Freedom for Syria and Libya

[Eric the Green]

Hundreds of people are still dying in the Mediterranean.

Syrians have fled their country in droves. Libyans still face civil war. Throughout the Middle East, fires are raging left over from the Arab Spring uprisings of people against their dictators. Results of this Revolution that was felt around the world starting in 2011 are mixed.

I predicted both the revolutions and the refugees.
https://youtu.be/oKmyB1q3H68

My prayers are with the refugees and freedom fighters in these lands, especially Syria.

[TnT]

Maybe if the various sects of Syrian "freedom fighters" could have abandoned their mutual distaste and come together agaisnt Assad, this whole thing could have been over a long time ago.

[Eric the Green]

I think they did come together pretty well, and have put up a brave fight. The proxy war was the problem; Assad had more long-standing and willing allies who actually intervened (Russia, Iran and its proxy terrorist groups); the freedom-fighters only had token material and financial support from the USA and some similar support from Turkey, the Gulf States and Europe, and allies in the fight from Al Nusra.

[Galen]

(01-21-2017, 08:37 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think they did come together pretty well, and have put up a brave fight. The proxy war was the problem; Assad had more long-standing and willing allies who actually intervened (Russia, Iran and its proxy terrorist groups); the freedom-fighters only had token material and financial support from the USA and some similar support from Turkey, the Gulf States and Europe, and allies in the fight from Al Nusra.

I see that you have, along with most Boomers currently, reached the "Make War, Not Love" stage of your life.  It is pretty obvious that the anti-war principles of the hippies lasted until they were safely beyond military service age.

[Ragnarök_62]

(01-22-2017, 04:14 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-21-2017, 08:37 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think they did come together pretty well, and have put up a brave fight. The proxy war was the problem; Assad had more long-standing and willing allies who actually intervened (Russia, Iran and its proxy terrorist groups); the freedom-fighters only had token material and financial support from the USA and some similar support from Turkey, the Gulf States and Europe, and allies in the fight from Al Nusra.

I see that you have, along with most Boomers currently, reached the "Make War, Not Love" stage of your life.  It is pretty obvious that the anti-war principles of the hippies lasted until they were safely beyond military service age.

1. Al Nusra seems to be stringing us along.

Stupid is as stupid does.

2. Perhaps Millies will wake up from their Ishit induced trance and vote out the Neo-CONS who want to use 'em as cannon fodder.

[Galen]

(01-22-2017, 04:36 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 04:14 AM)Galen Wrote: I see that you have, along with most Boomers currently, reached the "Make War, Not Love" stage of your life.  It is pretty obvious that the anti-war principles of the hippies lasted until they were safely beyond military service age.

Stupid is as stupid does.

2. Perhaps Millies will wake up from their Ishit induced trance and vote out the Neo-CONS who want to use 'em as cannon fodder.

One can only hope.  Then again the Millies who are busy breaking things while throwing their little temper tantrums suggests otherwise.

[Ragnarök_62]

(01-22-2017, 04:44 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 04:36 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 04:14 AM)Galen Wrote: I see that you have, along with most Boomers currently, reached the "Make War, Not Love" stage of your life.  It is pretty obvious that the anti-war principles of the hippies lasted until they were safely beyond military service age.

Stupid is as stupid does.

2. Perhaps Millies will wake up from their Ishit induced trance and vote out the Neo-CONS who want to use 'em as cannon fodder.

One can only hope.  Then again the Millies who are busy breaking things while throwing their little temper tantrums suggests otherwise.

Yes, there is certainly a subset of Millies, but not all.  The ones you're mentioning are the ones I call "snowflakes".






Now, I have a theory as to how this came about.
It's pretty amazing how assorted chemicals have created this .... uh,..... fallout.

[Galen]

(01-22-2017, 05:09 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 04:44 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 04:36 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 04:14 AM)Galen Wrote: I see that you have, along with most Boomers currently, reached the "Make War, Not Love" stage of your life.  It is pretty obvious that the anti-war principles of the hippies lasted until they were safely beyond military service age.

Stupid is as stupid does.

2. Perhaps Millies will wake up from their Ishit induced trance and vote out the Neo-CONS who want to use 'em as cannon fodder.

