Summary

Mass graves uncovered in Syria after Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow reveal evidence of systematic atrocities, with over 100,000 people tortured and killed in what a top war crimes prosecutor described as the worst abuses “since the Nazis.”

Assad’s regime operated a “machinery of death,” involving mass disappearances, torture, and secret burials.

Rebel forces freed thousands of political prisoners, but many remain missing.

International efforts aim to document war crimes, though Assad, now in Russia, is unlikely to face trial.

  • BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I really hope that there can be some sort of coalition for peace and recovery among the various Syrian forces now that Assad is out of power.

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      Mmm. We all know how this is going to go.

      The “good guys” are all of a sudden going to see the potential to have power over others, and then feel entitled to do whatever they can to maintain and expand that power.

      Before long, we have another Assad regime that’s different in name only.

      It’s a cultural problem, and greed is the root of it all.

  • vga@sopuli.xyz
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    7 days ago

    So really really bog standard socialist stuff.

    Why didn’t they compare it to Stalin? His worst abuses were after Nazis and it would’ve tracked more anyway because of the political angle and because both Stalin and al-Assad committed crimes on their “own people”.

    • fxomt@lemm.ee
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      The Ba’ath Party is as socialist as the nazi party. Hint: not at all.

      Genuinely curious, though. Socialism is when the workers own the means of production; How would that cause genocide in your opinion?

      • vga@sopuli.xyz
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        7 days ago

        Socialism is when the workers own the means of production; How would that cause genocide in your opinion?

        What do you mean, “would”?

        • fxomt@lemm.ee
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          7 days ago

          You implied that socialism kills. How?

          Perhaps you meant authoritarianism?

          • ohitsbreadley@discuss.tchncs.de
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            6 days ago

            I’m on-side with socialism - but to be fair, most of the real world examples that call/called themselves socialist do have a pretty bad track record of descending into totalitarianism/authoritarianism.

            • Tja@programming.dev
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              6 days ago

              Most of western European governments are democratic socialist for like 50% of the time.

            • fxomt@lemm.ee
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              6 days ago

              Yup, but those are intentional. That’s how an ML state functions. That’s why Marxism Leninism is a bad idea.

  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    Really? Nothing else since WWII has been this bad? I can think of three off the top of my head! Syria’s neighbor is doing a holocaust right now. It’s like they’re pretending that nothing bad has happened since the Nazis were defeated.

    • DankOfAmerica@reddthat.com
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      7 days ago

      The Cambodian Genocide

      The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot. It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly 25% of Cambodia’s population in 1975 (c. 7.8 million) reducing the nation’s life expectancy to a staggering 12 years in 1975.

    • Reyali@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      You’re angry about a headline that abbreviates the actual story.

      The very first paragraph of the article:

      Mass graves uncovered in Syria in the days since President Bashar al-Assad wasoverthrown are exposing evidence of some of the worst abuses since the Nazis, a top international war crimes prosecutor said. [emphasis mine]

      The article agrees with you. It’s only the headline that doesn’t.

      This kind of anger and engagement at headlines is exactly what the media thrives off of. Don’t let them win by doing just that.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        They win by getting you to click on the article. 🙄

        They don’t get to smuggle lies into headlines and then clarify in the article. They should be held accountable for that kind of click bait.

        • Reyali@lemm.ee
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          6 days ago

          So contact NBC with your concerns. Arguing with people who can’t change it just makes people who might otherwise agree with you frustrated with your point of view.

    • perestroika@lemm.ee
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      It’s going to take some time (and digging) to find out.

      However… events that unfolded in Cambodia will almost certainly have exceeded what is going to be discovered in Syria.

      Most likely the same can be said about things that happened in Indonesia.

      Events that continue to happen in North Korea may possibly exceed - once the place collapses and access becomes possible - which may take a century - what Bashar and his father managed to organize.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        The official toll isn’t over 100,000 (can’t count people under the rubble) but estimates put it over 100,000 i.e. same order of magnitude. Gaza being smaller just makes these estimates even more horrifying.

        But also, not just talking about Gaza. Lots of other atrocities have lead to mass death on this scale and larger.

