There is no way to verify the authenticity of these photographs. The photographers name and even physical appearance is completely unknown. A number of videos and photographs used to promote US intervention in Syria have already been proven as fraudulent. Why should we believe that this latest propaganda show is any different?
US Funded Terrorism in SyriaWhat anyone interested in honestly analyzing what was presented at this committee should be aware of is the glaring hypocrisy.
While the US congress presents allegations with mysterious photographs alleging that Assad is torturing, everyone knows that the Syrian insurgent terrorists, backed by the United States, are torturing people. The Syrian insurgents have violated international law without the slightest apology.
The Syrian insurgents torture people. The Syrian insurgents kidnap for ransom as a means of raising funds. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reports that Syrian insurgents recruit children as young as 11 and 12. The Syrian insurgents, according to Carla Del Ponte, have used Sarin nerve gas, a deadly chemical weapon. The Syrian insurgents openly call for an Islamic caliphate in Syria, and want to purge the country of all Alawites and Christians. The Syrian insurgents target schools, hospitals, mosques, and churches with their bombs and sniper attacks. They do not apologize, or attempt to conceal this. They often make videos highlighting their latest beheading, bombing, or act of torture in order to promote themselves.
The United States is supporting armed terrorist groups that make no apology for torturing, kidnapping, recruiting children, and committing other well documented crimes against humanity, and is justifying this with unsubstantiated allegations against Assad, based on photographs from an anonymous photographer.
The logic is rather spurious.
US Aligned Gulf Autocrats
It is not only in Syria that the US backs torturers and murderers.
In nearly all the US aligned regimes in the Persian Gulf, human rights do not exist. In the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and other oil rich states which receive billions of US aid and support, people are tortured and executed all the time.
The UN Committee on Torture documented that there is a “widespread and routine practice of torture and ill-treatment” in Jordan. In Jordan, people accused of crimes are often physically suspended, beaten, starved, or otherwise tortured in order to force them confess to crimes. The large number of Palestinian refugees are specifically targeted for torture and other abuses by the Jordanian government.
In Saudi Arabia people are frequently subject to physical amputations as punishment for crimes. In addition, people can be sentenced to death for crimes such as using drugs or apostasy. Death sentences in Saudi Arabia are carried out by means of public beheading, in addition to stoning and firing squad.
Recently the US alleged that Syria’s elections were illegitimate. This is rather hypocritical, because in US aligned gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, there are no elections at all, fraudulent or otherwise.
All the extreme human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, and Oman, do not stop the US from funding and supporting these regimes. The US happily supplies these autocratic states with billions of dollars in aid. These regimes are currently stockpiling huge amounts of weapons, supplied by US arms manufacturers.
Torture is commonly carried out by other US aligned forces throughout the Middle East. The People’s Mujahadeen, backed and funded by the US to attack Iran, tortures its victims by dragging them with ropes. It has also kidnapped for ransom, and engaged in other disgusting crimes against humanity. The most well known US allies in the Middle East, the Israelis, are currently on a rampage through Gaza, murdering civilians left and right.
The US House Foreign Affairs Committee would have believe that the US efforts to overthrow the Syrian Arab Republic are justified. The US media repeats this without question or hesitation.
Yet, all over the world, the US is supporting torturers and murderers. Even the very people the US is working with against the Syrian government are torturers and murderers themselves.
It is tragic that such nonsensical propaganda can go unchallenged.
Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
