Syria: What PJMedia is doing
Friday night, PJM published some extremely graphic videos from Syria. They are so extreme that one commenter on YouTube even wondered if we were hacked.
We have not been. We published these videos, horrifying as they are, because we must bear witness to what is going on at this moment in Syria. The history of the last century had many monsters – Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot – all of whom were mass murderers of their own people. Another such person- active at this very moment – is Bashar al-Assad of Syria. He must be stopped before he murders more,
Therefore you must excuse us for publishing these graphic videos. It is our duty. And it is all our duties to stop this man.
We are working with Farid Ghadry of the Syrian reform movement in bringing this information to you. We salute Mr. Ghadry for his courage. We will continue to work with him as long as this humanitarian crisis continues.
God bless you, Roger, you are doing the right thing in making these videos of Bashar al-Assad’s brutality more widely available. Obama’s silence on what is happening in Syria is one of the most shameful acts of any president in my life-time.
Publish, publish, publish……..the truth shall set the revolutionary left and their Islamist counterparts free-but not from their complicity, their onus and the civilized world’s outrage!!
By the bye, the left’s silence-in all its permutations-on the butchery is highly instructive.Double standards barely scratches the surface of their mendacity.Consider:while Israel defends itself from Islamic onslaught, the leftist hypocrites and their Islamic counterparts WAIL about ‘war crimes’ and ‘disproportionate’ force.HOWEVER, when it comes to the butcher of Damascus and his Iranian Hitler counterpart, the Obama gang(and many others) barely muster ‘outrage’.NO calls for the beast of Syria to GO NOW!NO calls now, & NO calls when Iranian opposition demonstrators were hammered by the Iranian Hitler in 2009.
Therefore, NO sane person should think that help will come from the cabal in Washington.It won’t.They are on their own and will have to go for broke.By the way, Israelis are in the same desert island.We are on our own.
If youtube pulls them (and they might), put them up on LiveLeak.
Roger, once again you have shown us how our ass media behaves under pressure; a total fail at best. The American media is not exposing the hypocrisy of our current federal government regarding Syria. Obama has excoriated Man Man Gaddafi for his acts (Temporary. But good for what that’s worth!) and commented that Syria’s Assad is a “reformer” (On the surface, absolutely totally wrong as Syria is killing its unarmed civilians!). If nothing else, we are living in vastly too interesting times, shades of 1938!
Well, maybe not yet quite like 1938 since Obama has not said that there’s peace in our time.
One might ask the mass media or Obama: “Wither thou goest, why us”?
Roger, this is not the first time I have written or said this…it will not be the last. You are a hero.
In journalism, Hollywood and academia…to become a hero, is to be painted a villain, which makes this even more heroic.
You are doing the work that not only is NOT being done by the shills who sold out for leftist propaganda in the mass market end of the business…and for the government funded, state run, PUBLIC outlets…that refuse to serve the entire public, but only those that agree with its far left agenda.
I used to love a PBS show called NOVA. It was one of my favorite things to watch and I would anxiously await a new project. Now, I can’t stand to even turn on the station that owns that show.
We NEED to know, no matter how horrific…the absolute truth. Told with absolute compassion…but absolute truth nonetheless.
I no longer trust but a few of my countrymen who have taken it upon themselves to sacrifice much easier lives (not being blacklisted, certainly much more money) to become true patriots and Truth Warriors. I salute you and admire you and honor your courage and contribution. Do not apologize.
The truth has been stolen from us for so long, we get almost nothing but daily propaganda and distortion from those who have stolen a quasi-public trust.
I no longer believe that I live in a country that can trust they are being told the truth, by it’s government, by it’s major news sources and outlets, by its PUBLIC broadcasting system.
I have lost faith in my countrymen, save a select few. You are one of them.
I am deeply saddened by what has happened to our ability to obtain truth and facts in this land of ours. (And, yes…among others….I blame it on the Boss of Nova.)
Have a wonderful day my friend. And never, never apologize for doing the things that make you a hero.
Nanny Pelosi’s main man in the Middle East. The Bashar is, well, bashin’.
Having been thru one war, I think the more people that see what the results of brutal force actually are is a dicomfiting thing, yes, but a necessary thing.
