How to Use Armies

by **Hobb** Thu 3 Mar 2016 - 15:14

I suspect you know that I am deeply anti-war but there is one legitimate use of military force on this rough planet: the defense of the home nation. The Syrian Army has now lost 60,000 men defending Syria, this is the very same number of Americans soldiers killed raping Vietnam or Canadians soldiers killed defending Belgium's independence(?!) in the Great War meat-grinder.

counterpunch.org wrote:When future historians sit down to write the history of the Syrian conflict there is a simple test that will determine whether their objective is to mine and reveal the truth, or whether it is merely to shovel more dirt onto the mountain of the stuff that’s been erected over the course of its five long years as a monument to propaganda.

The test will be their depiction of the Syrian Arab Army and its role in the conflict. If said historians credit it with holding the line against the forces of hell that were committed to the country’s destruction as a secular, non-sectarian, multi-religious and ethnic state, enduring the kind of losses and casualties placing it among the most courageous, resilient, and heroic of any army of any nation that has ever existed, then people will know that truth rather than propaganda has prevailed.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/03/syria-holding-the-line-against-the-forces-of-hell/

We cannot publicly say this in North America but Syria forces helped by Russian, Kurdish and Iranian fighters have managed to fight the forces of Islamic barbarism (ISIS funded by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the CIA) to a draw, in at least a momentary victory for the forces of Civilization. The current cease-fire is a clear victory for the Good Guys.

This was a dirty war as all civil wars are. “You can no more win a war than you can win and earthquake.” Yet a victory for the Islamic fundamentalists would have been a blood-letting of even worse proportions. The Syrian state had to be defended. This is the lesson of Iraq and Libya.

Syria's secular nationalism, enforced by the Baathist regime but reinforced by Islam traditions, has nurtured a powerful ecumenicism that sees Christians recognize Ramadan and Muslims recognize Easter. In other words, Syria, on the cross roads of civilisations, has an even stronger tolerant tradition than others.

The Syrian state, whatever its other flaws, has certainly represented a strong secular tradition. There are many signs of this. President Bashar al Assad himself is married to a Sunni woman. The Grand Mufti of Syria is a strong Sunni supporter of the secular state. Sheikh Mohamad Al Bouti, murdered along with 42 others by an FSA suicide bomber in March 2013, was a senior Sunni Koranic scholar who backed the secular state. The western media tag on these men as being 'pro-Assad' rather misses the point.

Syria's secular tradition is nowhere stronger than in the Syrian Arab Army. Making up about 80% of Syria's armed forces and with half a million members, half regulars and half conscripts, the army is drawn from all the country's communities (Sunni, Alawi, Shiia, Christian, Druze, Kurd, Armenian, etc). However they identify as 'Syrian' and 'Arab' and confront a sectarian enemy that brands itself 'real Sunnis'.

A key objective of the civil war was always to split the Syrian Arab Army along sectarian lines. Indeed, a number of army officers did defect, mostly those with family links to the Muslim Brotherhood. FSA atrocities against Alawis and Christians (most of which were blamed on the government) must have raised community feelings. However, towards the end of 2011 the FSA-aligned spokesperson in England, Rami Abdel Rahman, who calls himself the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said less than 1000 soldiers had deserted.

By mid 2013, more than two years into a bloody conflict, it is quite clear that the army has not fractured on sectarian lines. They have held together as a national force, very clear that they are facing sectarian and often foreign opponents.

Cynics suggest that arbitrary national boundaries and entities created by the colonial powers have no value. However, hundreds of thousands of young Syrians put their lives on the line every day to defend a nation that gives them identity, education, and a range of shared institutions. I suggest that deserves some respect. Criticisms of the Syrian Arab Army seems particularly absurd coming from those western countries whose armies spend much of their time invading and occupying a variety of foreign countries, most of them oil-rich, supposedly for the good of the local populace.

The Syrian Arab Army has been vilified by those very same regimes that arm the foreign jihadis and the local sectarians. Yet despite the relentless attacks, this army has held together and is showing strong signs of resuming control of their own country, in service of a secular and socially inclusive state. If that is not the legitimate function of a national army, I don't know what is.

[FSA = 'Free Syrian Army' aka Islamic Terrorists]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/In-Defence-of-the-Syrian-A-by-Tim-Anderson-130702-40.html

The following videos are by Reuters and BBC so they cannot be accused of being -just- propaganda.

I'm glad that Canada is welcoming Syrian refugees as they come from a proudly multicultural country but the ultimate goal must be to preserve Syria so they can go back and give their skills and energy to their homeland. To save Syria, the Canadian government must give up the murderous farce that the Syrian government must dissolve itself in the middle of a war for survival and 'negotiate' with ISIS.