KENTWOOD, Mich. — The Super Green Market in Kentwood attracts a diverse crowd. Customers are largely from the Middle East. Ahmad Khodor is from Syria.
“Since 1982, I arrived in Michigan,” he said.
If he had of stayed in his home country, he said he “would have been killed.”
Khodor said he came to the United States for a better life, away from upheaval.
“I left Syria under the same circumstances, like we have right now in the last two years where the government was oppressing the population heavily,” Khodor explained.
“I was tortured and I was harassed by the same regime,” he said.
Although that was over 30 years ago, he said today’s violence is part of a continuation of the same regime. He said what’s changed is the mood in the world as it relates to dictatorship and tyranny, which are no longer acceptable. He stands with president Obama’s call to take action in Syria.
“I’m glad he announce that. I think really it came late. I wish it would have happened two years ago,” Khodor said.
He said the call to action is ‘late’ because the number of casualties is already extreme. At this point, he suggests that the US supply weapons to the Free Syrian Army.
“They can do the job. They can defend themselves,” Khodor said.
He said that he doesn’t think that the Syrian government is prepared to defend itself against a strike from the US.
