Althouse: "When the gunmen began to slaughter his family, 11-year-old Ali el-Sayed says he fell to the floor of his home, soaking his clothes with his brother's blood..."

May 31, 2012

"When the gunmen began to slaughter his family, 11-year-old Ali el-Sayed says he fell to the floor of his home, soaking his clothes with his brother's blood..."

"... to fool the killers into thinking he was already dead. The Syrian boy tried to stop himself from trembling, even as the gunmen, with long beards and shaved heads, killed his parents and all four of his siblings, one by one."

47 comments:

TWM said...: Poor Islam, always so misunderstood . . .; 5/31/12, 9:48 AM
MadisonMan said...: I thank God that I was born in America, and that my kids are relatively safe here.; 5/31/12, 9:53 AM
Methadras said...: Isn't tyranny cool and fun?; 5/31/12, 9:54 AM
kcom said...: It would be nice to know if this was true. Too many fake stories come out of the Middle East to take anything at face value.

Would a cold-blooded killer really shoot someone five times at point blank range to kill them?; 5/31/12, 10:02 AM
edutcher said...: And yet, Dictator Zero can't wait to declare victory in the War on Terror and withdraw.

It's the only spending cut he likes.; 5/31/12, 10:03 AM
Roger J. said...: Islam: the religion of peace; 5/31/12, 10:04 AM
ricpic said...: Assad is a client of Iran and since Iran is Hussein's natural ally he's not going to do anything to break the the hostile ring around Israel, his true enemy.; 5/31/12, 10:08 AM
The Drill SGT said...: Fascinating that Egypt was in need of revolution, and Libya was in need of bombing, but actual, you know atrocities just get diplomatic concern....

I chalk it up to Obama smart power.

disrespect for the allies

hugs for dictators

The list of folks that have been treated worse by Obama than by Bush

UK
Germany
France
Poland
Israel
India
Taiwan
Japan
Canada
Czech Republic
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Tibet
Egypt

Folks treated better

Russia
Burma
China
Syria
Iran; 5/31/12, 10:14 AM
Anonymous said...: Thank god cultural relativism exists to put this into proper perspective. Otherwise, I might be tempted to think that the middle east is filled with blood thirsty, vile, parasitic, evil bastards.; 5/31/12, 10:14 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: If only the Alawites and the Sunnis would agree on the primacy of evolution, then I think we have a chance of a world that will respond better to global challenges.; 5/31/12, 10:21 AM
Big Mike said...: Months back when Althouse posted about Libya I questioned the rationale for our involvement and commentators were pretty adamant that the fact that Qaddafi was killing his own people was justification enough.

So what is our rationale for not getting involved in Syria?; 5/31/12, 10:27 AM
jungatheart said...: "Would a cold-blooded killer really shoot someone five times at point blank range to kill them?"

Maybe he was freaked out by her screaming.

13,000 dead is a lot, but the US going in would make it at least ten times higher and increase ME instability. Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan need to gel, and Syria needs to sort this out by herself.; 5/31/12, 10:29 AM
Rusty said...: This is the reason I laugh when folks bring up Romney's Mormonism.
Not Even Close.; 5/31/12, 10:31 AM
Tibore said...: Monstrous. Just plain monstrous.; 5/31/12, 10:35 AM
sakredkow said...: Syria is Obama's fault.; 5/31/12, 10:38 AM
rhhardin said...: Hit the guy and take his stuff is the organizing rule.; 5/31/12, 10:40 AM
BarrySanders20 said...: So the offshoot Shiite group, armed by the regime, slaughtered the essentially unarmed Sunni villagers? This is like the Hutus and Tutsis in Africa. Only they can tell each other apart, and they proceed to tear each other apart.

If I were a Sunni villager, I think I would find a way to arm myself. Relying on the others to save you in this environment is a death sentence.

And no, we should not send troops.; 5/31/12, 10:47 AM
Ironclad said...: Tribal societies move aggressively to assert dominance. The Alawites (whom most of the other religious groups consider heretics) are moving here to assert their primacy, since they know that the same (or worse) will be inflicted on them if they fall.

