These are the people who have lately overturnedBashar al-Assads government in Syria.
They now rule the country.
The Austin Tice matter came up again about eight weeks after my arrest, to borrow my kidnappers term.
A Syrian man inspects cells at the prison of Saydnaya, north of Damascus, on December 16, 2024.SAMEER AL-DOUMY/AFP/Getty Images
All the important business took place downstairs.
as our room of death.
We know that they sent you here to look for him.
In those moments, my hands were cuffed behind my back.
My eyes were covered by a blindfold.
The interrogator was pressing his boot into the back of my neck.
Yes, Austin, he shouted into the darkness.
We have him, too.
According to them, the CIA had gotten wind of a resurgence of Islamic feeling in Aleppo.
It had sent in Austin and I and was paying 10,000 traitorous Syrians to stomp it out.
About the CIA, I felt they were all nuts.
But I had watched a certain harrowing Austin Tice video more than once.
He is in a blindfold and handcuffs.
The men around him are calling out the greatness of God.
Over the following two years, I lived in 13 separate prisons in every corner of Syria.
Eventually, I came to see that a single architecture governed the design of all of them.
Often, only candles lit those rooms.
Over time, I came to see why the commanders were building up these underground realms.
For the first six months of my prison life, I was Filth.
Others were Insect, Rat, and Cur.
When many of us were confined to a single room, our name was You Germs.
That sanction is death, crucifixion, or a cutting off of the hands and the feet.
To me, their laws seemed very Islamic.
Could they not be satisfied with what they had?
This line of questioning almost always ended in my captors casting incredulous grins at me.
Did I not know this?
I did know that this was the official line.
I was a doubter.
I heard them at their work most often during the torture sessions.
Over the course of two years, Im sure I listened to a thousand of them.
Often, many victims were tortured at once.
Beneath al Sharaas palavering, there lies a philosophy of pest extermination.
Is this a sound notion on which to build up the future of a nation?
It doesnt seem so to me, but its clearly too late for regrets.
