Apr 6, 2017 3 min read

Without so much as a whimper from the international community, the despicable regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and his partner in war crimes, Vladimir Putin, continue their murderous campaign to subdue a defiant and defenseless people.

As the world turns its back, innocent men, women and children are dying each day. With no one to plead its case, the Syrian nation endures horrific attacks on its cities as Assad’s military, reinforced and supported by Russian and Iranian forces, reduce the country to rubble.

Assad can taste victory and his ruthless regime’s survival only because the so-called civilized world, and especially democratic nations, remain silent. The United Nations does not have the will or the backbone to directly challenge Russia and Iran for their bloodthirsty role in the Syrian civil war. ISIS and its caliphate capital, Raqqa, lie within Syria’s borders, yet Assad and Putin are too busy decimating what’s left of the Syrian rebels to care about a more potent and savage enemy. Emboldened by worldwide apathy that accompanied large-scale civilian casualties in the merciless siege of Aleppo, Assad is once again using chemical weapons against his own people, in direct violation of recognized international law.

In a recent attack on the Syrian city of Idlib, dozens of victims, many of them children, died as a result of a nerve gas attack. This was not the first use of poison gas in this war and it certainly will not be the last. President Barack Obama drew a red line over such weapons, but failed to act when Assad crossed it. The souls of the innocent dead in Syria cry out for justice and mercy. The Syrian nation and its people are daily sacrificed on the altar of global indifference.

A generation of Syrian youth has been traumatized and forever transformed by this ghastly conflict. An exodus of refugees, unlike anything seen since World War II, now clogs Europe. President Donald Trump has a moral obligation to speak out loudly and forcefully on what is now taking place in Syria. He must use the moral authority of the United States to oppose this genocide. The world community must also end its silence, for in its silence there is also complicity.

This war must end and Assad must go. Only a determined U.S. policy that challenges the Russians can help bring that about.

Carl A. Haberl

Washington