Great job–an unpleasant one to be sure but it also serves to expose the hyprocricy of our foreign policy–some people need to be protected, others, not so much.
The self-sacrifice of the Syrian martyrs for freedom must be seen in order for us to stand as witnesses. The torture, the murder and the detention of people should be seen as an opportunity for us to not to observe, but to pay tribute. Thank you for giving us that.
Oh yes–and I forget that Mr Assad is a reformer–clearly he has reformed many innocent lives–our foreign policy is really evil–
“…And it is all our duties to stop this man…”
Nonsense. Unless we have a specific policy goal, we need to butt out and let the bastards kill each other. Choosing sides among warring Muslims is absent moral purpose. When gangsters go to the mattresses, it is not the business of the police to choose between the Capones and the O’banions.
We were wrong to interfere in the Balkans and we’re wrong to interfere in Libya. Our allies in the Balkans were no better than their enemies. In Libya we’re backing racist Arabs who are singling out Africans for expulsion, torture and beheading.
In any event, Syria is a potential “partner for peace” in the only Middle East conflict important to the State Department and no atrocity Assad commits trumps his imagined utility as a “peace partner”.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Might not have been Edmund Burke who said it, but the wisdom stands nonetheless.
ConservativeWanderer:
Evil triumphed in Syria long, long ago. The violence and bloodshed we’re witnessing today is merely the latest episode in the periodic squabbling over spoils.
The Assads didn’t introduce cruel government to Syria. Nor did the Turks, nor did Mohamed. The Ptolmeys who ruled Syria more than two thousand years ago were tyrants. The Syrian government is cruel, the Syrian religion is cruel and Syrian society is a reflection of the two. The ordinary Syrian esteems cruelty in his leaders, both secular and religious,the way an way an American esteems courage in his. Compassion is contemptible weakness.
Unless imposing peace is clearly and demonstrably in the American national interest, let the Syrians slaughter each other.
It is only what the mullahs in Tehran have been doing in various degrees for decades. Saddam did it. Mubarak. Khaddafi. Kim jong il and his father before him. Assad’s father. Only a question of degree.
Bush said, in a more optimistic moment, that we should consign dictators to the ashheap of history. Lets git er done.
Roger, will PJM be willing to run similar pictures of wounded and dead American soldiers that will be the result if we were to put boots on the ground in Syria?
It’s easy to demand that “justice be served,” or “liberty be guaranteed.” It’s a lot harder to pay the price in blood and tears that the implementation of such sentiments demands.
Bill,
Soldiers suffering and dying in battle is understood to be a sacrifice in defending freedom and democracy. Not so for innocent civilians being murdered by their government because they refuse to submit to enslavement.
Apparently it is harder to demand that justice be served or liberty guaranteed than you think. This administration finds itself incapable of doing so.
Willis, I am not disputing Roger’s desire to show the true face of Arab despotism. I’ve been calling for Assad’s overthrow for a lot longer than Roger has, in fact. Way back in 2004, pace Angelo Codevilla, I advocated taking out the Iranian Mullahs and the Syrian Baathists, if we were truly interested in defeating Islamist terror.
I was of course mocked and vilified for such “extreme” views. Yet now the very same neocons who defended Bush’s anti-terror “strategies” in Iraq now demand that Assad and the Mullahs be overthrown for terrorizing their own people (rather than terrorizing their neighbors and the rest of the world, as they’ve been doing for decades.
But there is a cost – and the American people have already shown they are willing to cut and run when the blood gets even ankle-deep. Sure, let’s do it – sure as hell nobody else is going to – but let’s also not pretend that it is going to be either easy or without pain for ourselves.
Those are somebody’s kids and parents dying over there. Are you willing to volunteer your own kids or parents to do likewise to save them?
By the way, are you willing to send our people to “fight and die to defend democracy” everywhere in the world where it is under attack. If not, kindly refrain from using that line of argument to support defending it in one place, at one time.
Thank you for bearing witness to what is going on in Syria. It is hard to look, but we have to.
What’s truly amazing about the revolution in Syria is just how predictable Braak Obama has become.
*** If there are demonstrations in a foreign country, and revolutionary feelings, what should we do?
Well, that depends on whether that foreign country has been our ally or not. If it HAS been our ally, then the government should be overthrown. If it has been our ENEMY, then talk will do just fine.