The message here is simultaneously obey us or die and flee this area. It appears that the Alawites are consolidating their geographic hold in western Syria in case the government falls. Last Bastions and all that - much like the Druze in Lebanon. I think they see the end too.

Things are going to get much worse when the Salafi Militias start their pogroms. The Muslim Brotherhood will also be a bad player in this game too. I hope that the Kurds in Syria protect themselves well.

The biggest losers in Syria will be the Christian community there. They have accommodated the Alawites too long and I think they are going to take a lot of heat from that. I saw this morning too that the MB candidate for President in Egypt is now indicating that the Copts will have to pay a religious tax as part of the "2nd Islamic Conquest" of Egypt. Proof again why there are rarely any non-Islamic minorities in these areas.

The Arab Spring marches on.; 5/31/12, 10:52 AM
jungatheart said...: If I were a Sunni villager, I think I would find a way to arm myself. Relying on the others to save you in this environment is a death sentence."

Sunni poverty is a problem, but Qatar is arming rebels, I understand, and on the look-out for a Spartacus.; 5/31/12, 10:55 AM
Roger J. said...: paraphrasing Edmund Burke: all that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing. Although frankly I do not put our administration in the category of "good men."; 5/31/12, 11:03 AM
traditionalguy said...: We are not taking on a Syrian War because Israel is there and can handle it better than we can. So far Israel seems OK with letting Syrians kill one another off.

Mubarack in Egypt was too old to stay there much longer and his succession was the real issue in Egypt.

But Mubarack had always been an intelligent secularist reacting to the Muslim Fundamentalists that kill Jews, Christians, and Hindus on sight on impulse to be the needed Human sacrifices to propitiate their cruel god of religious legal guilt which demands deaths.

Mubarack survived for 35 years by taking American money and respecting Israel's Peace Treaty, which meant he also had to suppress the Muslim insanity that killed Sadat for doing the same thing.

That was his crime in Obama's eyes. Obama is very pro Muslim. And Obama is super pro Palestinian State to destroy the sole Jewish State.; 5/31/12, 11:14 AM
Anonymous said...: The Alawites are a fascinating splinter group in a region filled with paranoid and repellent religious and political splinter groups. I was only vaguely aware of them before this latest Syrian rebellion. The domination of Syria by the Alawite minority is something that has begun to appear only at the margins of the news here.

The sect is a thousand years old evidently. They've segregated themselves, or been segregated, so thoroughly that they haven't intermarried for all those generations. They have spent centuries as an underground culture, most often known only to their co-religionists - cultural phenomenon a thousand years old that dominates Syrian politics and powers the paranoia of the army and the ruling class.

The people calling for intervention are telling a child's tale: Somebody should stop that mean ol' dictator. As if one Syrian is much like another. You had might as well try to understand Ireland without reference to Catholics or Protestants.

What do we suppose the Sunnis will do with the Alawites after power changes hands? I suspect that the Alawites know very well what will happen. It will be meet the new boss, worse than the old boss. In this light, they're brutal and repellent but don't seem as paranoid. This is middle east politics as we've come to know it so well.

We should know by now better than we do what our leaders are playing at in the middle east. If this Syrian business was understood for the ancient and enduring blood feud that it is, outrage at the killings would be tempered by cautious consideration of the consequences of intervention. The killing won't stop when and if Assad's head is stuck onto a pike. The outsiders will move on to the next thing, just as they have done with Lybia, and congratulate themselves that at least they did something.

Rational observers are glad not to be involved, wish pox on all their houses and keep their distance.; 5/31/12, 11:21 AM
Rocketeer said...: I thank God that I was born in America, and that my kids are relatively safe here.

I concur with your prayer of thanks, MadMan.; 5/31/12, 11:36 AM
BarrySanders20 said...: Luconnu,

Great post.

"The outsiders will move on to the next thing . . . and congratulate themselves that at least they did something.

Rational observers are glad not to be involved, wish pox on all their houses and keep their distance."

