Christians to stop aiding these murderers. And it is an indictment of us, who live in comfort here but cower in silence for fear of being branded as 'Islamophobes' or 'intolerant'.

It is also a reminder to those Christians who have become infected with the virus of Islam that there is no such thing as a Christian 'jihadist'.

Met. Hierotheos quotes to us the Apocalypse: "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until You judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" (Rev. 6:10).

Christians do not shed the blood of others, but like Jesus, the Lamb of God, we are to allow our blood to be shed, leave vengeance to the Lord, and entrust our souls to Him Who knows all things.

"I'm Gonna Tell God Everything"

By His Eminence Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou
MYSTAGOGY — February 10, 2014

Christ had great communication with children; He loved them, hugged them and encouraged His disciples to let them come near Him, teaching His listeners to become like children in order to be saved. He also worked many miracles for them, among other things. He saw in children the purity of their hearts, their immaculate sensitivity, the sincerity of their words, their search for truth, the manifestation of their love.

And they reciprocated this love to Christ, so that when He entered Jerusalem they cheered Him in the Temple, crying: "Hosanna to the son of David!" And to the indignation of the high priests and scribes Christ recalled the Psalm: "Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise" (Matt. 21:16).

These things I remembered when I read online the words of a three-year-old child from Syria shortly before he died. He was fatally injured and a few minutes before his last breath he said with tears in his eyes, in the hospital where they cared for him: "I will testify all of you to God ... I will tell Him everything ...."

Christian Jihadists?

by Ralph H. Sidway

Based on reports out of Syria, it appears some Christians are fighting back against their Muslim persecutors. This is to be expected. However, others are taking things too far, even to the point of creating a form of Christianized jihad, as Walid and Theodore Shoebat seems to advocate here, using passages from the Old Testament to justify perpetual warfare against Muslims:

...The Christians vanquished them, “smote them, and slew them,” (Joshua 10:26), and killed 65 Muslims. And as the Israelites did unto their enemies, the Christians came to the bodies of the slain Muslims, “and put their feet upon the necks of them.” (Joshua 10:24  

Here is a video showing the Christians stepping in triumph upon the corpses of their enemies (NOTE: The Christians say Allahu Akbar in mockery of the jihadists). 

Here is another clip, showing the carcasses of the heretics.  

One Christian militant said: "The battle lasted 7 hours. The attack was fearsome, but our men were very eager to fight..."  

It was in Syria where Abraham smote the wicked king Chedorlaomer and his confederacy of despots, and liberated Lot (Genesis 14:15); it was in Syria where David slew 22,000 pagans (2 Samuel 8:5); it was in Syria where Heaven’s light enwrapped St. Paul, and “he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:3-4). It is in Syria where holy warriors now fight the persecutors of Christ; and it will be in this same land, when Christ returns in the final crusade, that “Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap”, (Isaiah 17:1) in which the Islamists will be wiped out, and the saints triumphant.  

Saidnaya, the city in which this fighting is taking place, literally means “Our Lady” in Syriac, referring to the Virgin Mary. It was Mary who said in her song, that God “hath shewed strength with his arm” (Luke 1:51), and it is through these Christian militants, that God has illustrated the fortitude of His arm, in that while the whole of Saidnaya is conquered, the Muslims still cannot take the Church of the Cherubim.  

It is said by the native Christians that Saidnaya is the place where Cain killed Abel; and how profound is it, that now, in this very spot, the successors of Cain are still butchering the successors of Abel, but with these modern crusaders, the followers of the holy son of Adam has succeeded in crushing the acolytes of his wicked brother.

What a misunderstanding and distortion of the story of Cain and Abel! Abel was an innocent, and did not raise his hand against his brother. He was an early type of Christ: having offered a pleasing sacrifice to God, he was conspired against and killed by his self-deceived brother.

