Tuesday 6 January 2015

Why no one cares about Syria

"Just because the UN Security Council cannot find a solution is no more evidence of complexity than if my cat can't do long division. 
Are they as bad as each other, al-Qaida on one hand, Assad on the other? This is the argument of equivalence, and reasonably well-informed commentators use this all the time in relation to Syria. But the truth is, the Assad government has carried out such unbelievable crimes against its people, whether it is barrel bombing, whether it is the use of chemical weapons, whether it is the targeting of innocent populations of women and children, whether it is the targeting of hospitals and universities, these things are happening all the time. Sometimes, in the media, they talk about indiscriminate targeting, it isn't indiscriminate. It would be indiscriminate if they were collateral damage to a specific military target, but there is no military objective here, they are targeting their population, so it's not indiscriminate. And when Obama said, give us your chemical weapons, he handed a permission slip to Assad to do his worst, as long as it didn't involve chemical weapons."
Also shows a Punch cartoon from 1847 with the same dismissal of the Irish as violent savages that is employed against the Sunni Muslims of Syria. "Spare a trifle your honour, for a poor Irish lad to buy a blunderbuss with."

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