Assad swears in a new defense minister.
1 Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
3 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts.
4 And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean...
9 In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation....
12 Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!
13 The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.
-- Isaiah 17
Posted by gerardvanderleun at July 22, 2012 8:51 AM
I am not a Bible scholar, can anyone explain all the other references in that passage?
Posted by: Daedalus Mugged at July 22, 2012 12:32 PMQuote of the day: George McGovern
"…This Chamber reeks of blood. Every Senator here is partly responsible for that human wreckage at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval and all across our land-young men without legs, or arms, or genitals, or faces, or hopes. There are not very many of these blasted and broken boys who think this war is a glorious venture…"
Forty two fucking years ago and the wars have never ceased.
Forty two ... years ago and the wars have never ceased.
When have they ever ceased, Bill? Even when we didn't get involved in them, war has always been part of the human condition. Peace has been the anomaly. While we were otherwise occupied in Vietnam, the Congo went up in flames, Israel and its Arab neighbors fought the Six-Day War, Nigeria crushed and starved its breakaway province of Biafra, and a combined British-Malaysian army fought a protracted guerrilla war in Borneo against Indonesia that only ended when Sukarno was deposed. These are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head; I'm sure there are others.
The roots of Syria's agony were planted when the French as the colonial mandate power after WW1 employed the Alawites in its security forces. Because they had been oppressed by the Sunnis for hundreds of years, the French could rely on them to enforce its rules against the Sunni-majority population. Subtract the French, add an ambitious, ruthless, and skillful man like Hafez al-Assad, and you end up with the slow-motion train wreck that Syria has become under Bashar. Bashar is done, although he may not know it yet. What follows him may or may not be any better.
Posted by: waltj at July 22, 2012 9:30 PMSilly me, I omitted that India and Pakistan went to war twice during the time we were involved in Vietnam, in 1965 and 1971. The second war led to the creation of Bangladesh, the flood plain occasionally mistaken for a country.
Posted by: waltj at July 23, 2012 11:41 AM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.
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