People Indicted For War Crimes

"There is no peace in Syria and this peace won’t come with Assad."

"It is impossible to continue with Assad in Syria. Why? Because how can we embrace the future with a Syrian president who has killed nearly 1 million of his citizens? Do the Syrian people want to see a person like him in power? I am saying it loud and clear, Bashar al-Assad is actually a terrorist who has inflicted state terror. We cannot say such a person can handle this issue. Because saying so means doing injustice to 1 million Syrians who have been massacred. tccb.gov.tr"

"Assad is definitely a terrorist who has carried out state terrorism."

"A foolish and cowardly boss who lives in isolation."

"Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay."

"The fate of ISIS will not differ from the fate of Bashar Al-Assad, as the two are moving on top of the killing and destruction machine."

"... the biggest criminal of our time."

"Today, Bashar Al-Assad is playing the role of the son of the Levanter, offering his services to any would-be buyer through interviews with whoever passes through the corner of Damascus where he is hiding. At first glance, the Levanter may appear attractive to those engaged in sordid games. In the end, however, the Levanter must betray his existing paymaster in order to begin serving a new one. Four years ago, Bashar switched to the Tehran-Moscow axis and is now trying to switch back to the Tel-Aviv-Washington one that he and his father served for decades. However, if the story has one lesson to teach, it is that the Levanter is always the source of the problem, rather than part of the solution. ISIS is there because almost half a century of repression by the Assads produced the conditions for its emergence. What is needed is a policy based on the truth of the situation in which both Assad and ISIS are parts of the same problem."

"The truth about the US presence in Syria has rarely been told. But one can be sure that the US has had no scruples about democracy in Syria or elsewhere in the region, as its warm embrace of Saudi Arabia amply demonstrates. The US decided to promote an insurgency to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in 2011 not because the US and allies like Saudi Arabia longed for Syrian democracy, but because they decided that Assad was a hindrance to US regional interests. Assad’s sins were clear: he allied with Russia, and he received support from Iran."

"The US foreign policy establishment had rhetorically justified America’s presence in Syria as part of the war on the Islamic State (ISIS). With ISIS essentially defeated and dispersed, Trump called the establishment’s bluff... This shift had the benefit of unmasking America’s real purposes in the Middle East...because of ISIS. In fact, ISIS was more a consequence than a cause of the US presence. The real purposes have been US regional hegemony; and the real consequences have been disastrous."

"Assad as President has actively tried to kill his own people. He has bombed them with barrel bombs in a most terrible way. He has brought untold suffering over his people -- if you look at Aleppo and other places. When you talk to the many Syrian refugees who have fled here to Germany, they will be able to tell you their own personal story, and the majority of them -- the great majority of them -- fled from Assad, and most of them not even fled the IS. So I don’t see him as an ally."

"... Assad’s survival—if Saddam Hussein’s murderous rampage in 1991 is any indication—will without a shadow of a doubt translate into hundreds of thousands of Syrian dead, mostly butchered after his victory has been assured. The comparison comes to mind because the two Ba’thi regimes of Saddam Hussein and Bashar Assad bear an unmistakable resemblance—they are mirror images of one another, one might say. Both are minority dominated, single party regimes originating in the same quasi-fascist pan-Arab ideology built on the principle that any form of disagreement is an act of “betrayal” to the “revolution.”"

"Other translation: " Bashar Al-Assad was able to destroying Syria on the heads of Syrians" cbc.ca"

"Bashar Al-Assad was able to break Syria over the heads of the Syrians."

"The regime of Bashar al-Assad will inevitably go down. And its collapse will be loud not only in Syria but across the Arab world."

"No way – no way possible in the imagination – that the man who has led the brutal response to his own people could regain the legitimacy to govern. One man and those who have supported him can no longer hold an entire nation and a region hostage. The right to lead a country does not come from torture, nor barrel bombs, nor Scud missiles. It comes from the consent of the people. And it’s hard to imagine how that consent could be forthcoming at this point in time."