Saidnaya under rebel attack: Christian locals believe they are targets of imminent insurgent ground invasion, CNN justifies rebel assault

Deceptive mainstream media reporting, and even open propaganda by major news outlets as the New York Times and CNN, serves to cover for Muslim jihadists' war of genocide and religious cleansing against Syrian Christians.

by Brad Hoff, Levant Report — Feb. 10, 2014 — h/t Fr John

Levant Report’s own sources inside Syria were present in Saidnaya this week: they report that the townspeople are now sounding the alarm to the international community that Islamist rebels in the surrounding mountains are preparing a major invasion of the Christian city. The primary aim of the rebels, the inhabitants fear, is to commit “religious cleansing” against Christians – similar to what happened only months ago in nearby Maaloula. A reluctant international press is also beginning to acknowledge the potential for a genocidal event against Saidnayans, yet disinformation is already in full swing.

This past Thursday, February 6, monasteries and churches in the ancient Christian city of Saidnaya held special celebrations for the feast of St. Elian – a Syrian saint martyred in Homs in the third century. These celebrations took place despite the village being under constant rebel mortar attack – attacks that have been stepped up over the last month.

Saidnaya, which lies 25 minutes by car north of Damascus, and 40 minutes to the southwest of Maaloula, is (alongside Maaloula) Syria’s most celebrated and historic Christian city. Its scenic location at the edge of the Qalaman Mountains, its active churches and monasteries that go back to the time of Emperor Justinian, and multiple restaurants and resort hotels made it a favorite weekend getaway destination for Syrians and tourists of all backgrounds prior to the chaos of the last couple of years.

Saidnaya has, until recently, managed to stay quiet and relatively peaceful for most of the nearly three years of the Syria conflict. Its 5 active monasteries, dozens of churches, and large convent orphanage for girls, have continued life as usual as they have over the past many centuries living under multiple regimes - from the Byzantines to the Ottomans to the Ba’ath.

The mostly Orthodox Christian population tends to be presented as “pro-regime” in Western media reports – this perhaps because Syria’s most well-known political prison is located in Saidnaya. But the city’s Christian population believes that its very survival is dependent on the government checkpoints, tanks, and soldiers that protect it from the thousands of foreign-backed insurgents that are hunkered down in the surrounding Qalamon Mountains.

Unlike the very politically involved Maronites of Lebanon, Syria’s Christian population tends to keep a low-profile, and has enjoyed the historical toleration shown by the secular pan-Arab Ba’athists and socialist nationalist politicians that have led the country for much of Syria’s modern period.

Timothy Heckenlively, a Classics professor at a major central Texas university who has lived in the Saidnaya/Maaloula area, published a brief report in October titled “Saidnaya: another Maaloula in the making?”. After the initial successful insurgent entry into Maaloula, he expressed the following concern:

It appears that the Islamist opposition forces who wrecked [sic] havoc in Maaloula may be preparing for a similar assault on the equally important Christian village of Saidnaya. On Oct. 1, Fides (a site of the Vatican news network) reported that raids were now commonplace and that one man was dead after clashes the previous day.

Since October, insurgents have mounted multiple unsuccessful attempts to capture the mountaintop which overlooks Saidnaya – a strategic place from which they could destroy the city below. At the highest point of this mountain sits Cherubim Monastery – an active monastery and retreat center which has an important cultural heritage site: a church which dates to the third century. One of the tallest Christ statues in the world was recently erected on the monastery grounds - a towering 39 meters tall bronze sculpture that was years in planning with the help of Russian benefactors.

During the spring and summer months, Cherubim Monastery hosts Christian youth camps and church schools. The monks recently had to leave the monastery due to the frequent rebel incursions around the mountain; they are now sheltered in St. George Monastery in the village below.

In an October 2013 Christianity Today article entitled Latest Stop in Race for World’s Tallest Jesus Statue: War-Torn Syria, the reality of an ongoing religiocide in this historic Christian region was noted:

Saidnaya has recently faced sectarian attacks similar to Maaloula, another Aramaic-speaking pilgrimage destination just 15 miles north. In addition to displacing tens of thousands of people, the attacks have prompted 50,000 Syrian Christians to apply for citizenship in Russia, reports Interfax. “It is for the first time since the Nativity of Christ that we Christians of Qalamoun living in the villages of Saidnaya, Maara Saidnaya, Maaloula and Maaroun are under threat of banishment from our land,” reads the group’s appeal to the Russia Foreign Ministry.

