WEBVTT - Part Two: Bashar al Assad: The Eye Doctor Who Murdered a Nation 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:08.399 Hmm, what's bomb in my neighborhoods filled with women in? 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:12.719 This is not an intro. I should I should continue? 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:15.800 I don't know, I don't How do you? How do 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.080 you open part two of the episode on Bashar al 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.759 Assad the greatest mass murder of the century? Not that way? 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:26.720 That was clearly wrong, Uh, wildly wildly wrong. Never should 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.440 have been attempted. Sophie is shaking her head at me, 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:34.360 and oh damn, no, I thought you were going to 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.279 be ashamed too, but you just doubled down. I appreciate that. 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:39.960 You know, it's a true friend who sees you digging 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.680 your own grave and grabs a shovel and it's like, yeah, 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:50.880 let's fucking make this whole bigger. It's a mark of friendship. Now. 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.840 And you know, we had a lot of fun. No 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.639 we didn't. Uh you're the co host of the Ethnically 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:03.760 Ambiguous podcast, I am, and uh we're talking about Bashar 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:08.360 al Assad. So my favorite um probably micro penis holder. 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.520 Oh my god, if you added six inches to his dick, 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:15.360 you'd still need tweezers to find it. It's probably non existent, 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:17.800 which is why he's so angry. Yeah, I mean, you know, 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:19.600 that's why he wanted to get his eyes. You know, 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:21.320 he wanted to fix everyone's eyes so they could see 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:23.600 his penis because he's being like to see it. So 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:25.960 maybe I'll become an optometrist. Maybe someone will fucking see 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:30.840 my penis everybody. I was going to go on this 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.320 thing about how we shouldn't like demonize micro penis is, 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.119 but then you made a really fucking good joke, and uh, 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:39.480 we should have seized micro penis is because if you 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.360 have one, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters the fact that 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:44.560 you can still you can still come, and that's all 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.480 that matters. You can still have child. And if you 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:53.200 can't come, that that's fine too. Uh, we're getting way 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.520 off the subject of Bashar al Assad here. Well, I 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:58.960 feel like I'll only demonize it if you are someone 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.520 like Bachar la saw who who takes it out on 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:08.640 other people by murdering yeah yeah, children, Like I would 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.239 never make fun of anyone for having a squeaky voice. 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:15.600 But if you're like a little fascist media personality who 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.680 argues about how all Muslims are monsters and you have 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:20.840 a voice that sounds like you've been in haling helium 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:23.280 for the last thirty years and your name is Ben Shapiro. 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.920 I might make fun of that, like, hey, I'm popular, 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:38.679 so anna. Uh do you know the name Mohammed Boiseiz No. Well, 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:40.760 he was a twenty five year old man in the 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:43.600 year two thousand ten. He worked as a street vendor 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.880 in Tunisia. His father had died when he was young, 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.280 and Mohammed wound up supporting his family through a very 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.320 rough economy, even managing to pay for one of his 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:55.840 sisters to attend university. He seems to have been a 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.160 real stand up guy, dropped out of school, you know, 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:00.280 put his own dreams on hold in order to take 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.320 care of like several brothers and sisters and like a 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:07.040 couple of elderly relatives. Uh. Now, for some reason, local 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.840 police officers took a dislike to Mohammed. Uh. They regularly 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.280 confiscated his wares, likely because he could not afford to 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.720 bribe them not to do so. One day in mid 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.400 December two thousand ten, this happened again, and Mohammed tried 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.360 to seek redress through the organs of his local government. 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.640 But Tunisia was a state ruled by an autocratic dictator 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.120 and an ossified bureaucracy. That existed primarily to let people 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.000 with family connections make money by fucking over poor folks 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.360 like Mohammed Boisiz. His quest ended at the governor, who 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:40.120 refused to talk to him, even after Mohammed said, if 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:44.920 you don't see me, I'll burn myself. Mohammed immediately left 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:47.920 to do just that. He acquired a can of gasoline 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:50.600 from a nearby station and lit himself on fire in 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:54.280 front of the governor's office. He died on January fourth, 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:58.400 two thousand eleven, after days of unspeakable agony. But in death, 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.480 the governor and the dictator, a real president of Tunisia, 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:05.720 could not ignore Mohammed Boisiz. His death is generally seen 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:09.240 as having ignited the Arab Spring, which overthrew the president 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.720 of Tunisia as well as the dictators of Egypt and Libya. 