"Assad protects Christians and other minorities. There’s no Sharia Law in Syria, and religious minorities have full freedom. The only group that’s “oppressed” in Syria is the violent Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned for many decades. The Syrian opposition consists of Sunni extremists who have been persecuting and killing Shiites and Christians for the last seven years."

"Although Americans are starting to wake up, many people are still caught up in the mainstream narrative regarding the Syrian war.... Starting in 2011, tens of thousands of foreigners – Al Qaeda and other jihadists – were sent into Syria to overthrow Assad. The U.S. and its allies – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey & Jordan – assisted in buying and transporting weapons to the “insurgents.” Special forces from the U.S., U.K., France and Israel also spent billions of dollars arming and training the terrorists, a.k.a “moderate rebels.” What’s happening in Syria is not a civil war – it’s a proxy war. Assad has been fighting the Islamic terrorists for seven years. It’s cynical and Orwellian for the West to shed crocodile tears for the Syrians and blame Assad for this brutal war. While the presstitutes make it look like Assad is fighting women and children, fact is that the rebels have highly sophisticated weapons – million-dollar tanks, U.S.-made anti-tank missiles that cost $250,000 etc.."

"For me he is the last Arab ruler, and Syria is the last Arab country. It is the fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs, and that's why I'm proud to be here."

"There’s a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer."

"My patience ran out on President Assad a long time ago. The reason why is because he houses Hamas, he facilitates Hezbollah, suiciders go from his country into Iraq, and he destabilises Lebanon."

"The reason is not simply because of my opinion of him. It is because it is unimaginable that you can stop the civil war there when the overwhelming majority of people in Syria consider him to be a brutal, murderous dictator."

"It’s sickening to hear these clowns repeatedly claim that “Assad murdered 500,000 of his people,” as though the U.S.-backed terrorists have played no role in the killings. I’ve viewed hundreds of beheadings and crucifixions online but none committed by Syria troops – all were proudly posted by the hellish filth that we’ve recruited, armed and trained for the past eight years. Major war crimes, like beheading 250 Syrian soldiers after running them across the desert in their underpants, were scarcely mentioned by the MSM."

"Dear Bashar al-Assad Apologists: Your Hero Is a War Criminal Even If He Didn’t Gas Syrians."

"After years of brutal fighting along purportedly confessional lines, the complex Syrian conflict has become a regional and international proxy war. What began as a peaceful popular uprising against the brutal tyranny of the Assad clan is now a global conflict."

"The attack on Iraq, the attack on Libya, the attack on Syria happened because the leader in each of these countries was not a puppet of the West. The human rights record of a Saddam or a Gaddafi was irrelevant. They did not obey orders and surrender control of their country.... As WikLeaks has revealed, it was only when the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in 2009 rejected an oil pipeline, running through his country from Qatar to Europe, that he was attacked.... From that moment, the CIA planned to destroy the government of Syria with jihadist fanatics – the same fanatics currently holding the people of Mosul and eastern Aleppo hostage. Why is this not news? The former British Foreign Office official Carne Ross, who was responsible for operating sanctions against Iraq, told me: “We would feed journalists factoids of sanitised intelligence, or we would freeze them out. That is how it worked.”"

"...must be made clear that Assad and the higher ranks of the regime will have no part in any political solutions. They are responsible for mass crimes and you can′t go back to business as usual with criminals."

"...But the international community doesn′t want to act on it. They see intervention as too complicated for them. Syria is a sovereign state and Assad an elected president. Even if he wasn′t elected democratically, he is recognised as having been elected. And then there′s the fact that he and his wife look like us. His wife is very beautiful. She doesn′t wear a veil and they both appear "civilised". So it′s much more difficult to see the barbarism there than it is with the members of "IS", who post their crimes on social media for all to see."

"It′s a great failure for humanity. What is happening in Syria is not just a Syrian affair. The oppression of the Syrian people by the Assad regime also concerns us in the West. "IS" draws its power from the dictatorship′s oppression."

