Death Camps Inc. How the Syrian dictatorship outsourced the construction of torture prisons to fugitive Nazis

The Western mainstream discovered a fact long known among experts: neo-Nazis sympathize with Assad. Correspondence of the American ultra-right intercepted by anti-fascists suggests that American extremists admired the Syrian dictator as a fighter against Muslims, as an anti-Semite, and as a “real leader.” They also offered positive appraisals of the Baath Party, believing that it was modeled on the most radical elements to come out of Nazi Germany.

Already after Assad's overthrow, the French think tank Egalite et Reconciliation, published an article on the future of Syria. The organization was founded by former Marine Le Pen associate Alain Soral, who previously served a prison term for racist remarks and Holocaust denial. The piece implies that Assad's secular Syria, which supposedly sought happiness for every citizen except terrorists, will be replaced by an “American-Zionist” Syria run by “rootless” Pentagon officials. The authors romanticize Bashar al-Assad as a key fighter against the supposed “American-Israeli conspiracy.”

A wizard, but not of Oz

Incidentally, Assad reciprocated the affable feelings of the Western far-right. Back in 2005, David Duke, one of America's most odious white supremacists and the former leader of the Louisiana chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, visited Damascus. He came at the official invitation of members of the Syrian parliament, which was fully under the control of Bashar al-Assad. Duke's address in a square in the center of the capital was broadcast live by a state channel.