As Israel once again commits war crimes in Gaza, perpetuating the collective punishment of a population being held under siege, why is it that so many of those in the West who express their outrage at the behavior of the Israelis, have remained largely silent for the last three years in response to the atrocities committed by the Syrian government? That silence is all the more ironic when in their effort to raise awareness about Gaza, some activists on social media are using — without correct attribution — images of civilian casualties in Syria.
The Daily Beast reports: Tens of thousands of photographs showing the Syrian government’s torture, murder, and mass starvation of civilians in custody are evidence of the kind of systematic atrocities not seen since Hitler’s Nazi regime exterminated millions during World War II, according to the State Department’s top war crimes official.
Stephen Rapp, the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for War Crimes and director of the Office of Global Criminal Justice, has reviewed large sections of a huge collection of photos and written records of Syrian government atrocities smuggled out of the country by a former military photographer known as “Caesar.” Rapp spoke about the evidence at a July 3 event at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
“This is solid evidence of the kind of machinery of cruel death that we haven’t seen frankly since the Nazis,” he said. “If it is as it appears thus far, we’re talking about more than 10,000 individuals being killed in custody over the period from 2011 to 2013, including largely men but also some very, very young men and boys and women… It’s shocking to me, as a prosecutor—I’m used to evidence not being so strong.”
Rapp’s strong condemnatioin of Assad and his call for international action to respond to Assad’s crimes against humanity comes as the Obama administration is engaged in an internal debate over how hard to actually push for regime change in Syria, given the rise of terrorism in the region.
Another former war crimes prosecutor who has reviewed some of the evidence tells The Daily Beast that he believes the photos indicate at least indirect “Russian government responsibility” for the atrocities. [Continue reading…]
Putting down an insurgency requires killing lots of people. The US, in its inimitable way, represents the process as ‘winning hearts and minds’ — didn’t the genius warrior Petraeus write a whole book about it? Others simply go about their business directly, killing lots of people.
Ah! So the Syrian government is just doing what it needs to do in this messy business of putting down an insurgency?
That makes it sounds so honest and business-like.
The problem with rationalizing the actions of the Assad regime in this way is that it fails to address the fact that in “doing what it has needed to do,” it has destroyed Syria in the process. It also ignores the fact that this effort to “put down an insurgency” would have failed long ago were Assad not receiving military support from Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia.
Any government that finds itself in the position of needing to destroy the country in order to save it, clearly has no interest in saving the country — it’s merely fighting for its own self-preservation and has lost any semblance of political legitimacy.
On the other hand, “putting down an insurgency” would not have been necessary if the insurgents had not been propped-up and revved-up by the US of A and their allies. Maybe those who express outrage at the atrocities committed by the Jewish state while, for now, ignoring those committed by the Assad government, know that the Israelis have been at it for 70 years. Stephen Rapp, as the representative of, what some see as “The Evil Empire” should not be so smug, and try to pin atrocious behavior onto the traditional baddies, Germans, Serbs, Russians, etc.
The supposition being that ordinary Syrians lack the competence or sufficient motivation to try an overthrow authoritarian rulers. If you believe that, that suggests a thinly veiled contempt for Arabs.
I dare say that for some of those whose outrage focuses on the Jewish state rather than Assad, the difference between the two cases has less to do with longevity (most perpetrators of genocide cannot be faulted for lack of efficiency), than it has to do with perceptions of the villains. In other words, if you reserve most of your venom for Jews, why would you be bothered about Assad?
What “some” see as “The Evil Empire”? Clearly, H. Rust, you are among that “some” and you truly see the U.S. as an evil empire, and yet you persist in leaving comments without even having the forthrightness to own your opinions.
The term Nazi is used too often simply as a pejorative, so I’m not in the habit of using it, yet I wonder whether it might apply to you in a more literal sense?
I just reviewed your previous comments and came across one that I hadn’t seen before:
Wow! You view Josef Mengele, an architect of the Holocaust, as “much maligned” doing the best for his nation!
No wonder there always seem to be a toxic element in your comments.