Syrias Descent Into Madness

[LazyGun]

The whole conflict is becoming so barbaric. Its an unverified video source so its difficult to know just how much credence to place in the report - but Human Rights watch certainly believe its true - that one of the rebel commanders was filmed cutting our the heart of a dead soldier and biting into it.......

This is the very height of barbarism, and must surely be a war crime...

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/14/world/meast/syria-eaten-heart/?hpt=hp_t1

[sara3]

does that link show the actual act?

[LazyGun]

No

[Mike25]

Was it Halal?

[emmie]

all war is cruel, and those caught in the middle are the ones who suffer the most.

[Sharingan]

My immediate thought is that you get crazy people everywhere, take away their normal constraints such as during war time and worse still give them some power and you will always get perversions like this taking place. From this man, to the people who tortured people in WWII concentration camps, to Idid Amin's soldiers who pulled people apart with 2 cars to tyre burnings in South Africa as well as more historical abuses like US forces skinning slaughtered Indians in the ' Wild West', you will always get people who use the disorganisation of war to feed their own sickness. As long as this practice doesn't become widespread and I can't imagine it will, then I don't think we have anything more to worry about than any other horrific civil war that's taking place.

[modeller]

And to think most of what has happened over the past 3 years Might have been avoided had Asaad granted a few refoms or had Russia and China accepted a few more sanctions or withdrawn their support.

[LazyGun]

Yes, all war is cruel, no one can deny that. Something especially barbaric about despoiling a corpse and biting into a heart though, wouldn't you say?

[Mike25]

When the war is over, should these people still be allowed to roam the streets!

[emmie]

if its true of course it would be vile. I remember seeing a photograph of some Serbian soldiers in WW2 sawing off the head of a still alive prisoner, i still have nightmares over that.

[Mike25]

em10 there is vidoes all over the internet of people getting there heads swan off while they are still alive. Human race never fails to amaze me.

[daffy654]

I saw this on the Huffington Post earlier but couldn't watch the video. I did see some pixellated stills from it though.

[Sharingan]

I think when most people think about wars they tend to shut out ideas that this sort of thing is common, but throughout history the enemy have always enjoyed despoiling toe corpses of their opposition in the most gory and humiliating ways possible. It's vile.

[Sharingan]

*the corpses* sorry:)

[jno]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20047873-503543/new-photos-of-atrocities-by-soldiers-in-afghanistan/

atrocities aren't new, or confined to weird foreigners

[jake-the-peg]

Not that it's exactly the done thing but I don't think descecrating the bodies of enemies falls into the same category of war crime as using white phosphorus on Hospitals or murdering civillians.

In a sense it's not dissimilar to this case (just more extreme) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_of_U.S._Marines_urinating_on_Taliban_fighters

But IMHO we should reserve the tag 'war crime' for offenses against non-combatants

[LazyGun]

Well, I rermain shocked at the barbarity of the action. I must be more sensitive than most.

And JNO, I am not quite sure who your response was directed at, or which specific reply, but if it were at me - Of course I know atrocities are not new, or confined to foreigners - was there anything in my post that suggests i didn't?

The greater crime is killing someone - loss of life is a greater tragedy, and despoiling a body must come second to that, and of course killing civilians ranks higher on the scale of what constitutes a war crime, but its not a term that is exclusive to civilians - never has been.

The action itself, the brutality of it, and the reports of what was said just demonstrate the level of viciousness and brutality to which this conflict has sunk.

[emmie]

this wasn't despoiling a corpse, this was a man who was still alive, and of course the so called civilised and learned Germans throwing people alive into ovens. It seems as though humanity gets left behind in the advent of war,

[ichkeria]

It makes one wonder though what horrors have occurred in this war that haven't been captured in film.

[emmie]

too graphic i expect.

[jno]

LazyGun, I was just pointing out that "barbarism" isn't that uncommon. In the case of Afghanistan, though, they were (in this case) perpetrated by those - Americans - who don't even have anything personal at stake. At least in civil wars like Syria's, individual participants on both sides are fighting for themselves, their families, their tribes, their leaders, their politics. I'm not trying to defend it, but I think it's understandable.