Syrian Crisis Threatens Development in Arab World

Syrian Crisis Threatens Development in Arab World – Inter Press Service.

In some countries, autocratic rule did not come as an impediment to development but as a facilitator thereof, but in Arab-majority countries, among others, communal identities were too entrenched and have severely constrained the ability and willingness of the ruling regimes to develop their countries. In Syria, the Assads have ruled the country as a conquered enemy territory, and try as they did, and they did try, they could not assimilate and reflect in their collective behavior the ideals of unity, integration and justice that they assiduously preached. Their schizophrenic behavior reflected the artificial nature of the state they controlled and served to feed and amplify the identity crisis from which each Syrian community and each Syrian citizen suffer. The result is this devastation, and its regional and global ramifications.

Passports! Get Your Red Hot European Passports!

Passports! Get Your Red Hot European Passports! – The American Interest.

True, Malta’s willingness to sell passports for a tidy sum comes as a “reminder that the world we live in today isn’t the democratic and liberal utopia that we sometimes like to think it is —and it won’t be until it’s as easy for an 18 year old Turk to bum around the US for a summer as it is for US college kids to see Istanbul over the break.” This is exactly why democracy promotion outside the geographic confines of the West is important, this is exactly why those who label it as a form of an illegal intervention in other peoples’ affairs are wrong, and this is exactly why intervention to prevent or stop genocide should not be considered as meddling in other people’s civil wars. Certain types of crises are always global: genocide is one.

EXCLUSIVE: Gruesome Syria photos may prove torture by Assad regime

EXCLUSIVE: Gruesome Syria photos may prove torture by Assad regime – CNN.com.

David Crane has been working tirelessly on behalf of the Syrian people since the early days of the revolution. With the help of his students and colleagues, he has been documenting on a daily basis each reported violation and war crime that has taken place in Syria as a result of Assad’s campaign of terror – his genocide in fact. We all owe a debt of gratitude to David Crane, irrespective of how the politics of this conflict pan out. I am honored to call him friend.

Evidence of ‘industrial-scale killing’ by Syria spurs call for war crimes charges

Evidence of ‘industrial-scale killing’ by Syria spurs call for war crimes charges | World news | The Guardian.

Yes, it’s genocide. Yes, there are concentration camps. Indeed, war tribunals are needed, and Assad and his top officials should end up there. You can blame the opposition for their bungling and fear the extremists, those who were borne out of the ashes and those exported to and imported into our land, as much as you want, but the methodical genocidal venture unleashed by the Assad using the vestiges and institutions of the State, and with Iranian and Russian backing, is unparalleled. The two main sides of this conflict are not on the same moral plane. As for Al-Qaeda, it’s a third party that has inserted itself into the situation by manipulating the two main parties in pursuit of her own agenda. She is neither an ally of the rebels nor of the regime. She is in it for herself. And if she is maintaining its own detention camps and carrying out executions, the main victims in this case are often the rebels, the pro-democracy activists and their families as well. Assad is a carrying out a large-scale genocide in his turf, Al-Qaeda is attempting to do the same on a much smaller scale in theirs, and rebels and activists are fighting for their survival in both the regime-held areas and in the so-called “liberated” territories.