syriana

I was rather surprised to learn recently that the previous dictator of Syria, Mr Hafez Al Assad, Daddy of the current dictator of Syria Mr Bashir Al Assad, had several decades ago machined gunned and tank rolled more than ten thousand citizens to death during one of his recurrent repudiations of the popular desire for change in his country.
Don't get me wrong.
I had known Syria was one of the most vicious police States on the planet, right up there with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I was familiar with the rulership through terror policies of the Assad family.
And yet I'd never heard that on a specific occasion Papa Assad had slaughtered em with tanks and guns, in the streets, in their thousands.
All these years I've been listening to Amnesty International and their CNN/Sky News shills accusing Israel of war crimes, and somehow I'd missed any mention of ten thousand dead in the Syriana streets.
No mention of em in George Clooney's leftist anti American Syriana movie either.
No mention of em anywhere.
Hmmm.
I am excessively familiar with the tales of several dozen Palestinians being killed in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon.
This happened during the 1980's supposedly at the hands of militias backed by Israel.
The Amnesty International handwringers still ocasionally refer to the militias as being composed of Arab Christians if I remember rightly.
Mostly they like to leave the general impression that the Israelis did it themselves.
But Sabra and Chatilla are the most talked about supposed massacres in the history of the Middle East.
And somehow, some way, some why, the Assads' ten thousands disembowelled in the streets got overlooked.
For decades.
As recently as 2006, Amnesty International sent a retired Irish army officer called Des Travers to South Lebanon to investigate Israel for yet more contrived war crimes.
That same year, Iran's proxy terror army the Hezbollah had launched a cowardly sneak attack against Israel from sovereign Lebanese territory.
The Israelis pursued the Hezbollah back into South Lebanon and promptly taught a thousand of them that there are easier ways of committing suicide than launching sneak attacks on Israel.
Amnesty International was as usual keen to criminalise the Israelis for defending their territory and avenging their soldiers.
So they sent their best man.
I have a vague acquaintance with Colonel Des Travers.
He is a decent fellow.
I do not hold his analysis of the Middle East situation in any regard.
To get to South Lebanon he transitted through Syria.
I ask you.
Why would young Bashir Al Assad so happily assist Amnesty International in getting Colonel Des Travers into South Lebanon?
I find the whole thing very strange.
Interestingly enough, as he transitted through Syria, Colonel Des Travers failed to notice the murderous criminal oppression under which Syrians live their daily lives.
He failed to notice the Soviet style lordship of the army and secret service over the life of the nation.
He failed to notice the abject slavery of the citizenry.
He failed to notice the chattel status of women and children and Christians.
He passed blithely on to South Lebanon where as per the usual arrangements and expectations, he found Israel guilty of war crimes.
The irony... is screaming.