In the Middle East, this refers to mass religious killings. Here, it applies to Bloomberg's drink size discrimination.; 5/31/12, 11:38 AM
Hagar said...: I am not for open intervention in Syria, but neither am I for making nice with those enabling the Assad regime to stay in power.; 5/31/12, 11:40 AM
Hagar said...: After the lection, Obama will have some more flexibility, and he may then impose some sanctions on Russia for supporting the Alawites with weapons and supplies.; 5/31/12, 12:01 PM
Alex said...: So Shiites killing Sunnis? What goes around, comes around. I don't feel an ounce of sympathy.; 5/31/12, 12:05 PM
sakredkow said...: "The outsiders will move on to the next thing . . . and congratulate themselves that at least they did something.

Rational observers are glad not to be involved, wish pox on all their houses and keep their distance."

In the Middle East, this refers to mass religious killings. Here, it applies to Bloomberg's drink size discrimination.

Or biking by as a man on thre street engorges himself off the face of another man; 5/31/12, 12:08 PM
Synova said...: "13,000 dead is a lot, but the US going in would make it at least ten times higher and increase ME instability. Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan need to gel, and Syria needs to sort this out by herself."

Likely true.

But think of what the situation would be if those in power in Syria shit their pants because of what we *might* do, instead of being comfortable and assured that we will do nothing?

Look at all that's fallen apart... was the revolution in Egypt a good thing? Or will Libya and Egypt both fall to muslim extremists? Would we have intervened in Libya without a follow-up plan if Obama wasn't president? Would we be abandoning Afghanistan or Iraq to fall where they may? Would we be TRYING to have no influence in the region and patting ourselves on the back for it?

Obama and his, care most that we are LIKED.

What has being LIKED ever done for anyone in the world? Who has it fed? What atrocity has it prevented?

Of course the US can't police the entire world, but the *world* ought to view us as capricious, likely to decide to roll over and through and squash the evildoers at some whim that they can't predict.; 5/31/12, 12:13 PM
Kevin said...: If I was the boy, the last thing I'd want to do is have my story known around the world, basically flaunting the fact that the killers missed. It's not like they can't have a "do-over." He isn't going to be put in the vault at Ft. Knox. And if I were him I don't know if I'd even feel safe there.; 5/31/12, 12:37 PM
Hagar said...: Synova has a point.

In 1986, when Reagan sent F-111's to bomb Gadhafy, I thought the message was really for Hafiz Assad, and it apparently worked; the Assad regime got noticeably more moderate.

At the time, it was also said that the difference between Hafiz Assad and Saddam Hussein was that Assad was sane.

Still, in a previous uprising in Syria, the Hafiz Assad regime reportedly killed 30-40,000 of its own people in the same manner as his son's regime is conducting itself.; 5/31/12, 12:53 PM
Methadras said...: ricpic said...

Assad is a client of Iran and since Iran is Hussein's natural ally he's not going to do anything to break the the hostile ring around Israel, his true enemy

Actually, Assad is a Bathist, just like Saddam was a Bathist, who's common enemy at the time was Iran. But since Saddam is longer a problem, and neither is Iraq (that we know of), then Iran filled in the vacuum created there by us and since we aren't in Iraq anymore to stop as much Iranian influence and infiltration, we are now seeing this.; 5/31/12, 1:16 PM
The Drill SGT said...: Synova said...

Obama and his, care most that we are LIKED.

What has being LIKED ever done for anyone in the world? Who has it fed? What atrocity has it prevented?

Of course the US can't police the entire world, but the *world* ought to view us as capricious, likely to decide to roll over and through and squash the evildoers at some whim that they can't predict.

The short version from a Roman Emperor:

Oderint Dum Metuant

"Let them hate us, as long as they fear us"; 5/31/12, 1:23 PM
Blue@9 said...: So what is our rationale for not getting involved in Syria?

