The End of Assad

 

I haven't really known where to start this week. Tblisi? Romania? But it's Syria. Good gracious if I were ever to believe, God. The rebels took over everywhere. Everything, after so many years, fell. And Bashar al-Assad's Russian friends have been run off, too. And he has fucked off to Moscow. (Actually, I know he was in Moscow last week and never noticed him leaving. When the heck did he leave to fuck off on back?)

I don't know if Assad-cheerleader and avid consumer of RU agitprop, Tulsi Gabbard is at home crying into her Putin shaped comfort woobie, but the quality of her often-offered pro-Assad and pro-Putin opinions are about to take an uncommon beating.  Which she totally has earned. 

I also don't know how Trump and them feel about what Romania has done with respects to their dodgy election. I personally think Trump should have been disqualified as an insurrectionist, but we just don't do stuff like that here, regardless of what our Constitution says. 

I do winder if some of the people who voted for him are feeling the buyer's remorse yet. And what exactly would happen if we tried to stage a "do-over" here. 

But this post isn't about the US--it's about this:

#Syria's longest prisoner, Raghid Tatari, freed tonight after 43 years in prison. His "crime" was the winning against Hafez's son Bassel in a equestrian competition. pic.twitter.com/kQQ199xlcv

— Mohamed Al Neser (النسر) (@M_Alneser) December 8, 2024

In the prisons that have been liberated, there have been children, born to women prisoners there, who lived their entire life in prison. Women who don't know the fathers of their babies. There are prisons with underground horrors, torture dungeons, and so many secrets.  And now, some of these things will come to light. What we already know is horrific. 

The dictatorship of Assad is what Russia bombed hospitals to support. A conflict in which there has been simply so much death to deny the people freedom. 

Do I think this leads to democracy? No. I don't have a clue. And maybe it doesn't. 

But I can't deny that right now, people that were oppressed believe a change has come, and many things are possible that weren't before. And that means something. It means a lot to children that always knew a prison. to lives that were cut short by a dictator's whim, to people who want something better, and now have a chance to try. 

It isn't a perfect opportunity, but it is the one they have. And they didn't have it even a week ago. 

I am rooting for all people to have freedom. To live, to speak, to earn a living, to walk out into the sun and be themselves. Do I expect that from an off shoot of al-Nusra?

We're living in weird times. I don't know what I expect anymore. But I know what I hope for. And I offer it like the closest thing to a prayer my agnostic heart can manage.