Assad outlines new Syria peace initiative, constitution

[Bleipriester]

"It is a war between the nation and its enemies, between the people and the murderous criminals.
We never rejected a political solution ... but with whom should we talk? With those who have extremist ideology who only understand the language of terrorism?
Or should we negotiate with puppets the West brought? ... We negotiate with the master not with the slave."

Syrian President Bashar Assad on Sunday outlined his vision for a road map to end nearly 22 months of violence in Syria but also struck a defiant tone, calling on his countrymen to unite against "murderous criminals" whom he said are carrying out a foreign plot seeking to tear the nation apart.

Another Syrian constitution to be ratified by the people. A process which is still missing in the most western "democracies".
Defiant Assad outlines new Syria peace initiative, constitution | Fox News

 

[Katzndogz]

Isn't it time for obama to issue his zillionith claim that the Assad regime is in its last hours?

 

[waltky]

Assad rejects idea of stepping down - vows to fight on against 'jihadiland'...

Defiant Assad pledges to continue fighting
Jan 6,`13 -- A defiant Syrian President Bashar Assad rallied a chanting and cheering crowd Sunday to fight the uprising against his authoritarian rule, dismissing any chance of dialogue with "murderous criminals" that he blames for nearly two years of violence that has left 60,000 dead.

In his first public speech in six months, Assad laid out terms for a peace plan that keeps himself in power, ignoring international demands to step down and pledging to continue the battle "as long as there is one terrorist left" in Syria. "What we started will not stop," he said, standing at a lectern on stage at the regal Opera House in central Damascus - a sign by the besieged leader that he sees no need to hide or compromise even with the violent civil war closing in on his seat of power in the capital. The theater was packed with his supporters who interrupted the speech with applause, cheers and occasional fist-waving chants, including "God, Bashar and Syria!" The overtures that Assad offered - a national reconciliation conference, elections and a new constitution - were reminiscent of symbolic changes and concessions offered previously in the uprising that began in March 2011.

Those were rejected at the time as too little, too late. The government last year adopted a constitution that theoretically allows political parties to compete with Assad's ruling Baath Party. It carried out parliamentary elections that were boycotted by his opponents. Assad demanded that regional and Western countries must stop funding and arming the rebels trying to overthrow him. "We never rejected a political solution ... but with whom should we talk? With those who have an extremist ideology, who only understand the language of terrorism? "Or should we with negotiate puppets whom the West brought?" he asked. "We negotiate with the master, not with the slave," he answered.

As in previous speeches and interviews, he clung to the view that the crisis was a foreign-backed plot and not an uprising against him and his family's decades-long rule. "Is this a revolution and are these revolutionaries? By God, I say they are a bunch of criminals," he said. He stressed the presence of religious extremists among those fighting in Syria, calling them "terrorists who carry the ideology of al-Qaida" and "servants who know nothing but the language of slaughter." He said the fighters sought to transform the country into a "jihad land."

Although he put up a defiant front, Assad laid out the grim reality of the violence, and he spoke in front of a collage of photos of what appeared to be Syrians killed in the fighting. "We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word," Assad said, "a war that targets Syria using a handful of Syrians and many foreigners. It is a war to defend the nation." He said Syria will take advice but not dictates from anyone - a reference to outside powers calling on him to step down.

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[Sunni Man]

Assad is on the ropes and he knows it.

It's just a matter of time until he is either deposed and exiled or killed.

The freedom fighters are getting stronger with each passing day.

While the Assad regime is growing weaker by the hour.

 

[Bleipriester]

Assad is on the ropes and he knows it.

It's just a matter of time until he is either deposed and exiled or killed.

The freedom fighters are getting stronger with each passing day.

While the Assad regime is growing weaker by the hour.

So, you mean those "Freedom Fighters", who slaughter Alevits and Christians and burn their churches?

 

[Sunni Man]

I assume you have a Link you can post concerning the anti-Assad "Freedom fighters" allegedly burning churches??

 

[Bleipriester]

I assume you have a Link you can post concerning the anti-Assad "Freedom fighters" allegedly burning churches??

"The Syrian Orthodox Church, which represents over half of Syrian Christians, issued a statement saying revolutionary fighters had expelled some 50,000 Christians from the embattled city of Homs. That figure is estimated to account for about 90 percent of the Christian community there. Hundreds more — including women and children — were slaughtered, according to charitable organizations operating in the area."
Obama-backed Syrian Rebels

Syrian Rebels Behead Christian Man and Feed His Body to Dogs
Syria rebels 'beheaded a Christian and fed him to the dogs' as fears grow over Islamist atrocities | Mail Online


Syrian rebels seek strict form of Sharia
Syrian rebels seek strict form of Sharia - The National


Syrian Rebels Pledge Allegiance to Al-Qaeda Group That Killed U.S. Troops
Syrian Rebels Pledge Allegiance to Al-Qaeda Group That Killed U.S. Troops | Global Research


The US State Department designated Syria's Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the militias fighting Bashar al-Assad, a foreign terrorist organization.
US designates Syria's Jabhat al-Nusra front a 'terrorist' group at lightning speed - Yahoo! News

The Obama administration is declaring a key Syrian rebel group - known as Jabhat al-Nusra, a terrorist organization with ties to al Qaeda in Iraq.
U.S. calls Syrian rebel group terrorists: "It will complicate rebel efforts," says Fareed Zakaria – Erin Burnett OutFront - - CNN.com Blogs

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFK_iW4PvdY]Syria - FSA destroyed an Armenian church and burned the Holy Bible in Aleppo - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Sunni Man]

The Christian community is supporting the Assad government.

So of course they will be considered the enemy and dealt with by the freedom fighters.

War isn't pretty.............

Syria's Christians stand by Assad - World Watch - CBS News

 

[Bleipriester]

The Christian community is supporting the Assad government.

