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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (735682)	8/29/2013 11:56:00 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1578892

rmf pours out his hatred of Christianity.

To: RMF who wrote (735682)	8/29/2013 12:29:58 PM
From: Brumar89	2 Recommendations Recommended By longnshort TideGlider Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578892

Who are the secular rebels? I see videos of rebels cutting the heads off priests, killing Alawi truck drivers .... where are the secular rebels and who are they? I think they're a myth.

To: RMF who wrote (735682)	8/29/2013 12:32:36 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578892

It's not at all clear which faction of Syrian rebels, temporarily united only in opposition to Assad, will gain control after he's deposed. I'd put my money on the faction with the most experience at it, which would be the AQ-backed faction.

To: RMF who wrote (735682)	8/29/2013 12:38:02 PM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Recommended By TideGlider Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1578892

Absence of secular rebels in Syria creates problem for U.S. By Ben Hubbard The New York Times Posted: 04/28/2013 12:01:00 AM MDT Syrian rebel fighters gather April 16 in Aleppo's Umayyad Mosque complex, which had served as a key battleground since July. The tower was shelled and destroyed Wednesday. (AFP/Getty Images file) CAIRO — In Syria's largest city, Aleppo, rebels who are aligned with al-Qaeda control the power plant, run the bakeries and head a court that applies Islamic law. Elsewhere, they have seized government oil fields, put employees back to work and now profit from the crude they produce. Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government. Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to This photograph, taken by a citizen journalist, shows anti-Syrian regime protesters holding banners and waving the Syrian revolutionary flags during a demonstration in Aleppo on Friday. (Aleppo Media Center AMC) speak of. This is the landscape President Barack Obama confronts as he considers how to respond to growing evidence that Syrian officials have used chemical weapons, crossing a red line he had set. More than two years of violence has radicalized the armed opposition fighting the government of President Bashar Assad, leaving few groups with both a political vision the United States shares and the military might to push it forward. Among the most extreme is the notorious Al Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda-aligned force declared a terrorist organization by the U.S., but other groups also share aspects of its Islamist ideology in varying degrees. "Some of the more extremist opposition is very scary from an American perspective, and that presents us with all sorts of problems," said Ari Ratner, a fellow at the Truman National Security Project and former Middle East adviser for the Obama administration. "We have no illusions about the prospect of engaging with the Assad regime — it must still go — but we are also very reticent to support the more hard-line rebels." Syrian officials recognize that the United States is worried that it has few natural allies in the armed opposition and have tried to exploit that with a public campaign to persuade, or frighten, Washington into staying out of the fight. At every turn, they promote the notion that the alternative to Assad is an extremist Islamic state. The Islamist character of the opposition reflects the main constituency of the rebellion, which has been led since its start by Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, mostly in conservative, marginalized areas. The descent into brutal civil war has hardened sectarian differences and the failure of more mainstream rebel groups to secure regular arms supplies has allowed Islamists to fill the void and win supporters. The religious agenda of the combatants sets them apart from many civilian activists, protesters and aid workers who hoped the uprising would create a civil, democratic Syria. When the armed rebellion began, defectors from the government's staunchly secular army formed the vanguard. The rebel movement has since grown to include fighters with a wide range of views, including al-Qaeda-aligned jihadis seeking to establish an Islamic emirate, political Islamists inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood and others who want an Islamic-influenced legal code like that found in many Arab states. "My sense is that there are no seculars," said Elizabeth O'Bagy, of the Institute for the Study of War, who has made several trips to Syria in recent months to interview rebel commanders. Of most concern to the United States is the Nusra Front, whose leader recently confirmed that the group cooperated with al-Qaeda in Iraq and pledged fealty to al-Qaeda's top leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's longtime deputy. In the oil-rich provinces of Deir al-Zour and Hasaka, Nusra fighters have seized government oil fields, putting some under the control of tribal militias and running others themselves. "They are the strongest military force in the area," said the commander of a Hasaka rebel brigade reached via Skype. "We can't deny it." But most of its fighters joined the group for the weapons, he said, not the ideology, and that some left after discovering the al-Qaeda connection. "Most of the youth who joined them did so to topple the regime, not because they wanted to join al-Qaeda," he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. denverpost.com