One can only hope.  Then again the Millies who are busy breaking things while throwing their little temper tantrums suggests otherwise.

Yes, there is certainly a subset of Millies, but not all.  The ones you're mentioning are the ones I call "snowflakes".

Now, I have a theory as to how this came about.
It's pretty amazing how assorted chemicals have created this .... uh,..... fallout.

I have my own theory: These people are completely insane.  Its what happens when you give children awards for existing or taking a dump.  Until the appropriate studies are done it is not possible to rule out your theory.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-22-2017, 04:14 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-21-2017, 08:37 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think they did come together pretty well, and have put up a brave fight. The proxy war was the problem; Assad had more long-standing and willing allies who actually intervened (Russia, Iran and its proxy terrorist groups); the freedom-fighters only had token material and financial support from the USA and some similar support from Turkey, the Gulf States and Europe, and allies in the fight from Al Nusra.

I see that you have, along with most Boomers currently, reached the "Make War, Not Love" stage of your life.  It is pretty obvious that the anti-war principles of the hippies lasted until they were safely beyond military service age.

During Bush 43's Iraq War II, the blues were crying quagmire while the reds were stay the course.  I'd say the anti war blue values stuck pretty much until the end of Iraq War II.  That war pretty well illustrated what the Pentagon knew back in Vietnam days.  It takes a lot of boots on the ground to suppress an insurrection style conflict.  The Pentagon told both LBJ and Bush 43 the troop levels required to suppress insurrection.  Both presidents ordered the military in with less than what the Pentagon textbooks said was required.  Result... bloody quagmires.

My feeling is that we have had something of a values change on both sides of the partisan divide.  Iraq War II made it clear that we can do nation building at gunpoint, but the expense in blood, gold and iron is so great that we ought not do it.  There is a reluctance today to commit the boots on the ground required.  Powell's Questions aren't being ignored.

Trump?  Does he really think he knows more than the generals?  He talked as if he was going to use the military more often and to better effect than in the recent past.  Will the lessons learned from Bush 43's wars be forgotten?

We'll see.  I'm not going to chant 'Make love, not war'... or vice versa.  I'm going to ask Powell's Questions.  I'm not going to advocate large numbers of boots on the ground unless there are good answers...

Wiki Wrote:The Powell Doctrine states that a list of questions all have to be answered affirmatively before military action is taken by the United States:

• Is a vital national security interest threatened?
  
• Do we have a clear attainable objective?
  
• Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
  
• Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
  
• Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
  
• Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
  
• Is the action supported by the American people?
  
• Do we have genuine broad international support?
  

[Eric the Green]

(01-22-2017, 04:36 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 04:14 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-21-2017, 08:37 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think they did come together pretty well, and have put up a brave fight. The proxy war was the problem; Assad had more long-standing and willing allies who actually intervened (Russia, Iran and its proxy terrorist groups); the freedom-fighters only had token material and financial support from the USA and some similar support from Turkey, the Gulf States and Europe, and allies in the fight from Al Nusra.

I see that you have, along with most Boomers currently, reached the "Make War, Not Love" stage of your life.  It is pretty obvious that the anti-war principles of the hippies lasted until they were safely beyond military service age.

1. Al Nusra seems to be stringing us along.

Stupid is as stupid does.

2. Perhaps Millies will wake up from their Ishit induced trance and vote out the Neo-CONS who want to use 'em as cannon fodder.

Anyone who says I want the USA to invade Syria just isn't reading what I say. That's par for the course for Galen.

[Galen]

(01-22-2017, 11:22 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 04:36 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 04:14 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-21-2017, 08:37 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think they did come together pretty well, and have put up a brave fight. The proxy war was the problem; Assad had more long-standing and willing allies who actually intervened (Russia, Iran and its proxy terrorist groups); the freedom-fighters only had token material and financial support from the USA and some similar support from Turkey, the Gulf States and Europe, and allies in the fight from Al Nusra.

I see that you have, along with most Boomers currently, reached the "Make War, Not Love" stage of your life.  It is pretty obvious that the anti-war principles of the hippies lasted until they were safely beyond military service age.

1. Al Nusra seems to be stringing us along.

Stupid is as stupid does.