So of course they will be considered the enemy and dealt with by the freedom fighters.

War isn't pretty.............

Syria's Christians stand by Assad - World Watch - CBS News

So also children are enemies? And churches?
Those aren´t freedom fighters and you are in support of evil murderers resp Al Quaida. It is very clear that this murderers will be crushed by the government forces, otherwise "we" would not have tried to push Turkey into this war.

 

[Sunni Man]

I side with the Syrian people who are trying to gain their freedom from the brutal Assad government.

Any true red blooded American citizen should be solidly behind these oppressed people.

It's a time honored American tradition.........

 

[Bleipriester]

I side with the Syrian people who are trying to gain their freedom from the brutal Assad government.

Any true red blooded American citizen should be solidly behind these oppressed people.

It's a time honored American tradition.........

You appear to be just as unscrupulous as those terrorists in Syria. Those terrorists are mostly not even Syrians. But when the reports of the the true nature of those "freedom fighters" can not activate sanity in your brain, how could my posts? So hail your terrorists and and you better go there, the Syrian people also has a bullet for you

Public opinion survey: Syrians reject violence and outside intervention. « Human rights investigations

 

[waltky]

al-Qaeda active in Syria...

Analysis: Study shows rise of al Qaeda affiliate in Syria
January 8th, 2013 - A jihadist group with links to al Qaeda has become the most effective of the different factions fighting the in regime, according to a new analysis, and now has some 5,000 fighters.

The group is Jabhat al-Nusra, which was designated an al Qaeda affiliate by the United States government last month. It is led by veterans of the Iraqi insurgency "and has shown itself to be the principal force against Assad and the Shabiha," according to the study. CNN obtained an advance copy of the analysis, set to be released Tuesday by the Quilliam Foundation, a counterterrorism policy institute based in London. "The civil war in Syria is a gift from the sky for al-Nusra; they are coasting off its energy," the lead author of the report, Noman Benotman, told CNN.

Benotman, a former prominent Libyan Jihadist who was personally acquainted with al Qaeda's top leaders including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, consulted Western and regional intelligence officials as well as jihadists in Syria, including "al-Nusra sources." And at a time of optimism that the global threat from al Qaeda terrorism has crested, the study will fuel anxiety in Western capitals that a powerful al Qaeda affiliate may become entrenched in the heart of the Arab world, creating deep challenges in any post- al-Assad Syria, and a new threat to international security.

Founding meetings

Al-Nusra, according to the report, is a Syrian offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq, aka AQI, the terror outfit founded by the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. AQI was rebranded the "Islamic State of Iraq" after al-Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. missile strike in 2006. Since the pull-out of U.S. troops from Iraq, ISI has regained strength, feeding off the continued political and sectarian turbulence in Iraq. When designating al-Nusra a terrorist group in December, the U.S State Department cast the group as "an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes." "AQI emir Abu Du'a is in control of both AQI and al-Nusra. Du'a also issues strategic guidance to al-Nusra's emir, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, and tasked him to begin operations in Syria," the State Department said.

Benotman says that while Abu Du'a still has significant influence over al-Nusra, the key player in the group is al-Jawlani, a veteran Syrian jihadist who he says appears to have almost certainly been a former close associate of al-Zarqawi. Al-Jawlani's "leadership is uncontested because of his experience in Iraq," the Quilliam Foundation report found. According to Benotman, al-Jawlani has taken painstaking measures not to reveal his real identity - including wearing a mask to meetings with some of al-Nusra's senior operatives. He was also masked when al-Nusra released a video in January 2012 to announce its formation.

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[Sunni Man]

You appear to be just as unscrupulous as those terrorists in Syria. Those terrorists are mostly not even Syrians. ]

There are no terrorists in Syria.

Just patriot sunni muslim people fighting to free themselves from tyranny.

Much like the Minute Men during the American Revolution..........

 

[JustTheFacts]

I side with the Syrian people who are trying to gain their freedom from the brutal Assad government.

Any true red blooded American citizen should be solidly behind these oppressed people.

It's a time honored American tradition.........

Meh, as a true blooded American I wish we'd just let the world take care of its own for awhile. If Syrians want to be led by AQ , that's their choice, but don't come running to us for any type of aid or assistance.

 

[Bleipriester]

You appear to be just as unscrupulous as those terrorists in Syria. Those terrorists are mostly not even Syrians. ]

There are no terrorists in Syria.

Just patriot sunni muslim people fighting to free themselves from tyranny.

Much like the Minute Men during the American Revolution..........

What a Bullshit! They are Muslim extremists, who want the sharia law, which has nothing to do with freedom. The Baath party in Syria makes it possible to be a Christian in Syria. Your terrorists don´t want Christians. They want a backwardly system basing on oppression and violence.

 

[Sunni Man]

The Baath party in Syria makes it possible to be a Christian in Syria.

Saddam was the head of the Baath Party in Iraq and protected Christians.

Did you support him also??

 

[Bleipriester]

The Baath party in Syria makes it possible to be a Christian in Syria.

Saddam was the head of the Baath Party in Iraq and protected Christians.

Did you support him also??

Yes. After he was used to fight a proxy war against Iran, he did good.

 

[Katzndogz]

The mistake is in imagining that muslims are going to be on any side other than their own. Other than that they can temporarily support anything.

 

[Sunni Man]

The Baath party in Syria makes it possible to be a Christian in Syria.

Saddam was the head of the Baath Party in Iraq and protected Christians.

Did you support him also??

Yes. After he was used to fight a proxy war against Iran, he did good.

What about when he invaded Kuwait?

Did you still support him??

 

[Bleipriester]

]What about when he invaded Kuwait?

Did you still support him??

The Kuwait-Iraq thing does not change a thing.