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      You must not know what the definition of “worst” means.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        I must not! I’m pretty sure “worst since the Nazis” means " nothing between now and then was worse". As far as I was aware, worst means worse than everything else.

        Worse than Indonesia. Cambodia. Algeria. Iraq. Korea. Vietnam. Yugoslavia. Evidently no atrocities have happened since WWII! 🙄

        • john89@lemmy.ca
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          7 days ago

          It’s like they’re pretending that nothing bad has happened since the Nazis were defeated.

          That’s different from saying you think worse things happened.

          Might want to brush up on your reading comprehension, buddy.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            7 days ago

            If something is “the worst” then nothing worse happened, ergo, they’re pretending that all the other worse things didn’t happen. Evidently, the million people that were killed in Iraq and Indonesia just aren’t as important.

            • john89@lemmy.ca
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              7 days ago

              If something is “the worst” then nothing worse happened

              Yes. That’s different from “nothing bad has happened.”

    • wewbull@feddit.uk
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      7 days ago

      I don’t think we need to play Topp Trumps Genocide Edition. Can we just agree that it’s horrific what Assad (and by extension, Putin) have been doing in Syria?

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        6 days ago

        No, we need to acknowledge that Assad is not the worst since WWII, otherwise we erase all the other atrocities that have happened.

        Other genocides have happened. Worse genocides have happened. History didn’t start and end in WWII.

    • Hubi@feddit.org
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      There are 100.000 bodies in a single mass grave. And that is just one out of five. That’s kinda in a league of its own.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            7 days ago

            Estimates are far higher than the official death toll - it’s hard to count bodies buried under the rubble.

            • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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              Stop. Let the people of Syria be recognized for the horrors they lived through. Wtf is wrong with you?

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                7 days ago

                I will not allow Palestinians to be erased! Or any of the other mass murders of over 100,000 people! This disrespects every atrocity that has happened since the end of WWII, by saying those ones either aren’t real or don’t count.

                • teije9@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  7 days ago

                  so because theres already a genocide no other genocides can exist? Yes, the Palestina genocide is bad, but that doesn’t mean posting about any other genocide is hate towards Palestinians.

    • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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      I agree with your point but I think the Palestinian genocide is a bad example. Imo better examples from the top of my mind: the Rwandan and Cambodian genocides likely were far worse both in absolute numbers and as a % of the population, and the policies of Maoist China got many more people killed.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        The Palestinian genocide is happening right now, is my point. We don’t have to crawl through history to find atrocities.

        Indonesia after the CIA coup is another good example, or Iraq when we killed over a million people. This stuff is way more recent than WWII.

        • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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          And the Palestinian genocide and your other examples aren’t “worse” in any metric (yet). The use and misrepresentation of those examples just tells us that you’re a tankie who engages in whataboutism and spreads untruths to build a narrative.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            7 days ago

            Between 500,000 to one million were killed in Indonesia and Iraq. The fuck you mean they aren’t worse?

            And the Palestinian genocide is at least within the same order of magnitude.

            Why are you erasing them?

    • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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      7 days ago

      You mean the country that is claiming Syrian sovereign space like the Golan Heights for their illegal settlements since the 90s?

    • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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      Yes, nothing.

      No one here is claiming what Israel is doing isn’t horrible (hell, you’re the only one bringing it up). But, this is worse. Wild how there can be more than one bad thing and one being worse doesn’t make the other one not bad, isn’t it?

      • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 days ago

        Don’t argue with a .ml user when they move the goalposts to be “America bad” without any context. It’s a losing battle.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        This isn’t worse! The official death toll is a massive undercount, the real death toll is probably in the same order of magnitude.

    • Valmond@lemmy.world
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      How “whatabout” that.

      Stop trying to shove this news under the carpet with your “I know worse but I won’t tell you!!1!”

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        I’m trying to point out that history didn’t start and end in WWII, and pointing to something just as bad happening right now.

        • Valmond@lemmy.world
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          Oh, I didn’t see that you’re an “ml”

          Whatever works in your fantasy world and makes you happy 🤷🏼‍♀️

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            I expect nothing less from reddit.world 🙄

            Do you really think 100,000 people haven’t been killed in any since conflict since WWII? Cuz that’s the implication.

    • Eheran@lemmy.world
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      The Russians never stopped doing such things. Before, during and after WW2.