2. Perhaps Millies will wake up from their Ishit induced trance and vote out the Neo-CONS who want to use 'em as cannon fodder.

Anyone who says I want the USA to invade Syria just isn't reading what I say. That's par for the course for Galen.

I would remind you that the anti-war protesters disappeared after Obozo was elected and yet he was bombing the shit out of someone every day of his eight years in the White House.  The Nobel Peace Prize has apparently become one of the biggest jokes, and a bad one at that, in history.

[Ragnarök_62]

(01-22-2017, 08:12 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: <snip>
My feeling is that we have had something of a values change on both sides of the partisan divide.  Iraq War II made it clear that we can do nation building at gunpoint, but the expense in blood, gold and iron is so great that we ought not do it.  There is a reluctance today to commit the boots on the ground required.  Powell's Questions aren't being ignored.

Trump?  Does he really think he knows more than the generals?  He talked as if he was going to use the military more often and to better effect than in the recent past.  Will the lessons learned from Bush 43's wars be forgotten?

We'll see.  I'm not going to chant 'Make love, not war'... or vice versa.  I'm going to ask Powell's Questions.  I'm not going to advocate large numbers of boots on the ground unless there are good answers...

Wiki Wrote:The Powell Doctrine states that a list of questions all have to be answered affirmatively before military action is taken by the United States:

• Is a vital national security interest threatened?
  
• Do we have a clear attainable objective?
  
• Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
  
• Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
  
• Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
  
• Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
  
• Is the action supported by the American people?
  
• Do we have genuine broad international support?
  

I would expand said doctrine to any military action. That includes bombing raids and drone strikes. I take the doctrine to mean what it says. "military action". Drone strikes and bombing raids are "military actions". As for what Trump decides to do, it of course would take a class 1 idiot to not even be aware that past military action which con-travails the Powell Doctrine has lead to nothing but sorrow.

[David Horn]

(01-21-2017, 08:33 PM)TnT Wrote: Maybe if the various sects of Syrian "freedom fighters" could have abandoned their mutual distaste and come together agaisnt Assad, this whole thing could have been over a long time ago.

Yes, except for the unfortunate fact that many of those factions were either al Qaeda offshoots or ISIS.  Having ISIS in charge of Syria would have been in no one's interest.

[Eric the Green]

(01-23-2017, 11:42 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-21-2017, 08:33 PM)TnT Wrote: Maybe if the various sects of Syrian "freedom fighters" could have abandoned their mutual distaste and come together agaisnt Assad, this whole thing could have been over a long time ago.

Yes, except for the unfortunate fact that many of those factions were either al Qaeda offshoots or ISIS.  Having ISIS in charge of Syria would have been in no one's interest.

The freedom-fighters were some of the guys whom Assad was shooting, mowing and bombing down in the street while they were peacefully demonstrating in the streets in the Arab Spring Revolution of 2011. They include some defectors from Assad's army of thugs. For a while they were all alone, and later some Al Nusra fighters and various other groups came in to support them when others failed to do so. The IS is entirely different, and swept through eastern Syria in the vaccuum. The Free Syrian Army and the IS are enemies, and the US tried to use them against the IS, but that failed because the USA didn't support them in their fight against the one who was targeting them the most: Assad, and later Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia. It is not fair to put down the freedom fighters of Syria who have risked their lives for their country, by confusing them with the IS. That is only Assad's tactic, and buying into it only discourages people from supporting the Syrian people who just want to be free. The FSA is well-coordinated, and their representatives have been clear in the various peacetalks. The Syrian Civil War is not a battle between Assad and AlQaeda/ISIS. It is a battle between the Free Syrians and their monster dictator, which other allies and factions have taken advantage of. All this should be completely clear to everyone by now.

[Eric the Green]

Donald Trump's long-awaited Muslim ban became a reality yesterday. No, you might say, it's not actually the proposal he outlined during the campaign. True, the ban doesn't cover every Muslim globally, just a set of Muslims from countries Trump perceives, rather arbitrarily, to be dangerous.

But yesterday's announcement is anchored in his campaign rhetoric, and the fact that every country on yesterday's list is a Muslim-majority nation confirms that he meant what he said - that Muslims are dangerous and need to be treated differently than any other set of people.

This is why yesterday's proposal is likely to get Americans killed.

