Ethnic Cleansing In Syria

[sooda]

The regime of Iran-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has engaged in a systematic campaign of ethnically cleansing Sunnis from the capital of Damascus, in order to strengthen Assad’s hold on his strife-torn country and realize Iran’s ambition of creating a Shiite crescent in the Middle East, an analysis published Thursday by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy asserted.

Hanin Ghaddar, a fellow of the institute and a veteran Lebanese journalist, observed that Assad’s forces captured the largely Sunni suburb of Daraya in August after convincing 8,000 residents to leave.

The remaining residents surrendered following intense bombardment and denial of access to food and medical needs. Ghaddar called the regime’s tactics “starve or surrender,” and noted that following the surrender of Daraya, the regime targeted two more Sunni areas with threats of “total war” if they did not surrender.

Now, she wrote, “Assad seems to be moving from ‘starve or surrender’ to ‘war or surrender’ tactics in order to eliminate any Sunni presence around Damascus as soon as possible.”

Ghaddar predicted that this campaign will continue, with Sunnis living in other areas around Damascus being forced out as well.

They may be replaced by Shiites in an effort to change the religious balance of the area: Arab media have reported this week that some 300 Shiite families from Iraq have been resettled in the emptied Damascus suburbs and given $2,000 each, Ghaddar wrote. The transfer was allegedly supervised by one of the Iraqi Shiite militias that works closely with Iran.

Bashar al-Assad’s father and predecessor Hafez did something similar during his rule, moving Alawites — the sect to which the Assads belong — into Damascus and the surrounding areas as a means of solidifying his rule. “Bashar,” Ghaddar noted, “now appears to be escalating his father’s strategy into the realm of ethnic cleansing.”

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Expert: Assad, Helped by Iran, Ethnically Cleansing Damascus Area of Sunnis - The Tower

Hitler claimed he was a Christian, John Garang called himself a Christian Marxist and Assad slaughters families with thousands of Barrel bombs.

 

[Sanzbir]

ethnically cleansing Sunnis

Sunnis aren't an ethnicity my dude.

 

[sooda]

Sunnis aren't an ethnicity my dude.

Actually they are.. Maybe you are confusing ethnicity with race.

Ethnicity is a noun meaning the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition.

 

[Ellen Brown]

This Sunni/Shia rift makes me feel like Islam is robbed of credibility.

 

[sooda]

This Sunni/Shia rift makes me feel like Islam is robbed of credibility.

I think there are unscrupulous people who "work" the differences for their own advantage.

 

[GoodbyeDave]

In Syria before the war, no-one was persecuted or discriminated against because of their religion or ethnicity. The insurgency has been largely composed of Sunni extremists. When they took over the city of Homs, the Christian population was driven out and every church vandalised. Now the Christians are returning and trying to rebuild. Is it any wonder that Syrian Christians pray for Assad's victory? If the Sunni are reaping the reward for their own intolerance, it's entirely their own fault.

 

[sooda]

In Syria before the war, no-one was persecuted or discriminated against because of their religion or ethnicity. The insurgency has been largely composed of Sunni extremists. When they took over the city of Homs, the Christian population was driven out and every church vandalised. Now the Christians are returning and trying to rebuild. Is it any wonder that Syrian Christians pray for Assad's victory? If the Sunni are reaping the reward for their own intolerance, it's entirely their own fault.

No .. before the war 5 years of drought had driven farmers to abandon their farms and head for the cities which were already suffering inflation and high unemployment. The oil sector had also gone into freefall and sectarian strife has been an issue in Syria since the 1970s. Most of the Syrian army was Sunni.

Understanding Syria: From Pre-Civil War to Post-Assad …

How drought, foreign meddling, and long-festering religious tensions created the tragically splintered Syria we know today.

William R. Polk first wrote for The Atlantic during the Eisenhower administration, with a report in 1958 about tensions in Iraq. Soon after that, he was recruited from a teaching position at Harvard to work on the State Department’s Policy Planning staff in the Kennedy administration. In the years since, he has written and taught extensively about international affairs, especially in the Middle East.

Understanding Syria: From Pre-Civil War to Post-Assad - The Atlantic

 

[sooda]

 

[Ellen Brown]

In Syria before the war, no-one was persecuted or discriminated against because of their religion or ethnicity. The insurgency has been largely composed of Sunni extremists. When they took over the city of Homs, the Christian population was driven out and every church vandalised. Now the Christians are returning and trying to rebuild. Is it any wonder that Syrian Christians pray for Assad's victory? If the Sunni are reaping the reward for their own intolerance, it's entirely their own fault.

Agreed. In northern Syria, there were some of the oldest Christian cultures in the World, some who still spoke Aramaic. A few years ago, I talked with a Shia man from Al Khobar who said that the area where his ancestors lived was Shia and they were fishermen. When oil was discovered there, the Sunni came in and took the oil. It increasingly appears that true Islam did not survive the death of Muhammad PBUH.

 

[Ellen Brown]

Now, I have heard that Iraq has the largest oil reserves; that Saudi oil is mostly depleted, though I do not know about Iran.

 

[sooda]

Agreed. In northern Syria, there were some of the oldest Christian cultures in the World, some who still spoke Aramaic. A few years ago, I talked with a Shia man from Al Khobar who said that the area where his ancestors lived was Shia and they were fishermen. When oil was discovered there, the Sunni came in and took the oil. It increasingly appears that true Islam did not survive the death of Muhammad PBUH.