    • fxomt@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Are americans just not able to not bring up US politics in articles literally unrelated in any way? I’m pretty sure massacres, concentration camps, kidnappings, child soldiers, rapes, and ethnic cleansings are a little worse than trump’s 4 year term.

      All of that, just for wanting freedom and democracy. But it seems you people have a persecution fetish. Kinky.

      PS: I don’t support republicans, they are fascists, and i’m not saying that trump’s term will be all fine and dandy, but it doesn’t even compare to this.

    • Furball@sh.itjust.works
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      I feel bad for people like you sometimes. I promise you the republicans are not going to create mass graves with up to 500,000 dead

      • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
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        Robert Kennedy wants to bring back Polio.

        The Trump presidency will be littered with corpses.

      • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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        Trump killed hundreds of thousands in his last presidency. He might break it this time if you combine both

      • SelfProgrammed@lemmy.today
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        I would much rather be surrounded by the people you’re surrounded by than keep hearing those exact promises out of the people I’m surrounded by.

    • FantasticDonkey@reddthat.com
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      I sympathize with the message you want to bring across, what they do in Israel could never be the worst since the Nazis because they’re like us, they’re the only dem… I can’t even write that out because it’s such a propaganda lie, but yeah I get that.

      On the other hand let me just agree with the other guy that there are just shitty and shittier dictatorships in the Middle East. Some of them are aligned with the US, some with Russia, all of them are corrupt motherfuckers who belong in jail. Arab leaders have collectively betrayed their people and who knows if that region will ever be free of imperialist forces.

      • fxomt@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        Jail would be a mercy for those bastards. Fuck anyone who supports any dictator here.

    • fxomt@lemm.ee
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      No one was saying that?

      I’m arab and even everyone that i know agrees the Ba’athists are straight up arab fascists.

      • Mrkawfee@lemmy.world
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        So, Arab regimes in Egypt and Jordan are not?

        They’re all engaged in human rights violations but Syria wasn’t a US client state so it gets the Hitler treatment.

        • fxomt@lemm.ee
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          Lmao, I literally never said that. I hate all the Arab dynasties just as much as Bashar, if not more. and Sisi is a moron.

          Quit your whataboutism. Assad is bad. Dictators are bad, no matter if they are pro or anti US.

          • Mrkawfee@lemmy.world
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            If they are pro US and kiss Israel’s ass their brutality is swept under the rug or whitewashed.

            You’ll never see articles like this for Sisi or King Tomato because the colonial powers are hypocrites. That’s my point.

            • fxomt@lemm.ee
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              Sisi and king Abdullah (i assume that is “king tomato”) are morons, but they’re not even as close to the monster that is Assad. also, most westerners probably have a shallow understanding of middle eastern politics, and only knew Assad by name. but after the revolution, the horrors of his regime are finally becoming known globally. This is huge for everyone, especially for Syrians and us Arabs.

              Don’t try to sympathize with monsters, dude.

              • Mrkawfee@lemmy.world
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                Yeah so Pro US tyrants are “morons” but Assad is the most evil person ever (since Saddam Hussein presumably).

                Meanwhile Jolani is a cuddly jihadist who should be integrated into the West at light speed. The facts that he bends the knee to Israel while it is invading and bombing Syria is pure coincidence.

                • fxomt@lemm.ee
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                  Boy, you must be an Olympic champion at jumping to conclusions.

                  Sisi is evil and king Abdullah is a moron. there, better? but they haven’t committed crimes against humanity as bad as Bashar. They are tyrants. I’ll give you an example of another Pro-US tyrant who is evil. Mohammed bin Salman. I fucking hate his guts, not as much as Bashar, but i still want him gone. He has terrorized Saudi Arabia and drained our country and allocated it for himself and his megaprojects, and don’t even get me started on his human rights violations.

                  Literally where did I ever praise Jolani? I didn’t even bring him up. and where did I say that he should be integrated into the west? i don’t live in the west, i don’t care if he is integrated or not. fuck him, he can’t wash away his history with al-qaeda. But even he isn’t as bad as Bashar. that should tell you something about how evil Bashar actually is.

                  It may be a surprise to you, but have you considered that multiple things can be bad at once?