What Kind of Tyrant?

Now it's helicopter gunships. That's a great way to quell unrest, because the people are revolting. Nationwide peaceful rallies, with people raising their voices in unison, calling "peace". In the process enraging the regime they so fervently wish would just step aside and allow them to live the same kind of lives as anywhere else in the world outside of dictatorships the Middle East is renowned for.

Liberty, however, is not given, even when it is demanded. Tyrants and freedoms are simply incompatible; it is one or the other and history and geography have granted Syrians tyranny, not freedom. The helicopters were sent to the northwestern town for a purpose; to fire their machine guns over Maarat al-Numan. Where tens of thousands of people marched in a determined protest of sheer courage.

"People hid in fields, under bridges and in their houses, but the firing continued on the mostly empty streets for hours", according to one observer. This was revenge for what the regime claimed was the killing of members of their security forces. And which the villagers explained was the security forces turning on those of their members who had laid down their arms in solidarity with the protest.

The thousands of Syrians who have fled to cross the border into Turkey have filled three refugee camps put together by the Red Crescent Society. Turkish doctors speak of atrocities. Turkish diplomats urge Bashar al-Assad to be less harsh in his vicious responses to majority Sunni protests against his Alawite minority government.

Turkey is demonstrating great compassion for the Syrian refugees who, in fact, have much in common with their Turkish counterparts over the border. It has become abundantly clear to those who care to take note, how utterly brutish the Syrian regime is. What kind of tyrant is it who orders that animals in the fields be obliterated?

That olive trees be uprooted, crops be destroyed. This is a true scorched-earth policy that will leave those who fled their homes in fear of annihilation, nothing to go back to. They must, inevitably return, for although Turkey is committed to aiding the refugees for the time being, they have no wish to retain them on a permanent basis.

As for intervening in any meaningful way, inclusive of becoming a partner should an international military intervention be declared a final necessity: "We don't even want to consider that possibility", the Turkish Justice Minister grimly responded, when asked