A man pulled from the
rubble of Aleppo: The largest city in Syria
and the end of the
historic Silk Road, Aleppo has been pulverized
by Syrian arms. Are Islamist
extremists the only workable method
of ending Assad's
barbarism? Or is Assad the only rational answer
to stopping the jihadis?
2013: A Year of Western Infamy and Ascendent Jihad in Syria (L'Orient Le Jour, Lebanon)
"The insanity of jihadism is an unadulterated product of an official barbarism that the West has hitherto ignored ... With the decline in the values of human rights and justice, to denounce as a scandal the denial into which Europe and America have sunk is like issuing the blow of a sword to tainted water: the die is cast and a game of chicken has ensued amid a macabre scene strewn with corpses. ... the Syrian people find themselves completely abandoned by all, their hands and feet bound, delivered into the hands of their tormentors."
'From
lies to compromise" and from "bragging rights to about-faces," the
consequences are what we are witnessing today: a pulverized Syria run by a gangrenous
regime spreading evil, which not only eats away at that country but neighboring
states as well. Moreover, the insanity of jihadism is
an unadulterated product of an official barbarism that the West has hitherto
ignored ...
With
the decline in the values of human rights and justice, to denounce as a scandal
the denial into which Europe and America have sunk is like issuing the blow of
a sword to tainted water: the die is cast and a game of chicken
has ensued amid a macabre scene strewn with corpses.
It
is evident that Western countries do not intend to play a more decisive role in
stopping this vicious cycle that has already claimed the lives of 130,000
people and driven millions into exile. They have simply agree to
bear false witness at the Geneva II Peace Conference, doomed before it convenes
and undermined by conditions set by both sides.
Forgotten,
buried under the turmoil, was a plan for military intervention that could have
brought about dramatic changes, neutralized the tyrant, and ended the growing
power of Jihadi barbarism. Today, France has attention only for Africa and the
human rights abuses in Mali and Central Africa. As for the true leaders of the
game, the United States of America has brilliantly pulled a rabbit out of its
hat called chemical weapons, so cleverly bundled up by Russia.
The
result?: Bashar al-Assad is back in Washington's good
graces. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden even hoped the tyrant would come
away with a winning hand, which would constitute "the best of three very,
very ugly possible outcomes." The alternatives are the dissolution of
Syria and the perpetuation of its civil war. But former spy chief Hayden doesn't
seem to grasp that keeping Bashar in power will lead
to the perpetuation of genocide.
Between
an increasingly-cautious Europe and an America that no longer hides its
determination to withdraw from the Middle East and turn to the Asia-Pacific,
the Syrian people find themselves completely abandoned by all, their hands and
feet bound, delivered into the hands of their tormentors. Against this backdrop,
an Islamist movement considered a panacea for every problem in the Muslim world
has just held a summit meeting in Libya.
[Editor's
Note: According to the German newspaper Welt
am Sonntag, the meeting in Benghazi was described as a "Maghreb-wide
jihadist summit" that included representatives of al-Qaeda in the Lands of
the Islamic Maghreb, and the Syrian al-Qaeda group Nusrah
Front.]
Is
this the resurrection of the Arab Spring through the use of jihadists? Then we
will have seen everything ...