Do you think I am joking?
Iran — just talk
Syria — just talk
Egypt — overthrow Mubarak!
Tunisia — thank God they got everything done before President Quackenbush could stick his fingers in.
There are a couple of issues with beating the drum for war here.
(1) We’re broke. We can’t afford to it right, and we’re only going to end up looking stupid when our side is defeated like in Libya.
(2) The alternative to Middle Eastern dictators is Islam/Sharia. The only reason they don’t exist in Iraq and Afghanistan (although the laws there are basically Sharia, but with elections, the results of which are who runs departments/ agencies and administers the government). Muslim peoples, left to self-determination, will end up with Islamist governments. Governments that fund the spread of Islam into Africa and Asia, through aid or arms.
We have no money, and no more U.S. servicemen dying for Muslims who are only going to implement the most totalitarian, expansionist ideology ever.
We spent close to 2 Trillion of our dollars naively thinking that Islam has room for Western style democracy. It doesn’t, and that’s the lesson that honest and astute students of our past decade should have taught us. Let the dictators stay, because the other option is at least as bad, if not worse.
Sean, yours is the conventional wisdom. But, in case you missed it, you might want to check out this article from PJM…
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/new-poll-brings-bad-news-for-the-muslim-brotherhood-in-egypt/
Polls mean nothing to totalitarians. They simply kill the opposition.
Presto! The polls shift in your favor.
Obama is doing something similar with the unemployment rate. Need it to go down? Simply kill the total number of jobs available.
Presto! A lower unemployment rate.
From the source: http://www.ipinst.org/news/general-announcement/226-ipi-polls-new-mood-in-egypt.html
“This poll is based on 615 telephone interviews among a random sample of adult citizens throughout Egypt between March 9-20, 2011. The margin of error for the survey is +/- 4%.”
As you well know and seem to have chosen to obscure, the MB’s strength is with the poor, the dirt poor. In Egypt there are millions of those who, like the poor in other Third Word countries, do not have phones and whose aspirations cannot be captured in a phone survey. The survey is a joke.
And even if the survey wasn’t a joke, you’re willing to disregard the reality you see before your eyes, the reality in every nation on earth where Muslims are a majority, just because you see a bit of PR that suits your personal narrative (whatever in God’s name that may be).
This “poll” (from the “International Peace Institute”, are you serious?) is a deliberate attempt to minimize the anxiety about the growing power and influence of Islamism’s rise to power. The institutional left, who have not in any way studied the Koran and have no idea of Islam’s true intent, have been convinced by the MB and their allies that Sharia rule is in essence another variety of socialism, just with a slight Islamist “flair”. World-wide, socialist movements are allying with Islamist movements, the socialist think they’ve found new allies, while the Islamists realize they found some wonderfully useful idiots.
The “conventional wisdom” you so disdain is the wisdom of people who have thrown away ideology and dismiss governmental and media pronouncements of one kind or another, and instead use common sense and take the time to do their own research.
In Muslim nations, the choice is a brutal strongman, or Islamism. There is no in between. The Koran does not allow it.
“As you well know and seem to have chosen to obscure, the MB’s strength is with the poor, the dirt poor.”
Seem to have chosen to obscure? As one who has read this blog for three or four years, I have no idea where you got that particular idea and about the host who is consistently anti-Islamist, indeed anti-Islam. Where;s the anger coming from?
Finally somebody has shown what a real head shot looks like, unlike the purported garbage the Hamas puts out. Real head shots are ugly, very ugly, bullets disintegrate, bones shatter, brains and blood pour out. I think that its time we remember these shots when we see the deliberate false propaganda put out by Hamas.
Sean’s blind and ethnocentric pessimism (Muslims are unfit for democracy, Islamism is the only alternative to existing dictatorships) is deeply flawed, but at least he’s being consistent–he’s taking the same argument used ad nauseum on this web site toward the other Middle Eastern uprisings and is now applying it to Syria. After all, if it’s now time to support the overthrow of the Syrian regime, and refrain from focusing on the MB, why wasn’t this approach taken in the case of the other countries?
Actually, I supported the intervention in Libya, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Furthermore, this website, as you put it, has many people writing for it with many different views – and deliberately so. That’s what makes horse-racing, as they say. Cheers.