Yesterday, Judge Andrew Napolitano interviewed Col. Douglas Macgregor for his “Judging Freedom” podcast on YouTube. In the interview, entitled “America’s Next War of Choice” — which concerned mostly American posturing with Iran as well as President-Elect Trump striving to end the war in Ukraine — Judge Napolitano asked Col. Macgregor whether Christians are safe in Syria.
Here is a transcription of the colonel’s reply:
It’s a mixed bag. Numbers of Christians have already been decapitated, murdered. I think we’re going to see more of it since, remember, these [men who have taken over Syria under Abu Mohammed al Jolani] are jihadists; these are not “moderates” by any stretch of the imagination. The word tolerance does not exist in their vocabulary. I think [Turkish President, Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan has undoubtedly advised them to exercise some restraint — not that Erdoğan particularly cares about Christians or Jews or anybody who’s not a Muslim, but, long term, I see no future for Christianity in Syria sadly and that’s that’s a tragedy because Syria is probably the first place where a Christian Church was established not long after the demise of of Christ [sic]. So, it’s another tragic event, but Christians have been steadily either killed or driven out of the region for several years right now, and this is probably unavoidable.
The Shiites, historically … have have protected the Christians. The Shiite militias protected Christians in Iraq from ISIS. I think similar things have gone on inside Syria. and that’s not a criticism of Sunnis because in many many states there were Sunnis, there was a general tolerance for Jews and Christians as well, but in this case that’s over. I think we have to assume that the jihadists will behave as they have in the past in terrible ways.
Asked if the beheadings he mentioned had occurred since the fall of Assad and subsequent takeover by al Jolani, Col. Macgregor replied:
Yes, I mean all of this information — a lot of this information, not all of it — you can see on [the social media platform] Telegram. You’ve got to go on and watch the videos that are posted there. The jihadists themselves post many of these videos. They’re very proud of the fact that they’re murdering people, and especially if they’re Christians or accused of being former Assad supporters, whatever. This is an act of terrorism that they know strikes fear in the hearts of others in the region and that’s why they’re doing it.
The video is embedded here. The comments transcribed above come around the seven minute mark.