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.520 For a time, Bashar al Assad thought he would be 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.599 safe from the fires of revolution sweeping through the Arab world. 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.120 David lash is the writer who spent a lot of 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:22.920 time with Bashar. We heard about him in the last 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.560 episode UH. He wrote a book called The Fall of 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.359 the House of Assad. It cites several articles that the 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.480 regime published during this time. Both in its own magazine 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.360 Forward and in a Wall Street Journal interview with Assad quote. 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:38.800 Both articles in the February issue reflected the presidents and 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:41.680 the regime sense of immunity from the virus of protests 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.719 spreading elsewhere in the Arab world. The editor in chief 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:47.080 of the magazine, Dr Samim will bay It, is a 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.800 professor of international relations in the country and one of 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.440 its foremost commentators. He has access to high places in Syria, 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.119 and therefore his essays often reflect regime sentiments. For this issue, 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.159 he wrote a piece entitled Lessened from Egypt West is 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.880 not best. In it, Mbaiad repeatedly hammers home the point 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.000 that the dictators in the Arab world who had either 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:09.440 fallen by then President Bin Ali and Tunisia or were 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:12.279 on their way out President Hostnu Mobarik of Egypt and 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:14.960 President of Doula, Sala and Yemen were being run out 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.320 of office by widespread popular protest, primarily because over the 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:21.240 years they had been the lackeys of the West, particularly 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:25.560 of the United States. So Assad and his cronies at 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:28.120 first thought they would be safe from the Arab spring, because, 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:32.400 of course, Assad hadn't been an American lackey Mbaiad's article 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:36.000 ends ironically by accurately describing the forces then sweeping the 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.240 Arab world, which they just didn't think We're gonna come 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.120 for them. Quote. What is so beautiful about the Tunisian 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:43.800 and Egyptian stories is that this time it wasn't flamboyant 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.560 and inexperienced young officers toppling the young king norma. Was 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:50.760 it turbent clerics toppling an autocratic and aging royal like 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:54.000 Iran nineteen seventy nine. It was also not US tanks 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.440 rubbling into Tunisia, as was the case with Baghdad in 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:58.839 two thousand three. It was the people of Tunisia, the 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.040 young and the old, the innale actual and the unemployed. 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:03.640 It was the glorious people of Egypt who said enough 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.520 is enough. What mubay It and other Assadus did not 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:09.960 see is that the exact same forces that had made 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:13.480 Tunisia right for revolution and demi crushing corruption that robbed 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:15.839 young people have paths towards a decent life and left 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:19.719 them hopeless, underemployed, and enraged. That was present in Syria 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.000 as well. While assad had opened up the economy somewhat, 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.719 every reform was calculated in one way or another to 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:29.080 benefit his core supporters or gain him new supporters, because 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:33.000 every dictatorship in every country is just a gigantic gangster 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.440 enterprise when you get right down to it. Wait, so 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.359 they he thought that his people hadn't noticed what he 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.520 was up to. Basically, he thought his people loved him 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.200 and that they would not revolt because he hadn't been 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:46.279 a lackey of the US. He thought the Arab spring 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.760 was people being angry at dictators in their region, uh 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:51.839 doing what the US wanted. And he was like, well, 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.840 I'm I don't like the US, so people will back me, 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:59.279 Like obviously they're going to keep loving bashar God. These dudes. 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.200 That's what's crazy, is like they have no sense of 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.719 what's going on around them, Like not at all. No, 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.960 that's what happens when you have the bat like arresting 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.400 and torturing everybody who is like, maybe things could be 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.000 less corrupt. I guess you don't pay people to tell 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:21.000 you anything negative. You pay people to tell you we 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.600 have arrested X number of dissidents and they are in 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.920 a dark hole instead of being like just f y, 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:32.840 I like, so we took a survey and it looks like, um, 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:37.880 people like think you're shady. Yeah, people don't like that 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.680 we throw so many people in the dark holes that 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.800 actually the dark hole approval rating is like eight percent. 