>>845>I said he takes prisoners just so he can feed them back to the battlefield1. no one takes IS prisoners
2. I'm not the only one that says Assad has let butchers already involved and inclined to join up with terror groups go. There have been MSM reports on this since 2013. The timing of many of the releases fit the MO i'm implying.
>he antagonizes ISWhat do you mean by antagonize? He isn't waging any offensives against them and every time more assistance for his regime has come in it has be channeled to the fight against other rebel groups.
>it's pragmatism and duty that drives AssadDuty to what and to whom? Assad has not governed 2/3rds of Syria for years. Before the war he was using his position to enrich and empower his dynasty, not Syria.
And, he's only pragmatic in the sense that he's ideologically promiscuous in his illiberal pursuits .
>caricature of a cynical cartoon villainIt's ironic you say that. The case of cartoonist Ali Farzat leaves me little doubt about the regime's vileness.
>BARRELBOMBS rhetoricYou sound out of touch. Barrel Bombs were first cited as unjust and contributing to instability in Syria by the UN. In Assad's interview with Charlie Rose, Assad felt it necessary to obfuscate the weapon's effects by saying that they're 'just bombs'. The fact remains that they, along with the chemical weapons he occasionally uses in them, kill more civilians than fighters, and of the fighters killed they are extremely rarely IS.
It should be clear that such improvised bombs are intrinsically indiscriminate, and combined with the fact that they are dropped from ineffective distances makes them a weapon of terror and little else.
I would encourage you to seek out and read the UN Special Commission report on war crimes in the country.
