Sharmine Narwani of Al-Akhbar and Oxford University speaks with Russia Today in August about the Syrian conflict and "so-called massacres"

Here's what we know. The Assad family has ruled Syria like its own personal colony for decades. Just like the foreigners that ruled Syria before them, they have been a distant elite, treating Syrians not as citizens but as tools of the state. Many of those Syrians have risked everything to reject the Assad regime, and since the very beginning Assad has responded with bullets and bombs. His promises of "democratic reform" have been a fiction, just like they always were.

Whatever is to become of Syria, those genuinely engaged in trying to "halt the descent into darkness" will only be hindered by those whose ideological agenda is more important than seeking and presenting the truth.