Stephen Harper, leader of the free world. "Too risky to fund Syrian rebels, Canada says," by Campbell Clark for The Globe and Mail, February 28 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):
The United States has shifted course to provide aid directly to Syria’s rebels, but Canada doesn’t have enough confidence in them to follow suit.It is a rare international question where the two allies are taking different views: Canada, which was gung-ho about helping rebels in Libya, thinks it’s too risky to fund those in Syria.
On Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States will for the first time send so-called non-lethal aid such as food and medical supplies directly to the Free Syrian Army, as well as provide $60-million to the political wing of the coalition seeking to unseat President Bashar al-Assad.
While that fell short of the pledges of arms and equipment that Syrian rebels really want, it marks a shift in U.S. policy to directly support rebels fighting the Assad regime.
“We do this because we need to stand on the side of those in this fight who want to see Syria rise again in unity and see a democracy and human rights and justice,” Mr. Kerry said after a meeting in Rome of countries supporting the opposition.
But Canada – unlike the United States, most of Europe and much of the Arab world – has never recognized the opposition’s umbrella organization, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, as the “legitimate representative” of Syrians. And it’s not about to follow the U.S. allies in sending aid to the Free Syrian Army, either.
“After 23 months of violence and 70,000 deaths, the answer to the crisis in Syria is not more violence,” said Rick Roth, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. “Canada is working to address the humanitarian crisis the conflict in Syria has produced.”
Ottawa has long expressed worries about the fractious nature of the Syrian opposition and about Islamist extremists in their midst. In December, when dozens of countries recognized the coalition, Mr. Baird said he was waiting for the opposition to be more inclusive to minorities and women, and denounce extremism.
The Harper government has not changed its stand – essentially, it still doesn’t trust the opposition, or feel confident it can send money to rebels without some of it ending up in the hands of Islamist fighters whom it views as a danger that could live on past the anti-Assad rebellion. Ottawa will still try to work with the Syrian opposition and fund efforts to aid refugees, government sources said, but hasn’t changed its mind on sending aid to rebels....
Mr. Kerry said one reason for sending money to the Syrian coalition is to try to counter the influence of extremists. “The stakes are really high. And we can’t risk letting this country, in the heart of the Middle East, be destroyed by vicious autocrats or hijacked by the extremists,” he said....
Yeah, if you send them money, they automatically won't be "extremists." Isn't that how it works? Did Boy Reza Aslan tell you that, Mr. Secretary?
RSS Feed
"Canada won't follow U.S. lead in aiding Syrian jihadists"
Thank goodness. Maybe Harper has been reading the Qur'an, hadith and sira.
>>>>>
At least 75% of the Sira (biographies of Muhammad and quotes attributed to him) is about jihad.
The largest part of the Islamic texts (the Qur'an, hadith and sira) relate to the treatment of unbelievers, kafirs. Approximately 67% of the Qur'an written in Mecca is about the unbelievers, or politics. Of the Qur'an of Medina, 51% is devoted to the unbelievers.
Mohammed preached his religion for 13 years and garnered only 150 followers. But when he turned to politics and war, in 10 years time he became the first ruler of Arabia by averaging an event of violence every 7 weeks for 9 years. His success did not come as a religious leader, but as a political leader.
Political Islam asks: What is the real jihad? The jihad of inner spiritual struggle, or the jihad of war?
Statistical analysis of the Bukhari hadith (considered by Muslims to be the most authentic of the hadith collections) show that Muhammad repeatedly speaks of jihad. In Bukhari, 97% of the jihad references are about war, and 3% are about the inner struggle. So the statistical answer is that jihad is 97% war and 3% inner struggle.
There are 146 references to Hell in the Qur'an. Only 6% of those in Hell are there for moral failings — murder, theft, etc. The other 94% of the reasons for being in Hell are for the intellectual sin of disagreeing with Mohammed, a political crime.
>>>>>
Ex-Muslim Ali Sina's ongoing challenge to Muslims can be found over at Faith Freedom.org:
The Challenge
I receive many emails from angry Muslims, who sometimes beg me, and sometimes order me to remove this site. I consider both, pleading and bullying, signs of psychopathology. Argumentum ad baculum and argumentum ad misericordiam are both logical fallacies.
If you do not like this site and want me to remove it, instead of acting as a bully or as a victim, disprove my charges against Muhammad logically. Not only will I remove the site, I will publicly announce that Islam is a true religion. I will also pay
$50,000 U.S. dollars
to anyone who can disprove the following accusations that I have made against Muhammad. I accuse Muhammad of being:
a narcissist
a misogynist
a rapist
a pedophile
a lecher
a torturer
a mass murderer
a cult leader
an assassin
a terrorist
a madman
a looter
...These charges are irrefutable. You simply can’t disprove them because they are reported in Islamic sources and as such they are as good as confession...
http://www.faithfreedom.org/?page_id=49