The parallels between Maaloula and Saidnaya are all too evident: both are iconic Christian cities that have done their best to prevent conflict from entering their sleepy countryside environs; both contain Syrian cultural and UNESCO heritage sites valued by all Syrians; both have convent-run orphanages for girls and charitable centers and retreat centers; and both are overlooked by mountains from which rebels can wreak havoc and terror on a vulnerable population. Sadly, Maaloula now sits liquidated of its Christian inhabitants (some were kidnapped, some killed, and most fled to Damascus).

Our Lady of Saidnaya Convent and Orphanage is significantly larger than Maaloula’s St. Thekla Convent. It was the very first target of rebel insurgent attack on the city as it was struck by mortar fire back in January 2012. Note that in spite of current opposition and media claims that Saidnaya is primarily a government/military target, this first target of attack was a community of elderly nuns and young orphan girls.

We all know the story of Maaloula. A reluctant international press picked up on the terror attack after it was too late – and even then major outlets like the New York Times did their best to protect the reputation of the rebel insurgents involved in the takeover and brutal cleansing of the city’s Christian population. Maaloula was of no real strategic value to the rebel insurgents – their own actions in the aftermath of the assault testify to the fact that the town’s religious identity had everything to do with it.

Levant Report’s sources, which have a close affiliation with Maaloula’s St. Thekla Convent, confirm that the ancient monastery church and side chapels were stripped completely of their priceless religious icons, and other religious objects were urinated and defecated upon. Christian villagers who were caught in the midst of the rebel assault had their throats slit, or were shot execution style at close range.

Don't Push the Red One! — Muslim suicide bomb instructor accidentally kills his pupils

You can read all about this grisly Muslim event here. But there is so much dark humor to the story that deserves to be shared.

Mark Steyn writes:

Sad news from the jihad boys:

A group of Sunni militants attending a suicide bombing training class at a camp north of Baghdad were killed on Monday when their commander unwittingly conducted a demonstration with a belt that was packed with explosives.

So 22 suicide-bomber freshmen wound up graduating prematurely. 

One sympathizes, of course, with the camp's shortage of instructors: It's very hard to find experienced suicide bombers.

And who can forget Daffy Duck's Rule Number 1 for Suicide Bomber Instructors:

Wait. Would Daffy be haram or halal?

Porky Pig I'm pretty clear on...

‘Army of Muhammad’ Calls for Mega Jihad to Create Caliphate

Sunni Jihad group vows to raise pan-Muslim army of 800,000 to topple Middle East regimes, install Islamic State.

by Raymond Ibrahim, Feb 7, 2014

The Army of Muhammad (Tanzim Jaysh Muhammad), one of the Sunni jihadi organizations operating in Syria and which is named after the prophet of Islam, has just called for the creation of an Islamic, jihadi army of at least 800,000 fighters, composed of all Muslim nationalities, from Europe, Africa, and Asia.  Its stated purpose would be to depose the military regimes of the Middle East and herald the way to resurrecting the Islamic caliphate, or the creation of one unified Islamic state in the Middle East.

UK: Schoolchildren visit mosque, learn to recite prayers in Arabic

Rather than merely getting outraged or anxious over such reports as this, which we see here in America too, we should see this as an opportunity for Orthodoxy in the West.

Specifically, this should mobilize Orthodox Christians to organize, lobby our school systems, and host 'field trips' for schoolchildren at our churches across the United States and Canada.

According to the latest Pew Forum report on religions in America, Orthodox Christians and Muslims each comprise .6% of the population. This equivalence in numbers should work to our benefit in seeking to raise our visibility in America (which should also help us raise awareness of the plight of Eastern Christians (Orthodox, Coptic, Chaldean, Assyrian, etc.) being persecuted in the Middle East.

