Butcher
of Damascus. Gasser of children. Baby Killer of Syria. Tool of Moscow. Cruel
despot. Monster.
These
are all names the western media and politicians routinely heap on Syria’s
president, Bashar al-Assad. He has now become the top Mideast villain,
the man we love to hate.
As a
veteran Mideast watcher, I find all this hard to swallow. Compared to
other brutal Mideast leaders, Assad is pretty weak tea. The US/British
propaganda effort to paint Assad in blackest colors is having a difficult time.
Mideast leaders who toe the
US line and make nice to Israel are invariably called ‘statesmen’ or
‘president’ by the American government and its increasingly tame media.
There’s good old President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt, the military dictator
who crushed that nation’s only democracy and imposed an iron-fisted rule.
But we will never hear from the US media of Egypt’s political murders, disappearances,
secret prisons and torture. Or that Egypt has been one of the world’s
most draconian police states since the era of Anwar Sadat and successor Hosni
Mubarak.
Saudi
rulers are reverently treated by the US media and government in spite of
leading the world in executions. Last year, 44 people were publicly
beheaded. In some years, around 150 people have been beheaded in Saudi
Arabia, often a quarter of them Pakistani guest workers. Having been
arrested by the Saudi religious police, I can tell you that the kingdom is a police
state with sand dunes and camels. Saudi vassal states Bahrain and the
Emirates are better, but not much.
Morocco,
a key US ally, is notorious for its ghastly prisons and brutal torture.
Iraq and Afghanistan, now under US control, are even worse. Israel,
the largest recipient of US aid, holds close to 7,000 Palestinian political
prisoners, among them 400 children, and is gunning down Palestinian
demonstrators on the Gaza border.
Syria
has always been a repressive police state. I recall watching ‘spies’ being
hanged in front of my hotel. Its various police forces are notorious for
brutality and torture. In fact, until recently, the US actually sent captive
suspects to Syria to be tortured and jailed.
That
was before Washington made the decision to overthrow Syria’s legitimate
government (‘regime’ in DC talk) as the first step in attacking Iran.
But
Damascus was no worse a human rights abuser than Cairo, Amman, Rabat and
Riyadh, all US vassals.
While looking at the current
western hate campaigns against Syria and Iran, keep in mind the history of the
modern Mideast. We are again seeing the 1914 era lies from London about
Belgian babies speared on German bayonets.
Any
Arab or Iranian leader who sought an independent policy or refused the tutelage
of London and then Washington was delegitimized, excoriated, and
demonized. Remember the Iranian leader Mohammed
Mossadegh overthrown in a CIA coup? The renowned Egyptian leader, Gamal
Abdel Nasser, whom the British branded ‘Hitler on the Nile?’ Or the late,
murdered Libyan Muammar Khadaffi, called ‘Mad Dog of the Mideast’ by President
Ronald Reagan? Imam Khomeini of Iran and President Ahmadinejad, both
favored targets of western media invective, and both compared to the much
overused Hitler. Saddam Hussein, the ‘Butcher of Baghdad,’ and that
modern Dr Fu Manchu, Osama bin Laden, the all-time favorite Muslim arch
villain.
Of
course, there’s nothing new in this nasty name-calling. During the
Victorian Era, Britain’s press demonized arch villains like ‘the Mad Mullah,’
the Mahdi, the Fakir of Ipi, and Nana Sahib of the 1857 Indian uprising against
British imperial rule.
Bashar al-Assad was a
mild-mannered ophthalmologist living in London with his British-born
wife. When his rash elder brother Basil was killed in a car crash, Bashar
was compelled to return to Syria and become the nominal political leader after
the death of his very tough, ruthless father, Hafez al-Assad. Bashar’s
main role was mediating between powerful factions in Damascus and trying to
modernize his nation.
In 2011,
the US, Britain, Israel and Saudi Arabia ignited an uprising in Syria using
often fanatical jihadists. The shy, retiring Bashar was forced to become
war leader in a bloody civil conflict as his nation disintegrated.
President
Trump, whose B-52 bombers are ravaging the Mideast, Afghanistan, Somalia and
Yemen calls al-Assad a ‘monster.’ Some of his relatives are indeed
ruthless. But very many Syrians think of Assad as their nation’s only
hope of returning to normalcy.
Eric
Margolis [send him
mail] is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new
book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the
Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.
Copyright © 2018 Eric Margolis
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