"In Syria, the "good" war against terror looks something like this: all Syrians who are against Assad are cast as "terrorists", "tools of US imperialism" or "puppets" of Saudi Arabia or Turkey. They have practically no will of their own, they have not experienced any misery and are completely dehumanised. Assad himself on the other hand is seen as the legitimate president of a sovereign state, as a "quiet, thoughtful man", as Jurgen Todenhofer described him."

"The Syrian conflict has several narratives, all of which are jostling for media supremacy. In the end, the one that is being heard most clearly is that of Bashar al Assad."

"As long as foreign Shia militias are allowed to murder as they please on Assad's behalf, the radicalisation of Syria's majority Sunni population will continue."

"Yes, we have understood – Assad is not the lesser evil, but a war criminal. It is not IS that kills the most civilians, but the regime in Damascus (and Russia has to date killed more civilians than IS and the Nusra Front together). And a leader who is indicted for crimes against humanity in this country cannot be made a partner in the war on terror."

"Assad's bombs gave life to IS in Syria. People have been radicalised and ultimately, view IS as a protector of Sunnis. Assad's air strikes on cities, like Aleppo, or the targeted infrastructure attacks, were fatal. His assaults killed seven times more civilians than IS has."

"Everybody knows what this regime is capable of doing, including people who favour Assad. And everybody knows what's happening in Syrian jails. Of course the regime denies all these charges. But do you remember the photographs by Caesar who took pictures of torture victims in a military hospital and then smuggled them out of the country? After he published them in 2013, many Syrians looked through them in order to identify missing family members and friends. I discovered a good friend. He was arrested one and a half years beforehand and then tortured to death. Western countries look at the Syrian civil war and say: "If we have to choose the lesser of two evils, we'd rather live with Assad.""

"There is one painting [titled Betrayal] that speaks to me on an emotional level. [President] Bashar al-Assad should look at this painting. He probably would see a big part of himself inside it. He might recognize the evil presented in this painting in himself. That’s the point of every painting in this room: They are designed for people to come to terms with their own capacity to commit horrible acts. If we don’t understand the root of violence, then we’ll never be able to protect ourselves from committing it."

"He represents the case of stubbornness."

"People’s homes are invaded, women and children are taken hostage, because the authorities are not satisfied with arresting an activist – they take the whole family. This is going on in all regions of the country. President Bashar al-Assad said that his government’s priority was ensuring that there is enough baby formula, because that’s more important than freedom. Today he’s doing the opposite: depriving the children of Daraa not only of freedom, but also of milk, since he’s starving the city."

"Everyone [in western capitals] says to us ‘What’s the alternative to Assad and why is the opposition not united?’. But it’s not the revolution’s fault that it’s not united and we can’t wait for unity while the river of blood flows. The alternative to Assad is the ballot box."

"The tyranny of Assad will always give rise to extremist violence, whether it is called "Islamic State" or known by another name. Western societies are increasingly equating the terror of the Assad regime with that of "Islamic State", even going so far as to describe Assad as the evidently lesser evil. This despite the fact that Assad has killed a quarter of a million Syrians with barrel bombs and chemical weapons alone, while IS has between 10,000 and 20,000 people on its conscience (exact figures are not known). In addition, the deployment of Assad's air force and the besieging of cities by government troops have driven several million Syrians from their homes. It is terrifying how the deeds of the man who is currently the world's most brutal mass murderer are being relativised and how the focus is increasingly on the crimes of "Islamic State"."

"The Assad dictatorship is conducting an outright campaign of annihilation against its own population."

"Russia, Iran and Hezbollah openly supported the Assad regime from the outset. But why have the US and the nations of the West, which are apparently so concerned with respect for human rights, done nothing to stop the terrible violence of the Assad regime? Is the so-called "Islamic State" a logical consequence of the violence of the Assad regime?"

