Crisis in Syria - World must end Assad’s savagery

Every few years the dark side of humanity reminds us of how bestial, how savage we can be when we put aside all the constraints of civilised behaviour.

Not so long ago, very much within living memory, the time-after-time tragedy played out in Rwanda and Bosnia. Decades before that the people of Vietnam fell victim to the worst excesses of our inhumanity. A generation or so earlier nearly any community between Calais and Vladivostok — and many beyond — was exposed to genocide and blinding brutality. Today, the people of Syria are the hapless victims of unrestrained, murderous tyranny.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces have been accused by the United Nation of killing at least 7,500 Syrian citizens in the last year. The reason? They wanted to suppress the revolt determined to bring his presidency to an end. He assumed that position in July 2000 when he succeeded his equally autocratic father who had been president for 30 years.