25 years ago, February 2, 1982 - the Hama massacre

[NimDod]

Hama massacre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Hama massacre occurred when the government of Syria attacked the town of Hama and killed thousands of people on February 2, 1982. Amnesty International claims that 10,000-25,000 were killed at Hama, though many figures exist and the number could be considerably smaller or larger than this. The Syrian government has made no official claim about the number killed at Hama.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hama_massacre



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Even today the public at large is not well informed on the events in Hama, especially when compared with comparable or smaller events in Iraq, Lebanon, or in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Occurring eight months before the Sabra and Shatila Massacre, in comparison, Hama is heavily underdiscussed in both the media and in academic circles.


I looked at the Arabic version of this article, and its really short.
http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%B2%D8%B1%D8%A9_%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%A9
can any of the MP.net members who can read Arabic tell what it says? and why doesnt Arab media which is not pro-Syria ever mention this massacre?

[fantomas]

Hey look, I dont support things like this in any way, but lets be honest, what was Hama? It was a muslim brotherhood hive ready to overthrow the Assad regime and establish their own dictatorship. Sorry if I dont cry over this.

[Danik]

No one is asking you to cry. But it is rather interesting that several Arabs and their white hippie douche friends I know have never even heard of what happened there. The first thing they bring up is Sabra and Shatila, for which they still hold Israel more responsible than the Lebanese command and militia which carried out those massacres.

Arab on Arab: its called doing business

Israel-not-really-but-sort-of-enough-to-bitch-to-UN on Arab: its called headlines

[Lord Of War]

I looked at the Arabic version of this article, and its really short.
http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%B2%D8%B1%D8%A9_%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%A9
can any of the MP.net members who can read Arabic tell what it says? and why doesnt Arab media which is not pro-Syria ever mention this massacre?

Just used Google to translate the bulk of the article, although its hard to understand the general point of the article is understandable:


Research Hamah massacre in February 2 of 1982 was the result the government launched a military campaign against the Syrian opposition the armed at the time where the Syrian forces surrounded m religion Hama, pounding artillery and then stormed Askar Oh. The number of victims of the massacre at the discretion of the Republic of human rights between 30 and 40 thousand people, the vast majority of them civilians. It was the massacre of individual and collective death was buried Ald Petrol in mass graves, Some reports refer to the difficulty of identifying all Ald Vehicle because there are between 10 thousand and 15 thousand civilians disappeared from the y of the massacre, Nobody knows Avi districts are or dead. [Liberalization] overseas sites

[NimDod]

thanks, Lord Of war

[Moledet]

Hey look, I dont support things like this in any way, but lets be honest, what was Hama? It was a muslim brotherhood hive ready to overthrow the Assad regime and establish their own dictatorship. Sorry if I dont cry over this.
Yes, though this massacre is mostly unknown to most of the posters here that tend to criticize Israel and even use the word "genocide/ethnic cleansing" to describe the current situation.
It's convenient for them to overlook this type of actions that in a few days took the lives of more Palestinians than the amount that Israel killed in 58 years.

[a_very_ex_STAB]

It's also unknown to most of the posters on here who think that somehow the Baathist secular dictatorship is in someway in league with Sunni Al Qaeda jihadists. Because all Arabs are Wahabi fanatics arent' they?

[Kaplanr]

Thomas Friedman talks about it in his "From Beirut to Jeusalem" and even coined a term related to it - "Hama Rules", meaning no rules at all!

Hama Rules
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
http://www.mafhoum.com/press2/63P58.htm

n February 1982 the secular Syrian government of President Hafez al-Assad faced a mortal threat from Islamic extremists, who sought to topple the Assad regime. How did it respond? President Assad identified the rebellion as emanating from Syria's fourth-largest city — Hama — and he literally leveled it, pounding the fundamentalist neighborhoods with artillery for days. Once the guns fell silent, he plowed up the rubble and bulldozed it flat, into vast parking lots. Amnesty International estimated that 10,000 to 25,000 Syrians, mostly civilians, were killed in the merciless crackdown. Syria has not had a Muslim extremist problem since.

I visited Hama a few months after it was leveled. The regime actually wanted Syrians to go see it, to contemplate Hama's silence and to reflect on its meaning. I wrote afterward, "The whole town looked as though a tornado had swept back and forth over it for a week — but this was not the work of mother nature."

