We don’t need America to be the world’s “top
cop,” we just need her, and each member of the global community, to
realize that there are certain humanitarian and moral obligations that they simply
cannot ignore without major consequences for all. Leadership is not convenient,
and often it is not even a choice, at least not in the ethical sense.
Tuesday
January 1, 2013
Today’s
Death Toll: 136, including
6 women and 16 children: 42 in Damascus and suburbs, 44 in Hama including 23
martyrs from the village of Maan and 16 from Hasraya, 15 in Deir Ezzor
including 9 unidentified martyrs in the village of Hatla, 12 martyrs in Homs
including an entire family from Deir Baalba, 8 in Daraa, 9 in Aleppo, 4 in
Idlib, 1 in Lattakia, and 1 in Raqqa. Points
of Random Shelling: 287: 22 areas were subjected to aerial shelling. In 5 areas,
the LCC documented barrel bombing, 2 areas were subjected to cluster bombs; and
1 area was subjected to thermobaric bombing. Mortar shelling was reported in
125 areas and followed by artillery shelling in 98 locations. 38 areas were
subjected to indiscriminate missile attacks. Clashes: 133. In Damascus, rebels
downed a MiG in Eastern Ghouta and liberated the Khansaa School, which represents
the first line of defense at Wadi Al-Deif and the regime withdrew from the
checkpoints at Al-Hameh and Al-Bouhamid. In RAqqa, rebels were able to seize
control of the Toubian gas field in southern Raqqa. In Hama, rebels repelled a
military convoy that was heading to Mourek. In Aleppo, rebels seized control of
most of the military airports and issued a warning that they would target the international
airport in Aleppo (LCCs).
News
Special
Reports
Many people in the Russian
foreign-policy establishment believe that the string of U.S.-led interventions
that resulted in regime change since the end of the Cold War — in Kosovo,
Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya — are a threat to the stability of the international
system and potentially to “regime stability” in Russia itself. Russia did not
give its imprimatur to these interventions, and will never do so if it suspects
the motive is removal of a sitting government. The notion that Russia could
eventually be the target of such an intervention might seem absurd in
Washington, but suspicion of potential future U.S. intentions runs deep in
Moscow. Therefore, Russia uses what power it has to shape the international
system — particularly, its permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council — to
avoid creating a dangerous precedent that could eventually be used against it.
“There are many in the opposition who
believe that Israeli concerns over change in Syria are, in part at least,
behind the lack of a more proactive response by the international community to
the situation in Syria,” said Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian pro-democracy
activist. Abdulhamid is a fellow at Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, a non-partisan Washington think tank that serves as an academic
home for many neo-conservative thinkers. The group has emerged as one of the
key players in forging ties with the budding Syrian opposition and urging a
more active U.S. role in bringing about the demise of the Assad regime… “The
agreed line by the opposition is that the status quo in the Golan Heights will
be maintained until conditions permit for organizing peace talks,” said Abdulhamid,
referring to Israel’s occupation of that area since the 1967 Six Day War. This
approach could satisfy Jewish and pro-Israel groups whose focus on Syria’s
future government in any event prioritizes other concerns.
With all the absurdities of war, we
still felt like something was missing in receiving the new year. But with
barely eight guests in the hotel, the bar and cafe had been closed for months.
So we ordered two coups of champagne from room service, and held up our glasses
for better days.
Return to Arrogance
In his defense of the Obama Administration’s stance on Syria, Aaron David
Miller makes this “erudite” argument:
We should not be
the world’s top cop or caseworker, charged with fixing every calamity. We don’t
control history. And it’s time we attend to our own broken house instead of
running around the world trying to repair everyone else’s.
This is the kind of argument that was probably made by the American aristocracy
in the first half of the 20th Century regarding “intervention” in
certain parts of their country and their cities. It was wrong then, not to
mention classicist and racist, it is wrong now, and equally classicist and
racist. This is world has grown too small and our destinies too interlocked for
this kind of argument to be of any relevance or make any sense.
Indeed, not long ago, international leaders acknowledged this fact by endorsing
a new legal notion designed to help them tackle exactly the kind of scenarios
currently unfolding in Syria: The Responsibility to Protect. Of course, now, all
are rushing to bury their heads in the sand, making up all different sorts of
justifications as they go along. But world leaders, especially the American
leader, cannot escape culpability and responsibility.
After all, all acknowledged the Assad regime’s role in the
assassination of former Lebanese PM, Rafic Al-Hariri and his ongoing support
for a variety of terrorist organizations around the world, especially in Iraq and
Lebanon. Yet, with encouragement from the Democratic Establishment in the United
States (under the leadership of Senator John Kerry and Congresswoman Nancy
Pelosi), even before Senator Obama became President, the world abandoned its
policy of isolating the Assad regime and began circulating the idea that he was
a reformer in the face of all evidence to the contrary. President Obama pursued
this policy of rapprochement down to the dawn of the Revolution.
American officials were willing to ignore facts in order to pursue an
illusion, and now they are doing the same. The facts of the Syrian Revolution are
simple: this was not a sectarian movement, nor a civil war nor a radical
uprising. But through dithering and downright cowardice, it was allowed to
degenerate into the mayhem we see today because Assad was given every leeway to
crackdown with impunity.
Miller is right in noting that the situation in Syria was quite
different from Libya and that intervention in Syria is a more complicated
affair and carries more risks. But the ethical imperative for the intervention
and for America’s leadership in this matter is nonetheless clear. President
Obama might want to turn his back on this, and he is not alone of course, but do
spare us your hypocritical rationalizations.
Video Highlights
Leaked video shows pro-Assad militias killing two captives by stabbing
them repeatedly laughing all the while http://youtu.be/PBHtjwXQUCQ
It’s atrocities likes these coupled with global indifference that helped transform
the nonviolent protest movement into a sectarian conflict. But indifference and
hand-wringing in the face of such impunity will beget a backlash sooner or
later, at which time the perennial “why do they hate us?” will make it usual appearance,
and I doubt there will many sympathizers.
No comments:
Post a Comment