After all this misery, how can Syrians ever live together again?
But the opposition also needs to accept the prospect of a solution that involves safe passage for the president and those around him. The rebels may defeat the regime but it is also possible the regime will hold on to power much longer, and kill many more Syrians.
Justice at the cost of more bloodshed? It’s a tough question, especially to those who have lost dear ones. But it is a question the opposition needs to discuss, publicly.
Where does Syria as a country fall in this equation? If the ruler and those around him are spared, people will take revenge on his supporters. Who then would be put on trial? Would the hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled their homes, some after losing family members, simply return and live beside those who have supported the regime? Answers to such questions will determine whether Syria will be saved from itself.
At least 10,000 pro-regime Syrians, including a few of the regime’s top masterminds, have been killed. That does not nearly equal the number or pain of the regime’s victims, but people should be reminded that the suffering has not all been on one side.
Blowback
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I’ve been saying that for months. Their brutality towards each other guarantees a generation or two of intense hatred and revenge.
hawkdriver on December 24, 2012 at 6:43 PM
They are all muslins. Hate is all they know.
MikeA on December 24, 2012 at 6:45 PM
Muslem “justice” is massacring the other side, which both sides know well, which is why they’re going to fight until the death – because defeat is death, and a messy painful one at that.
Let the muslems kill each other off, then hand the country to the Christians. Only then will there be peace.
Rebar on December 24, 2012 at 6:50 PM
Not our problem.
Blake on December 24, 2012 at 6:58 PM
FIFY.
Thanks Barry.
Mimzey on December 24, 2012 at 7:32 PM
Just to be clear, Wahhabism is the sect OBL & AQ belong to. But Assad has aligned himself with Iran and supports Hezbollah, both of which want to wipe out Israel.
Sort of like the Nazi-Soviet fight, may they both lose.
rbj on December 24, 2012 at 7:43 PM
They never lived ‘together’ before? Why should they start now?
RoadRunner on December 24, 2012 at 7:46 PM
It only looks like misery to Western eyes. To arabs, it’s just normal life. They love killing each other. In the arab world your best friend for decades can turn around and stab you in the back and then go and have a nice quiet dinner. That’s the culture. Heck, they do that to their own family, as just having the wrong guy look at a girl the wrong way leads to the father and brothers strangling her to death at home (with mom locking the door so she can’t escape) and then what’s left of the family sitting down to a nice family meal. That is regular life in the arab and muslim worlds. To Westerners, that is psychotic, of course, but that’s why empathy from Westerners doesn’t work one bit when applied to the arab and muslim worlds. The differences are just far too great for most people in the West to really grasp.
To the Syrians, this is all just life as usual. Nothing will change among them after this, save a few temporary alliances here and there. But alliances in the arab world are always temporary and fleeting. There is no such thing as “good will” out there. There is no respect for individual life. It’s just not how they’re put together. It’s why they are how they are.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 24, 2012 at 7:49 PM