Larry Wilkerson, a retired colonel and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, stated that contrary to widespread reports out of Syria, the casualties in that country are split evenly between the heavily-armed regime troops and the disorganized rebel forces in a segment on the Kremlin's English-language propaganda channel RT.
The Russian government has been a steadfast ally of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, stymieing efforts by the international community to take action against the Syrian government at the United Nations.
RT, following the Russian government's lead, has been sympathetic to the Syrian regime, and has had numerous guests on to warn the international community of the dangers of intervention. Wilkerson makes the case that the conflict in Syria is between evenly matched forces, and that the civil war there is not unlike the civil war fought in the United States, and likewise that a possible intervention to support the rebels would be similar to a British intervention on behalf of the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War.
A U.N. report released Tuesday estimated the death toll in Syria to be "well over 7,500." The report states death toll often exceeds 100 civilians per day.
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: The people I'm listening to about Syria are people who are serious about Syria. One of the things they point out that the mainstream media in this country is not pointing out is how the casualty list is roughly balanced. That is to say, Bashar al-Assad is killing some people and the opposition is killing some people. This doesn’t come out in the media, where it’s all Bashar al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad. If that’s the case, and I think it probably is, I think this is the way the Arab League presented in its report--which no one paid any attention to in this country. If that’s the case, this is a civil war and a civil war that has produced casualties of roughly equal balance on either side. And while we may lament the casualties as we all do, this is not something you should be interfering in. This is something that the Syrians have to take care of themselves. Imagine in 1861, 1862 if England had decided to intervene on the side of the South in this country. We would have been greatly perturbed by that in Washington. This is not a situation that’s clarified in any way and it’s a situation that leads me to believe we should be very cautions. Look what’s happening in Libya now, that was not a success. Look what’s happening in Egypt.