Russia. It's dangerous to start a war in a country with a major Russian naval base.; 5/31/12, 1:26 PM
sakredkow said...: The short version from a Roman Emperor:

Oderint Dum Metuant

"Let them hate us, as long as they fear us"

I know a small minority of people think we should do this, but modeling ourselves on the Roman Empire (or Sparta - that was last week) is about the dumbest foreign policy stance you can take.; 5/31/12, 1:29 PM
David said...: And once again the students at America's elite colleges rise up in outrage at the atrocity.

Because they care so much.

About justice.

Pampered punks.; 5/31/12, 1:41 PM
The Drill SGT said...: Phx,

I agree at one level, but the current policy of discouraging our long time friends from trusting us at them same time convincing our enemies(who hate us), that they no longer need to fear us, provides no comfort.

The Marine version from 2005 sound better?:

"No greater friend, no worse enemy"; 5/31/12, 1:42 PM
traditionalguy said...: The slaughter of innocents is the very goal of today's neo-malthusian Pristine Earth Gaia worshipers.

Under Obama and friends "Human Rights" have been re-defined as the right to die quicker. The only problem they see in Syria is that the dying is going too slowly.

And how is their research into how to create a really good Pandemic going these days?

To do its job right , a mass extinction pathogen has to be released after a famine has weakened the human's immune systems. So the elimination of cheap energy from coal and oil has to come first until food growing and food transportation has gotten so expensive that the jobless masses are left starving.

A Progressive's job is never done.; 5/31/12, 1:52 PM
sakredkow said...: Drill Sgt,
Fair enough, it's a better version. I emphatically disagree with you about Obama's foreign policy, I presume you know that.
Maybe we can have a reasonable argument why at some point.
Cheers.; 5/31/12, 1:58 PM
Cedarford said...: WE face pressure not just from the Neocons, but the liberal "human rights intervention activists" like Brit scholor/journalist Samantha Powers (who somehow has become part of the US government).

They urge America to intervene in civil wars outside our vital interest. Bloody, awful ones that all but guarantee that if the US sets foot in country, we will be out at least 100 billion and take casualties for a decade.

We all know Bush embraced Neoconism. His biggest argument for nation - building, once it was clear the weapons Saddam was postulated to have and US bombing and the Northern Alliance had killed 60% of Al QAeda and sent the rest to Pakistan......was that "THEY KILLED THEIR OWN PEOPLE!!!".

(Good thing the Euros didn't come in on the side of the Confederacy on grounds LINCOLN IS KILLING HIS OWN PEOPLE!!)

Both groups of Elitists wanting new wars of adventure and nation-building and screaming We Cannot Do Nothing while Syrian families are killed!, Burmese repressed, noble Somali children and Darfuran and Congolese children suffer!!! Are not in the American mainstream.

The mainstream American is sick of spending US treasure and blood on wars for others that never end. Of being the free global 9/11 service.; 5/31/12, 2:37 PM
Synova said...: "Let them hate us, as long as they fear us"

"I know a small minority of people think we should do this, but modeling ourselves on the Roman Empire (or Sparta - that was last week) is about the dumbest foreign policy stance you can take."

It's not a foreign policy opinion as it says nothing at all about policy. It's a statement of priorities apart from policy.

Being liked is about the worst possible priority a state could come up with, roll over like a dog exposing your belly and think if you're cute enough everyone will love you, after which peace and harmony will ensue!

I'm not in any way advocating intervention, I'm advocating NOT going out of our way, as we have been, to convince everyone in the world that we are a lap dog instead of a war dog.

We didn't go to war with the Soviet Union to bring down the Berlin wall, and Reagan certainly wasn't single handedly responsible for the end of the cold war, but the idea that he might do anything, cowboy that he was, including jokes accidentally broadcast, *helped* rather than hurt.

It's never done any good, in all of history, to let the thugs depend on the good behavior of those powerful enough to squash them.

My preference would be, if I could have what I wanted, is a US president who looked at the situation and said to, oh, *France* or whoever else, Russia?... solve this problem or I will. And you won't like my solution.

There isn't any reason whatsoever that the US should be expected to intervene all over the place, stopping this massacre or that massacre or the other genocide. We're not the only nation in the world who has the ability.