"The Assad regime is absolutely monstrous and responsible for a large majority of the atrocities."

"Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power, to which he is clinging, and for which he is also prepared to commit genocide."

"Finding a link between Bashar Assad′s regime and the rise of the so-called Islamic State will not come as a surprise to many Syrians. Unlike the image the regime has been trying to sell to world media that Assad is fighting IS, there is well-documented evidence of the Assad dictatorship′s contributions to the IS tale of terror."

"You have to convince your audiences, you cannot mention such a picture without verifying who are those and where and everything about, just to put it in front of the audience, tell them “they’ve been killed by the Syrian soldiers.” At the end, these are allegations. We have to talk about concrete evidence, at the end. That’s how you can base your judgment. Anyone can say whatever he wants."

"None of these allegations you mentioned are concrete, all of them are allegations. You can bring photos from anyone and say this is torture. Who took the pictures? Who is he? Nobody knows. There is no verification of any of this evidence, so it’s all allegations without evidence... It’s funded by Qatar, and they say it’s an anonymous source. So nothing is clear or proven. The pictures are not clear which person they show. They’re just pictures of a head, for example, with some skulls. Who said this is done by the government, not by the rebels? Who said this is a Syrian victim, not someone else? For example, photos published at the beginning of the crisis were from Iraq and Yemen."

"It is an integrated chain of events: from the occupation of Palestine, to the invasion of Iraq and trying to divide it now and the division of the Sudan all planned by Israel and the West and always executed by the states of tyranny and backwardness in our Arab world. Was it not Abdul Aziz Ibn Abdul Rahman al-Faisal [Ibn Saud] who conceded to Britain that he does not object to giving Palestine to the ‘poor’ Jews in 1915? Did those states not incite the 1967 war, whose price we are still paying today, in order to get rid of the Abul Naser ‘phenomenon’? Did those states not support Iran under the Shah, only to stand against it when it decided to support the Palestinian people and turn the Israeli embassy into a Palestinian embassy after the revolution? Those are the countries which made the ‘King Fahd Peace Initiative’ in 1981 and threatened the Palestinians with rivers of blood if they don’t accept it. When the Palestinian factions rejected it, and in less than a year, there was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the ejection of the PLO from Lebanon, not out of concern for Lebanon, but for Israel. Those same states surprised us in 2002 with their greatest concession: ‘normalization in return for peace,’which was later modified to become the ‘Arab Peace Initiative’in the Beirut summit. When Israel attacked Lebanon in 2006, it was those same countries that encouraged Israel and the West not to accept a cease-fire until the Lebanese resistance was destroyed, describing them as ‘adventurous.’ Because these satellite countries succeeded in their tasks, they were charged with funding chaos under the name of the ‘Arab spring,’ and with leading the Arab League after other Arab countries abandoned their roles. The Arab League itself was reduced to summoning NATO and imposing a siege on the Arab states that refused to comply. All of these events constitute a strongly linked chain aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause; all the money spent by those countries since their creation has been for this purpose. And here they are today playing the same role: in Gaza through Israeli terrorism, and in Syria through terrorism belonging to 83 nationalities. The methods may differ but their objective is the same."

"Had this 'Spring' been genuine, it would've started in the backward Arab countries. Were it a call for freedom, democracy, justice, it would've began in the most oppressive and tyrannical states. The states behind every hardship that befell this nation, and every war against it. States behind the intellectual and religious deviation and moral decline. Their existence is the best success for the west and the main reason for Israel's continued existence. There is no clearer evidence than their current stand regarding the Israeli aggression against Gaza. Where is the 'alleged' zeal and passion that they showed towards Syria or the Syrian people? Why haven't they supported Gaza with money and arms? Where are their jihadists and why didn't they send jihadists to defend our people in Palestine?"

"When, but you, to be frank with you, Barbara, I, you don't live here...how did you know all this? you have to be here to see. We don't see this. So it cannot depend on what you hear in the United States."