Kassem Eid :Where Were the Pro-Refugee Protesters When Assad Gassed Syrians? Trump has given my people hope, but if Americans truly care they can help remove Syria’s tyrant.
On that morning, I nearly died after inhaling the deadly perfume that Bashar Assad unleashed upon my hometown of Moadhamiya, in the western suburbs of Damascus. I struggled to breathe as this silent killer hugged my chest and pressed my lungs until my heart stopped beating out of pain. The doctors gave up on me and left me for dead. I woke up 30 minutes later screaming in agony and surrounded by corpses.
But an even worse moment came when President Obama canceled his “red line” that had promised consequences for the use of chemical weapons. At the time I was gassed, I was a local media activist for the Syrian Revolution against Assad’s brutal regime. For two years, I was trapped in Moadhamiya as the town endured government siege, starvation and savage bombardment.
I escaped Syria and came to the U.S. in 2014, hoping that my testimony would help persuade Mr. Obama to stop the genocide. But after two years of speaking to the media, think tanks, universities, the State Department, Congress, the Pentagon and the National Security Council, I was sure that nothing would change the president’s mind—not me, not the “Caesar report” published that year on the industrial-scale torture in Syria’s prisons, and not the millions killed and displaced by Assad’s genocide.
I left the U.S. a year ago out of disappointment and frustration. Even though I was a refugee who had made it to America, I was disgusted with myself for living a comfortable life while thousands of Syrians were still being slaughtered each day by Assad, Iran, Hezbollah, Russia and Islamic State. I now live in Germany among other Syrian refugees.
As I watched footage of the nerve-gas attack last week that killed more than 100 people, including children—Assad’s worst chemical massacre since 2013—I could not help but cry and feel outraged at each and every person who could have saved them but didn’t.
Only two months ago, American airports became protest zones because President Trump attempted to bar entry temporarily to refugees and travelers from seven nations, including Syria. Where is all that outrage today? How come protesters didn’t pack the streets in front of the White House and the United Nations last week to demand military action against Assad?
Syrians—like the people in the other Arab Spring countries—didn’t rebel against the dictatorship as a way to gain entry to the U.S. as refugees. We rebelled because we wanted to live for the first time as equal citizens in our own nation. We wanted to stay home and make Syria a better place.
President Trump has done more with one strike to fight Islamic State than his predecessor did in six years. He has now given the Syrian people hope that the U.S. will stand for human rights and freedom. ISIS thrives on hopelessness and international passivity to convince its fighters to seek revenge instead of justice. It was on Obama’s watch, due to his inaction, that ISIS formed and created a caliphate the size of Indiana.
I want to thank President Trump for his brave action in striking the Assad regime and holding it accountable for its massacre of civilians. This is the first step in saving the lives of Syrians being killed every day, helping them stay where they live, and allowing refugees like me to return home. But more needs to be done.
America, if you really care about refugees, then take to the streets, call your representatives, and ask for even further action against the murderer who displaced us. President Trump could order strikes to fully ground Assad’s air force, whose bombing forces civilians to flee. The Assad regime still has more than a dozen operational military airports from which to continue its attacks. Help civilians by creating safe zones and no-fly zones.
If you really care about human rights, work to remove Assad, the tyrant who has killed, raped, gassed, burned, tortured and displaced millions of civilians. If you really care about eliminating Islamic State, oust the dictator who for years has supported extremist terrorist groups like al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah and who buys oil from ISIS.
Please help us. Please stop Assad. Let the world know, let Syrians know, and let Assad know that there are consequences for his crimes. If you do not act, I fear that what happened on Aug. 21, 2013, and again on April 4, 2017, will repeat itself many times over.
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