As President Obama ponders air strikes on Syria over President Assad's head, an American who has lived there for decades reports on the true situation on the ground, Senator McCain's illusions - or propaganda - notwithstanding

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The following article is from a long-time resident of Syria:

The USA has always supported the Free Syrian Army as the armed wing of Syrian National Coalition, as the 'freedom fighters' who want immediate regime change in Syria, as does USA.

John McCain personally entered Syria illegally in May 2013 to meet with the Free Syrian Army. Then he lobbied Congress to send weapons to the FSA, which they did, and those weapons were immediately turned over to Al Qaeda and Jibhat al Nusra, both listed as terrorists groups by Washington.[tag]

When I learned about this I was happy, thinking that the American Congress, having learned a painful and expensive lesson would be furious and see that it didn't happen again. But they didn't.

The US keeps referring to the FSA as 'moderate rebels'. But they are not moderates! It was they who massacred 88 Christians in Kassab on March 21, 2014, thirteen of which were beheaded.

The massacred 220 unarmed civilians in August 2013 in Ballouta, Syria in Latakia province. They cut open the stomach of a pregnant women and hung the fetus in a tree. I made sandwiches for the survivors.

That same night, the FSA kidnapped several women and100 children and held them in Selma for 9 months while torturing them and killing some. They released 44 after 9 months, but are still holding the remaining survivors. They gouged out the eyes of one boy and shot another in the head, just for fun.

Recently, ISIS broke into the news, and the world has been focused on Iraq and the massacres there. However, while everyone was looking toward Iraq, the entire Free Syrian Army pledged allegiance to ISIS, which is now called IS.

The American people and the US government must accept that there is no longer any group called Free Syrian Army. They have chosen to be called Islamic State, IS. John McCain's favorite Syrian rebels, formerly called the FSA, darlings of Senator Republican of Arizona, no longer exist. If Sen. McCain wants to see them again, he will have to meet with their leader, the Caliph Baghdadi. Is Washington, DC prepared to host the Caliph at the White House? How will the American taxpayer react to that spectacle?

On September 10, 2014 I watched Sen. John McCain on TV publically urging the American government to send more weapons to the moderate rebels. There are no moderate rebels in Syria. What do we have to do to make Sen. McCain, and President Obama understand the facts on the ground inside Syria today? They are living in a dream world of regime change wish-lists, but that won't help in reality. There are no moderates in any rebel fighting group inside Syria today. The various groups are fighting with one hand, holding the black flag of Islam in the other, and they in a hurry to finish off Syria and consolidate it with Iraq, the next step being Europe then the US. This is not about regime change in Syria. This is about Armageddon and the end of civilization.

I thought this fiasco would, and especially after the June 3 election day that returned Assad as president with an overwhelming majority, I really thought things would get better. But now we are on the brink of total destruction. Soon and Syria will only exist in history books and travel guides.

ISIS could potentially overrun us here and there is no way out.

Turkey is chock full of IS, and Northern Lebanon (Tripoli) is 100% IS, flying the Black flag on Main street. Souvenir shops across Turkey are selling Black Flag T-shirts, coffee cups and key chains. The only place we could run is into the Sea, and start swimming for Cyprus. I have lived in the nicest place to raise my children to adulthood, but this is all behind me now.

Authors Website: http://www.otherjonesii.blogspot.com

Authors Bio:

Born in Phila, I spent most of my adolescent and adult years in
Europe, resulting over time in several unique books, my latest being Russia's Americans.

CUBA: Diary of a
Revolution, Inside the Cuban Revolution with Fidel, Raul, Che, and Celia
Sanchez

Lunch with Fellini,
Dinner with Fidel: An Illustrated Personal Journey from the Cold War to the
Arab Spring

America Revealed to a
Honey-Colored World

A Taoist Politics: The
Case For Sacredness

I began my journalistic career at the French News Agency in Rome,
spent two years in Cuba finding out whether the Barbados were Communists before
they made the revolution ('Cuba 1964: When the Revolution was Young'). After
spending half a decade in Eastern Europe, and a decade in the U.S., studying
Global Survival and writing speeches in the Carter State Department, I wrote
the only book that foresaw the fall of the Berlin Wall AND the dissolution of
the Soviet Union ("Une autre Europe, un autre Monde'). My memoir, 'Lunch
with Fellini, Dinner with Fidel', tells it all. 'A Taoist Politics: The Case
for Sacredness', which examines the similarities between ancient wisdom and
modern science and what this implies for political activism; and 'America Revealed
to a Honey-Colored World" is a pamphlet about how the U.S. came down from
the City on a Hill'.