Statement
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACTS: Gregg Edgar
Gordon C. James Public Relations
gedgar@gcjpr.com
602-690-7977
Brahimi’s peace plan latest failure in Syria
Meanwhile violence spreads across the borders to Lebanon and Jordan while U.S. sits on sidelines
PHOENIX (October 23, 2012) – Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and the co-founder of the Save Syria Now! issued the following statement regarding the latest developments in Syria:
“Comments from the Free Syria Army highlight how ludicrously terminal yet another failed attempt is at a UN peace plan for Syria. U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi had proposed a ceasefire to be implemented on Eid al-Adha holiday, Islam’s ‘holiest day’.
Comments from Colonel Qassem Saadeddine, spokesman for the joint command of the Free Syria Army highlight the fact that the proposal lacked any “mechanism to implement it”. Saadeddine commented to Reuters “Who is going to implement it and who is going to supervise it?”
It is offensive to Muslims and especially all Syrians to throw out one more date for a ceasefire that only prolongs the agony and empowers Assad’s thugs to continue their slaughter. The deaths in Syria have climbed well past 30,000 with now reports of over 2 million homes destroyed and yet there is still no real leadership on how to stop the bloodshed and remove Assad from power. The Presidential race has essentially ground any efforts by the Obama Administration at helping bring an end to the Assad regime to a complete halt. The Syrian people can no longer trust any role which this administration would have in helping them bring their own misery to an end.
Violence is spreading across the region with attacks from the Assad regime on opponents in Beirut, Lebanon and terrorist plots from al-Qaeda elements in Jordan that were armed by militants crossing the border into Syria.
Western embassies were potential targets in the Jordanian plot. American lives were once again in the crosshairs because the Obama administration has failed to develop any strategy, let alone a winning strategy, for the changes taking place in the Middle East and specifically Syria.
Syria has the potential to be the linchpin for change in the region. A truly free Syria diminishes the reach of Iran, provides a buffer for Israel and removes an ally for Hezbollah and Hamas.
A free Syria is a game changer. But it requires leadership and courage in the face of the enemies of freedom. The Obama Administration has not shown that it has the resolve or the ideological capacity to meet that challenge.”
About Save Syria Now!
Save Syria Now! is a group of Americans of Syrian descent organizing to put pressure on the United States to call for immediate action to be taken against the regime of Bashar Assad of Syria and to bring true liberty to the people of Syria. We stand with the Syrians protesting in the streets to end the tyranny of the Assad family. For more information please visit our website at http://www.savesyrianow.org/.
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“Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster, according to American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats.”
Read more here.
“The number of Syrians in need of food aid has jumped from 250,000 in April to 1.5 million today, the head of the U.N.’s food agency said Monday, as more civilians are driven from their homes by an escalating civil war.
Separately, the international envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, told reporters at the U.N. that the conflict threatens to spill across the Middle East and is ‘extremely bad and getting worse.’
In a closed-door session of the U.N. Security Council, Brahimi had harsh words for Bashar Assad, saying the Syrian president has no intention of carrying out reforms that would end his family’s four-decade grip on Syria.”
Read more here.
“Syria’s extraordinary archaeological heritage has fallen prey to the fighting ravaging the country for more than 18 months, with destruction, theft and systematic looting on the rise. In a country where corruption and trafficking of archaeological artifacts was already a chronic problem, widespread clashes and a power vacuum in some areas have led to an explosion of looting and illicit excavations.”
Read more here.
“Her body was still intact… Her short blue dress was covered with some dust and the knot perfectly tied at the waist… Her socks were still white covering her skinny legs, while her tiny palms seemed a little clenched. The body of the eight-year-old girl seemed so perfect that one would think she was still alive… but decapitated.
I tried in vain to escape the terrifying image of the beheaded little Syrian girl and erase the scene from my head. I learned later that she was named “Fatima”, that she was from “Idlib” and that she was killed when the Syrian regime dropped booby-trapped barrels that decapitated her and killed many others.” - Diana Moukalled
Read more here.
