....reads closed thread, hey my initial thought was right and I don't even speak Arabic. :)
Thinks about this more... well on one hand you have the rebels view point. These people are supporters of a dictator tyrant who has repeatedly bombed civilian areas, kidnapped and murdered civilians, etc and etc for a long time now in order to keep power. These people thereby considered traitors to their people and conspirators to mass murder.
Its not not justified to kill those guilty of murder? Of course that answer depends on your view point of capital punishment, but to me it is justified. Especially in the case of a traitor who also has murdered and conspired with a murderous dictator.
Now, we all know there are humane ways and inhumane ways to carry out a death penalty. Shot to the head is probably as border line as you're going to get as its quick and hopefully painless. Of course I'd prefer lethal injection to any of the known options. Obviously being thrown from a building is far worse than anything.
In the end, you have to really think about it and decide if you really are willing to look away from the horrors of war in order to see people remove themselves from the horrors of oppression and institutionalized murder.
I for one hate to see US military weapons/money used to torture or commit inhumane actions of vengeance, as you clearly can't label being thrown from a building "punishment". However, would it be better to put our own troops in the way of the bullets in order to prevent oppression? I prefer giving the tools to the oppressed so they can free themselves personally. Making a populace earn freedom will hopefully allow them to cherish the freedom more.
Of course, you very well could end up with decades of hatred, violence, "terrorist" ruling parties, and discrimination against weaker segments of the populace as well. After all its been the norm in that region since the creation of Israel. (most of Israel's initial leaders were all part of Stern Gang and other Jewish terrorist orgs, but that's a different topic all together and not really part of this one) Same thing is now happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Same thing happened in Iran under the falsehood of bringing democracy while throwing out the US (who had been supporting another dictator for years).
Really, the question comes down to what can you really do? We have centuries of examples where helping rebels with weapons made a far better place than what existed under a dictatorship (US, Canada, most western nations). Now you have quite a few examples where that hasn't really helped in the long run. Maybe somethings are better, but for the most part, it still sucks and there are still oppressed people in some form.
I don't know. I guess I've rambled enough here without coming to any kind of real end point or solution. I do know one thing for certain. If we, the US, and the rest of the so called 'free world' has all this power and control. Why they hell can't we do anything in real terms to end institutionalized murder? Oh I know, it all depends on who's doing the killing and if they are actually giving us something that is more valuable than the rebels are promising. Yep, makes sense why we ignore so many other crimes where we have nothing to gain from either party (various African nations) or one party pretty much controls our payroll and politics (Israel) or controls a vital resource we get good deals on (Saudi) or buys a ton of our weapons (really can be any of the previously mentioned)... etc etc.
Wanna bitch about where our weapons/money go? why not start with the incredibly corrupt politics and voting system. How about actually voting in someone who'll actually change the status quo and not just bark up your panties with things you like to hear? Romney and Obama and Bush before him are simply opposite sides of the same damn coin. We need a new coin.
You also automatically label these guys radical Islamists... wtf do you know? These are people who've lived through decades of oppression and violence being thrown at them or their neighbors or their families for any sign of being anti-Assad. Of course there will be inhumane actions on their side to out of vengeance and madness. But what should they do? give up and go back to being the victims? This same set of actions happens in any similar war with any religious opinion. Study any nation's history and its all there. This is really just history repeating itself over and over again with different characters and settings.
ugh. ok I've gone on long enough. But really, all that needs to be said for these videos is this: Humans are simply the worst creature on this planet, we destroy everything including each other.