This was "Hama Rules" — the real rules of Middle East politics — and Hama Rules are no rules at all. I tell this story not to suggest this should be America's approach. We can't go around leveling cities. We need to be much more focused, selective and smart in uprooting the terrorists.

No, I tell this story because it's important that we understand that Syria, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia have all faced Islamist threats and crushed them without mercy or Miranda rights. Part of the problem America now faces is actually the fallout from these crackdowns. Three things happened:

First, once the fundamentalists were crushed by the Arab states they fled to the last wild, uncontrolled places in the region — Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and Afghanistan — or to the freedom of America and Europe.

Second, some Arab regimes, most of which are corrupt dictatorships afraid of their own people, made a devil's pact with the fundamentalists. They allowed the Islamists' domestic supporters to continue raising money, ostensibly for Muslim welfare groups, and to funnel it to the Osama bin Ladens — on the condition that the Islamic extremists not attack these regimes. The Saudis in particular struck that bargain.

Third, these Arab regimes, feeling defensive about their Islamic crackdowns, allowed their own press and intellectuals total freedom to attack America and Israel, as a way of deflecting criticism from themselves.

As a result, a generation of Muslims and Arabs have been raised on such distorted views of America that despite the fact that America gives Egypt $2 billion a year, despite the fact that America fought for the freedom of Muslims in Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo, and despite the fact that Bill Clinton met with Yasir Arafat more than with any other foreign leader, America has been vilified as the biggest enemy of Islam. And that is one reason that many people in the Arab-Muslim world today have either applauded the attack on America or will tell you — with a straight face — that it was all a C.I.A.-Mossad plot to embarrass the Muslim world.

We need the moderate Arab states as our partners — but we don't need only their intelligence. We need them to be intelligent. I don't expect them to order their press to say nice things about America or Israel. They are entitled to their views on both, and both at times deserve criticism. But what they have never encouraged at all is for anyone to consistently present an alternative, positive view of America — even though they were sending their kids here to be educated. Anyone who did would be immediately branded a C.I.A. agent.

And while the Arab states have crushed their Islamic terrorists, they have never confronted them ideologically and delegitimized their behavior as un-Islamic. Arab and Muslim Americans are not part of this problem. But they could be an important part of the solution by engaging in the debate back in the Arab world, and presenting another vision of America.

So America's standing in the Arab-Muslim world is now very low — partly because we have not told our story well, partly because of policies we have adopted and partly because inept, barely legitimate Arab leaders have deliberately deflected domestic criticism of themselves onto us. The result: We must now fight a war against terrorists who are crazy and evil but who, it grieves me to say, reflect the mood in their home countries more than we might think.

[simpleidea]

What a sad situation, I didn't know about this happening. So many innocents dying for no real purpose.

[Danik]

It's also unknown to most of the posters on here who think that somehow the Baathist secular dictatorship is in someway in league with Sunni Al Qaeda jihadists. Because all Arabs are Wahabi fanatics arent' they?

Who are these "most"? Did you take a survey?

[Kilgor]

Hama is heavily underdiscussed in both the media and in academic circles.

The leftist intelligentsia can only paint one villain in the middle east, and we certainly wouldn't want any attention diverted away from the cause.

[Mastermind]

Perfect in amost every way...absolutely perfect. I really do admire Machiavellian propagandists. They are simple and effective. These Arab regimes really know their people and their politics. It is unfortunate our own western leaders are not as well trained.MM

[Jobu]

They don't talk about the Jordanian vs Palestinian violence back from 1970 either in which 10's of thousands were killed.

It's easier to spark outrage over an Israeli hellfire attack on a Hamas leader than to say anything about their Muslim brethren.

[Vorian]

Imo, western nations that get accused of killing civilians etc should not hide behind the "Others did worst" statement, and wash their hands of their own faults. Are you trying to compare Israel with Syria; a free western country, with a dictatorship? Of course Muslims have killed more Muslims than all Israel and US together but most people here have said (and with good reason), that these people live in the Middle Ages. Why do you compare their actions with the West's?

Crimes done by western countries reach the headlines, not because they are larger or more serious but because we are supposed to be the civilised people, that know better.

[fantomas]

Crimes done by western countries reach the headlines, not because they are larger or more serious but because we are supposed to be the civilised people, that know better.


so what you are really saying is that the leftists who propagade this view are really closet racists since they consider arabs to be uncivilized.

