Putin’s Holy War vs. Obama’s Jihad in Syria
The Christian Orthodox Church, which holds an important place in an insurgent Russia, has described its government’s fight against the Islamic State and other jihadi opposition groups in Syria as a “holy war.”
According to Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Church’s Public Affairs Department:
The fight against terrorism is a holy battle, and today our country is perhaps the most active force in the world fighting it. The Russian Federation has made a responsible decision on the use of armed forces to defend the People of Syria from the sorrows caused by the arbitrariness of terrorists. Christians are suffering in the region with the kidnapping of clerics and the destruction of churches. Muslims are suffering no less.
This is not some new gimmick to justify intervention in Syria. For years, Russia’s Orthodox leaders have been voicing their concern for persecuted Christians. Back in February 2012, Vladimir Putin met with representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church. They described to him the horrific treatment Christians are experiencing around the world, especially the Muslim world:
The head of External Church Relations, Metropolitan Illarion, said that every five minutes one Christian was dying for his or her faith in some part of the world, specifying that he was talking about such countries as Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan and India. The cleric asked Putin to make the protection of Christians one of the foreign policy directions in future.
“This is how it will be, have no doubt,” Putin answered.
The Russian Patriarch Kirill even once wrote an impassioned letter to Obama, imploring the American president to stop empowering Christian-persecuting jihadis. That the patriarch said, “I am deeply convinced that the countries which belong to the Christian civilisation bear a special responsibility for the fate of Christians in the Middle East” must have only ensured that the letter ended in the trash bin at the White House.
Of course, Russia’s concern for Christian minorities will be cynically dismissed in America by the major talking heads on both sides. While such dismissals once resonated with Americans, they are becoming less persuasive to those paying attention, as explained in Putin’s Crusade—Is Russia the Last Defender of the Christian Faith?”
Indeed, growing numbers of Americans who have no special love for Russia or Orthodoxy – from billionaire tycoon Donald Trump to evangelical Christians – are being won over by Putin’s frank talk.
How can they not be? After one of his speeches praising the West’s Christian heritage – a thing few American politicians dare do – Putin concluded with something that must surely resonate with millions of traditional Americans: “We must protect Russia from that which has destroyed American society” – a reference to the anti-Christian liberalism and licentiousness that have run amok in the West.
Even the Rev. Franklin Graham’s response to Russia’s military intervention in Syria seems uncharacteristically positive, coming as it is from the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association: “What Russia is doing may save the lives of Christians in the Middle East[.] … You understand that the Syrian government … have protected Christians, they have protected minorities from the Islamists.”
Should U.S.-supported jihadis (“rebels”) succeed in toppling the government of Syria, Graham correctly predicts that there will be “a bloodbath of Christians”:
There would be tens of thousands of Christians murdered and slaughtered, and you would have hundreds of thousands of more refugees pouring into Europe. So Russia right now, I see their presence as helping to save the lives of Christians.
It is, of course, an established fact that the “good rebels” – the moderates – arepersecuting Christians no less than the Islamic State.
When asked why the Obama administration is ignoring the persecution of Christians, Graham, echoing Putin, said Obama is more invested in promoting the homosexual agenda than he is in protecting Christian minorities.Full Story
If half of these assertions are true, then our government has not only sold the American people out, but it has sold every decent human being on this planet out. Read the story and arrive at your conclusion.
With U.S. no longer paramount, Russia’s prowess in Syria impresses Iraqi Shiites.
With the struggle against the Islamic State group largely stalemated, the naked display of Russian military power in neighbouring Syria, and the leadership of “Sheikh Putin,” is being applauded by Shiites in Iraq.
One of the most popular Facebook posts in Iraq’s Shiite heartland is a Photoshopped image of President Vladimir Putin of Russia dressed in the robe of a southern tribal sheikh.
It was the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein and empowered Iraq’s long-repressed Shiite majority. The United States also took the lead more than a year ago to assemble a coalition to conduct airstrikes in Syria and Iraq against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State group.
But with the struggle against the Islamic State group largely stalemated, it is the naked display of Russian military power in neighboring Syria, and the leadership of “Sheikh Putin,” that is being applauded by residents of this Shiite power center.
Iraq hits ISIS: The Iraqi military said Sunday it had attacked a convoy in Iraq’s western Anbar province that included Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group. But a U.S. official said it could not confirm that al-Baghdadi or any other senior Islamic State group commanders had been targeted or struck.
Russia terror claim: Russia’s counterterrorism agency says it has arrested a group of people who were preparing to carry out an attack in Moscow.
Turkey blasts: Thousands mourned the 95 victims of Turkey’s deadliest attack in years as state inspectors tried Sunday to identify who sent suicide bombers to a rally promoting peace with Kurdish rebels. The government said Kurdish rebels or Islamic State group fighters were likely responsible while mourners accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of fomenting violence to gain votes.
“What the people in the street care about is how to get Daesh out of Iraq,” Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, a member of Iraq’s parliament, said, using an Arabic name for the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL. “Now they feel Russia is more serious than the United States.”
As if to underscore that point, one widely viewed YouTube video shows Putin striding purposefully to the sounds of a patriotic Iraqi song, which hails him as a leader with the vision and determination to bring stability to Iraq. Full Story
Russia is going to take over and become the leader in the Middle East. Putin’s end goal there will be teach House of Saud a lesson and Israel could also make that list if it keeps provoking Russia
Other stories of interest:
Russia strikes CIA trained Rebels & pregnant immigrant arrested(Oct 3)
Rise of Radical Islam and clock mistaken for bomb( Oct 3)
Refugee Muslims convert in Germany and Chinese Tourist boost Russian economy (Sept 16)
Denmark Anti-immigrant Ads and U.S. helpless against Russian hardware?(Sept 16)
Putin sticks by Syria and Chechen Terrorists invited to Ukraine(Sept 16)
Arrogant Obama and Muslim Kid arrested for Homemade bomb (Sept 16)
Chinese flocking to U.S. Real Estate and German Migrant Crisis (Sept 3)
Ukraine puppet government and Fed claims no more QE (Sept 3)
Record Corporate Debt and China catches America Off Guard (August 21)
IRS thieves, Wall Street Gangsters and Cyber gas thieves (August 20)
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