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.

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
100 points
*

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.

permalink
report
reply
96 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-10 points

Gaza is a mass grave at this point.

permalink
report
parent
reply
42 points

It is, but not this big yet.

This is bigger than Gaza, not like the IDF is not trying to catch up.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

After thinking about it, I’ve realized why they always use Nazis as the measuring stick: it’s the last event of this type that the majority of Americans are familiar with.

Which I think says quite a bit about the education level of our populace

permalink
report
parent
reply
18 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
52 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
16 points

Man, Mao’s policies got so many people killed that “only” 3-4m people died of famine.

He’s got an incredible kill count.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Stalin all ready had a high kill count before the Nazis started their extermination camps.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-2 points
*

Mao’s policies weren’t deliberate, the bird thing was an attempt to help his people. Idk why this is constantly brought up when it is no where in the same league as someone deliberately trying to kill people. It just reeks of stupid western propaganda.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-3 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
14 points
*

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
14 points
*

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-4 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
24 points

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?

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points
*

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

permalink
report
parent
reply
-11 points

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

permalink
report
parent
reply
26 points

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

permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points

And currently stealing even more land!

permalink
report
parent
reply
14 points

Well, now Syria is weakened from the revolution. That is the best time to go and steal some land!

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points
*

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

How “whatabout” that.

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

permalink
report
parent
reply
-5 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

Oh, I didn’t see that you’re an “ml”

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

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

The Russians never stopped doing such things. Before, during and after WW2.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
*

Yeah, from what I’ve gathered, Putin has enslaved and trafficked his own people (and in some cases killed and grave robbed them) for money and blackmail. Remember the monkey torture video rings? Well, it seems like Putin was doing that with his own people along with prisoners and trafficked people from other countries, to make every kind of video you could think of, to sell to influential people worldwide to gain blackmail on them. He also likely had irl experiences that people like Trump engaged in.

In Michael Wolff’s Fire&Fury podcast and book, he asserts Russia has pictures of Trump with topless minors. Katie Johnson also said he raped her and another girl when they were 13 and 12, and hit them afterwards for not performing good enough. This is absolutely a man who would engage in disturbing behavior overseas, and Epstein himself called Trump depraved and said there was nothing he couldn’t do. You can listen to Epstein himself say it in the podcast.

There’s also the Active Measures documentary with John McCain and Hilary Clinton. And Unger’s book American Kompromat.

So yeah, it’s likely the snuff videos from Russia you’d see on 4chan and Instagram were state sponsored media meant to get money and blackmail. It’s likely the extreme Russian torture videos were state sponsored. It’s likely that Tulsi, Elon (who admitted in court this year he has a kink roleplay account on X of his toddler XAE, who he took to meet Erdogan and keeps kidnapped from his mom), JDolphin Vance, RFK Jr, Tucker “a demon scratched me in bed not my dogs and no Putin isnt blackmailing me to say this as a wink towards what im being blackmailed for” Carlson, and all the rest, have SERIOUS SERIOUS blackmail on them.

All at the expense of Russian people and enslaved people.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Israel hasn’t killed over 100,000 yet. Gaza is a lot smaller than Syria or Europe.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points
*

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

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?

permalink
report
parent
reply
-4 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

You do realise that saying “… it’s not the worst that’s happened” is also a form of erasure.

…but of course, you do.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

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

permalink
report
parent
reply
-5 points

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! 🙄

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply

World News

!world@lemmy.world

Create post

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

  • Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:

    • Post news articles only
    • Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
    • Title must match the article headline
    • Not United States Internal News
    • Recent (Past 30 Days)
    • Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
  • Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think “Is this fair use?”, it probably isn’t. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.

  • Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.

  • Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.

  • Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19

  • Rule 5: Keep it civil. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to “Mom! He’s bugging me!” and “I’m not touching you!” Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

  • Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.

  • Rule 7: We didn’t USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you’re posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Community stats

  • 11K

    Monthly active users

  • 8.7K

    Posts

  • 98K

    Comments