Every time Cato the Elder (born 234 B.C.) spoke to the Roman Senate, whatever the subject, he ended each speech with, “And Carthage [on the coast of North Africa] must be defeated.” After many years, it was.

Likewise, Damascus, Syria is the oldest inhabited city in the world and will be destroyed as was predicted in Isaiah 17:1, “Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.” Is that prophesy about to take place before our eyes on television news?

Flavius Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, reveals that Damascus was founded by Uz, the son of Aram. He reports that Nicolaus of Damascus, in the fourth book of his History, says, “Abraham reigned at Damascus, being a foreigner, who came with an army out of the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chaldeans: but, after a long time, he got him up, and removed from that country also, with his people, and went into the land then called the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea.” That means Damascus was a thriving city by about 2000 B.C. since that was the approximate date of Abraham’s birth.

The almost dry Barada River (Cold River) runs through Damascus and is the same as the Abana River mentioned in relation to Captain Naaman as recorded in II Kings 5:12. In the 1980’s I did a driving tour from Jerusalem to Amman (Jordan) to Damascus to Beirut, Lebanon. I visited Damascus and spent time at the Abana River as well as the street called “Straight” mentioned in relation to the Apostle Paul. The street is two miles long and is now in a very poor area whereas in Paul’s day it was a magnificent thoroughfare lined with columns.

About 85% of Damascus’ citizens (about 2 million) are Sunni Muslims, and there are about 2,000 mosques in the city. The Grand Mosque of Damascus is one of the largest, oldest, and considered one of the holiest sites for Muslims. The site originally had been the Christian Cathedral of St. John and inside the mosque is the shrine of John the Baptist where tradition holds that the head of John is buried although other churches claim a head of the famous prophet and baptizer of Christ! One head was promoted as the head of John as a boy!

Some branches of “Christianity” place an emphasis upon relics that often slides into silliness. In 1881, The New York Times claimed that the monks of two rival French monasteries used to exhibit, in one, the skull of John the Baptist “when he was a boy,” the other his cranium “after he had become a man.” I have seen one of John’s skulls in a mosque in Damascus.

Will we see Damascus totally destroyed? What a tragedy to see this historical and biblical city in total ruins! Will the UN get involved and escalate the disturbance into a catastrophic event? We will soon know the answers.

As ruthless a dictator as his father was, President Bashar al-Assad should be called Bashar the Butcher. While all people of good will want to see him assume room temperature, it is not wise for us to take sides. Those rebels in Syria without a doubt are Muslim extremists. Let them fight their own battles. The choice between the two sides is not a choice between good and evil but between evil and much evil.

The U.S. does not have a horse in this race, but we do abhor the killing of innocent people. While Assad is a vicious dictator, he has permitted Christians to practice their faith and has kept relative peace. If he is deposed, Muslim fanatics will fill his chair. Most reasonable people prefer a sensitive, peaceful conservative but in the real world that is not going to happen. Assad is not a good guy but he is preferable to the alternative. He is a known entity and Syria has not been shelling Jews on the Golan Heights. A new Syrian strongman might break the treaty and the shelling could become a daily event as in the past.

The Syrian opposition is a mixture of fanatics, freedom lovers, and criminal opportunists. Incredibly, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for supporting them with “humanitarian aid.” We have seen this movie before. Non-thinkers praised the uprisings in Libya, Egypt, etc., and now we realize that we got much more than we wanted. Radical Muslims have been enabled and are now in control. Sharia law will be forced on the people in all Muslim-dominated nations.

Russia, China, and Iran are backing Syria’s dictator while Saudi Arabia is opposed to him and supports a new government in Syria, hoping that it will not be as friendly to Iran.

When former Saudi King Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud was on his deathbed, he warned his sons to “keep your eye on Syria” since anything good for Syria is considered bad for Saudi. While both Syria and Saudi Arabia are Muslim, the Saudis are of the fanatical Wahhabi sect plus it is the location of Mecca and Medina and the birthplace of Mohammed. There are no churches of any kind in Saudi Arabia and even other Muslim sects such as the Shiites are without mosques in most major areas! Syria is more secular than Saudi Arabia but Sunni Muslims are the majority religious group in both countries.

