Round 1 to Pope Francis' peace vigil? http://news.sky.com/story/1139734/syria-agrees-to-hand-over-chemical-weapons
BOTH sides are using the Christians of Syria for their own ends. The Christian villagers in this news-clip saw their village and its church desecrated by the rebels and then retaken by government forces but given up unnecessarily to the rebels again so that the government could claim further anti-Christian action by the rebels (and hopefully gain western approval for their cause). God save these poor Christians of Syria who are in the middle of this conflict. (I wish that they could both lose this conflict). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24023858
Did Our Lady of Fatima say God will use Russia to punish the world or the errors of Russia to punish the world? Two completely different things.
To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If My requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated.1
"she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martyred" In Egypt and Syria, this sounds more like the US than Russia. I just can't get over the following two pieces of this crisis: 1. When did Al Queda become our ally? 2. Where is the evidence that Assad did the gassing, I haven't seen any yet ( I am not saying gas was not used).
11 September 2013 Patriarch Kirill urges Obama to scrap plans to strike Syria Moscow, September 11, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has forwarded a message to U.S. President Barack Obama, urging him to drop the plans to launch a military operation against Syria. "The Russian Orthodox Church knows the price of human sufferings and losses since in the 20th century our people survived two devastating world wars which claimed millions of lives and ruined many people's lives. We also regard as our own pain the pain and losses the American people suffered in the terrible terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001," Patriarch Kirill said in his message to Obama. "On the eve of the anniversary of that sad date, I appeal to you to lend your ear to the voices of religious leaders who unanimously oppose any military interference in the Syrian conflict and to make every effort for the soonest commencement of peace negotiations," he said. "Syria today has become an arena of the armed conflict. Engaged in it are foreign mercenaries and militants linked with international terrorist centers. The war has become an everyday Golgotha for millions of civilians," he said. "We were deeply alarmed to learn about the plans of the U.S. army to strike the territory of Syria. Undoubtedly, it will bring ever greater sufferings to the Syrian people, first of all, to the civilian population. An external military intervention may result in the radical forces coming to power in Syria who will not be able and will not wish to ensure inter-confessional accord in the Syrian society," he said. The patriarch expressed his special concern "for the fate of the Christian population of Syria, which in that case will come under the threat of total extermination or banishment." The patriarch insisted that the ongoing crisis in Syria calls for the international community's involvement to be settled. "In this regard, I consider it important to use the opportunities which have opened for a diplomatic settlement of the conflict. These opportunities imply the international community's control over the chemical weapons in Syria," he said. http://www.interfax-religion.com/
No evidence either way, that is why the sane American does not want war in Syria. Finally, I don't know about your love fest for Russia. You seem to think they are the best thing going in the world. Might want to research their evil ways out a bit more. They are a snake waiting in the grass for their opportunity.
Finally, I don't know about your love fest for Russia. You seem to think they are the best thing going in the world. Might want to research their evil ways out a bit more. They are a snake waiting in the grass for their opportunity. No love fest for Russia here, just disgust for Obama and US foreign policy as the blinders get removed from my eyes.
Only #1 response. What is so damning is that we were arming the rebels to overthrow the Syrian Govt in a "civil war". This article is from 1 year ago and we have continued to increase the flow of arms. EDITORIAL: Obama arming al Qaeda Handing guns to Syrian rebels may not be a bright idea By THE WASHINGTON TIMES - The Washington Times Thursday, August 2, 2012 Enlarge Photo Illustration: Jihad by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times more > Reuters reported Wednesday that President Obama “signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government.” This latest leak of classified information was attributed to “U.S. sources familiar with the matter.” Lethal covert assistance undoubtedly will help the rebel cause, but the United States is risking letting advanced weapons fall into the hands of the country’s most deadly terrorist foes. The Reuters report alleges covert assistance, perhaps including sophisticated man-fired anti-aircraft weapons, is being funneled to the Free Syrian Army through neighboring Turkey. The White House thus far has admitted only to providing nonlethal aid. The administration also has made it possible for U.S. private citizens and other groups to support the rebels. Last month, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a license to the nonprofit Syrian Support Group to raise money intended to purchase arms and ammunition, rather than being limited to humanitarian assistance. Providing sophisticated weaponry to the rebels may aid their cause, but it also could assist America’s enemies. The State Department recently confirmed that al Qaeda fighters are moving into Syria from Iraq and elsewhere, and the terror group will seek to exploit the chaos, as it has done with the Arab Spring violence. The North African franchise, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), established a de facto regime in the northern part of Mali following a coup there in March. The country’s destabilization can be traced to fallout from the U.S.-supported fighting in Libya in 2011. The regime in Mali was overthrown by returning Taureg mercenaries who had been part of Moammar Gadhafi’s defeated army. Then AQIM filled the resulting power vacuum in the north with arms looted from Gadhafi’s forces. AQIM leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar said last fall that al Qaeda has been “one of the main beneficiaries of the revolutions in the Arab world.” Former Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler, who was held hostage by the group in 2008 and lived to tell about it, recently told NPR, “We have caused one of the most unstable regions in the world to become awash in weapons,” and “this is the first time that al Qaeda really has a country, a more or less secure base from which to operate.” Mali serves as a cautionary tale for those seeking to help rebellions. Arms sent into the caldron of civil war may not stay in the hands of those to whom they are given or be used in a way the United States approves. Advanced weapons may be stolen or sold on the black market. Rebel groups that profess friendship today may be chanting jihad tomorrow. The Washington Times Sponsored Content Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/2/obama-arming-al-qaeda/#ixzz2eeg7vhPg Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
Fatima, Response to rebuttal #2. It is beginning to appear to me that since "she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecution against the church" , this is exactly what is happening. Only, the "errors" have spread to the US and it is the US that is causing wars "throughout the world " and it's our brothers/sisters in Christ who are paying the price not to mention our sons/daughters in foreign entanglements.