ISIS, the most dangerous of a global array of radical Islamic terrorist groups, is in retreat. Every day, they lose more territory, and it is only a matter of time before their self-proclaimed caliphate disappears before the world's eyes. The continual loss of territory robs from ISIS one of their two main rationales for existence - the creation of a geographic entity based on their perverted interpretation of Islam.

But ISIS has a second purpose - to take part in an imagined global struggle of civilizations between Christians and Muslims. President Obama and President Bush before him knew the danger of stoking talk of war between east and west. Obama knew how important this kind of talk was to ISIS's recruitment and expansion, and he went out of his way to tamp it down.

Trump has now handed ISIS a path to rebirth. They can and will use his announcement as confirmation that America is at war with Muslims, especially those Muslims living in desperate circumstances. Their recruitment bulletin boards will light up with new material. Their entreaties to would-be lone wolf attackers in America will have new energy and purpose.

All the work we have done to cut down on extremist recruitment at home and abroad now goes out the window. It's a new day for terrorist recruiters.

And the list is dangerous for other reasons. It makes Americans think that terrorists can be contained simply by focusing on a few countries that are often in the news. But the real threats to America are much broader than just these countries. Where is Saudi Arabia on this list? Or Pakistan? Does Trump not recall that the attackers on September 11th came not from Syria or Iran or Sudan, but from Saudi Arabia, our supposed ally? And what about Europe, a continent that now enjoys relatively unfettered travel rights to the United States? Radicalized European citizens have already carried out massive terrorist attacks, and under current law, they can travel to the U.S. without almost any security screening. Terrorist threats do not originate in one set of countries, and thus a geographic approach is feckless.

If President Trump was serious about tackling the terrorist threat, he would make sure the Europeans were sharing counterterrorism intelligence with each other, and with us, so we can track potential terrorists no matter what country they come from. Another commonsense measure would be to ban people on the terrorist watch list from buying deadly firearms in America. But rather than do any of these things that would actually make Americans safer, Trump is pursuing misguided policies rooted in bigotry and fear.

And the boon to flailing terrorist groups is just the beginning of the tragedy of yesterday's announcement. During my last trip to the Middle East, I was upbraided by our allies in the region for our country's refusal to help them with the flow of refugees out of Iraq and Syria. Over and over they told me, as they had told the Obama Administration, that we would never be perceived a partner in the fight against Islamic extremism if we washed our hands of the refugee problem.

We assail Libya and Yemen and Syria and Iraq with bombs, and then simply expect other countries to deal with the consequences. We make the mess, then expect others to clean up. This infuriates our friends and damages our partnerships. Now, Trump's Muslim ban will risk severing ties between us and many of these nations. They will see our policy as xenophobic and detrimental to the displaced persons crisis in the region. Our ability to build a truly multi-national response to extremism will become impossible.

Finally, the decision to turn our backs on millions of men, women, and children attempting to flee torture and terror shrinks us as a nation, and marks an unconscionable abandonment of our founding principles. Remember, those who make it into the U.S. refugee program have survived the worst of the worst - they are those who are so badly injured, so in danger, that they cannot survive in refugee camps. The vast majority of them are women, young children and the elderly. They are desperate and scared, and without harbor in the United States, many of them will perish.

We are a nation founded by religious refugees. Over and over, we have opened our doors to those fleeing war and terror. Jews during the Second World War. The Vietnamese in the 1960s and 1970s. Bosnians and Albanians during the Balkan War. I am proud to represent Connecticut, a state which is a testament to this past practice. Each time we found ways to sort out the good guys (99%) from the bad guys (1%). There were terrorists in Vietnam and the Balkans who wanted in - we kept them out. We can do the same here. We can protect ourselves from terror and rescue others from terror - these are not mutually exclusive ends.

And we must do both. Trump's Muslim ban is a moral abomination. It is fundamentally un-American. And it is dangerous - it will give life back to the terrorist movement and eventually get Americans killed.

We knew this was coming. Trump means what he says, and now his offensive ramblings against people of Muslim faith are edified in law. But we don't have to accept it. We must fight this new policy. We must seek to rescind it. We must let the world know that Trump's discriminatory views do not reflect the true America. And we must rally Americans who think that keeping Muslims out keeps us safe to understand that this policy does exactly the opposite.

