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Ghouta: Sounds from hell

February 27, 2018 at 2:10 pm

Syrian search and rescue team workers inspect damaged buildings after the Assad Regime bombed residential areas in Damascus, Syria [Ala Muhammed/Anadolu Agency]

The massacres and crimes committed by the fascist Baathist regime against its own people since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011 are a disgrace to humanity. The scenes of death, destruction and demolition broadcasted from Ghouta and the pictures that speak without words, images from which we can hear the cries of infants disturbed by the horrors and crimes in the world they are surrounded by. These infants preferred to leave the world, as there is no safety and security for them in this brutal world. In these pictures, we hear the screams of bereaved mothers as they hold their shrouded children in their arms, as well as the screams of grieving men as they stand before the corpses of their children, who they have pulled from under the rubble of their homes. Their faces and clothes are draped in the dust of oppression as well as the dust of the buildings bombed by Russian planes loaded with rockets and bombs. We can hear the groans of those who are still alive and trapped under the rubble, calling for help, and the screams of the survivors as they see their skies filled with flames and clouds of smoke fill the air and everything around them.

These chilling images have not been seen before in the world. They have been caused by the most brutal and fascist regime in history. Despite this, the international conscience is absent and overlooks the acts of this regime and the situation in Ghouta, just as the hypocritical international community, which believes in double standards, was absent in the case of Aleppo, Madaya, Deir Ez-Zor and Idlib.

 UN: ‘Hell on earth’ in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta must end

We witness how the international community objects and revolts when an individual act of terrorism is committed, as was the case with the Charlie Hebdo magazine. The corrupt Arab leaders, sheikhs and elites were the first to condemn this act, but they were completely silent in the face of the terrorism exercised by a state that is annihilating an entire nation.

Before I blame the West for watching every moment of every event and not lifting a finger, I must condemn and criminalise all the Arab leaders who supported the murderer Bashar Al-Assad and backed him in his massacres against the Syrians, both publically and in secret, behind the scenes or in the form of their suspicious silence or abandonment. They have basically given Al-Assad the green light to continue to slaughter the Syrian people and destroy whatever is left of beloved Syria, the capital of the Islamic caliphate. Everyone is involved in the crime: the killer, the colluder, and the abandoner are all equally guilty in my eyes.

Syrians can be seen covered in blood after the Assad Regime carried out air strikes in Eastern Ghouta, Syria

We were mistaken when we thought that the Palestinian Nakba, the massacres committed by the Zionist gangs against the Palestinians, and the lines of displaced Palestinians we have seen in pictures would not have occurred if the means of visual networking and social media available today existed then. The world today is witnessing with its own eyes the blood of children being shed and flowing in the streets of Ghouta like rivers. The world can hear the screams of bereaved mothers and the calls for help from the trapped; it has not batted an eye. The scene has turned into murders being committed and spectators, who, at best, do not care, if not enjoying the murder and destruction. The situation is extremely shameful and disgraceful.

Ghouta is proof of this world’s brutality and the double standards that govern it. When the issue concerns Arabs and Muslims, they find no one to weep for them or support their cause. However, when the issue concerns Israel, everyone rushes to back them and support them in their wrongdoing at the expense of the Palestinian rights. Therefore, I was not surprised by the fact that the UN Security Council’s weak resolution was subjected to the Russian veto, just as all the UN resolutions regarding Palestine are subject to the US veto. When has the Security Council ever supported us for us to expect it to support the Syrian people, especially given the fact that their murderers possess veto power? Would the people of Ghouta even expect the Council’s support after being let down by the Arab regimes that are colluding with their killer?

Syria militias dissolving due to lack of funds

A weak decision was issued by the Council, in which it stipulated an immediate 30-day truce between the conflicting parties in Ghouta (thus equating the murderous regime to the rebels defending the people). However, the regime’s militias launched a ground attack, under air cover, on the city even before the ink dried on the resolution. They tried to raid the city in order to change the situation on the ground in its favour, resulting in clashes between the militias and rebels, which killed and wounded several.

We cannot separate what is happening in the eastern Ghouta from what has happened in Syria since the outbreak of the revolution in March 2011 in the Daraa governorate and the massacres committed there by the Baathist regime. The regime then moved on to the rest of the Syrian governorates, moving across all of Syria. This is one part of the course of a revolution in which the people rebelled against oppression, tyranny and corruption and demanded freedom.

It began peacefully and the regime was on the verge of being toppled if it weren’t for the intervention of Iranian Shia militias, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah militias, Iraqi militias, and Afghan militias. When it became apparent that it would be difficult to eliminate the revolution, Iran began throwing its weight around by means of the Revolutionary Guard forces and Qasem Soleimani appeared on the battleground. They committed several massacres and crimes against the Syrian people, who were forced to then take up arms to defend themselves against the violence and brutality of the regime that at times used chemical weapons against them and at other times used explosive barrels.

Despite all of this, the regime was unable to resolve the battle in its favour, so it called on Russia for help. Russia saw this as an opportunity to return to the Middle East through the Syrian gate, in order to establish a foothold in the Mediterranean Sea. The Russian military aircrafts and their advanced modern weapons managed to shift the battle in favour of the regime. Meanwhile, the Syrian president has become an illusion who has no control over anything and cannot make any decisions on his own.

Report: Is Russia preparing Assad’s successor in Syria?

Meanwhile, alongside the rebels (I like to call them rebels, not armed opposition forces, as they have been unfortunately dubbed in the media), we find several revolutionary forces and multiple supporting countries, which the forces have become associated with in one way or another, as they give and they take. Hence, these forces no longer make their own decisions; the decisions are in the hands of the supporting countries. Therefore, we have seen victories stop at a certain point and are not completed, despite the rebels’ complete control of areas. We also witnessed sudden withdrawals from areas for no apparent reasons.

#SaveGhouta

Furthermore, the Syrian intelligence agencies managed to infiltrate them and even form factions, as did several international intelligence agencies. This is the opposite to Daesh, whose task was to fight the true rebels and remove them from the areas they controlled in order to then hand them over to the regime as part of an obviously staged charade portraying them as having been defeated by the Arab Syrian Army, as they and their allies call it.

All of this has exhausted the rebels and weakened the revolution. It has made Syria a battlefield for countries to exploit the Syrian revolution in order to fight proxy wars. Everyone has conspired against Syria and its brothers and friends have abandoned it. Those closest to Syria let it down before the strangers, and the slogan chanted since the beginning of the revolution still rings true, “We have no one but Allah.”

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.