December 8 was the one-year anniversary of Syria’s rebels overthrowing dictator Bashar Assad. Assadist Syria was a one-party totalitarian state with a savage reputation. The world got a sobering look at just how brutal it was on December 4, when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published its “Damascus Dossier.” Analyzing over 134,000 newly uncovered documents for almost a year, the dossier exposes “harrowing new details about one of the most brutal state-run killing systems of this century.”

Included are over 33,000 photos of dead bodies representing over 10,200 individuals. The photos were from the old regime’s military records, where judges would sign off on executions after the fact, giving intelligence agents who tortured people to death legal immunity.

The photos show emaciated shells of human beings, skeletons underneath thin webbings of skin. Some are recognizable as prominent activists. Others are only identified by the number the security services gave them.

The world knew these kinds of atrocities were happening on a mass scale in Assad’s Syria. But the photo collection puts human faces—over 10,200—on the suffering. You can view the photos on the Consortium’s website—but it cannot be stressed enough that viewer discretion is advised.

What is new information is one of the Assad regime’s underreported fund sources: the United Nations.

Dealing With the Devil

Throughout the Syrian civil war, the UN maintained a presence in Damascus, which included 29 separate programs employing almost 2,000 staff.

Working in an active war zone like Syria makes hiring special security prudent. But operating in a totalitarian state limits options. The UN contracted security company Shorouk from 2014 on. The UN reportedly paid Shorouk $11 million between 2014 and 2024.

Shorouk claims to be private. The Damascus Dossier’s documents suggest Shorouk instead was a front company for the General Intelligence Directorate, Assad’s main internal intelligence agency. One document showed Shorouk’s general manager, Wael al-Haou, sending money to the directorate as part of its “profit share in Shorouk.” Haou wrote in another letter that Shorouk should gain special treatment from the government because it was “the only company owned and controlled by the General Intelligence Directorate.” The directorate is one of the intelligence agencies of the dossier’s photo cache.

Human rights organizations warned the UN in 2022 of Shorouk’s alleged links to the government. The UN claimed the contracts violated no internal standards and still uses Sharouk to this day. But responding to a query from the Consortium, the UN highlighted its operations under Assadist Syria were “highly complex.”

Working with Sharouk, according to analyst Emma Beals, “meant that aid money was going directly into the pocket of a regime to fund a security apparatus that detained and killed tens of thousands of Syrians and a war machine that bombed and gassed their citizenry for over a decade.”

Last Hope Failed

It’s hard to overstate the brutality of Bashar Assad’s rule from 2000 to 2024. For the final year of his rule, Freedom House in its annual Freedom in the World report gave Syria the worst ranking of freedom levels of any sovereign state—worse than China, North Korea and Afghanistan. Other organizations give similar rankings. Assadist Syria was one of very few countries documented using weapons of mass destruction in this century. The Syrian Network for Human Rights recorded 217 separate chemical weapons attacks by Assad on his own people since 2012, killing at least 1,500 and injuring thousands of others.

It was this government that the United Nations was sending money to. Thousands of photos show what that money was used for. And remember: The UN gets its budget from contributions from its member states. Your tax money was used to torture and murder peace activists in Syria.

Late American President John F. Kennedy once called the United Nations mankind’s “last, best hope” for a lasting peace. The victorious Allies created it in 1945 to prevent atrocities like those in World War ii from ever happening again.

Since 1945, scandals have discredited the organization so much that today it is a farcical caricature of peacemaking. Its 1994 mission to Rwanda failed to protect an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 Rwandans from slaughter in a genocide; when peacekeepers fled “safe zones,” their occupants were massacred. The UN failed to stop North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons despite supposedly gaining access to monitor denuclearization in 1994. Its sponsorship of Gaza and even active collaboration with Hamas led to the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust on Oct. 7, 2023.

Funding Bashar Assad’s torture apparatus can now be added to the list.

Herbert W. Armstrong, editor in chief of our predecessor magazine the Plain Truth, was present at the UN’s 1945 inaugural conference as a correspondent. He wrote:

Already, I see the clouds of World War iii gathering at this conference. I saw it first as it was injected indirectly into every press conference. We learn of it in private talks with delegates in hotel lobbies. The nations can have peace—if they want it. But they don’t want it. They want to gain at the expense of others.

In his 1966 booklet The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like, Mr. Armstrong reflected on where the UN had come since 1945. His verdict: “[I]t has failed. The United Nations has no power over the nations. It has no power to settle disputes, stop wars, or prevent wars. The so-called United Nations are not united. This effort has degenerated into a sounding board for Communist propaganda. Man has failed his last chance!”

Mr. Armstrong was referring primarily to the UN’s uselessness in stopping the world’s conflicts. But today, the organization has degenerated further. Not only is it powerless to stop atrocities; it is actively contributing to them.

Mankind’s “last, best hope” has turned into a sick joke.

The Cause of Peace

The problem is human nature. If human nature was altruistic—loving fellow man at least equal to self—the world wouldn’t have war and oppression. Instead, human nature is selfish. It is corruptible and corrupted. Though manifested differently in different people, the same nature in Bashar Assad is in today’s human rights officials. Human nature is, as the Prophet Jeremiah described, “the most deceitful thing there is and desperately wicked. No one can really know how bad it is!” (Jeremiah 17:9, Living Bible).

The Apostle Paul was even more blunt: “As the Scriptures say, ‘No one is good—no one in all the world is innocent.’ No one has ever really followed God’s paths or even truly wanted to. Every one has turned away; all have gone wrong. No one anywhere has kept on doing what is right; not one. Their talk is foul and filthy like the stench from an open grave. Their tongues are loaded with lies. Everything they say has in it the sting and poison of deadly snakes. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. They are quick to kill, hating anyone who disagrees with them. Wherever they go they leave misery and trouble behind them” (Romans 3:10-16, tlb).

Paul’s description sounds a lot like the conditions people had to endure in Assad’s dungeons. But this same nature lies in each one of us. World peace is not happening as long as human nature stays the same.

That doesn’t mean Mr. Armstrong assumed world peace could never be achieved. He proclaimed world peace would happen in the first words of his booklet: “You don’t have to believe it! It will happen, regardless. It is sure—the world’s only sure hope. This advance good news of tomorrow is as certain as the rising of tomorrow’s sun.”

“Utopia?” he asked. “Why not. Why should it be an imaginary or impossible pipe-dream? There is a cause for today’s world chaos and threat of human extinction. That cause will be supplanted by that which will bring a utopia that is real, that is successfully functioning!”

The same Bible that reveals why world peace can never happen today also reveals why it will happen “tomorrow.” The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like explains in detail. Request your free copy today.