An American television host incredulously asked why he should ‘hate’ Bashar al-Assad – the former president of Syria whose regime killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.
Right-leaning host Tucker Carlson – who earlier this year interviewed Vladimir Putin – spoke to economist Jeffrey Sachs in his latest episode about the collapse of Assad’s regime after a lighting offensive.
Carlson asked: ‘What I didn’t understand – and still don’t understand – is why we’re all required to hate Assad.
‘Speaking for myself, I don’t have strong feelings on one side or the other. Apparently, he’s protected the Christians, so I’m grateful for that as a Christian, but why am I required to hate Assad? … Has anyone ever explained why Americans should hate Assad?’
Sachs replied: ‘Because every regime change operation we (the US) ever do, we have to make sure that the opponent is the worst villain since Hitler or Hitler reincarnate.’
Carlson laughed as he said: ‘Some ophthalmologist from London, is a bloodthirsty dictator?’
More than 150,000 are estimated to have disappeared and likely been killed under Assad’s regime after civil war erupted in 2011.
Over half a million Syrians were killed when the government used chemical weapons against their civilians and carpet-bombed many cities, including Aleppo and Damascus.
A 2022 report on International Religious Freedom in Syria conducted by the US Department of State read: ‘Sources stated that the regime attempted to project an image as a secular protector of Christians, but human rights organizations reported the regime intentionally destroyed churches and detained numerous Christian citizens.’
Carlson’s remarks come on the same week when mass graves of an estimated 150,000 plus Syrians were discovered.
The scale of Assad’s organised killings is something not seen ‘since the Nazis’, according to former US war crimes ambassador Stephen Rapp.
One gravedigger told Channel 4: ‘A while after they covered the bodies, a smell would emerge. The labourers would have to come back to cover graves so the smell faded.’
Another recalled the fire department coming to thaw dozens of bodies which were stuck together during a cold spell, before later burying them.
Carlson later asked again: ‘Why is it somehow a test of my loyalty to the United States if I think Bashar al-Assad … like, who cares?’
The Assad family ruled over Syria for over 50 years. Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad, was also iron-fisted in his rule.
In 1982, Hafez al-Assad ordered the army to ‘quell’ an uprising in the town of Hama from the Muslim Brotherhood against his government.
Reports say more than 1,000 civilians were killed – but the exact number, like in many instances during the Assad reign, is believed to be much higher than official reports dictate.
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Bashar al-Assad was also a brutal ruler. His forces utilised sexual violence as a form of warfare against Syrians, in addition to the bombing and use of chemical weapons.
Sexual violence was used against men inside of Syrian prisons as a form of torture by authorities, Human Rights Watch found.
One survivor recalled: ‘They rape you just to see you suffering, shouting. To see you are humiliated.’
Assad’s regime also used an addictive drug to help him cling to power and make a profit as the civil war decimated Syria’s economy.
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