[seraosha]

Imo, western nations that get accused of killing civilians etc should not hide behind the "Others did worst" statement, and wash their hands of their own faults. Are you trying to compare Israel with Syria; a free western country, with a dictatorship? Of course Muslims have killed more Muslims than all Israel and US together but most people here have said (and with good reason), that these people live in the Middle Ages. Why do you compare their actions with the West's?

Crimes done by western countries reach the headlines, not because they are larger or more serious but because we are supposed to be the civilised people, that know better.

Oh no, you didn't go there, did you? I wonder what the Islamic version of "Godwins Law" will be? "We can't be held responsible, everyone knows we are just a bunch of uncivilized murdering dirtbag camel rapists...how could we be held responsible for our own actions? Jeez, it's the JOOOOS!!"

[tanks_alot]

Imo, western nations that get accused of killing civilians etc should not hide behind the "Others did worst" statement, and wash their hands of their own faults. Are you trying to compare Israel with Syria; a free western country, with a dictatorship? Of course Muslims have killed more Muslims than all Israel and US together but most people here have said (and with good reason), that these people live in the Middle Ages. Why do you compare their actions with the West's?

Crimes done by western countries reach the headlines, not because they are larger or more serious but because we are supposed to be the civilised people, that know better.

While i agree that the "they did it too" argument starts to lose it's value around the 1st grade, what you said however is very racist ,condescending and without logic, becuase if you'll treat people like retarded, savage "natives" ,expect nothing from them and support them in their struggles instead of presenting a united world wide front that condemns such massacres, you are in fact helping the regimes that conduct them.
humans are humans, the only difference is how we are educated and when the world conducts business as usual with your local dictator you are not likely to turn out very educated.

i'm very intersted to know if other people that view themselvs as leftists or whats nicknamed here, "Eurowussies" share this view?

[Mastermind]

Interesting posts...ethics of "They did it first!" excuse. However, since reality is 99% perception, perhaps things may be a bit different now if the western nations had widely publicized the abject cruelty these nations had against their own people and demonstrate how utterly inhumane they can be. Perhaps there would not be so many liberals carrying their water for them.MM

[Danik]

Interesting posts...ethics of "They did it first!" excuse. However, since reality is 99% perception, perhaps things may be a bit different now if the western nations had widely publicized the abject cruelty these nations had against their own people and demonstrate how utterly inhumane they can be. Perhaps there would not be so many liberals carrying their water for them.MM

I would love to believe you, but I dont think liberals care about anyones suffering. Their stated purpose it to oppose the status quo regardless of wether they are supporting freedom or oppression. How many times where they shown USSR's abuses or Cuba's, hell even Iran right now, it didnt stop them from supporting the regimes.

The "they did it first" is not an excuse, its more of a call for equality. Why is one society judged by one set of standards and the other by a whole other set. Israel/Germany/France/UK/US/Canada kills 1 militant and this will be on the front page of every news paper, Israel especially. Assad kills 30 thousand people, 36K is you believe the commander responsible for it, and who knows about it? I found out last year while reading From Beirut to Jerusalem(the passage about Hama from the book is posted above), didnt hear about it anywhere else.

[a_very_ex_STAB]

Who are these "most"? Did you take a survey?

Most of the neocon fanboys on here have their heads up their arrses so it's hard to imagine the Hama affair featuring prominently on their radar screens.

[Javehn]

Imo, western nations that get accused of killing civilians etc should not hide behind the "Others did worst" statement, and wash their hands of their own faults. Are you trying to compare Israel with Syria; a free western country, with a dictatorship? Of course Muslims have killed more Muslims than all Israel and US together but most people here have said (and with good reason), that these people live in the Middle Ages. Why do you compare their actions with the West's?

Crimes done by western countries reach the headlines, not because they are larger or more serious but because we are supposed to be the civilised people, that know better.

Congratulation.
You've just managed to call an entire culture retarted .
You know what is the difference between grown people and between retarted kids ? If the second one break your cellphone , you will say "It's ok , never mind , try not to do that again " .

You are not holding those "savages" accountable for their actions ? You just insulted the hell out of them . You are ready to view them as retarted nation . Not very nice from an enlightened eurabian like you , ain't it now ?

Good luck next time .

[hughdotoh]

so what you are really saying is that the leftists who propagade this view are really closet racists since they consider arabs to be uncivilized.

The man was articulating what the media already know but don't want to admit.