I don’t like equivocators, you know, the type who has to spend five minutes telling you why he’s not racist before taking a swipe at Obama…when a simple “I don’t like white communists, either” would work just as well?
But I think a little equivocation is appropriate here as I explain why I think it would be best for world peace if Bashar al-Assad won this current conflict in Syria instead of the so-called “freedom fighters” he’s fighting right now.
Yes, I’d like for the killing to stop, but there’s a price for that we shouldn’t be willing to pay.
Let’s take this from the top.
Bashar el-Assad is a typical middle eastern despot, a chip off another tyrant’s block, who during his own reign killed several times more people than son Bashar ever could.
While we look upon men like Assad Jr and Sr, Saddam, Qaddafi, as uncivilized murderous thugs, in fact, they are a type that goes back to the time of Mohammed, prototypical of all the caliphs, princes and satraps that lined the Silk Road, and made Scheherazade, Alladin, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr, and Rudolph Valentino household names. Rulers always played the heavy.
Like every oriental prince before him, Assad has the power to go out and shoot anyone he pleases on a whim.
But he doesn’t. It’s just not part of the rules of kings, for one, because it doesn’t make sense. What king, going back to the time of King John in England, can expect his treasury to profit from the people’s labor if the people are always hiding beneath their beds fearing some random fell blow by the king or his men?
Even a tyrannical society requires predictability and regularity, and as a rule, the only citizens who are constantly in fear for their lives in a despotic regime are 1) common criminals, 2) people who want to be free of despotism, and 3) people who conspire to replace the king with another king.
And it really isn’t that hard to distinguish between #2 and #3. There are tell-tale signs.
All societies understand and deal with #1, and while we are only recently beginning to understand the specter of #3 in our own country, it is the most obsessive concern for tyrants, as the idea of democracy doesn’t even register in their minds. And like the mafia, where there is no law other than the iron fist of power, they can show no remorse in wiping out entire families to remove any threat to their power.
On this account, the French learned almost everything from middle eastern potentates.
In all this, the people-at-large are generally disinterested in these clandestine affairs of court, and go about their daily lives accepting their ruler as simply a state of nature, hoping only to have a benevolent one, or to be able to profit from him, and otherwise stay out of his way.
Irrational kings are always remembered as bad kings, but not because they were ruthless and mean, but because the people never know what was and was not punishable. (Sort of like the EPA, only worse.) Rulers cannot afford to be like psychopath Nazis who go out on the balcony to pick off a few Jews just because they got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. When they do, #3, not #2, becomes operative, and the world breathes a sigh of relief that a more benign ruler, who still has the power to lop off heads and carry people away without a warrant, is moved into power.
Thus we have been able to distinguish between the authoritarian ruler, (the Shah, Mubarak, Assad) and the totalitarian nature of the mullahs in Iran, the Nazis, Bolsheviks, and yes, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Americans, with a deep sense of democracy sometimes forget this important law in history, that it is at best more-benign rulers who replace bad rulers, not democrats.
But the media has tried to make us feel at ease lately (the past 30-40 years) by portraying some types of dictators as democrats, for they know that’s where American sympathies lie.
The point is, understanding this, it was always American policy not to push for a ruler’s replacement until we knew whoever replaced them would be an improvement. In the Middle East this policy was carved into stone until Barack Obama broke faith with American history, and made common cause with the Muslim Brotherhood.
And it is the Muslim Brotherhood, not “freedom loving” people (although they are being used as cannon fodder, as they were in Egypt and Libya) who Bashar al-Assad is fighting in Syria today.
It was the Muslim Brotherhood his family has been fighting since the Ba’ath Party took power in the 1960s, and was the Muslim Brotherhood that caused Hafez to raze Hama in 1982, killing 25,000 or more.
And it was the Muslim Brotherhood that caused American presidents going back to Reagan (even further) to choose not to choose sides between these two forms of tyranny, for all the American policy makers before Obama understood, from the MB’s rhetoric, philosophy and history (they supported Hitler in WWII) that they represent a much more ruthless and totalitarian form of government against their people…banishing all religions but their own brand of Islam, denying women all rights, sharia law , and a far more aggressive policy of territorial conquest for the faith.
And since the Russians have their own Muslim Brotherhood problem in Chechnya and the Chinese in their western provinces, they have been unwilling to allow the United Nations to become very robust about any sort of intervention…for which the United Nations is probably eternally grateful…for bringing Syria to heel militarily would be a tough chore, indeed.
So things are not always as they appear, which is entirely the case with Syria today.
But if it bleeds, it leads, and the American and west European media have been seduced into following the bleed-line first. Oh the humanity, Oh, the humanity!, neglecting to note that there is a not a single objective fact-finder in Syria today, including United Nations observers, who can verify the death toll or the source of the 12,000 or so deaths that are supposed to have occurred in Syria since the uprising began in 2011.
