via Human Rights Watch
Former detainees and defectors have identified the locations, agencies responsible, torture methods used, and, in many cases, the commanders in charge of 27 detention facilities run by Syrian intelligence agencies, Human Rights Watch said in a multimedia report released today. The systematic patterns of ill-treatment and torture that Human Rights Watch documented clearly point to a state policy of torture and ill-treatment and therefore constitute a crime against humanity. – Human Rights Watch
AS NEWS WIKILEAKS will release 2.4 million Syrian emails is reported, it comes in the same week Human Rights Watch reveals the scope of President Bashar al-Assad’s villainy, which has been on display through Syria’s escalating civil was.
Earlier this year Anonymous hacked into Syrian servers, releasing emails, with the Guardian also publishing emails from the opposition to Assad. From the Los Angeles Times, with “embarrassing” details promised in the email dump:
WikiLeaks’ Sarah Harrison told journalists at London’s Frontline Club that the emails reveal interactions between the Syrian government and Western companies, although she declined to go into much further detail.
Harrison quoted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as saying that “the material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria’s external opponents.”
The article went on to say that Wikileaks is “statistically confident” the material was authentic.
It would be fitting, when the rebels win, which they will, that Assad is dragged from the palace and shot twice. Once for his own history of murder and torture, and once for his fathers. For the Alawite’s who have supported him there will be dark days ahead and they will deserve it, for they are complicit in his reign of terror. Of course, like most brutal dictator’s before him, he is first and for most a coward, and he will run to save his scrawny neck and squeaky voice. I always thought he looked and sounded a little like a bird; a bird of prey .
It would also be fitting if the new Syrian government would have nothing to do with the United States afterwards. We apparently don’t realize that we are once again doing what we do best in Syria- creating a population of people who hate us. This time, it’s not because of what we are doing, but because of what we failed to do.
You want to focus on Assad’s physical attributes- ummm, fine, whatever floats your boat. I’d rather point out that when the current govt of Syria inevitably falls, the United States will stand guilty in the eyes of the Syrian people as complicit in their pain, the big, fat, selfish giant which can always find a humanitarian excuse to intervene when it suits us, but is also always willing to turn a blind eye to horror when it doesn’t.
Sorry to interrupt your oddly detailed description of Assad’s “scrawny neck” and “squeaky voice.” I have to admit, I don’t get the concept that brutal dictators have certain physical features that reveal their sadistic mentality- I thought that “science” was laughed off the stage by most intelligent people a century ago.
He just looks like a monster to me.
The Syrian rebels should change the name of their nation to “Libya” or “Iraq” and claim that the nation has vast reserves of Oil. Then President Obama would declare a humanitarian crisis and start using some of America’s military might to do some good for a change. I’m sure the rebels don’t care if it’s done for selfish reasons- it’s generally the only way to get the United States to help in any case.
One of Assad’s generals defected today. According to that BBC article I linked to, he had been under house arrest for a year or so due to a disagreement over how to handle the rebellion. The article wasn’t clear on what the disagreement was, but presumably he refused to commit war crimes against his own people.
Al Jazeera reports that Tlas, the general who defected, had been “sidelined” for trying to negotiate with the rebels.