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.120 No no one in this yeah, no one almost no 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:50.480 one's we like the dark holes. That's the eight percent 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.720 is the is the Macabat vote. They vote for dark holes, 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:56.280 but everyone else really against the dark holes that we 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:58.480 throw dissidents into. It looks like we're not We're not 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.000 getting the numbers we were hoping for dark holes. We're 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:06.480 thinking of rebranding the dark hole that we throw dissidents into. 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:13.560 What about this rainbow circle? I love it? I love it. 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:15.640 That's the I forget which one of us now is 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:23.080 the brand name? Yeah. In February two th eleven, Maria Siasna, 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.200 a fourteen year old kid, was hanging out with his 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.720 friends in the Syrian town of Dara. Tunisia's dictator had 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.240 just been forced out of power, and these kids were ornery, 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.240 so they scared up some red paint and daubed your 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:38.679 Turn Doctor on the walls of their school. Now Dara 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.400 is a fairly small rural town near the border with 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:43.880 Jordan's At that point, Syria was in the grip of 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:46.640 an intense drought, which had reduced crop yields and crippled 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:50.640 the already stumbling economy. Youth unemployment was particularly bad, and 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:52.960 Maria and his friends had little hope of growing up 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.280 in a world with many options for them if things 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.040 continued on the way they were going. So they painted 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.800 a threat against their dictator on the wall of their school, 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.560 and soon after that all hell broke loose. Assad's men 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:06.840 quickly arrested the tenth graders and sent them back to 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.440 Damascus to be brutally tortured by a bunch of Nazi 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:13.199 trained torture experts. This was a pretty normal move from Mikabarat, 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.320 but unknown to Bashar the in those secret policemen, the 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:18.800 winds of the world had just changed. The people of 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:22.679 Dara were quite suddenly unwilling to accept this kind of bullshit. 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:25.800 On March of two thousand eleven, they took to the streets. 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:28.960 Hundreds of people, many of them relatives of the arrested boys, 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:32.080 protested the regime. The crowd grew to thousands. B Shar's 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.320 police opened fire, killing four and dispersing the crowd, But 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:38.520 the next day, twenty thousand furious Syrians took to the streets, 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.000 and the days that followed things grew more violent, and 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:45.480 Mukabarat offices were vandalized, more protesters were murdered in larger numbers. 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:48.720 Funerals of the dead became protests, and so the regime 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:55.200 banned funerals. Yeah, when you're banning funerals, you might be 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.120 uh monstrous statalitarian dictating. Yeah, I mean it's crazy that 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:00.800 these kids had no I do what they were about 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:04.440 to literally like domino effect into but like how could 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:09.120 they have possibly known? So, I mean you're banning funerals, 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.520 it's like, then stop fucking killing everybody. Maybe like taking 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:15.120 as a goddamn hint. If people are this upset, maybe 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:20.720 you shouldn't be easy to reduce the funerals. Stop killing people. 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:23.280 I guess common sense isn't a thing within regime, So 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:25.559 I don't know what I'm even saying. Yeah, I mean 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:29.720 it's a type of common sense within the logic of 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.320 murdering people, within regime logic where you're like, well, yeah, 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:38.839 says that we, you know, have to murder everyone who 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.960 stands up to us. Yeah, if you're a regime, it 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.280 makes sense. Yeah, none of this work to stop the 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.880 growing unrest. A single act of childish graffiti and Dara 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.640 wound up being the spark that started the Syrian Civil War, 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:54.719 which is so far at the deadliest civil war of 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.080 the twenty first century. According to David lesh Quote, it 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.160 is almost certain that Bashar al Assad absolutely shocked when 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:03.640 the uprisings in the Arab world started to seep into 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:06.280 his country in March two thousand eleven. I believe he 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:08.640 truly thought he