Syria

A friend of mine posted this today and it provoked me into posting a reply... something that I normally don't do when it comes to friends and politics. I had to agree with his statement about not siding with Assad, but I wanted to offer him a way to understand why some folks are choosing Assad over the Rebels in this conflict/war.  Sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.  What do you think?



From my friend:

Now I'm sure everyone knows that I haven't been a big fan of this president and very torn over the situation in Syria, but it's sickening seeing people who side with Assad's mindset and/or feel he is more believable. Doesn't take much reasearch to see how much sick stuff has happened over there by his regime. If you just don't like the idea of us intervening, that's a different story, but to defend the actions of the Syrian government is very ill minded.

Here is what I posted in response:

Mr. X, there is a much deeper situation at hand in Syria. There are many, many other countries and places in the world where the criminal actions of their leaders are similar if not worse than what Assad is doing/has done. We chose not to intervene in those places... so the question is why do we need/want to intervene in Syria? Because Syria is an immensely important,strategic country. Russia, Iran, Lebanon, Libya. U.S. Iraq, Israel. All of these and more stand to gain or lose if Assad stays in power, or loses the war to the Rebels. Look into the Benghazi incident - check out the information on why Israel has been bombing Syria for the past six months. Look at why Saudi Arabia has interests in Syria and what that means to the Russians. Look into the different sects of the Rebels and where they come from. It's mind blowing, once you get the whole picture, and scary in regards to the future of the region. The outcome of that country's war will trigger explosions of change throughout the middle east. It doesn't seem to matter which regime runs the show - things are going to get even uglier there. If we can forestall an intervention/war through diplomatic means..... I'm all for it. Assad is an evil man, but he is only one among many in that country. Our intervention of bombs and airstrikes will do little in helping the citizens of Syria.