Message from a Christian of Syrian Ancestry to the Americans
by Abu Daoud (8/2013)
Today I was running errands and I happened by my local
pharmacy to pick up some stuff for the family. The man there is a Greek
Catholic Christian of Syrian ancestry and he told me
about how his ancestors had migrated from Syria to where I am, back in the days
of Ottoman Empire.
We got to talking and, as often happens with this sort of
thing, he became rather impassioned and started to tell me his thoughts in
detail about what was going on in Syria. He told me, You are American, you
voted for this guy (President Obama)!
I promised him I would relay his message to people in the USA as best I
could. So here I am, trying to do that. I don’t necessarily agree with
everything he says, of course. But I did think that people in the USA (and
elsewhere, too) would be interested to hear the unvarnished thoughts of an Arab
Christian whose ancestral home is Syria, in Wadi al-Nasara (it’s on Wikipedia).
His main source of frustration was that, in his mind, the
Obama administration was actively funding the genocide of Middle Eastern
Christians. He felt that the USA and the UK were arming terrorists (Jabhat al
Nusra, which is a branch of the Syrian rebels, and is affiliated with Al Qaeda)
who were killing Christians. He said that these people were beasts and
monsters, and that he hoped that Al Assad would kill them all. Not just beat
them or chase them out. But kill them. He believes that the Obama
administration is lying then they say that they think they are supporting
Syrians fighting against Al Assad, because in fact they know that these people
are foreigners (from Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Gulf, the USA, Europe) and not
Syrians. He mentioned the famous video clip of one such fighter cutting open a
man’s chest and then taking out his heart and eating it, which, yes, really
exists. He said, when I’m hunting and I see a wounded animal, I kill it. I
don’t feel good about it, but I do. The implication is that these Al Qaeda
people are wounded beyond recovery—their humanity irrevocably damaged.
He says that before the revolution he didn’t much like Al Assad,
but now he likes him. This is because Syrian regime left the people alone, and
didn’t enforce religion on anyone.
I explain that the Obama administration says they only want
to support the liberal, secular democratic rebels, not the terrorists who are
bent on destroying Christianity in Syria (though they are working together).
The logic behind this explanation seems so entirely incoherent to him that he concludes
it is a lie: the Obama administration (and John McCain as well, it appears) is
merely saying this to cover their tracks. The logistics of giving weapons to
one portion of an army while keeping them from another portion of the same army
(and a more powerful and larger portion, at that) is ridiculous, and no one
would ever think that is a realistic goal, he said.
Based on this evidence—the Obama administration’s clear and
unequivocal support (in his mind) for a branch of Al Qaeda bent on eliminating
Christianity from the region, he concludes that Obama must be a Muslim—there is
no other logical way of explaining it all. He concludes that he hates Obama. He
says his wife’s parents are in Canada and he could have easily emigrated, but
he loves this land and will not leave. He wants American Christians to know
about his point of view.
I told him I would tell you, and I have. I will
leave the
evaluation of his opinions to you. As for me, he told me to pass this
on, so please link to this or copy and paste. The material is not my
own.
--Abu Daoud
