{"id":71345,"date":"2014-02-26T11:30:27","date_gmt":"2014-02-26T07:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/?p=71345"},"modified":"2014-02-26T11:30:27","modified_gmt":"2014-02-26T07:30:27","slug":"senator-mccain-offends-visiting-syrian-church-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/en\/?p=71345","title":{"rendered":"Senator McCain Offends Visiting Syrian Church Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\u0540\u0561\u0580\u0578\u0582\u0569<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Harut Sassounian<\/p>\n

Publisher, The California Courier<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sen. John McCain is a prime example of how U.S. officials so often have misjudged overseas crises, believing that the best way to bring democracy to a country is through massive US bombing and invasion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Arizona Senator has been highly critical of Pres. Obama\u2019s \u2018arm the rebels strategy,\u2019 urging a more direct US military intervention in Syria. Sen. McCain does not seem to understand that toppling Pres.\u00a0Bashar\u00a0Al-Assad would result in more deaths and destruction, and turn Syria into a major hub of international terrorism. Over 30,000 Islamic Jihadists from dozens of countries currently are fighting the Syrian government and each another — surely, not to bring democracy to Syria!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In fact, the former Republican presidential candidate is so obsessed with beating the drums of war that reportedly he behaved in an ill-tempered and discourteous manner with a group of high-ranking Christian Syrian leaders, just because they were not advocating violent regime change. The church delegation had come to Washington last month seeking a peaceful resolution to the Syrian conflict and protection for Christians numbering around two million — 10% of the country\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The visiting Church leaders included Bishop\u00a0Armash\u00a0Nalbandian, Primate of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Damascus, and representatives of the Presbyterian, Evangelical, Syrian Orthodox, and Greek Orthodox churches of Syria. The delegation met with members of Congress, State Department officials, U.S. NGO\u2019s, academics, religious leaders, and members of the media.<\/p>\n

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The Syrian clergymen were gratified with their Washington visit, except for their unpleasant encounter with Sen. McCain, as described by Judicial Watch:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHell-bent on arming opposition forces in Syria — despite strong evidence that they\u2019re run by Islamic terrorists — John McCain displayed behavior unbecoming of a United States Senator during a recent meeting with Syrian Christian leaders touring Capitol Hill.\u2026 Senator McCain, an Arizona Republican, evidently\u00a0doesn\u2019t want to hear negative stories about the rebels he\u2019s working to arm. So he stormed out of a closed-door meeting with the Syrian clergy officials last week\u2026. McCain marched into the committee room yelling, according to a high-level source that attended the meeting, and quickly stormed out. \u2018He was incredibly rude,\u2019 the source told Judicial Watch\u2026. Following the shameful tantrum, McCain reentered the room and sat briefly, but refused to make eye contact with the participants, instead ignoring them by looking down at what appeared to be random papers.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

During their meetings in Washington, the Syrian Christian leaders informed U.S. officials about the unfolding massive human tragedy in their country and the precarious situation of Christian communities;\u00a0kidnapping of Christian Bishops, priests, nuns, and parishioners;\u00a0attacks on Christian villages; desecration of churches and holy sites; and\u00a0violations of religious freedom by armed\u00a0Islamists.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Given the escalating bloodshed in Syria, the Church leaders asked the United States to:<\/p>\n

— End all military and financial aid to armed\u00a0rebels;<\/p>\n

— Demand from U.S allies — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey — not to support the terrorists;<\/p>\n

— Ask that all sides of the conflict stop the violence, including bombings and terrorism;<\/p>\n

— Resolve the conflict through\u00a0dialogue, not military action;<\/p>\n

— Ensure the Syrian people\u2019s security;<\/p>\n

— Protect the Christian minorities;<\/p>\n

— Protect the churches and mosques;<\/p>\n

— Protect religious, historical, and cultural monuments;<\/p>\n

— Assist in the distribution of humanitarian aid in Syria.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The website of the Syrian Armenian Committee for Urgent Relief and Rehabilitation (SACURR) —\u00a0www.syriashdab.com<\/a>\u00a0— reported that as of Sept. 30, 2013, the war caused serious harm to the Armenian community: 64 civilians murdered, 172 injured, 110 kidnapped, and 15 soldiers killed in action. Moreover, various Armenian institutions were damaged: seven Apostolic and three Catholic churches; 13 schools; and 10 community centers.\u00a0 Close to half of 65,000 Syrian-Armenians has fled to Armenia, Lebanon and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SACURR, composed of nine major Armenian social, religious and political organizations in Syria, reported that by the end of September it had received $1.7 million from overseas Armenian entities. Even though this is a small fraction of the amount needed, SACURR has been able to provide food, shelter, security, and medical and educational assistance to Syrian Armenians, including $500,000 in tuition aid to 6,436 students in 38 schools.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sen. McCain and other foolhardy U.S. officials would do well to heed the wise counsel of the visiting Syrian Christian leaders. Dispatching more weapons to Syria would only exacerbate the fighting, resulting in endless bloodshed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u0531\u0576\u056f\u0561\u056d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By Harut Sassounian Publisher, The California Courier   Sen. John McCain is a prime…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[210,224,143,137],"tags":[416,7528,7529],"class_list":["post-71345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","category-news","category-usa","category-world","tag-harut-sassounian","tag-senator-mccain","tag-syrian-church-leaders","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}