Blasted Into Oblivion

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad doesn't seem too concerned about Navi Pillay characterizing him as a war criminal, nor her warning on behalf of the United Nations that he may face charges at the International Criminal Court. Perhaps he has noted what has become of Sudan's President, Omar al-Bashir as a result of having been found guilty of crimes against humanity in Darfur, by the ICC; nothing.

So he continues to act as though what he does is conducted behind an opaque screen of secrecy with the world having no idea whatever what transpires in the rebel cities where the Free Syrian Army and rebellious citizens of Syria, fed up with his tyrannical rule, have opted to protest for a change in government. And he has no reason to feel any kind of panic that what occurred to Colonel Gadhafi and Libya will have meaning for him.

NATO is not about to indulge itself in supplying backup to the rebels as they did in Libya. And the Arab League, despite its fulminating outrage has issued nothing but condemnations and watery ultimatums. It could very well organize a coalition of the willing among their own, but it has not, preferring to wait and watch and urge the West, the United Nations, NATO to do something to rescue the situation.

And then there were also some real, live witnesses, Western journalists who smuggled themselves across the Lebanese border into Homs - and who relayed their own messages of assault of civilians, of sniper fire targeting children, of people dying, of a lack of medical facilities, of relentless, organized military bombardment - to augment the videos and messages emanating from Syrian rebels.

For their selfless devotion to reporting the news as it occurs in a battlefield, two died, and two were wounded. Deliberately targeted by a regime that refused to permit entry to foreign journalists. And that same regime that targeted them later claimed it was attempting to rescue them from the situation of hostage-to-war, but was rebuffed, repeatedly, the wounded refusing to enter Syrian Red Crescent ambulances.

So the rebels themselves, young men who simply cannot get it through their heads that they will die if and when they present themselves as targets, attempted to rescue the wounded, managing to spirit Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times in a stretcher across to Lebanon. While the party accompanying wounded French journalist Edith Bouvier, under attack, was forced to return to Baba Amr in Homs.

But through that courageous attempt, thirteen Syrian rebels gave up their lives. A costly, brave attempt to repay in conscience and defray obligations, to foreign journalists who risked their lives to report live and unbiased what they witnessed with their own eyes - before they perished. Marie Colvin was attempting to retrieve her shoes, and was blasted into oblivion, and Remi Ochlik followed.