was safe and secure and popular in 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.360 the country and was beyond condemnation. But this was not 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:13.440 the case in the Middle East of two thousand eleven, 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.280 where the stream of information via the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:18.760 YouTube and mobile phones could not be controlled as it 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:23.120 once had been. On March two thousand eleven, but Shar 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.360 al Assad addressed his nation over the continuing unrest. He 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.680 promised vague reforms, which of course he could not actually 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.160 deliver upon. Any reforms to reduce corruption would be taking 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:35.640 money out of the pockets of his supporters, which of 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:37.680 course he could not afford to do at the moment. 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.280 Any actual political openness would be seized upon his weakness 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.199 and lead to his fall from power. So he promised nothing, 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.360 and ended his speech with quote, I shall remain the 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:49.920 faithful brother and comrade who will walk with his people 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:52.640 and lead them to build the Syria. We love the Syria. 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:55.600 We are proud of the Syria, which is invincible to 0:11:55.720 --> 0:12:00.120 its enemies. You know, I do wonder if he like 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.240 he just was in over his head and started I 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:05.640 mean not that I'm in any way defending LA, but 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:07.800 I wonder if he was over his head and then 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:11.240 just started to panic, like just being like yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.480 kill it, kill kill mall yeah. And then now he's like, ship, Well, 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:17.120 now that I've like in my panic have started acting 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.000 like a full psycho, I guess I just have to 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:23.360 keep it going. Yeah. You know there's a version of 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:25.440 this where that is what goes on, where he's kind 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:28.200 of like a Czar Nicholas figure, and like the initial 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:31.560 bloodletting is more accidental because of how the regimes set up, 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.679 that's how the security forces respond. You the leader are 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:36.920 left grappling with it. But then things hit a certain 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.800 point and it's like, well they're gonna kill me or 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.120 I can kill all of them. Yeah. There is kind 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:44.319 of like a vibe, like a really dumb vibe where 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:48.440 he's like, I guess I'm a dictator now, Like it's like, 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:53.040 you fucking idiot, But he had been before, like you 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:57.319 operated Nazi torture dungeons, then let the CIA use them 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:03.679 like Bashar wasn't. Yeah, it's he's there's definitely an aspect 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:05.760 of this that is a guy like obviously he didn't 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.800 want this. Nobody, no, none of these people want there 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:10.560 to be a civil war because there's a chance that 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:15.240 like you get thrown out of power. Um, I don't know, 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.360 you know, we'll we'll talk about that more by the end. 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.600 We'll see what conclusion you come to about how how 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:25.920 his journey on this. For most of the world, Friday 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.480 April one was April Fool's Day. In Syria. In two 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.880 thousand eleven, it was the Friday of Martyrs. This was 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.360 the name given to a day of furious protests across 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:37.400 the country, conducted in the name of the dozens who 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:39.760 had been shot dead by security forces and the hundreds 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.840 who were currently being tortured. This time, but char al 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.520 Assad ordered snipers up on the roofs of cities around 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.840 the country. They fired randomly into crowds of activists and 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.680 shot anyone who broke curfew. Next, according to Lesha's book 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.560 quote in New May and June two thousand eleven, the 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:59.400 regime continued to engage in a schizophrenic response to the protests. 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.600 While can hinduing to make some concessions and announce reform measures, 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.960 the military and security forces intensified their crackdown in cities 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.360 across Syria that were hit by demonstrations. To the outside observer, 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.120 this approach may seem contradictory and indicative of fissures within 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.280 the ruling elite on how to respond to the crisis. 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:17.520 On the other hand, from the perspective of the shar 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:19.720 in his inner circle, it could be seen as two 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:21.960 sides of the same coin in a way that came 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:24.400 to be expected of the Assad regimes old and new. 