They probably were fishermen from Khobar or Dammam... Both were small fishing villages.

Funny that he claimed the Sunnis took the oil. Shia's dominate the oil industry in Al Hasa. In fact, the president of ARAMCO and later oil Minister Ali Naimi was Shia.

The problem in Syria is that Alawites are/were above the law.

 

[sooda]

Now, I have heard that Iraq has the largest oil reserves; that Saudi oil is mostly depleted, though I do not know about Iran.

That's a sad lie.. KSA has oil wells that were drilled and capped in the 1960s.

 

[sooda]

Syria has a turbulent economic history.

In 1963, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party came to power, and instituted socialist policies of nationalization and land reform.

In 1970, General Hafiz al-Assad took power. Socialism morphed into state capitalism. The restrictions on private enterprise were relaxed, but a substantial part of the economy was still under government control. By the 1980s, Syria found itself politically and economically isolated, and in the midst of a deep economic crisis.

Real per capita GDP fell 22 percent between 1982 and 1989.

In 1990, the Assad government instituted a series of economic reforms, although the economy remained highly regulated.

The Syrian economy experienced strong growth throughout the 1990s, and into the 2000s.

Syria's per capita GDP was 4,058 US dollars in 2010. There is no authoritative GDP data available after 2012, due to Syria's civil war.

Before the civil war the two main pillars of the Syrian economy were agriculture and oil, which together accounted for about one-half of GDP.

Agriculture, for instance, accounted for about 26% of GDP and employed 25% of the total labor force.

However, poor climatic conditions and severe drought badly affected the agricultural sector, thus reducing its share in the economy to about 17% of 2008 GDP, down from 20.4% in 2007, according to preliminary data from the Central Bureau of Statistics.

Economy of Syria - Wikipedia

 

[Augustus]

No .. before the war 5 years of drought had driven farmers to abandon their farms and head for the cities which were already suffering inflation and high unemployment. The oil sector had also gone into freefall and sectarian strife has been an issue in Syria since the 1970s. Most of the Syrian army was Sunni.

Well, Assad is a brutal dictator who presided over a corrupt regime. There was a popular uprising against him, but large parts of this quickly became dominated by Sunni extremists.

Had Assad lost, the chances are he would have been replaced by a regime that would have been deemed repressive by most Syrians and would have been hostile to women's freedom and religious minorities.

For all his many significant failings, it's not like the replacement would have been "good guys".

 

[sooda]

Well, Assad is a brutal dictator who presided over a corrupt regime. There was a popular uprising against him, but large parts of this quickly became dominated by Sunni extremists.

Had Assad lost, the chances are he would have been replaced by a regime that would have been deemed repressive by most Syrians and would have been hostile to women's freedom and religious minorities.

For all his many significant failings, it's not like the replacement would have been "good guys".

I don't know.. Syrian Sunnis are not zealots by any stretch of the imagination.. I think you are confusing ISIS with Sunnis.

Assad just couldn't govern.. He and his father before him just killed people or put them in prison. His assassination of Hariri was absolutely shameful.. Rafic Hariri was a good man who did a lot for the Lebanese people and he was like a son to King Abdallah. Assad screwed up.

I have notice the efforts to reinvent Gaddafi and Assad.

 

[Augustus]

Syrian Sunnis are not zealots by any stretch of the imagination.. I think you are confusing ISIS with Sunnis.

I know most aren't zealots. Most Russians weren't Bolsheviks in 1917 either yet this didn't stop them taking power.

Extremist tend to prosper in violent revolutions. It's not like Assad's replacement would have been decided by a free and fair democratic election.

Assad just couldn't govern..

That's no reason to believe that his replacements would have automatically been better though.

 

[sooda]

I know most aren't zealots. Most Russians weren't Bolsheviks in 1917 either yet this didn't stop them taking power.

Extremist tend to prosper in violent revolutions. It's not like Assad's replacement would have been decided by a free and fair democratic election.



That's no reason to believe that his replacements would have automatically been better though.

To sum up.. Syria is in ruins, 6 million are in exile, Assad is still in power and he expects the US and the Arabs to pay to rebuild Syria.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt won't go along with that.

Right now.. Iran and Turkey have all the influence in Syria.

What a mess.

 

[Augustus]

To sum up.. Syria is in ruins, 6 million are in exile, Assad is still in power and he expects the US and the Arabs to pay to rebuild Syria.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt won't go along with that.

Right now.. Iran and Turkey have all the influence in Syria.

What a mess.

And if the Islamists had won Syria would still be in ruins and 6 million would still have been in exile. Saudi would have all the power and the religious minorities would be ethnically cleansed and the average non-zealot Syrian would be forced to live under a regime run by zealots.

That option A is bad, doesn't automatically mean that option B must be better.

 

[sooda]

And if the Islamists had won Syria would still be in ruins and 6 million would still have been in exile. Saudi would have all the power and the religious minorities would be ethnically cleansed and the average non-zealot Syrian would be forced to live under a regime run by zealots.

That option A is bad, doesn't automatically mean that option B must be better.

Why on earth would you think Saudi Arabia wanted Syria? It was a failed state before the civil war.

Saudi Arabia isn't into ethnic cleansing.

 

[Augustus]

Why on earth would you think Saudi Arabia wanted Syria? It was a failed state before the civil war.

Saudi Arabia isn't into ethnic cleansing.

Saudi is into supporting Sunnis at the expense of Iran. If that means supporting Sunni extremist then so be it.