"The Ancient Christian Faith is Alive and Well in America," "Eastern Christians in the Western World," or similar tag lines, could be used to invite our school districts to add a fascinating new dimension to their social studies, historical studies and religious pluralism curriculum. Our iconography, Byzantine, Russian and Georgian chant, a capella singing of liturgically rich hymnography dating back to the fourth century and even earlier, the "smells and bells" of Orthodoxy, is so vivid as to leave a lasting impact on visitors.

Among ourselves, we might even dare call this initiative 'Project Leaven'.

This would be an especially worthy area of cooperation for the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops' Church and Society Committee, which could launch an initiative to educate all levels of American and Canadian society about Orthodox Christianity. Field trips, open house events, conferences, etc. — We simply must engage our culture in creative ways.

If we don't develop a vision for spreading awareness of Orthodoxy like leaven throughout society, we will soon be hearing the Muslim call to prayer all around us.


UK: Schoolchildren visit mosque, learn to recite prayers in Arabic
via Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch — Feb 7, 2014

Pre-prep school is for children before the ages of seven or eight, so these are essentially first graders who are being subjected to this indoctrination and subtle proselytizing. When is their trip to a church to learn prayers in Latin or Greek (or English, for that matter)? When is their trip to a synagogue to learn prayers in Hebrew? When is their trip to a Hindu temple? Somehow I don’t think any of these trips are on the schedule.

Yet another sign of Britain’s race to surrender to Sharia: “Pupils learn how to recite prayers in Arabic on visit to Crawley mosque,” from the East Grinstead Courier and Observer, February 7:

PUPILS from a Copthorne school were taken on a cultural visit to learn about Islam at a mosque. 

Year 1 and 2 pupils at Copthorne Pre-prep School learned how to recite prayers in Arabic when they took a tour of Broadfield Mosque last month. 

They heard how the mosque can accommodate 2,500 people and that many of the Muslim children attend a special school at the mosque from 5pm to 7pm to learn how to read the Qu’ran. 

The children were shown how Muslims pray and were allowed to join in themselves if they wanted to. 

The Year 1 pupils have also separately learnt about Chinese New Year.

U.S. training Free Syrian Army in Jordan — a group that violently targets Christians

via Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch — Feb 7, 2014

The U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army — those are the “moderates,” you know. How moderate? This moderate: in July 2013, Free Syrian Army fighters entered the Christian village of Oum Sharshouh and began burning down houses and terrorizing the population, forcing 250 Christian families to flee the area. Worthy News reported that just two days later, Free Syrian Army rebels “targeted the residents of al-Duwayr/Douar, a Christian village close to the city of Homs and near Syria’s border with Lebanon….Around 350 armed militants forcefully entered the homes of Christian families who were all rounded-up in the main square of the village and then summarily executed.” And in September 2013, a day after Secretary of State John Kerry praised the Free Syrian Army as “a real moderate opposition,” the FSA took to the Internet to post videos of its attack on the ancient Syrian Christian city of Maaloula, one of the few places where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken.

This is just the faction Obama is backing. This is America’s shame.

“West bankrolls Free Syrian Army fightback,” by Tom Coghlan and Norhan Keshik for The Times via The Australian, February 8:

THE West and Gulf states are funding a new military offensive by rebel forces around Damascus in an effort to throw the Assad regime on to the back foot before a second round of Syria peace talks. 

The assault marks an attempt by the Free Syrian Army and its allies abroad to reassert control after months of rebel infighting. 

The timing of the attack, codenamed “Geneva Horan”, comes amid fears Bashar al-Assad will give little ground at the negotiating table while he has the upper hand on the battlefield. 

FSA forces yesterday posted online videos of rebel tanks, heavy mortars and rocket launchers pounding what were said to be government positions on highways near the town of Athman, north of the city of Daraa, close to the Jordanian border.