Committing to Security

"We remain deeply concerned about the potential loss of control over chemical weapons stockpiles, missiles, (portable air defence systems) and other conventional weapons, which could pose a wider global and regional threat.  But we are not only concerned, we are taking concrete action to prepare for the worst."
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, Marrakesh, Morocco

 There is certainly reason for concern.  Those chemical weapons stocks pose a potential larger threat should they fall into the hands of Hamas or Hezbollah, and it is possible that just might happen.  Thanks to an al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group, Jabhat al-Nusra just named a terrorist group by the U.S.  That terror group represents the front-line of the rebel troops. 

And on December 12 they were in striking distance of the country's largest chemical weapons store at Al Safira, near Aleppo.

It is as yet unknown whether they managed to smash into the base to seize control of the chemical stocks.  But that possibility along with the fear that they would take possession of Scud D planes at the base armed with chemical warheads was what spurred the regime's military to fire Scud missiles at the insurgents. 

It's difficult to determine which side is the most atrociously criminal in their gross violence toward one another.

But even the casual observer, while deploring the Syrian regime's stockpiling of deadly chemicals for some future use, can apprehend the horror of those same stockpiles falling into the ready hands of bellicose and strike-ready Islamist terror groups. 

The day those missiles were fired from Damascus into northern Syria was the very day that information was released that over one hundred countries including the United States saw fit to recognize a new Syrian opposition coalition. That would be the Syrian National Coalition, recognized as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people. 

Whose head, Mouaz al-Khatib, took issue - along with the 29 disparate groups that make up the Syrian National Coalition - with the blacklisting and terror appellation of Jabhat al-Nusra.  That does represent a bit of a moral dilemma.  Help remove President Bashar al-Assad and usher in a new era in Syria where Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, will dominate to create an Islamist society.

Canada stood alone in declining to join that one-hundred-plus group recognizing the new Syrian National Coalition.  Choosing not to go along with the U.S., Europe and countless other allies.  This is called having the courage of one's conviction writ large.  Canada, explained Foreign Minister John Baird, has two outstanding issues before recognition is given the opposition.  It is not yet convinced that those issues will be resolved.

Canada would prefer that all groups such as Kurds, Christians, Sunni and Shiite Muslims alike have an assured equal place in Syria's future.  Kurds have never been granted citizenship in Syria.  The reigning Muslim Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiism, and the opposition to the government is Sunni.  Syria's Christian population fear that when Islamism prevails in Syria their cause for living in peace and security will be lost. 

The Sunni-led rebels have demonstrated their culpability in human rights abuses by summarily executing Shia military members.  While the Islamists among them have demonstrated their proficiency in exploding improvised devices and suicide belts among crowded civilian enclaves.
Canada, said Mr. Baird, would dearly like to see the rebels weed out the radical jihadists among their ranks, and that indeed is a fond wish.

"Canada is concerned by the rise in terrorist activity inside Syria and signs of growing sectarianism fuelled by those who wish to sow disunity rather than unity and who seek exclusivity rather than inclusivity", said Mr. Baird.

Dream on.