{"id":282025,"date":"2024-12-09T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T12:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=282025"},"modified":"2024-12-07T05:42:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T05:42:14","slug":"the-forces-on-the-offensive-in-syria-are-todays-khmer-rouge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/12\/the-forces-on-the-offensive-in-syria-are-todays-khmer-rouge\/","title":{"rendered":"The Forces on the Offensive in Syria Are Today\u2019s Khmer Rouge"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Syria civil war – John Wight<\/p><\/div>\n

6 Dec 2024 – The common denominator behind the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s and Salafi-jihadism in our time is Western foreign policy.<\/em><\/p>\n

“History never really says goodbye. History says, \u2018See you later.\u2019”<\/em>
\n— Eduardo Galeano<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Taking place in Syria now as thousands of Salafi-jihadists head dangerously close to the capital, Damascus, in a surprise and lightning offensive, has the potential to unleash catastrophic consequences not only in Syria but across a region already exhausted from a surplus of conflict and the concomitant human suffering endured.<\/p>\n

The depiction of the smorgasbord of medieval-minded head-chopping fanatics involved as \u201crebels\u201d in the Western media; this is proof-positive that no lessons \u2014 zero \u2014 have been learned. None learned from the consequences following the overthrow of Mohammad Najibullah<\/a> in Kabul back in 1996. From the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003. Or from the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Inside Phnom Penh\u2019s Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, former prison, torture and execution center of the Khmer Rouge, 2007. (lecercle, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)<\/p><\/div>\n

In each case, the result was not the establishment of a liberal democracy underpinned by the rule of law. Instead, in each case the result was mayhem and carnage wrought by Year Zero fanatics intent on mass slaughter in the name of a perverted rendering of Islam.<\/p>\n