Syria's descent into
Holy War
It
is one of the most horrifying videos of the war in Syria. It shows two men
being beheaded by Syrian rebels, one of them by a child. He hacks with a
machete at the neck of a middle-aged man who has been forced to lie in the
street with his head on a concrete block. At the end of the film, a soldier,
apparently from the Free Syrian Army, holds up the severed heads by their
hair in triumph.AC
The film is being
widely watched on YouTube by Syrians, reinforcing their fears that Syria is
imitating Iraq's descent into murderous warfare in the years after the US
invasion in 2003. It fosters a belief among Syria's non-Sunni Muslim
minorities, and Sunnis associated with the government as soldiers or civil
servants, that there will be no safe future for them in Syria if the rebels
win.
In the past week,130
countries have recognised the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and
Opposition Forces as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people. But,
at the same time, the US has denounced the al-Nusra Front, the most effective
fighting force of the rebels, as being terrorists and an al-Qa'ida affiliate.
Paradoxically, the US makes almost exactly same allegations of terrorism
against al-Nusra as does the Syrian government. Even more bizarrely, though so
many states now recognise the National Coalition as the legitimate
representative of the Syrian people, it is unclear if the rebels inside Syria
do so. Angry crowds in rebel-held areas of northern Syria on Friday chanted
"we are all al-Nusra" as they demonstrated against the US decision.
The execution video is
very similar to those once made by al-Qa'ida in Iraq to demonstrate their
mercilessness towards their enemies. This is scarcely surprising since many
of the most experienced al-Nusra fighters boast that they have until
recently been fighting the predominantly Shia government of Iraq. Their agenda
is wholly sectarian, and they have shown greater enthusiasm for slaughtering
Shias, often with bombs detonated in the middle of crowds in markets or outside
mosques, than for fighting Americans.
The Syrian uprising,
which began in March 2011, was not always so bloodthirsty or so dominated by
the Sunnis who make up 70 per cent of the 23 million-strong Syrian population.
At first, demonstrations were peaceful and the central demands of the
protesters were for democratic rule and human rights as opposed to a violent,
arbitrary and autocratic government. There is compelling evidence that the
movement has slid towards sectarian Islamic fundamentalism intent on waging holy
war.
The analogy with Iraq
is troubling for the US and British governments. They and their allies are
eager for Syria to avoid repeating the disastrous mistakes they made during the
Iraqi occupation. Ideally, they would like to remove the regime, getting rid of
Bashar al-Assad, but not dissolving the government machinery or introducing
revolutionary change as they did in Baghdad by transferring power from the
Sunnis to the Shia and the Kurds. This provoked a furious counter-reaction from
Baathists and Sunnis who found themselves marginalised. Washington wants Assad
out, but is having difficulty riding the Sunni revolutionary tiger.
Syria today resembles
Iraq nine years ago in another disturbing respect. I have now been in Damascus
for 10 days, and every day I am struck by the fact that the situation in areas
of Syria I have visited is wholly different from the picture given to the world
both by foreign leaders and by the foreign media. The last time I felt like
this was in Baghdad in late 2003, when every Iraqi knew the US-led occupation
was proving a disaster just as George W Bush, Tony Blair and much of the
foreign media were painting a picture of progress towards stability and
democracy under the wise tutelage of Washington and its carefully chosen Iraqi
acolytes.
Patrick Cockburn Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper The
Independent [Extracts only]
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/16-2
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