Fanatical, committed Muslims are dangerous, devious, and deceitful people and we are fools to waltz into the crossfire. The free world should permit these countries to work out their own differences, remove their own totalitarian leaders, and worship however they choose. The U.S. can cheer the good guys (better guys) but we don’t have the money, personnel, or authority to get involved.

Damascus will be destroyed and while that will be a major disaster, it is more preferable than Dallas. And don’t be deceived, if those on the streets of Damascus have their way, it will be Dallas.

Copyright 2013, Don Boys, Ph.D.

The U.S. Government should issue an ultimatum that not one more barrel of oil will be purchased from Saudi Arabia until they step out the 7th century into the 21st century. The royal family consists of prissy princes who shop for clothes in London and New York, sip wine and gorge themselves at famous restaurants in Paris, and romp on the beaches of the French Rivera while at home they pretend to be sincere Muslims and the Muslim Wahhabi fanatics pretend to believe they are sincere! I say, “A pox on both the royal family and the Muslim fanatics,” both of which are responsible for a reprehensible system that permits a barbarian judicial system. No more U.S. oil purchases from them. They can pour their oil over their pancakes and eat it, and while it may not be as tasty as French food, it will be considerably less expensive and they won’t have to put up with arrogant French waiters.

Rich, rapacious royals walk a tightrope between themselves and fanatic Muslims. The royals have to pretend to go along with the fanatics since those fanatics could take out the royals any day of the week. The House of Saud is so resented and hated by the Saudi people that that hatred has brought some cooperation between the two main Muslim factions who hate each other: the Shiites, and Sunnis. Moreover, Muslim fanatics hate all Muslim political leaders who are hypocrites. Major former leaders of Muslim nations such as Mubarak, Assad, Hussein, Arafat, and Gaddafi have been Muslim in name only with an occasional photo-visit to the local mosque. Those leaders always had all the liquor they could swill, all the tobacco they could smoke, and all the prostitutes they could solicit.

The Arab Spring is coming to Saudi Arabia although the simmering protests are not publicized. They would have us believe that all is as peaceful, prim, and proper as the Realm of Disney. Of course, that is called Fantasyland. The 87-year-old Saudi king will soon point his toes skyward and the always-simmering palace intrigue may remind us of the succession of bloody, brutal Roman Emperors.

Meanwhile, 70% of Saudis cannot afford to purchase their own home and 40% live below the poverty level. Their nation is held together by workers from the U.S., Africa, Asia, etc. I have spoken to some of them and have been emailed by one oil worker who is a born-again Christian. He has to leave his Bible at home and any prayer and Bible fellowship he has with other Christian workers must be secret or he will be expelled from the country.

We have no right to interfere with any other nation because each nation is sovereign; however, we do have a right to buy oil wherever we please. If U.S. politicians were not so determined to destroy our nation so they can see a new, socialist state emerge from the ashes, we would be producing all our needed oil from restricted areas in and near the U.S. While the U.S. cannot force any nation to comply with our demands, we can use our money, influence, and threats to pressure the Saudi barbarians to make changes now, not after a lengthy study, but now. No changes, no oil!

The Saudi royal family lives in the lap of luxury in gilded, gaudy, grandiose palaces, and they speak of freedom but their handling of the Muslim cleric who raped, burned, tortured, and killed his five-year-old daughter is sterling proof of their hypocrisy. Their pious proclamations served up on gold and silver platters are nothing more than smoldering, steaming, and stinking piles of camel dung.

We will see if our leaders, also living in the lap of undeserved luxury, will use their influence to see that no other child is raped and killed by a Koran-quoting butcher-torturer-rapist-brute of a father who passes in a barbarian society as an influential imam scholar.

In light of the relevant facts, it is not too much to expect wannabe U.S. citizens to agree, adhere, and admit to a civilized lifestyle and repudiate the extremists everywhere who defend the right to molest, rape, and kill anyone even their own children. Any Muslim who clings to his Koran and his explosive vest while defending those brutes like the imam who raped and killed his daughter should be expelled from our shores. Many U.S. mosque leaders are extremists, beating the drums daily for sharia law which is used to condone such brutality. They cannot plead freedom of religion to justify brutality because Koranic Islam is clearly terror with a religious fringe.

The U.S. should put all Muslims who defend brutality and terrorism on ships and send them to the desert of their choice. They are a threat to the safety and freedom of our nation.