US Troops In Ft Hood Receive Orders To Deploy To Syria Wednesday, September 11, 2013 5:55 (Before It's News) Mychal Massie is Chairman of the National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives-Project 21 – a conservative black think tank located in Washington, D.C. He was recognized as the 2008 Conservative Man of the Year by the Conservative Party of Suffolk County, N.Y. In December, 2011, he was recognized as one of the 20 most influential black Republicans. Mychal is a prolific blogger, a nationally recognized political activist, pundit, and columnist. He has appeared on Fox News Channel, Fox Business Channel, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, NBC, and talk-radio programming worldwide. A former self-employed business owner of more than 30 years, Mychal’s website is mychal-massie.com I have been able to verify something extremely troubling in the past 12 hours. A close and verifiable source contacted me to lament the deployment of a friend from Ft. Hood to Egypt, where this particular soldier will be for the next nine months. We have no military base in Egypt, so we’re all trying to understand the assignment and wonder if he and the other 400 soldiers are living in a tent in the desert, and if they are, how do they receive supplies, from everything to food, water, ammunition, and fuel to conduct whatever mission they are to fulfill, for I cannot imagine a C-140 being allowed to land at Cairo International. The following information has been sourced thoroughly. This particular soldier said that while he was not really thrilled about the assignment to Egypt, it was better than the soldiers that remained at the military base BECAUSE THEY HAD JUST RECEIVED THEIR DEPLOYMENT ORDERS TO GO TO SYRIA. That certainly contradicts the posturing and false reassurances and table-pounding of Obama and Kerry, does it not? Of course, credibility should never enter the discussion when talking about this president. If frogs get nourishment from eating flies, this pathologically dysfunctional misfit gets his lifeblood from telling lies. It is the manner in which he is genetically coded and been brainwashed to operate. The courteous words chosen by the media due to the vomit coming from the State Department is that the people involved in the civil war with Assad in Syria are “rebels” and “the opposition”, when in fact it’s a collection of warring, tribal jihadists composed of Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, Ansar al-Sharia, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and the Muslim Brotherhood, remember them? They’re the group the Obama administration enabled to take over Libya and Egypt. To put it tamely, just because they’re all radical Islamic groups does not mean they all get along. Clearly, the gun running operation CIA operative (NOT Ambassador) Christopher Stevens oversaw out of the pseudo-embassy in Benghazi was funneling guns to the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, which drew the ire of Ansar al-Sharia, which bears responsibility for the Benghazi attacks. Clearly it is the jihadist group of his choice, as Obama tried his hand at yet another government-overthrow. Now it becomes clearer why Susan Rice was sent out to lie to the press with an elementary school alibi, why Hillary Clinton screeched at a Congressional oversight committee, and why the surviving operatives of the embassy attack have been placed under deep cover and from whom we will never hear. The administration was funding yet another proxy war with a poorly conceived operation and it blew up in its face. Obama and Kerry have operated under the misconception that Americans are too ignorant to realize other, sophisticated G-7 countries have intelligence gathering techniques that rival or exceed ours, and that is why the likes of Great Britain, Russia, Israel, and Germany, among others, summarily dismissed his intentions to attack Syria at the G-20 Summit in Russia last week. In fact, Germany’s Der Spiegel just released copies of certain intelligence intercepts this morning proving the Assad did NOT authorize the use of chemical weapons and in fact was strongly opposed to doing so. Its intelligence gathering clearly shows that the use of nerve gas was by one of the rag-tag rebel groups, instead. Gee, I can’t imagine the Muslim Brotherhood