No Good News In Syria

President Bashar Al Assad’s regime in Syria seems to be gradually losing his bloody fight for survival. Key allies like Russia are becoming more diffident public in their support of Bashar. China, the other major source of Bashar’s support, is generally known for unsentimental pragmatism in international affairs.

The world should pause a bit before joining in the jubilation over the inevitable and see the future for what it is. While the nation seems to be heading toward fragmentation into satrapies, a murky Islamist group Al Nusra has captured the oil-rich town of Al Shahada, near the city of Hasaka. About 30 Al Nusra fighters, 100 Syrian soldiers and dozens of civilians were killed as a result of infighting that finally culminated in Al Shahada’s capture by Islamists, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Optimists cite the Syrian National Council, containing pro-western moderates, as the country’s saviors. Yet the rebel units are also packed with an assortment of Islamists. This means that even if Assad’s regime were to collapse immediately, Syria would continue in a spiral of instability as these rival groups scramble for space. Regional alliances could then change, providing further uncertainty.

To be sure, the international community will be around as the ultimate arbiter. But, true to its nature, the world picks and chooses where it wants to act. In Syria, in any case, the leading members of the international community have chosen to remain passive, largely on account of their ambivalence. The onus is thus on the regional governments. For quite some time, they have chosen sides in the conflict in keeping with their own interests. They may now have to unite to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control.

Rush Limbaugh On Al Jazeera, Al Gore, MSM and LIPs

Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the titular head of the GOP, says he watches Al Jazeera. Secretary of State Hillary and President Barack Obama have both said they watch Al Jazeera and they praised it. They have said that it is great. Hillary said Al Jazeera is the model of news reporting, and that is exactly what Al Jazeera wants people to think. To understand Al Jazeera, you have to understand the difference between ‘Islamist’ and ‘Islamist’ terrorist. An Islamist is not ‘a Muslim.’ You must understand this. Terms are specific and they have meaning.
Words mean things. An Islamist is any Muslim person or institution that wants to impose Sharia law. An Islamist terrorist wants to do it via terrorism. An Islamist terrorist will accomplish the objective, or seek to, by pursuing radical objectives through terrorism. Now, Al Jazeera is not Islamist terrorist, but they are openly Islamist. They are not who they are not. They are not an island in the world of Islam that is not Islamist.
They are who they are.
Now, you may not be comfortable hearing it, you might not want to hear it, but it is what it is. The most popular show on Al Jazeera is called Sharia and Life. It is hosted by a sheik, Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi. And he happens to be the top jurist in the Muslim Brotherhood, which is now running Egypt. The network, just like the Muslim Brotherhood, pretends to be opposed to terrorism. But they support Hamas; they support Hezbollah. They do it by rationalizing that these are just resistance and political organizations, not terrorist groups.
Now, I do not want anybody to think that I have just said that every Muslim is an Islamist. They are not. It is why I am making the point here. The difference here is between ‘Islamist’ and ‘Islamist terrorist.’ Islamists and Islamist terrorists have the same objective. They just go about it different ways. Al Jazeera would not get on one cable network if they were openly advocating terrorism to achieve their objectives. So they are doing it under the guise of news.
You cannot blame them!
If you’re part of the Muslim Brotherhood or if you are an oil sheik in the Middle East and you’re looking at ways to spread the word about what you believe in your heart of hearts, and you study the rest of the world and look at people who've succeeded, you would eventually find the American mainstream media. And in your study of how to effectively, peacefully -- inform, indoctrinate, propagandize, whatever -- get people to accept your worldview, you have to admit that studying the way the American mainstream media has done it is pretty effective.
The lowest-information people (LIP) in the United States determine who wins elections. That is made to order. "The lowest-information people" is not to say the stupidest. The lowest-information people are the least engaged, those who do not pay much attention. But when they do, you got them. There happen to be more of those than there are of us, folks. You and I being wonks. We live and breathe this stuff. The low-information crowd does not. The low-information crowd, in fact, needs electric cars to make noise so they do not get run over by them.
So if you are Al Jazeera, you study various places around the world that have been effective in spreading their word, and you would come across the mainstream media in the United States, and you would have to admire them. Look at what they are doing here. They got a guy elected president that nobody knew anything about. They got a guy reelected president by literally destroying the character, image, and reputation of his opponent: Mitt Romney.
The mainstream media, if you were an outsider studying this country, would have to be something you really admire. You would look at how they did it, and they have done it by ostensibly being in the news business. But they are not any longer. The mainstream media is not in the news business; they are part of the Democrat Party. But they are so good at it that as far as the low-information voter is concerned, they are still in the news business. They are objective. They are fair.
The low-information voter really believes Mitt Romney is a felon, really believes Mitt Romney was fine with a guy’s wife dying of cancer, that Mitt Romney really doesn’t like dogs. You might disagree with me here as, “Come on, Rush, they don't really believe that.” I am telling you that they did. I’m telling you that when the head of the Chicago teachers gets up and starts talking about the rich and how they took everything from everybody and how they're never going to give it up legislatively, we’re going to have take it back from them, they believe it. This is what we are going to have to admit.
So Al Jazeera is what it is. That is who Al Gore accepted money from, and that is who Al Gore is now going to be lobbying for. And I think among all the things I've mentioned, the fact that Al Jazeera exists because of oil, which Al Gore has gotten wealthy despising and making other people despise, I just find it fascinating that nobody is calling Gore a hypocrite, that nobody is questioning whether Gore now has any credibility at all. If oil is rotten to the core, why in the world would you help them?  Why would you enrich them? Why would you facilitate whatever it is they are trying to accomplish? Big Oil is bad whether they are making gasoline or whether they are doing news, I would think.

Courtesy: The Rush Limbaugh Show. January 8, 2013