This isn't who we are. It's not who we should be. And I will fight this policy with all that I have.

Every best wish,

Chris Murphy
U.S. Senator, Connecticut

[Ragnarök_62]

(01-23-2017, 05:05 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 11:42 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-21-2017, 08:33 PM)TnT Wrote: Maybe if the various sects of Syrian "freedom fighters" could have abandoned their mutual distaste and come together agaisnt Assad, this whole thing could have been over a long time ago.

Yes, except for the unfortunate fact that many of those factions were either al Qaeda offshoots or ISIS.  Having ISIS in charge of Syria would have been in no one's interest.

The freedom-fighters were some of the guys whom Assad was shooting, mowing and bombing down in the street while they were peacefully demonstrating in the streets in the Arab Spring Revolution of 2011. They include some defectors from Assad's army of thugs. For a while they were all alone, and later some Al Nusra fighters and various other groups came in to support them when others failed to do so. The IS is entirely different, and swept through eastern Syria in the vaccuum. The Free Syrian Army and the IS are enemies, and the US tried to use them against the IS, but that failed because the USA didn't support them in their fight against the one who was targeting them the most: Assad, and later Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia. It is not fair to put down the freedom fighters of Syria who have risked their lives for their country, by confusing them with the IS. That is only Assad's tactic, and buying into it only discourages people from supporting the Syrian people who just want to be free. The FSA is well-coordinated, and their representatives have been clear in the various peacetalks. The Syrian Civil War is not a battle between Assad and AlQaeda/ISIS. It is a battle between the Free Syrians and their monster dictator, which other allies and factions have taken advantage of. All this should be completely clear to everyone by now.

Eric seems to have been in the Mojave Desert when he posted this.  The FSA is a mirage.

[Eric the Green]

yourself. The FSA is the Syrian opposition to Assad. Without it, there is no such thing. The Arab Spring revolt was not a mirage. Your "alternative facts" are not valid, and neither are Tulsi's.

[Ragnarök_62]

(01-28-2017, 07:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: yourself. The FSA is the Syrian opposition to Assad. Without it, there is no such thing. The Arab Spring revolt was not a mirage. Your "alternative facts" are not valid, and neither are Tulsi's.

There's nothing like fact checking , man.  Why don't you find information from folks who have actually talked to real Syrians.  Tulsi did this and since she did actually have discussions with real Syrians then that's fine with me.  Stink tanks, NeoCONS, and war mongers like McStain make shit up to further their own little agendas.

[Eric the Green]

(01-28-2017, 07:46 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 07:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: yourself. The FSA is the Syrian opposition to Assad. Without it, there is no such thing. The Arab Spring revolt was not a mirage. Your "alternative facts" are not valid, and neither are Tulsi's.

There's nothing like fact checking , man.  Why don't you find information from folks who have actually talked to real Syrians.  Tulsi did this and since she did actually have discussions with real Syrians then that's fine with me.  Stink tanks, NeoCONS, and war mongers like McStain make shit up to further their own little agendas.

The facts are available all the time on PBS, network TV, AP, newspapers and countless other sources on the scene. I have posted facts with sources many times here on this. Tulsi's spiel is a selective made-up montage of her own selective conversations there. It is completely bogus. McCain is wrong on many things, but no-one is always wrong. He's largely right on this one, although I might not agree with all of his proposed actions.

Your interest in Syria is limited to the USA keeping out. That is entirely understandable, but others who are interested in the Syrians don't share your views on it.

[Eric the Green]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/videos/#206272

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/amnesty-d...transcript





JUDY WOODRUFF: But first: Amnesty International has just issued a report documenting what it says is clear evidence that the Assad regime in Syria has been illegally imprisoning, torturing and murdering political opponents.

William Brangham has more.

And a warning: Some of the details here are disturbing.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Amnesty’s report says that somewhere between 5,000 and 13,000 people were tortured and executed at one military prison outside Damascus between 2011 and 2015.

Amnesty alleges that officials at the highest level of the Syrian government approved the killings, as did the grand mufti of Syria, the highest ranking religious figure in the country.

I’m joined now by Sunjeev Bery. He’s Amnesty’s director of advocacy for the Middle East and North Africa.

