http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/05/09/syria-protest-military-crackdown.htmlThe Syrian government was reported Monday to be continuing to widen its crackdown on dissidents.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who is the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said security forces were conducting house-to-house raids across the country and detaining hundreds of people.
He said the raids were centred on Homs, in the centre of the county, Banias, on the coast, in the suburbs of Damascus and in villages around the southern city of Daraa, which has been the focal point for the anti-government movement.
Protesters are demanding the end of the rule of President Bashar Assad. Since the anti-government movement began in mid-March, an estimated 630 people have been killed, according to human rights group. Syria is closed to foreign journalists, making the reports difficult to independently confirm.
Whether any country is helping Assad or not, doesn't change the fact that this crackdown wouldn't be happening if the Syrian government didn't want it to. Assad certainly seems to have decided that a military solution to demonstrations for democracy is the preferred solution. And the Syrian military seems to have little of the reluctance to use maximum force on protesters that was present with the Egyptian and Tunisian militaries.
Gone is the talk of concessions to open up the political process that he mouthed a few weeks ago. Using tanks against demonstrators may postpone Assad's day of reckoning but it is obvious that Syrians want the same things that people everywhere want. Dictatorship is not an "accepted" form of government anywhere. It is merely an "imposed" one.