The Syrian military celebrated a decisive victory as it reclaimed a vast, flattened, smoldering wasteland in the north of the country. "It may be a charred ash-choked hellscape," said a Syrian army commander, "But at least it's our hellscape!"
The Syrian flag was firmly planted in a pile of rib cages, where it flapped gloriously in the fetid breeze. Government soldiers high-fived and chest-bumped each other in a bombed-out crater full of baby skulls. Celebratory gunfire echoed off the collapsed walls of former apartment buildings and schools.
"Today we have recaptured Aleppo, the jewel of Syria!" said a proud President Bashar Al-Assad. "We completely destroyed everything, down to the last blade of grass....now it's just twisted metal and blocks of shattered concrete. But hey, we fought for it and now we own it!"
Food, water and toilet paper had to be flown in to supply the conquering army, due to the complete lack of markets, stores, water lines, gas lines, sewers and everything else. "There's nothing to eat, and no one to rape. What's the deal?" said a disgruntled Syrian soldier. Many troops are now suffering from Post Conquest Depression.
In a gesture of goodwill, the Assad government is welcoming back the 3 million or so refugees who had been driven out by chemical weapons, massacres, and barrel bombs. Upon return, everyone will receive a free crater, complete with a pile of rusty rebar and a burned-out car frame.
But there were no takers. In the absence of humans, a flock of vultures was given Syrian citizenship. But they flew away, because there weren't even any dead things left to eat in the blasted-out, scorched landscape that now belongs to Syria. Again.
"It's just a whole lot of nothing," explained a Syrian general. "but we probably need to bomb it a little more, to be totally sure that we won."
And what exactly does the Syrian Regime plan to do with this vast newly acquired expanse of burned-out rubble? "It would take years, maybe decades to rebuild," said President Assad. "It's not worth it. We'll just rent it out as a Hollywood shooting location for Michael Bay movies."
