Implementing That Ceasefire

It must be horribly humbling to feel oneself completely abandoned.  Surely, Syrian protesters against the tyrannical regime that the government of President Bashar al-Assad represents felt that much international sympathy would come their way, that in the spirit of Libya, other Arab rulers would see fit to come to their defence - particularly the majority Sunni-ruled countries that are their neighbours.

And Western forces, they too, particularly NATO, with its record of having intervened to aid Libyan rebels to topple the brutal government of Moammar Gadhafi.  They would respond.  Because this was obviously a humanitarian need, and it would be emphasized by the United Nations, that their desperate plight had to be relieved, and there was, after all, an international obligation to defend those citizens whose governments violently assailed them?

They did feel fairly certain of themselves, particularly once the Free Syrian Army began to assemble itself with the abandonment of Sunni military members from the regime's armed forces.  In the face of the army abducting children to imprison them and to viciously torture them, and return them, broken and lifeless to their grieving parents, the world community would rise as one to threaten and face down the Alawite regime, causing it to retreat and leave Syria to itself.

In their dreams.

Across Syria, in the wake of envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan that he urged upon President al-Assad, and to which there has since been no indications that there is any intention of honouring, thousands of demonstrators made themselves vulnerable once again by taking to the streets in mass protest.  This time they do not protest their government, for they expect nothing from it but bombardment, destruction, smoking ruins and dead families.

The protest of thousands was directed against the Arab governments that have spoken of what they plan to do, and how they would monitor the situation, and their urgings delivered to President al-Assad, and the many ultimatums that he felt free to contemptuously ignore, resulting in little response of any real value to the plight of the protest. 

The protest took place while an assault by security forces was taking place on the town of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province.  "The desertion of the Arabs and the silence of the Muslims are the hardest things facing Syrians", was the message on a sign at a protest in the Idlib settlement of Kafaroma.

"The Muslims and the Arabs have abandoned us ... but God is with us."  They have hope and trust that God is with them.

Did they not hear, has no one informed them that God is also with those who abuse them?