They just got a different tool to use than we do: They kill innocent lives to achieve objectives. That's what they do. And they're good. They get on the TV screens and they get people to ask questions about, well, you know, this, that or the other. I mean, they're able to kind of say to people: Don't come and bother us, because we will kill you. Bush - Joint News Conference with Blair - 28 July '06

Monday, June 24, 2013

First Assad, then the Alawites



After the defeat of Assad this FSA spokesman predicts a second 'sectarian' war with the Alawite minority in Syria.  One presumes  in this scenario that the FSA has both defeated Assad's relatively powerful military and also routed Hezbollah.  NYT is impressed with his 'disarming candor' . NYT goes on to point out that the spokesman preparing for a sectarian killing spree is in fact a believer in plurality, democracy, and free speech.  So not to worry. 

[...] In Istanbul, Fahed Awad, a spokesman for one major Free Syrian Army battalion, told me, with disarming candor, that it would probably take three wars to complete the Syrian revolution — one to defeat Assad; then a sectarian war within Islam between the Sunnis and Assad’s Shia sect, the Alawites; and finally a fight over just how Islamic the new Syria should be. (Like most of the opposition, he favors a more secular Islamic democracy, similar to Turkey’s.) Link