Barbarism of the Syrian Regime

By: Elias Bejjani*

The world has known many brutal and bloody regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere since WW1, but none of them was more barbaric, savage and cruel than the current Syrian al-Assad Baathist dictatorship. Even the late Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, and also Hitler and Mussolini, were not as merciless, sadistic, bloody, evil, mean and ferocious as Syria’s al-Assad ruling family dynasty.

The murderous al-Assad Syrian regime that has been in power for almost 42 years shows no respect whatsoever to its own people’s dignity, rights, feelings, pain, grief, safety, and welfare. It has been ruling all these years under the emergency law with an iron and oppressive fist, depriving the Syrian people even of their own basic freedom and rights.

Those Syrians who attempted to oppose al-Assad’s dictatorship and authority even through peaceful and democratic means were either murdered, imprisoned and tortured or forced into exile. When Hama City revolted against this oppressive regime in February 1982, the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad quelled and totally crushed the revolt by sending his malicious private army troops to invade the city, destroy most of the infrastructure and buildings and murder with cold blood more than 25 thousand of its residents. Many other thousands were arbitrarily arrested and left to rot and die in imprisonment without trials.

During its Stalinist occupation era of Lebanon (1976-2005), the Syrian regime resorted to evil tactics of murder, terrorism, kidnapping, assassination, cruelty, a policy of divide and conquer, and barbarism against the Lebanese people. More than 20 thousand Lebanese citizens disappeared, one and half million fled the country, thousands were imprisoned, and scores of presidents, politicians, clergy, journalists and intellectuals were assassinated, and all the country’s governmental institutions were infiltrated with Syrian spies and agents, marginalized and Syrianized.

This awkward Stalinist Syrian regime has never changed and will never do so. The only language that its rulers and officials comprehend is crime, blood and murder. In 1980, the Syrian army that was occupying Lebanon, kidnapped the well known Lebanese journalist Salim Al Lawzi, who opposed the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, cut off his right hand fingers, slashed his throat, badly mutilated his body and dumped him in the woods nearby Beirut.

The same Al Lawzi barbaric scenario was replicated few days ago in the Hama Syrian city. Al-Assad thugs and mobs known as "Al Chabiha" kidnapped the Syrian activist Ibrahim Kashoush, who is also a singer and songwriter, slashed his throat, mutilated his body and dumped him in Al Assi River. Click on the link below and watch the graphic video that was posted on YouTube on Wednesday July 06/11. It shows Kashoush's body with his throat slashed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ1h2WHwIms

This patriotic Syrian man inspired the Syrian uprising with songs that spread all over Syria and were chanted during the demonstrations. He did not have a gun or a cannon and he was not a terrorist or a fundamentalist. He was just a Syrian citizen who loved peace, freedom and democracy, yearned for a better life and expressed his feelings and wishes through his emotional and patriotic songs.

The Syrian criminal al-Assad regime could not tolerate Kashoush's songs and decided to end his life as was the situation with Al Lawzi and hundreds of Syrian and Lebanese intellectuals and politicians. Al-Assad thugs (Al Chabiha) kidnapped him and ended his life so he can no more annoy al-Assad, while the USA and the Free World countries are still naively calling on this criminal dictator to reform and not calling for toppling his regime and for putting him on trial for committing crimes against humanity.

The question is: are those people who committed this horrible crime human beings? No they are not. They are criminals, killers and mere barbaric savages that must not be left to continue ruling Syria and terrorizing its people.

Excerpts from Ibrahim Kashoush’s popular song lyrics:
Bashar, depart from here
You lost all your legitimacy
Depart depart, Bashar
Bashar, you are not one of us
Take Mahir (Basher’s brother) and depart from here
Depart depart, Bashar
Bashar, you are lying
You had bad speech
Freedom is very near
Depart depart, Bashar
These lyrics are from Ibrahim Kashoush’s song, ‘Yalla Erhal Ya Bashar’ (It’s time to leave, Bashar), demanding an end to the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The song gained popularity in recent weeks as thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Hama to protest against the violent crackdowns on civilians in the country.

The Free World and Arab countries have a moral obligation to come to the rescue of the Syrian people and to forcibly topple the brutal al-Assad regime, similar to Afghanistan and Iraq, and the sooner the better.

The Irony here lies in the traumatic reality that while the Syrian people are struggling to topple al-Assad’s barbaric regime, Hezbollah, the Iranian terrorist armed militia, and all the other Lebanese mercenary politicians and officials who are mere puppets of either the Syrian or Iranian regimes have toppled the legitimate Lebanese pro-western government through intimidation, terror, and bribery. Against the will of the majority of the Lebanese people they formed a new government that is totally under the control of the Axis of Evil countries, Syria and Iran. Meanwhile, the Free World and Arab countries, and especially the US administration, are still cajoling and appeasing the Syrian regime and not toppling it.

In conclusion, an ape cannot be made to look like a man no matter how much cosmetics are put on his face, because an ape is an ape and man is a man. At the same time, no sane person who plants a thorn can expect it to bear figs. The same principle applies to the Syrian regime that is uncorrectable, cannot be changed and will not be changed while the only language that its rulers comprehend and respond to is absolute power. Meanwhile, as a Lebanese man living in the Diaspora, I wonder why any free and intelligent Lebanese would not fight to keep the vicious Stone Age Syrian al-Assad regime model far away from Lebanon.


*Elias Bejjani
*Canadian-Lebanese Human Rights activist, journalist and political commentator
*Email phoenicia@hotmail.com
*Web sites http://www.10452lccc.com & http://www.clhrf.com
*Mailing phoenicia group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Phoenicia/
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