Absorbing Corpses and Syrian Enlightenment

"If the international media has just discovered this now, then they are coming to it very late. These type (sic) of atrocities have been happening in Syria since the beginning of the crisis. We have documented hundreds of acts that are equally as horrific as the one documented in this video. We have seen one of our pilots' heads cut off and cooked on a grill. We have seen rebels toasting their success by drinking the blood of their victims."
Ali Haider, Damascus, Syrian Minister for Reconciliation

Guess what? The rebels have entirely overlooked the utility of appointing a minister for reconciliation. It appears not to have occurred to them that such a diplomatic post might be a requirement for the future of Syria. But then, on the other hand, according to their collective mindset, what need is there of reconciliation? The perplexingly vexing problem of everyone getting along together won't even arise, since, given the opportunity, one hearty paroxysm of slaughter should rid Syria of all its heretics ... poof! gone the Shia Alawites.

As for the ruling minority Alawites, reconciliation would of necessity require that the rebellious Sunni majority be tamped firmly back in place. A few incidents of arresting teen-age boys held to be in contempt of the regime, and bit of torture followed by a slow and painful death, artful mutilation, and finally, return of the remains to the grieving family, and the message has been sent. Of course, this has already occurred, and represents one of the reasons that the rebels absolutely refuse any accommodation with the current regime before laying down their arms.

And, besides which, the option to lay down their arms has already been removed as a possibility. Those who have been most successful within their ranks, the Islamist militias associated with al-Qaeda, flooding in from Libya, Somalia, Iraq, etc., and of course al Nusra mujahadeen have no intention of standing back and allowing Syria to return to the accursed dysfunction under which it thrived for far too long. They are now in control among the rebels and it is they who will declare when hostilities will cease, and Syria becomes a Sunni Sharia-led state.

"I swear to God we will eat your hearts, Alawite soldiers of Bashar the dog", endearingly promised Khaled al-Hamad the rebel leader from Homs. Delighting the Syrian regime no end, for so generously taking it upon themselves in aiding their propaganda machine well beyond anything they could themselves, in their limited imaginations, conjure up. Mr. Hamad, however, had his own response to horrified rebukes from abroad: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", for he had images of regime abuses, found on the cellphone of the soldier he had mutilated.

"We opened his cellphone and I found a clip of a woman and her two daughters fully naked, and he was humiliating them. Hopefully, we will slaughter all of them [the Alawites]". So how does that sound for peace, goodwill and brotherhood attaining at some time in the near future? Proudly, he stated there is another video for anyone interested, with himself using a "saw we use to cut trees ... I sawed him in small pieces and large ones", he said of his disposal of a Shabiha militia member loyal to the regime.

Slicing open a regime soldier to extract the heart and viscera is simply Biblical-era vengeance re-enacted, more than aptly demonstrating how far the tribal entities with their visceral hatred for one another have come from those ancient times of revenge and slaughter. On second thought, perhaps surpassing them in utter barbarism, for nowhere in the Biblical text does it appear that it is appropriate to consume the entrails of one's enemies, to anyone's fond recollection.

"Did you see what these animals do? They are devils. How can any human being do this? How can the West support these extremists", asked one woman in the Shia camp of the regime.

Of course, for the most part, it is the Sunni demographic of the country, the majority who have been largely displaced as internal and external refugees, grieving their lost family members whom Syrian government shelling and airborne bombs have obliterated from the face of the Earth, leaving their towns in bombed-out shards of what was once something approaching civilization.

And that little experimentation in the use of chemical agents? Not quite as successful an anticipated outcome as the previous occasion when Assad the Elder faced an insurrection.