Syria – Sense and Compassion

The Russian air strikes in Syria have set fur flying in Westminster.  But despite the strutting ministers, some people are speaking with sense and compassion, among them former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey and Crispin Blunt, a little-known MP who chairs one of the most influential select committees in the House of Commons.

Firstly, on Sunday 4th of October 2015, former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey was reported saying that the United Kingdom has a responsibility to Syrian Christians.

Lord Carey said: “Time is running out for Christians in the region. Successive UK governments have failed to do enough to support minority communities in the Middle East and now sadly, many Christians have concluded they have no future in a region where they have lived for nearly two thousand years.”

He did not condemn Russia’s air strikes, but our Defence Secretary did.  Michael Fallon MP said Mr Putin was targeting the ‘Free Syrian Army’ and claimed: “He’s shoring up Assad and perpetuating the suffering.”

But also over the weekend, the Chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee said that Britain and the US were getting “in the way” of solving the Syrian civil war by calling for Assad to step down.

Mr Crispin Blunt MP said it was not “helpful” for David Cameron to compare Assad’s regime with the actions of ISIS terrorists. And he said the West was “in no position to complain” about Russian airstrikes in Syria.

We reported last month that Mr Blunt’s committee heard from experts on Syria, among them learned professors and journalists who agreed that Mr Fallon’s ‘Free Syrian Army’ is a busted flush and that the the Syrian Opposition is now totally dominated by Islamic State and Al Qaeda offshoots like the Al Nusra Front.

Much as one might dislike Bashar Al-Assad, said one expert, if he goes Syria implodes. There is no other guarantor of stability. It’s Assad or the Deluge, said another.

So when Mr Fallon complains that the Russians are shoring up Assad, I respond on the video, ‘You mean, they are preventing Syria from becoming a failed state like Libya is after our intervention? How inconsiderate of them.’

Our Government, including the previous gung-ho foreign secretary William, now Lord, Hague, bear much of the responsibility for the mass displacement of people by encouraging, supplying, training, even arming, Syrian rebel groups. It is we who have perpetuated the suffering, not Assad.

The sadness is, we can’t trust either our government or that of the US to tell us the truth.

The word of God tells us to support Christian brothers and sisters and to pray for our leaders. So I’m praying to hear from Mr Cameron that he is prepared to prioritise asylum to Syrian Christians, and that he will work humbly with Syria and its allies to defeat Islamic State and bring stability to Syria – and Iraq – so that the Christians, and the other minorities, can return to areas they and their ancestors have lived in, as Dr Carey reminded us, for two thousand years.

Please take a look at the video above and see if it is the prophetic voice I am praying it will be:

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