When I see a news report coming out of Syria, I want to know who the unimpeachable source is for it, for I still have fresh memory of the Haditha “massacre” by U S Marines, created for the most part by a Reuters news agency stringer who was anti-American.
Who can we trust? AP? Reuters, Al Jazeera? Sources inside the rebel camps?
I say this because the execution of 112 women and children at Houla smells to high heaven. First, it makes no sense that Assad would be behind it, for there is no political or military profit for him, especially with the cameras running. People forget how many anti-war zealots in the US fell for Saddam Hussein’s trick of using civilian shields, hospitals, etc during the early air war on Baghdad. This is how they roll, and Muslim Brotherhood (both sides actually) are masters of this game, especially if they have a fawning press who only wants more bloody images of Assad atrocities.
So the fact is we can’t know the facts in Syria.
But our politicians (McCain wants to set up a no-fly zone so as to protect and arm the “freedom loving” rebels), pundits, (even Krauthammer), and the media have taken an anybody-but-Assad position, and did months ago. Anything to stop the killing.
I can’t explain Dr Krauthammer, but McCain is vain and stupid. As for the media, whether from stupidity, vanity (they can’t afford to be proved wrong at this late date) or naked complicity and cynicism (since Obama is in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood), they can’t back away from using every tool in their arsenal to see Assad toppled…
…when the chances of a democratic government emerging in Syria if he does go down is zero and none.
A Muslim Brotherhood theocracy is not a good swap in order to stop the killing.
The MB isn’t just about encircling Israel, but about bringing a fascist Iranian-style theocracy to those countries that will take generations to undo. We know this because the Iranians changed their minds very quickly after the Ayatollah came to power, but the stranglehold was so swift and complete that in a generation now, over 35 years, they are further from freedom then ever.
Nailing the coffin shut on freedom is something the Muslim Brotherhood can also do very well.
Today, the Muslim Brotherhood has already won in Egypt even if they lose the election. They can run the country from the streets if not from the national assembly, just as Hezbollah and Hamas have done in Lebanon. Likewise in Libya.
So, how did all this happen?
Arab Spring.
And how did Arab Spring happen?
We actually reported on this in real time, thanks to a LaborUnionReport article at RedState before the Tahriri Square uprising, about international union involvement in programs including the State Department, select Arab student groups, Facebook, and Google as far back as 2009.
Arab Spring actually began in January 2010 when Obama re-established diplomatic relations with Syria, after George W Bush had closed all ties in 2005.
We were all scratching our heads? Why?
History will record that the Obama administration, through Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or foreign policy adviser Samantha Power (Cass Sunstein’s wife and architect of our soon-to-be revealed failed policy in Libya), decided to go with a working partnership with the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Middle East.
Arab Spring has been parodied for nearly a year now, since the true dimensions of the “new democratic freedoms” of Egypt were exposed last year with the burning of Christian churches.
Libya was merely a target of opportunity, based on Qaddafi’s threat to kill civilians opposing him, and the expected ease of bringing his regime down. It was Samantha Powers who designed the “humanitarian war” theme, a theme still used by Obama on the stump even though Qaddafi only threatened to kill civilians (typical Arab bluster) but never did, while the rebels got into the execution mode pretty quickly as they moved onto Tripoli.
If you will recall, early in that campaign a US general testifying before the Congress stated that they were unsure who was in charge of the Libyan rebel forces, but yes, elements of al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood were among them.
That story was quickly buried, the press making no further inquiry, as it would muddy the meme that the only mass murderer was Khaddafi.
This practice is being repeated by the media in Syria, for only two-three weeks ago Syria was racked by a series of terrorist bombs, clearly not of Assad origins, indicating a terrorist presence among the rebels in Syria as well. Probably an Al Qaeda franchise.
That story too was quickly buried for it might cause people to start using logic again.
The entire idea behind Arab Spring seems to be the advancement of the Muslim Brotherhood into power all over the region through diplomatic and democratic means. Mubarak had banned them and now they are in a run-off to replace him, and he just life in prison.
Whether by a horrific political blunder, or a cynical alliance with the MB, who’ve been frequent WH visitors and now have surrogates in the Administration, the Muslim Brotherhood now stands on the cusp of gaining every dream they had of a new Caliphate in the Middle East…only by democratic and “diplomatic” means…instead of armed warfare.
This has not been an accident.
America must deny them this, then let Assad and the MB sort this out as they have for generations. For only then will those unknown innocent civilians be left alone.
Bashar Assad is not an innocent man. But Bashar Assad almost for certain did not escalate these street protests into a full scale civil war. In fact, we know he didn’t.
And we know who did. And we know who helped.
