Syrian Crisis

John, a friend from Facebook, submitted this to Cindy to post. - (Jon)

John Mesler
3/24/2013

I began my research on the current crisis in Syria wanting to know two basic things. I wanted to know if Bashar Al-Assad was really responsible for the deaths of over 70,000 Syrian civilians (as we in the West have been led to believe) and I wanted to know how most Syrians viewed their President. If they had an opportunity to hold a fair election, would he be voted in by the majority of Syrians? After nearly 10 months of interviewing nearly 100 Syrians (mostly citizens still living there but also some x-patriots living abroad) I have come to as close a conclusion that can be achieved from 6,000 miles away without actually going to Syria. Let me begin by explaining how this current uprising started.

Since early 2010, Wahhabi extremists have been planning to not only overthrow Bashar (an Alowite, considered by some Muslims to be an infidel) but to return Syria to the dark ages. Their subjects would not only be Alowite's, but Christians, Jews, and even Shiite Muslims were viewed as infidels. As the "Arab spring" was growing stronger in other mid-east countries, the Wahhabi's (Islamist's who are a dis-credit to the Muslim religion) were purchasing large amounts of weapons and supply's which they stored in Syria's massive underground tunnel network. They even stored them in (and under) the Omari Mosque in Daraa, Syria. The Imam of the Omari mosque is the blind Imam, Ahmed Alsyasena, a radical extremist who purchased weapons from Saudi Arabia when the Arab Spring began. He was waiting for the right moment to begin his terror. That moment occurred in March of 2011.

As many young Syrians took to the streets to begin their "Arab Spring" they quickly became the targets of the radical Wahhabi's, dressed in Syrian uniforms and equipped with weapons supplied by Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabi's were brutal but they were also wise. They knew that Bashar Al-Assad would be blamed for this and of course they were right. It wasn't long after when Bashar told his security forces not to use weapons. As the Wahhabi's blood-shed continued, he realized his forces needed their weapons but he told them not to use them unless absolutely necessary. Bullets were counted before and after each shift by the security and police to make sure they were not using the weapons for anything other than self defense. As the violence grew and spread there were some protestors who sincerely thought it was Bashar's troops who did the initial shooting, so they grew in moderate numbers. Those folks we still call the FSA (Free Syrian Army) but they only make up a small minority of the FSA.

To explain what happened next one must be made aware of the PNAC (the Project for the New American Century). Talk of this began as far back as 1991 when Paul Wolfowitz told 4 Star General, Wesley Clark, that the Bush "team" (Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, D.Rumsfeld, Abrams, and others) were not happy that we didn't get Saddam in the first Iraqi invasion. He went on to tell Gen. Clark that they wanted us to take Iraq, Lebanon, Libya and Syria as well! This is all available on-line. Gen. Clark gave a telling speech back in 2007 which should be watched by every American (and non-American) to better understand what our corporate led government has in store for us. The PNAC became official in 1997.

As I was corresponding with a very good friend of mine who lives in Syria, (Linda), I couldn't understand why we (in the West) weren't portraying the news as it really was. I soon learned that the EU banned all news from Syria, via satellite, on December 5th, 2011. Namely the Addonia and Champress media outlets and the Alwatan (a popular international) Syrian newspaper. About a year later (September 5th, 2012), Syrian satellite news, the Nile and Arabsat, were also cut off from the outside world. But why? I knew why WE were doing it but why Europe? The answer always seems to be oil and gas and this was no different. Large oil reserves were found off the coast of Cypress and Saudi Arabia. According to a report from Pepe Escobar, entitled "Pipelinestan," the EU had already been preparing to have a pipeline built through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, occupied Palestine, and Turkey...countries all in favor off this plan. There was one huge problem, however… you can't build a pipeline through to Turkey without going through Syria, and Syria was not going to be a part of the plan (by the US and the EU) that would isolate Russia. Voila! (As it is now, the EU gets much of it's oil through Russia).

My friend Linda suggested I discuss the Syrian situation with many of her mutual friends and others that I knew. I spoke to nearly 100 Syrians. Some still living in Syria, other x-pats who have moved out of the country. What I learned was alarming but it finally all made sense. The FSA is not made up of freedom fighting Syrians and x-pats. Some of it is....and that's the 1/4 truth our media has been telling us. The larger majority of the FSA is composed of nothing more than Al-Qaeda terrorists working with the Wahhabi extremists, mercenaries and militia paid for by US taxpayers money (John Kerry gave them $60million just as we were being sequestered), by Qater, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Israel and many others. They have been trained in Jordan and Turkey (to name but a few places) by the CIA, Mossad and the MI6. I wanted more proof that this was not a "real" revolution and discovered that less than 2% of the 400,000 to 800,000 (400,000 in reserves) Syrian army has not defected. Even our media has been very frustrated by that. The 60,000 men in the police and security units remain intact. All the ministry and parliament remains intact. Many in the parliament have been offered $millions of dollars to defect. Only one has (and he was promised $10million dollars plus a mansion to do so). When he got to Jordan, he received "only" $5 million dollars! The 2 million Baath party members have remained intact. There is much more I have learned, but let this be a good starting place.

In conclusion, let me say this. Is Bashar Al-Assad a dictator? Yes, he is. Is he ruthless? No... heavy-handed but not ruthless. One must keep in mind that we in the West have had a head start on democracy and ours is by no means perfect. Not even close sometimes. It wasn't easy for the French either and it won't be easy for the people and the countries of the Mid-east. It is made more difficult by the very long history of so many diversities there. The many tribes, the different religions and many, many cultures. They need a strong person to keep things in order and Bashar has been making some progress. I have a friend in Australia. His name is Saad. He told me he moved there 34 years ago because of Bashar's father. He, too, was "heavy handed" but when I asked Saad if he would rather have Bashar as Syria's leader or anyone the West (or any other outsider would suggest) the answer was a very confirming "Bashar." I asked nearly 100 Syrians the same question. About 90% of them gave me the same answer. Even the x-pats living in other countries who had no friends or relatives to be concerned about in Syria said the same thing. Many not only prefer him.....some adore him. So there it is. Why can't the US just mind it's own business? Haven't we learned any lessons (other than a draft won't work) from Viet Nam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc.? Don't we have enough problems of our own right here? We went to war in Iraq because of a lie. We spent $Trillions of dollars then and what did we end up doing? We put in another puppet, Al-Maliki, who is also a friend of Iran!!!! We were responsible for the deaths of at least 200,000 good Iraqi citizens and another 5 million who had to leave. Al-Maliki is more of a threat to them then Saddam ever was (I'm not including the Kurdish population in the north. That's another discussion for another day). When I heard Bob Schieffer on CBS tell the world on March 21st that the Syrian government was not responsible for the chemical weapon in Aleppo I felt a sense of renewed pride. I saw that my country will tell the truth at times. We need to do that much more often.

Thank you, John Mesler

I want to thank Arabi Souri, Linda and Ishak for their help on this.I would not have been able to do it without them.