resorting to such barbaric techniques, can you? Watching the Obama administration is like watching the mini-car pull into the center ring at the circus, and out comes one clown, after another, after another, after another. Putin gains huge political capital for seizing on Kerry’s loose tongue, Kerry inadvertently presented an opening against his bosses wishes for military action, and Obama comes across as a more disorganized and weak president, not only domestically, but equally if not more damaging, internationally as well. And don’t forget: the man who lied about gun running to the Mexican cartels, IRS targeting, the contents of the health care bill, NSA eavesdropping, is the same psychopath that assured Americans there would be “no boots on the ground”, and that it will be a very small, strategic attack. Why, then, do soldiers at Ft. Hood already have in hand their deployment assignments to go to Syria? Source: http://mychal-massie.com/premium/us-troops-receive-orders-to-deploy-to-syria/
If you have not already seen this message from His Grace, Bishop Basil of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese, it is worth your time to read. -- Fr. Stephen Supica Bishop Basil of Wichita on the Syria Crisis The following is the address given by His Grace Bishop Basil to the parish of St Mary Orthodox Church in Wichita, Kansas regarding the crisis in Syria, on the morning of their patronal feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos, September 8, 2013. This week will be a very important week, an historical week, one way or another--our church, our Patriarchate in particular, and this world in general. This week our elected representatives will be asked to vote either for or against supporting aggression in the Holy Land. As I said it’s important first and foremost for our church. It’s where our spiritual roots are, the roots of all Christians. Not just us, but we as Antiochian Orthodox in particular, as our Father in God (Patriarch John of Antioch) lives there along with a million and a half Orthodox Christians.That’s more than we have total in the US. The Orthodox in Syria and Lebanon is not negligible, it’s 10 percent of the population. In our country, we’re less than 1 percent, our country being the United States. Syria in particular but Lebanon as well, which is an integral part of greater Syria just by its geography and the majority of its history, is dotted with holy places. Holy places made holy by the presence of our Savior. Remember his conversation with the Canaanite woman, the Syro-Phoenician woman when he visited Tyre and Sidon in south Lebanon. It’s not in Disney World or Never Never Land. Its a real place with real people with real Orthodox Christians living there. You've heard of Caesarea Philippi, where our Savior went and had conversation with his 12 apostles saying, “Who do men say that I am?” and then to Peter “Who do you say that I am?” Caesarea Philippi is in Golan Heights, what now is the occupied portion of the Golan Heights. It belongs to our sister archdiocese, the archdiocese of Bosra-Hauran. And the Golan Heights itself is dotted with now empty, they were depocketed by the Israelis, Christian villages, Orthodox villages, whose churches during the occupation have been totally desecrated. Stripped. Not only of the icons and the chandeliers, but of windows, and water faucets. Their dead in Konetra were taken out of their graves, and teeth--gold teeth--taken from their mouths and wedding rings taken from the corpses’ fingers. These are holy places. Our Saviour walked there, the apostles walked there. Sweida, Bosra-Hauran in south Syria is where Timon, one of the original seven deacons as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, one of the original seven deacons was the first bishop. Paul the apostle made his way from Jerusalem up to Damascus, and the road is still there, the spot where he was knocked off his horse by the presence of our Saviour Jesus Christ when he was struck blind. There’s a monastery there, an Orthodox monastery. These are not just places in books, brothers and sisters. These are holy places where Christians, your spiritual ancestors, and for many of you your physical ancestors have lived the Holy Orthodoxy for the past 2,000 years. It’s why what happens this week is important. It’s important. continued...