But we *are* expected to, but we're expected to do it on someone else's terms, no icky military stuff to harsh the bleeding-heart mellow.

Well, screw them.

We should have a "Hulk Smash" foreign policy... don't make me angry, because you wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

Stop trying to *manage* everything.; 5/31/12, 2:51 PM
Synova said...: Hah! Cederford...

I don't think we ought to go have wars everywhere, just stop posturing as something no one need fear.

And I despise the humanitarian interventionists who want to feel virtuous without paying the butcher's bill. America has to DO something! But not, as I said, anything icky involving the military, at least not on the ground. Bombing is so civilized and short-term and we can call it "kinetic" instead of "killing."

Bah!

I'd rather we didn't intervene at all and had a policy of not meddling all over and mucking about trying to manage everyone else's business.

But I do disagree on Iraq. 9-11 demanded a response and it demanded an overwhelming response. Afghanistan was not enough to discourage future attacks or to make any mad-man think twice. We needed Iraq for that.

We didn't need Libya, and Libya has not inhibited events in Syria or anywhere else. No point to it. Whatever meek posturing across the region from our invasion of Iraq is long over. But since we've been trying so very HARD not to appear a threat to any tin-pot genocide, that's not unexpected.; 5/31/12, 3:04 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Kind of puts our problems into perspective.

All those poor put upon union people in Wisconsin whining about having to contribute to their own retirement and pay more towards their health insurance should take a good hard look at how the rest of the world lives. Boo freaking hoo.; 5/31/12, 3:08 PM
The Drill SGT said...: Synova,

a couple of random thoughts:

1.
My preference would be, if I could have what I wanted, is a US president who looked at the situation and said to, oh, *France* or whoever else, Russia?... solve this problem or I will. And you won't like my solution.

France doesnt get credit for good works in peace making / problem solving in West Africa, a Franco-phone area, that they seem willing to shoulder. It doesn't make the press, but the FFL commandos have done a number of hostage rescues there.

2. Somebody. Kissinger? said:

Countries don't have friends, they have interests.

3. I think part of what you are descrbing was postulated by Roosevelt (the good one :)

Speak softly, big stick, etc; 5/31/12, 3:22 PM
Synova said...: Maybe I should pick on Spain instead of France. ;); 5/31/12, 3:26 PM
Cedarford said...: Synova - I don't dispute the need to smash Saddam's rule with the high-intensity, under 150 billion with less than 1500 casualty war we did.
I do dispute the need Bush and the Neocons went on to blow overa a trillion dollars and 40,000 casualties we took after that - to nation-build and uplift the Noble Iraqi People.

Add that after we smashed Al Qaeda, we decided it would be a wonderful thing to commit to an eternal war to uplift the noble Afghan people. "Free the woman from their Burquas under the wise leadership of America's great new friend Ahmed Karzai!! America can build roads and schools and give free university educations to our beloved Afghans!"....Laura Bush exulted.

America is sick of that shit.

And as we cut back the Government spending and the military will face the axe as others will...I would rather see the planeloads of 100 dollar bills shipped to Malaki, Karzai, and the Pakistan government end...and all those 60 rear ech billion dollar a year "Hero Bases" replete with Burger Kings in Kandahar, etc..
Than the actual meat and bones of the US military.; 5/31/12, 3:58 PM
Cedarford said...: And Synova - The French are not the free riders on the free US 911Gobal Service that countries like Brazil, Italy, Germany are.
The French, Canadians, Brits, Aussies do their part.

The slam on the French starts with them telling us that getting bogged down in an Iraq quagmire and blowing trillions on their slimely Arab hides was an exceptionally stupid thing to do. "Protect the Kurds, alors! Let the Shiite and Sunni Arabs act like animals in their own civil war." We responded to the French warning that nation-building Iraq was a stupid adventure with calling them cowards and idiot Senators voting to rename fried potatos served to government employees "Freedom Fries" for Freedom-Lovers and The Heroes Who Serve.; 5/31/12, 4:04 PM