May peace be with you always السلام لك دائما

Screams were heard as the sounds of constant incoming mortar and automatic weapon fire continued its' constant litany. On a grainy cell phone image the dust and rubble could be viewed and something resembling bodies lay in the street. Little of this is making the foreign national news but it has continued relentlessly for days, weeks and months and now for nearly two years. On average over 100 people are killed this way each day and yesterday was no different:

At least 145 people were killed by Assad’s forces today, including 18 women and 13 children. There was yet another massacre in Douma where dozens more bodies were found slaughtered, while the whole Eastern side of Damascus is under heavy shelling. In the North, the city of Ma’aret an-Nu’man and the surrounding areas continue to be obliterated by Assad’s air force. The battles of attrition continue in the devastated cities of Aleppo, Homs and Deir Ezzor. Meanwhile, we are still waiting to see if the Assad regime will confirm it’s intention to ceasefire during Eid. The FSA has expressed support provided the regime also stops firing while Jubhat al-Nusra issue a statement rejecting any ceasefire or any negotiation with the regime. If there is a ceasefire, UNHCR says it will deliver aid to 10,000 families (there are estimated 1.5 million displaced people), working with the Syria Trust for Development in Damascus and Aleppo (which is an NGO set up by…. Asmaa al-Assad).

The chants of "Allah Akbar" always heard in all actions. One must ask if God is so great then why has he forsaken these people? This is no war it is a slaughter. There are no rules of engagement here. It's kill or be killed. And for the least among them, the unarmed women and children, it is no match for mortars and RPGs. It all makes no sense. What could be gained by wiping out a population and destroying entire towns? Is this some nationalized illness that happens every twenty years or so? How quickly we forget the Bosnias and the Congo massacres and the killing fields of Cambodia and yet history repeats itself. You'd think by now we'd have learned a thing or two about getting along but perhaps it's something ingrained in human nature. A need for destruction much like hunger or thirst or something akin to an illness like a virus on a ten to twenty year cycle? Or is this just plain greed run rampant to an illogical end? You be the judge.