We ask your prayers first and foremost for our president. That God might speak as we say in the liturgy “good things to his heart. That God might speak reasonableness and peace to the heart of our president. That he might speak peace to the heart of our elected officials, that they indeed become our representatives, that they speak the voice of the people. God speaks through his people, not through a congressman alone, or a president alone. He speaks through his people. May God hear our prayer for our armed forces. Men and women who sit on the edges of their seats to know whether they will be going to war or not. And don’t believe this “no boots on the ground.” It’s impossible. We’ve heard the promise many times. May God give strength to the parents. The spouses first and foremost of those soldiers, and their children, and their parents and their families, that he might grant them grace during these next coming days to prepare for the tension that must be laid upon them. And God be with the people of Syria. All of them, whether they’re Muslim, they’re Druze, Christians, Orthodox and not. May he be with our Father in God (Patriarch John of Antioch) who has already lost thousands of his people, and priests and deacons and monks and nuns in the war already. Whose monasteries and churches have been occupied and many destroyed by the so-called Free Syrian Army. Whose own brother was kidnapped and still remains kidnapped, Metropolitan Paul along with Archbishop Yohanna, since April 22 by freedom fighters. Freedom fighters--people who rape women, abduct bishops, desecrate churches, open peoples’ chests and pull their beating heart out and eat it in their presence. That’s the Free Syrian Army and their allies, Al Qaeda. Two days ago I received a call from our Metropolitan Saba Esper, who you know, he has visited here. He is the archbishop of our own Wichita diocese’s sister diocese in south Syria. He spoke by telephone, right before he called me, with Mother Belagia. Mother Belagia is the abbess of the monastery of Saint Thekla in Maalula. It’s only like a 20-30 minute drive north of Damascus. It had been occupied for 3 days (the town). The town is one of three where they still speak Aramaic--Aramaic which our Saviour spoke. The only 3 towns left in the world. The majority of the people in Maaloula are Christians--Orthodox Christians. There’s a smattering of Catholics there, and there’s also some Muslims there, and they live there in peace. The beginning of this week they were occupied by the Free Syrian Army. It turned out to be Al Qaeda, and they turned out to be Chechens--the same ones who abducted our 2 bishops. The nuns took the children there, orphan girls there of St. Thekla, and they and the nuns, many who are aging, into the caves of the village to hide for 4 days. They didn’t even go out to buy bread. The villagers didn’t leave their homes for 4 days. And if you’ve never been to the Middle East, they don’t shop like we do. They go every morning to buy their bread and food for the day. So they were locked in their homes for 4 days. Those who went out were shot, so they knew to stay in their homes. Saba called me on Wednesday. Mother Belagia, and they were ringing all the bells in the town’s churches--the Syrian Army, you know the one that we’re told is so bad. The Syrian Army finally came and drove Al Qaeda out. And what did they find? They found 2 churches in the village completely destroyed. St. Elias, which is ours, the Orthodox church in the village, and St. Rita, which is a Catholic church in the village--completely destroyed. On the inside, the icons, the holy books, everything had been desecrated. Not just ripped off the walls, but covered in urine. Real desecration by that wing of the Free Syrian Army. God knows what the people of Syria, and by extension the people of Jordan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Turkey and the people of Iraq--because if there’s a war there’s a regional war--God knows the burden they may have to carry this week. Lighten their burden as you can. And that’s by your prayers. Have a soft heart towards the people. Wrongs were done on both sides--vicious wrongs on both sides. But as we’ve heard from some honest politicians this past week, there’s really no good armed force over there. No one we can trust. None. So the choice is between the evil that we know and that we’ve had for 30-40 years in that part of the world, or another evil we don’t know about except what they’ve shown us in this awful civil war for the past 2 and a half years. So this week, really pray. Thank God that we live in a country that is safe. Where we can send our children to school, where you can go out and buy your groceries. But realize that that blessed country where we live can also be a disruptive force in other parts of the world, as it has been. Remember Bosnia. Remember Kosovo. Remember what happened in Belgrade, the capital of an Orthodox country, bombed by our armed forces on Pascha night, while people were going to church for the midnight service. God bless America--but a lot of evils have been done in her name. We pray that God will restrain our leaders from being the cause for any more evil and sorrow and hurt in this world. That we might extend a healing hand, to bring enemies together like we’re supposed to. Where we teach people to turn the other cheek, where we teach people to bless those who curse them, to love our enemies. That’s the gospel we preach, the gospel we die for. It’s the gospel which Orthodox Christians have been and I guess will continue to die for. Remember them in your prayers, and as I said, most especially our leaders, who will make the decisions. That God might pour out his Holy Spirit on them, and speak good things to their hearts. - See more at: http://www.stmaryorthodoxchurch.org/news/events/2013/bishop-basil-syria#sthash.akjQ1UFG.dpuf
picadillo, If you think for a minute that I support Obama* or Kerry, you are major wrong. Let me put it plain for you. I do not support what Obama* or Kerry think or are doing at all. I do not support Russia and Putin either. All these leaders are evil. It is not an either or for me, they both are evil dictators who suppress people and religion. Putin is putting on a show with the Orthodox leaders at this point and I don't buy it for second. I have made this clear in earlier posts. The point I was making is that your posts seem to indicate that Russia is Syria's friend because they had a conversion or something. They are in it like a snake waiting for its moment to pounce on its prey. Do not be fooled by them.
Fatima, You could be right, time will tell. All I am saying is that I believe the US has been infected with the "errors of Russia".