SUNJEEV BERY, Amnesty International: Thank you for having me.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Very, very troubling reading in this report and the stories of the people who were tortured and executed at this prison.

Can you tell me, who were these people?

SUNJEEV BERY: There were thousands of civilians, as well as some ex-military officers, who are held at Saydnaya prison in Saydnaya, Syria.

We estimate that between 10,000 and 20,000 people are held there now. And for years, on a weekly basis, as many as 50 people have been hanged in mass executions by the Syrian government at this prison.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And are these people who are picked up — what are the crimes that they’re accused of?

SUNJEEV BERY: Many of them are perceived to be opposition to the government, although when you’re doing this kind of mass arrest, mass torture and mass execution, who knows what the individual people’s backgrounds are?

And, of course, peaceful, nonviolent opposition to a government is certainly not a crime. But with that background, many of them are subjected to forced confessions through extraordinarily brutal torture, and once that confession is put via ink to paper, then the execution process begins.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I understand a lot of the documentation for this report came from people who witnessed what’s going on in there.

I understand that there is some kind of a trial process, so-called trial. Can you explain a little bit about what goes on?

SUNJEEV BERY: Sure.

And just to put it in perspective, the so-called trial is a total of one to three minutes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: One to three minutes’ long?

SUNJEEV BERY: One to three minutes per person, who is then later executed.

So you have thousands of people in these prisons subjected to extraordinary brutal torture in complete silence, living under rules of complete silence, routine deaths.

A certain percentage of the population in this prison are then taken to trials via a military field court, a so-called court, in a suburb of Damascus, where, during a one-to-three-minute trial, with, of course, no lawyer present, no due process at all, in 60 to 180 seconds, they are sentenced to death.

That death sentence is then rubber-stamped by higher authorities up to the highest levels of government, and then later they are tortured and hung to death.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The thing that was so striking to me, among many, in this report was the bureaucracy, the documentation of it, the fingerprinting, the getting witnesses to sign that they had never been mistreated, getting doctors to certify that all these deaths occurred because of natural causes.

Why do you think that the regime goes to these lengths to basically catalogue their own war crimes?

SUNJEEV BERY: It is difficult to know why the regime is so bureaucratically efficient in its documentation of its crimes against humanity.

One possibility may be that the senior levels of the government, perhaps even including President Bashar al-Assad, want to know that the crimes against humanity that they are likely to be ordering are, in fact, being carried out by the military and the intelligence bureaucracy.

And so with each of these executions, the executions are signed, either by the grand mufti, the highest appointed supposedly Muslim authority in Syria, although, if you’re signing off on all these mass executions, it’s highly questionable what your personal morality is, or the army chief of staff, or one other senior level defense official, the minister of defense.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: What do you hope the international community does with this evidence?

SUNJEEV BERY: Well, the first thing to do is stare the evidence in the face and acknowledge what’s happening.

It’s time for Russia and China to drop their veto at the U.N. Security Council and allow the United Nations to take action on this. It’s time for the U.S. government under President Trump to stop pretending that anything other than gross crimes against humanity are happening.

And it’s also time to acknowledge what Syrian refugees are fleeing. You have perhaps 5,000 to 13,000 people killed at this prison, another 17,000 people killed at other prisons across Syria, and all of that against a backdrop of some 400,000 people who have died since the Syrian war began.

People are fleeing for their lives. And it is shameful that our own U.S. government here has said no to Syrian refugees at a time of such extraordinary suffering.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This report comes out amidst — it’s just the latest piece of evidence on a mountain of evidence that already exists about Assad’s regime.

But, as you well know, Assad still sits happily on his perch in Syria. Do you think that this is going to move the needle in any way?

SUNJEEV BERY: The needle definitely has to move.

And one key factor is going to be putting pressure on the U.N. Security Council to take action. That means putting pressure on the Russian government, putting pressure on the Chinese government, and ensuring that the U.S. government, under the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, actually stands up on this issue and pushes on it, as opposed to referring to President Bashar al-Assad as some kind of ally in the so-called war against terrorism.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Sunjeev Bery of Amnesty International, thank you very much.

SUNJEEV BERY: Thank you.

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/2/7/he...ary_prison