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:26.840 It was something of an axiom of power politics that 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.200 one offers concessions only from a position of strength, never 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.200 from a position of weakness. Therefore, while there was also 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.560 a practical side to the Assad approach in terms of 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:38.800 repressing the unrest, it also clearly indicated that the regime 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:41.880 wanted to portray itself is only making concessions and offering 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:46.760 reform measures from a position of strength. Mhm, so he 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:51.360 just okay, sorry and yeah, no, I mean he he 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.640 wants to He's willing to give people concessions, but only 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:56.440 if he stays in control. And the only way to 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:58.600 stay in control is to kill people, right, But he 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.200 didn't really like what were the concession Like, did any 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:04.680 did anything come of that? Yeah? No, not really, Like 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:06.760 it was the same as the concessions he offered at 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:08.760 the start of his reign, where it's like, I'll open 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:10.720 things up, but like you already did that and then 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.000 closed them down again because it was bad for you. 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:18.280 Like why would you trust Bashar al Assad at this point? Uh? Yeah. 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:20.480 One of the people who died so but schar could 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:23.840 offer reform from a position of strength was Hamza al Katib. 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:26.480 He was thirteen years old when he went missing on 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.880 the twenty ninth of April. His battered and abused corpse 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.760 was returned to his family a month later. His family 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.720 shared pictures of their boys torn up body on social media, 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.360 and raged at his murder, spread viral. E Asad's government, 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.240 of course, denied torturing the child. They had a doctor 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:45.720 who worked for the government examined the body. He concluded 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.120 that all of the scars and holes and injuries were 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.440 not consistent with torture. Bashar al Assad made a big 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:55.120 show of visiting the family to share his uh sadness 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.440 that this tragic and inexplicable death that he and his 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:00.520 security apparatus had no role in the Like, Yeah, yeah, 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:05.120 it looks like no no torture here, So sorry about 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.920 your boy. What a mystery. Yeah, you know, based on 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.320 you know, my work as an optometrist, I can see 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:16.840 there is no torture. M hmm. Yeah, his eyes look great, 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:22.400 look good. Good piece of ship, yeah, real piece of ship. 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.360 This photo up with the grieving family of a murdered 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:29.040 boy did not shockingly reduce opposition to the Assad regime. 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.600 A Facebook page was created in his name, garnering sixty 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:36.440 thousand supporters. One commenter wrote, there is no place left 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.520 here for a regime after what they did to Hamsa. 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:45.280 On July eleven, seven Syrian Arab Army officers defected from 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.440 the military, forming the core of the Free Syrian Army. 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:50.880 By November, the f s A was strong enough to 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:54.280 launch armed attacks on the regime itself in this way 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.400 and stops and starts the protests and street activism and 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:01.760 violent state repression gradually escalated to full fledged warfare. In 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.920 January of two thousand twelve, Neustra Front and his Lamist 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:08.560 rebel group declared their opposition to the regime. Whole cities 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.159 wound up an open rebellion to the state in February 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.520 two thousand twelve, but Shar had his army assault Holmes, 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:19.080 the third largest city in Syria. Four hundred people, virtually 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:21.359 all of them civilians, were killed on the first day. 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:25.160 You see, Assad's army crumbled fairly quickly in the face 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:27.960 of the rebellion. It had never been a particularly potent force, 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:29.840 and many of its men had deserted for the other 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.560 side once the fighting started. At one point, he had 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.439 less than five thousand soldiers in the whole country, so 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:39.320 Assad relied heavily on random artillery strikes and equally random 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:41.760 bombings by his air force, which was the one thing 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.840 he had that the rebels did not. The Syrian air 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.960 force was from the beginning Assad's greatest weapon against his 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.800 own people. In August two thousand twelve, the regime was 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.640 filmed dropping its very first barrel bomb on the city 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.280 of Halms. Now, and you know what a barrel bomb 0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:01.719 is Um, I'm gonna guess most people have heard the term. Yeah. 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.600 It's probably the iconic weapon of the Syrian Civil War, 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.040 and it's essentially a huge metal barrel packed full of 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.280 high explosives and shrapnel, nails, metal bits, whatever. It all 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:12.480 functions the same with a few dozen pounds of r 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.360 d X behind it. A barrel bomb is the kind 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:18.120 of weapon you deploy when you don't care who you kill. 