A disturbing trend relative to the Bush administration’s decisions after the 9/11 attacks continues as another representative from that administration is calling for the removal of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad so that Muslim Brotherhood rebels can fill the void, a position fervently shared by Saudi Arabia. L. Paul Bremer, who was tasked with leading the effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, also comes painfully close to advocating that 400,000 – 500,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Syria is a good idea.

Bremer and Bush: Legacy at the expense of Christians?

Via the Daily Caller:

Bremer believes that United States did not have enough troops in Iraq to secure the country. A report conducted by the nonpartisan Rand Corporation, which studied post-conflict situations, convinced Bremer that Iraq needed around 480,000 troops stationed there, more than double the U.S. presence at its highest point. If the same metrics were applied to post-Assad Syria, that would require 400,000 to 500,000 troops, said Bremer. {emphasis ours}

Approximately one year after Bremer left Iraq, that country’s constitution was drafted. It is the contents of that constitution that demonstrate just how wrong Bremer is:

Article (2): 1st – Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation:
(a) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam. – The Case FOR Islamophobia, p. 223

Winning in Iraq wasn’t about troops; it was about enemy identification. Enshrining sharia law into the constitution of a country after overthrowing a secular dictator has long been proven to be a disaster. Bremer, however, chooses not to look at the elephant in the room.

Bremer just doesn’t get it, for whatever reason. Last month, he joined other Bush administration colleagues Karl Rove, Dan Senor, Douglas Feith, and others in calls to launch military strikes against Syria. Inexplicably, Bush holdovers continue to believe in the disastrous Bush doctrine. In doing so, these individuals ignore an unassailable fact; those who have been most impacted by the Bush doctrine have been Christians. The removal of Assad will guarantee more Christian persecution. We know a little bit about the increasingly gargantuan numbers of these Christians. It’d sure be nice to see the likes of Bremer focus on this problem instead of on helping the Muslim Brotherhood.

The September 11, 2001 attacks represented a flash point in world history. So too would the response, though its effects not as sudden. Just ten days after 9/11, then President George W. Bush presided over a joint session of Congress, a Congress that was truly united. The moment represented a tremendous opportunity to set America on either the right course or on a path to division, debt, and increased terrorism.

In one of the more memorable moments from his speech, Bush said this:

If one turns an honest eye to history, it is obvious that those words eventually rang hollow. If there was a country who had been “with the terrorists”, it had been Saudi Arabia. 15 of the 19 hijackers were from there and the Royal family had a long history of funding terrorist movements and entities; Rabita Trust and the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA) are two examples.

In a piece for Global Research, Paul Schreyer writes about a significant political rift between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia in the weeks prior to 9/11 as well as connections between the hijackers and the Royal family:

…it is true that several Saudis, partly with connections to their government, had close contacts with the alleged hijackers. Indeed there is even evidence for an organized Saudi support network in the United States before 9/11. Furthermore it´s true that the official investigations and the U.S. government tried hard to avoid or even censor this aspect. {emphasis ours}

As we have written previously, when one looks at all the groups with connections to both terrorism and the Saudi Royal family and that were let off the hook by the Bush administration, the conclusion that justice was not done after 9/11 is all but foregone. The Saudis had been “with the terrorists” for some time. In a way not all that dissimilar from how Feisal Abdul Rauf told Soledan O’Brien that if the Ground Zero mosque wasn’t built, there could be consequences from “radicals”, the Saudis were playing the Middle Eastern version of “good cop, bad cop” with the Bush administration.

Support for the removal of Assad is support for the Saudis. Bremer even wants people to believe their lying eyes when it comes to the makeup of the Syrian rebels:

Bremer disagrees with those who say that the U.S. shouldn’t trust the Syrian rebels. He says that “sources from the inside” have told him that a majority of the rebels – roughly 75 to 80 percent – is reliable.

Part of Bremer’s legacy in Iraq is a Christian diaspora. The hard truth is that Christians were safer under Saddam Hussein than they ever were after his removal. The same can be said for Assad. In fact, just look at the Christian village of Maaloula, a place in Syria where the inhabitants speak Aramaic. The village was raided by Muslim rebels who terrorized the villagers, murdering some and causing others to flee.

Via the Washington Times:

A woman named Rasha told AFP that rebel fighters had slain her fiance, Atef, after he refused to convert to Islam.

“I rang [Atef’s] mobile phone and one of them answered,” she said.

“Good morning, Rash rush,” the voice said, using her nickname. “We are from the Free Syrian Army. Do you know your fiance was a member of the shabiha (pro-regime militia) who was carrying weapons, and we have slit his throat.”

The man told Rasha her fiance had been given the choice to convert to Islam or die.

“Jesus didn’t come to save him,” he taunted. {emphasis ours}

It makes no difference how much the likes of Bremer, Senor, Rove, Feith, or any other Bush doctrine proponent misrepresents who the rebels are; they are all holding on to a fatally flawed doctrine that continues to come unravel.

We’re left only to speculate why. The answer very well may be that each man cares more about their old boss’s legacy than about the Christians who are being sacrificed for it.