Today, for my
final blog post for class rather than review, music, movies or other entertainment
medium, I thought that I would offer my thoughts about the inevitable end to
the civil war in Syria. Over the past five years I, along with millions of
other people have watched as the citizens of Syria took up arms against the
regime of Bashar al- Assad. The Assad’s Baathist government has had power in
Syria for over forty years, and has taken great pains to keep it. Any and all
resistance or other challenges to Baathist power have been brutally quelled.
So, it was quite
unsurprising that not long after the escalation of hostilities in the most
recent and brutal conflict, that there was talk of chemical weapons being
deployed against the rebels. In the weeks that followed, just about every major
news agency was broadcasting images of the grotesque slaughter; the terrified
faces of displaced civilians running for cover, while government helicopters
dropped barrel bombs on crowded streets-all the horrors of war simulcast in
stunning 1080p.
I for one am sick
of watching. But as to whether or not I can in good conscience show even the
slightest bit of elation, at hearing that it might soon be over remains to be
seen. Unlike many of the people I know, (who like me have followed news of the
war closely), I have not been able to pick a side. Although I am far from a
Baathist supporter, the Free Syrian Army, and their rebel coalition haven’t
exactly “blown my skirt up” either, to
be frank, in my opinion they don’t seem
to be the freedom fighters they’re purported to be. While the Assad government was dropping
bombs and launching chemical weapons, the FSA were wiping out entire villages
of Christians, burning churches, and taking video footage of its soldiers mutilating the corpses
of vanquished enemies and ingesting
their organs.
All this to say,
now that the Syrian Civil war is drawing to a close I feel like I should be
happy that five years of war are almost at an end, but I don’t know if I can
be. On one hand, the FSA might not have been the ideal winner, but I kind of
want to believe that they’d certainly have to be the better choice than Assad’s
Baathists. On the other hand, as a younger man in 2003 I saw first hand the
destructive destabilization that occurs when Baathist regimes are toppled. The
results were 10 years of Iraqi insurgency, followed by the formation and rise
to power of ISIS, the alleged Islamic Caliphate. Which brings us smack dab to
where we are now… In the words of Raul Duke, “What’s next? What’s the score
here?”
