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Syrian Army Posts Response to ISIS Beheadings

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Wed Nov 19, 2014 at 08:36:00 AM EST
Tags: ISIS, Syria (all tags)
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The Syrian Arab Army has an official Facebook page in English. Yesterday it posted a response to the ISIS video showing the beheading of 16 of its members. [link removed]

The statement acknowledges that army personnel have beheaded ISIS fighters in the past, but says those were individual acts by a few bad apples. The army, it insists, acts with honor and dignity.

It then says the Army won't be beheading captured ISIS fighters in the future. But, it continues, ISIS fighters will beg to be beheaded, because the Army will not treat them as human beings. [More...]

From their statement:

As a military organization on the other hand, the Syrian Arab Armed Force, is structured around Honor, and Dignity. Every soldier was raised to honor the military code, despite the fact that some individuals dishonored it at some point.

As a military organization, the Syrian Armed Forces will not be beheading ISIS terrorists, again even if some Syrian Army Soldiers individually have done that at some point, but even in the most professional armies in the world, there are individual actions that do not comply with the organization's policies.

However, do not expect us to show ISIS any mercy, the Syrian Arab Army will retaliate, and ISIS terrorists will beg to be beheaded at some point. They lost every right as humans the moment they stepped on a Syrian soil, and the Syrian military will not treat them as humans.

That's quite a disconnect. In the space of two paragraphs, the Army goes from saying it acts with honor and dignity to justifying treating captured prisoners as non-humans.

Another headscratcher: It says it could take out ISIS in Raqqa in a day, but it won't because that would harm the innocent civilians ISIS has been using as human shields. The Army has repeatedly bombed Raqqa, Aleppo and elsewhere, killing civilians, including children. See the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which keeps track. What alternate universe is the Syrian Army living in?

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    • Syrian Army Posts Response to ISIS Beheadings | 3 comments (3 topical)
    What alternate universe? (none / 0) (#1)
    by Mr Natural on Wed Nov 19, 2014 at 11:23:50 AM EST
    The one where this is normal.
    These are all fundamentalists (none / 0) (#2)
    by Dadler on Wed Nov 19, 2014 at 11:41:43 AM EST
    With horribly atrophied intellects. Why would ANYTHING that comes out of this madness seem anything but, well, mad? Time to flip the bird to most of the world, pal up tight with Central and South America (with whom we have the most in common, after all -- and yes, IMO, more than Europe) and show the world what humane and self-critical progress looks like.

    But what do I know?

    Not much.

    Peace.

    Translated from "military", that says (none / 0) (#3)
    by scribe on Wed Nov 19, 2014 at 08:45:49 PM EST
    (after the cross-translation to English from whatever language the Syrians were speaking in as their native tongue) is that:
    (a) the Syrians are stating a "no quarter" policy, as in killing as many of the ISIS people they can as soon as they can, on the battlefield, surrender, capture or whatever be damned, and
    (b) as to those they don't kill outright, the Syrians will feel no compunction about keeping them alive to torture them and to keep those who survive in subhuman conditions.  This will be, ostensibly, to gain intelligence from them.  But it will also be to prevent the ISIS people from dying and thereby gaining their ultimate goal - a quick jihadi's trip to Paradise.

    As to what alternate universe the Syrian Army is living in, it's not really that "alternate".  Their statement is not dissimilar from the German government's "Commissar Order" or their later "Commando order" during WWII.  The former was given either before or shortly after the beginning of their campaign against the Soviets in 1941 and directed (not just "authorized") outright killing of Soviet "commissars" and Communist Party officials.  The latter was implemented on the remaining fronts after notable successes (at least in inflaming Hitler's anger) by (mostly British) Commandos and SOE types, and required killing them outright on capture or after extracting immediate usable intelligence.  Also worth remembering, the Germans (and Soviets) treated their POWs with barbarity, as they believed they were not bound by the then-current Hague Conventions (the Soviets were not signatories) or (post-war) there was no German government in a position to do anything about German PWs being mistreated in Siberia for 5-10 years after the end of the war.

    So, it's not that alternate.  It's not even that far removed historically.

    Syrian Army Posts Response to ISIS Beheadings | 3 comments (3 topical)