Juan Cole: Syria and the Rise of the Death Squad (Assad's last chance or his end?)
Under the almost defunct Kofi Annan plan, the whole point of the observers was to ensure that a cease-fire between the Baath army and the Free Syrian Army held. But not only has it broken down on both sides, but the desperate regime in Damascus has ratcheted up its response to being challenged by its civilians, launching a new series of attacks involving mass casualties among non-combatants. When civilians are killed in the course of a military operation aimed at gunmen, they are collateral damage. But when they are systematically targeted, that is a crime against humanity. Obviously, the perpetrators don’t want UN eyes on the scene.
Why is the Syrian Baath Party committing crimes against humanity? Because it has not succeeded in putting down the 14-month-old rebellion against one-party dictatorship by other means. They began by putting snipers on buildings above city squares and just shooting 10 demonstrators in each population center every day. The point was to raise the cost of protesting, to make people wonder if this would be their last demonstration. When the brave protesters nevertheless insisted on continuing to come out, and when the regime lost control of some city quarters to armed defectors from its own military, the regime actually sent in tanks and artillery to pound the rebellious quarters (as with Baba Amr in Homs), despite the inevitable loss of civilian life.
But that use of armor against city quarters did not succeed in quelling the rebellion, either. So the regime has gone to the next step. It is using shabiha death squads to simply kill the unarmed protesters, including women and children, and giving the death squads cover with artillery and tanks.
The death squad technique is typically the death rattle of a regime. When it deploys this tactic, the government is in real trouble. It is not a new phenomenon. The right wing El Salvador junta of the 1980s used Escuadróns de la Muerte or death squads in an attempt to destroy its opposition.
http://www.juancole.com/2012/06/syria-and-the-rise-of-the-death-squad.html
Cole points out that sometimes the use of death squads is successful in quelling political protest. Other times it backfires and fans the flames of the revolt.