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:23.639 And uh, yeah, it's there's a video on YouTube that 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.520 I would recommend listeners watch. If you just type in 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:31.879 a sod barrels, you will find it. Um it's horrific. Uh, 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.520 one of the worst things I've ever seen. Like the 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:42.800 wake of these bombings is um, almost indescribable. Uh. It's 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.600 it's worse than what I've seen in the wake of 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.240 US air strikes, which is pretty horrific in and of itself, 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.320 But an explosive like this, it's just like a particularly 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:56.760 awful way to wage war, like even worse than a 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:00.760 hell fire missile. It's like I don't understand, Like he's like, oh, 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:05.920 you know, that's what's crazy. Like he's he says, Okay, 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.840 I'm gonna I'm gonna give concessions I'm gonna work with 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:12.360 you guys, so you don't keep protesting me. And then 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.880 he just goes and like kills a town. What's what's 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.040 the issue with the regime, what's everybody's problem? I'm gonna 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:22.440 drop just barrels of death on you guys. Why is it? 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.600 Why is nobody like me? Yeah, it's like, dude, like 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:32.040 fucking read the room. Yeah, read the room. What are 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:35.040 we doing here anymore? I don't even this is it's 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.240 so crazy, Like it's so hard to wrap your mind 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:41.480 around someone who in a way, like when you first 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.119 think about it, like he didn't want to become the leader. 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:46.840 He had so much potential to just be a good 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:51.760 human being in an office running a country, like coming 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.480 from his point of view of being like I don't 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:56.280 really want to run a country, like I just want 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:58.920 to be this regular doctor like blah blah blah. It's 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.040 like I could just be an easy going guy who's 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:03.920 like one of the people. Um. I mean, honestly, it 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.160 goes back to bad parenting. Uh, but this is insane. 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:09.639 It's like so insane that he was like, all right, 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.600 let's just turn this around and kill everybody. Yep, Yes, 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:18.120 I'm murdering. Yeah, and uh, he got right to murdering. Um. 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.440 I'd like to quote from a Doctor's Without Borders article 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:22.920 about the use of barrel bombs primarily in the city 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:27.520 of Aleppo during the fighting there. Barrel bombings and Eastern 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:30.120 Aleppo were so unpredictable and widespread that they have sown 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:32.680 fear throughout the city. It is extremely difficult for someone 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:35.280 to take measures to protect their families and improve their safety. 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:38.560 What contributes to higher levels of psychological stress. You never 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:40.639 know when a bomb can happen. This is the problem. 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:42.719 You could be at home having dinner, you could be sleeping, 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:44.640 you could be walking to the shop. At any time 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.000 it might happen. Especially coming to Turkey. For those who 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:48.840 have to go to Turkey for work or two unite 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.280 family members, it is a very scary route as you 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:53.080 don't know who you might meet and what might happen. 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:54.960 You don't know if you will return home safe or 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.720 see your family again. That's a quote from a Tarik, 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:04.040 a health worker in Alsama, Aleppo. So but Charlasad punished 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.920 Aleppo and other cities for their disobedience by leveling the 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:09.840 vast majority of the buildings there with endless reigns of 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:13.320 barrel bombs during the four year battle for Aleppo, residents 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.000 would celebrate whenever the weather was cloudy, because it meant 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:17.840 that they would at least get a few hours break 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.280 before the next bombs fell. One staff member told Doctors 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:24.080 Without Borders quote, one day when we were working at 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.040 the hospital in eastern Aleppo was the day of a 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:28.000 high number of barrel bombings. It was like the city 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:29.800 was in chaos, and lots of people were being brought 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:32.320 to us, dead and alive. I remember when two bodies 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:34.680 were brought in, an old man and his small grandson. 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:36.359 They both had the same name. They must have been 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.080 together when the bomb hit. The family was searching for 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.399