Iran spreads violence across region as Syria records 5,000 deaths in August under an intransigent Assad
PHOENIX (September 5, 2012) – Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and the co-founder of Save Syria Now! issued the following statement regarding the latest developments in Syria:
“August has been recorded as the bloodiest month in the year and a half campaign for the revolution to remove the tyrant Bashar Assad and his military apparatus from power in Syria. With over 5,000 dead at the barbaric hands of the Syrian military and the UN recording over 100,000 refugees last month alone, there is no indication that Assad’s military tyranny is abating.
Syrian catastrophe on the verge of imploding the Middle East while U.S. has no discernible strategy
Despite this, we still see no discernible strategy from the Obama Administration on how to secure a free Syria. Secretary Clinton has failed yet again this week in negotiations with the Chinese to find a path forward. These negotiations fail primarily because the Chinese know that the President does not have the resolve or inclination to act in this region.
This administration has clearly determined that action of any sort is not in its best interest heading into November’s presidential election. That inaction has essentially given the Assad regime free reign to decimate the Syrian people and opened the door to the jackals of the region in the form of Iran, Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.
As the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday the Iranians have resumed airlifts through Iraqi airspace of arms and personnel to support Assad’s regime. Iran’s Quds force has become the de facto training battalion of Assad’s ruthless Baathist Alawite militia. Even more disturbing, many experts believe that Iran is perfectly content to allow Syria to disintegrate into another Afghanistan if it means keeping the prospects of a Western influenced free Syria from emerging from its current hell.
That would be a disastrous outcome for the entire region. We are already seeing violence spill over into Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. How long will it be before we see this violence knocking on Israel’s door?
Yet Clinton’s State Department cannot even articulate a clear position against the Iraqi government allowing the use of its airspace by the Iranians.
Further recent reports indicate that Al Qaeda and Hezbollah are ratcheting up their involvement in the country. In fact it appears that these organizations are turning the situation into an opportunity for sectarian violence against each other. While watching these two purveyors of American and Muslim tragedy destroy each other may sound enticing, ceding them the prize of Syria is simply outrageous. Doing so at the cost of Syrian lives is inhumane and criminal.
Syria deserves better from the West and the international community. It needs real leadership. It needs a focus on freedom for its people.”
“Russia and China have vetoed resolutions on the crisis three times, citing opposition to any action which might be seen as regime change imposed from outside.
Mr. Annan said he did not rule out someone taking over the mediator’s role from him, but said a successor might choose another path.
He said the focus remained on political transition, as President Bashar al-Assad “will have to leave sooner or later.”
Read more here.
Syria has reached a critical tipping point as tanks head for Aleppo
Syria heads towards genocide as U.S. stands on the sidelines
PHOENIX (July 26, 2012) – Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and the co-founder of the Save Syria Now! issued the following statement regarding the chaos ensuing in Syria:
“As fighting continues in Damascus, a military column with hundreds of tanks is rolling toward Syria’s second city Aleppo. While some are characterizing the situation as a civil war, that term would imply that there are two relatively equal sides. This is not a civil war. It is genocide. With hundreds of thousands of armed personnel and one of the Middle East’s heaviest armamentariums, the brutal Syrian government is able to willfully destroy and obliterate its courageous free Syrian opponents and inflict retribution on everyday citizens who have had the courage to stand up to Assad’s thugs. Over 20,000 innocent men, women and children have already lost their lives and hundreds of thousands are suffering from the now 17 month uprising against the fascist Assad regime.
