HAPPY D-DAY, EVERYONE !

Is that an Urban dictionary joke about the sperm count?

War is always a horrible thing - no matter if another country attacks or if it is within your own border.
I remember when Iraq invaded Kuwait and several people had the idea - it is ok it is a small country - who cares anyway.
A teacher at my daughter´s school said they did not have to learn the small countries in the East Block - who cares.
I care about Estland, Lettland and Litauen!!
Then I realized that what would have happened if Russia invaded Norway?
Would anyone have cared? It is just a small country.

Now Syria - it is just a small country with 1/2 millioon (?) refugees in surrounding countries. Who cares?????
Where are the politicians who really care?

Bombing less risky targets.

What do you suggest we do? There's a heady sectarian cocktail, Alawite/Shia/Hezbollah on one side, Sunni extremists with Al Qaida leanings loosely allied to more democratic forces on the other. Russia will use its veto in the security council, and keeps supplying the government. There's also the risk of Israel being involved, and the war spilling out into Lebanon.

The Alawi are Twelver Shia, and Hezbollah is not a sect, it's a politico-military organization created by the Persian Revolutionary Guard and sustained by them. As the Persians are predominantly Twelver Shia, there's no distinction worth mentioning here.

except to certain sunni clerics who claim that the A llawi are pagans who celebrate Christian Holidays.

OOOOH dem Christian infiltrators

My point is that the situation in Syria as described by contemporary news media is at once less complicated, more complex, and not nearly as shallower. Essentially, it's conflict between Sunni and Shia. Whenever a bunch of wild-eyed Sunnis want to claim some radical cachet, they call themselves Al Qaida. Remember that joker who called his organization Al Qaida in Iraq? He was a fugitive from Jordan, and had had no connection to Al Qaida. However, calling his "organization" Al Qaida signaled his Sunni sympathy and suggested a terrorist competence which he did not in fact possess.

It's the same thing in Syria. Radical Sunnis signal the populace that they are racical and competent by calling themselves Al Qaida, whether they are competent or not--and the evidence is that they ain't so hot.

Before 1970, when Hafaz al-Assad took power, the Sunni majority casually persecuted the Shi'ite minority. Forty years is not too long for the group memory to function on either side. Hezbollah was created during the Lebanese civil war by agents of Iran's Revolutionary Guard to counter the predominance of Christian militias funded and supported by Israel. People squawk about Persian support for Hamas, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to what they give to Hezbollah, on the order of ten to one or more. The Revolutionary Guard selected the Twelver Shia portion of the Lebanese population precisely because they were Twelver Shia. Proportionally, the Lebanon has the largest Sevener Shia minority in the Muslim world--the Revolutionary Guard didn't care if they lived or died. There are also Sunni Muslims, Ismaelis and Druze in the Lebanon, about whom the Revolutionary Guard also did not give a rat's ass. They were only ever interested in supporting their co-religionists, defined on a very narrow sectarian basis.

The obsessive hatred of Israel in Iran dates back to the days after the coup against Mossadegh in 1953, instigated by MI6 (or whatever the Brits were calling it then) and organized and carried out by Central Intelligence. After the successful installation of a western-dominated government under the Shah (and that goes back to the early 1940s when the Allies wanted a supply pipe-line to the USSR), Israeli Mossad agents set-up, trained and supported SAVAK, the Shah's not terribly secret police and organ of state terror. Central Intelligence became disenchanted with their over-the-top activities and withdrew support, so Mossad stepped in to provide support and to even carry out operations. Mossad agents kidnapped people and tortured and murdered them. Small wonder the Persians obsessively hate Israel.

There is no such thing as a simple explanation for the factionalism and fighting in the middle east.

precisely. Im always amazed at the fine detail in which the factions, sub factions, and tribes assert the superiority of their individual theologies and therefore political views.
Since the Allawi's are less than 15% of the muslim population, their homeland , The Allewite Mountain range' was gerrymandered to Damascus by the Assad regime and was a point of geographic as well as politico-religious contention in the recent fighting.

Hezbollah are a foreign militia, and there are differences, subtle differences I grant, between the Alawites and mainstream Shiites.

The main distinction is that the Allawites are Syrian, Hezbollah are Lebanese and the Iranians are Iranian.

Which has what to do with the ludicrous contention that they are different sects in a conflict which pits Sunni against Shi'ite? They are united by their adherence to the Shia, and their willingness to fight and die for their beliefs. But don't let me stop you from attempting to defend a meaningless quibble.

I m glad that the Nazis invaded the commies.
I disagree that thay 'd have won,
but it 'd have been more expensive.





David

The Shi'ites has elevated the probability of sectarian divide to a very high level. The labels twelever and sevener stem from the belief that there will be either twelve or seven "perfect" Imams (teachers), after which Ali (first cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet) will return as the Mahdi. There is also a "Fiver" sect. This is further complicated by those who believe that the twelfth Imam is alive, but in hiding (a common Shi'ite belief), and is either the returned twelfth Imam (or seventh, depending upon one's preferred flavor), or Ali reincarnated as the twelfth Imam (or seventh). As with the early Christian expectations of "the end of days" in the first century, then in 500 CE, then in 1000 CE, etc., with just about every century in between as a candidate--the Shi'ites built their own disappointment into their belief set. They believed that there was a perfect Imam in every "age," and that all were lineal descendants of Ali and Fatima, and all the sons of fathers who were perfect Imams, with one stipulated exception. However, it's now been 1250 years since the death of Ali, and credulity, which one would have thought to already be at the breaking point, is apparently to be stretched further.

There is great scope for revelation or heresy, depending on one's view point, because one can disagree about who the perfect Imam's actually were, the nature of the final Imam, what constitutes an age, and what the hell has been going on since the eleventh Imam (or the sixth) died, a long damned time ago.

I'd be dead by now if i lived in Iran, just for posting this.

I never said they were different sects, I listed them separately because they are different groups. Maybe you inferred as much when I pointed out that Syria was composed of different sectarian groups. There's also Christians and Druze, it's not just Shia/Sunni.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria

I wasn't looking for an argument with you, I wanted to know what Saab actually suggested. It's quite easy to rail against heartless politicians and point out that something must be done, it's not so easy to say what specifically should be done.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but i believe the adjective sectarian derives from the noun sect.

I disagree qua gratitude toward the Russians.
Thay were in a partnership with the Nazis
that endured until thay invaded on June 22, 1941.

The commies knew that the Nazis 'd give them a ruff time,
so Stalin had them fight back, putting as many Russians
between himself n the 3rd Reich as possible.
We helped the commie defense; thay begged us to help,
but thay 'd have rather been on the Nazi 's side. Thay WERE.


If I cud have had my wishes,
I 'd have had them reciprocally destroy one another
(Nazi v. commie).

Or I could say you're just being pedantic and want to argue.

I'm not going to try and rewrite History David, but on this, as on many things we'll have to agree to disagree.

You can "say" anything you like, i assure you it's of no importance to me.

Over there, that does not take much.

Have I fallen into historical error?
Did I mis-represent a fact ?