Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Tyrannical Government--the reality

This is Homs in Syria:
The headline which accompanied this picture reads:
Syrian army crushes key rebel stronghold in Homs

There is this description of the Syrian Army's attack:
“In every single second you can hear the sound of mortars and rockets and air strikes,” said an activist calling himself Abu Rami speaking from Khalidiya. “The regime is so close you hear the sound of them launching the missile, and then you hear them land.”
The Syrian rebels were armed, but seriously outgunned by a force which had an objective of crushing the rebellion:
Last week one rebel fighter said the outlook was so bleak that he and his colleagues went to battle in suicide belts, to detonate should they be captured.

“If we are captured we use it when we are crowded among the soldiers,” said Adnan, 27.

His voice tired and his tone hopeless, Mohammed, the activist who had just managed to flee, said: “Most of my friends have died fighting in Khalidiya these last years. Now I have no news about the ones that are left.”
A truly tyrannical regime has no qualms about wiping out any rebellion, no matter how much force it takes or what kind of force is needed.

Does Halabja mean anything to you?

If the US were truly a tyranny, you would have quietly disappeared in the night never to be heard from again.

Or,  as Matthew White says about the old gun control=genocide argument:
Frankly, this list is a pitifully weak argument against gun control, simply because most of the victims listed here did fight back. In fact, if there's a real lesson to be learned from this roster of oppressions, it's that sometimes a heavily armed and determined opposition is just swept up and crushed-- guns or no guns.

2 comments:

  1. "The Syrian rebels were armed, but seriously outgunned by a force which had an objective of crushing the rebellion"

    Its interesting that this war has gone on for over three years now against rebel forces that are both outnumbered and outgunned. The government forces have even used chemical and cluster munitions, yet government forces have not only not defeated the rebels, they have been facing international condemnation and sanctions.
    And apparently somewhere between ten and sixty thousand Syrian soldiers have defected and joined the Free Syrian Army. Yes, a fine example of how useless it is to stand up to the might of a government's military in the face of government corruption and human rights abuses.
    As for the attack on Halabja, that really worked out well for Iraq, didn't it? Its interesting how you are using textbook examples of governments at their worst as proof that the people being abused and exploited have no hope in forcing a change.
    Though in reality, the examples you gave seem to show that in the long run, it turns out badly for the abusive government.

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    1. Yes, and I suppose you're point is that the Syrian example, like all the others you guys love to trot out, proves that the extreme gun-rights fanatics in the US can and will defeat the government.

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