The Syrian conflict has reached a tipping point and the United States can no longer afford to be seen sitting on the sideline of this battle. With over 500,000 Syrian expatriates living on her shores whose families are being slaughtered in the streets of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and now Aleppo, the U.S. has a moral obligation to engage the Syrians and come down on the side of freedom and liberty by openly and rigorously supporting the opposition to Assad’s brutal regime. Assad and his generals are in the process of exacting a “final solution” upon the Syrian people whose only crime is the desire for freedom. As pollsters Mark Penn and Mike Abramowitz describe in their latest poll on “Ending Genocide,” “Americans want their government to do something about preventing genocide. A strong proportion – 69 percent – believes the United States should prevent or stop mass atrocities from occurring in another part of the world. Substantial majorities also said they think the United States should have taken military action in cases such as Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.” So many American Syrians came to the US to escape persecution and celebrate freedom. That freedom has a price and a moral obligation that comes with it. Today, we are begging our fellow Americans to help those seeking freedom in our motherland against one of the most evil regimes on the planet today.
Apprehension over the impact that engagement will have on November’s presidential race will firmly ensconce President Obama on the wrong side of history watching a genocide unleashed from a tyrant like few we have seen in the world to date.
Leaders must lead. The U.S. has the opportunity to reboot our old failed policies in the Middle East and show that we don’t always have to take the side of the “strong horse” or the “safer bet” but rather the side of righteousness and moral good. As the Middle East is reshaped these inflection points will not come again, and the role of the United States will not be forgotten for generations to come. If we can only find the courage to act. No result can be guaranteed, but our inaction is resulting in a certain guarantee of genocide, antipathy for American courage, and endearment of Syrians to those who help them from Iran to Russia to Turkey and Saudi Arabia. None of which are in American or NATO interests.
The writing is on the wall for Assad’s regime, it is simply a question of how many people he will slaughter on his way to history’s trash heap. Fears of an Islamist regime following will be a self-fulfilling prophecy if we do not get our hands dirty and engage and empower Syrians who share our visions of liberty and a free Syria.
As freedom loving Americans of Syrian decent we implore this administration to openly enter the fray in the following ways.
1. Immediately impress upon NATO the need to establish a no fly zone to stop Syrian helicopter gunships from indiscriminately attacking the Syrian people.
2. Employ a Kosovo style air assault to stop Syrian troops, tanks and artillery from converging on city of Aleppo or any other target where they will employ their brutal assault on the Syrian people.
3. Use all imaginable diplomatic pressure to halt Russia’s efforts to rearm Assad’s regime and neuter Russia and China’s impact by entirely stepping away from the impotent UN processes and focusing on the work that needs to be done with willing moral nations.
4. Force the regime to admit International Media and NGO’s like the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch so they can care for the injured and accurately document human rights violations for eventual prosecution.
5. Begin the process of building the political infrastructure of Syrians who share our values and our faith in liberty so that when this regime goes, the vacuum can be filled by more than just the strong horse of the Islamist parties like the Syrian National Council.
6. By all means also stop empowering the Islamists – there is a thriving diverse community in Syria that longs for freedom empower them!
The stakes in Syria could never be higher and the opportunity for a lasting impact in the region could never be greater. President Obama please do not let the United States become irrelevant to a new Syria.”
About Save Syria Now!
Save Syria Now! is a group of Americans of Syrian descent organizing to put pressure on the United States to call for immediate action to be taken against the regime of Bashar Assad of Syria and to bring true liberty to the people of Syria. We stand with the Syrians protesting in the streets to end the tyranny of the Assad family.
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Gregg Edgar
Gordon C. James Public Relations
gedgar@gcjpr.com
602-690-7977
“Shells hit north Lebanon last week and residents say Syrian troops have briefly crossed the frontier while pursuing fleeing rebels in recent months.
"More than 35 Syrian soldiers came across the border and started to destroy houses,” said Abu Ahmed, 63, a resident of the mainly Sunni Muslim rural mountain area of al-Qaa.
Another resident said that the soldiers, some travelling in armoured personnel vehicles, fired rocket-propelled grenades and exchanged heavy machinegun fire with rebels. He said soldiers destroyed one house with a bulldozer.“
Read more here.
“He thinks he won and scored a great victory,” said opposition activist Saif Hurria, speaking by telephone from Homs. “He wants to show the world he defeated and put down a revolution. But … it seems he can’t even release the video until he has left Homs. That is not control.”
Read more here.
