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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (230545)	8/31/2013 3:03:12 PM
From: Sultan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543022

An open letter on Syria to Western narcissists On the eve of what seem to be ineluctable strikes on Syria, I’ve been struggling with what my position on Syria should be. Before I get to that though, I should say that while I’m not Syrian, I too have some skin in the game, as it were. On our way to donate blood for a friend’s mother’s surgery last month, my wife got a call from a friend telling us to avoid the neighborhood of Bir al-Abed in Beirut’s southern suburbs, since there had just been a large explosion there. At Bahman Hospital, my wife and baby daughter and I saw ambulances speeding toward us carrying those who had just been wounded. And a few days after I’d left for southern Turkey to conduct interviews with Syrians who had fled the war in their homes, I found out that a car bomb had just gone off a few blocks from my mother in law’s home in the “Hezbollah stronghold” of Rweiss. It kills me that my daughter has heard the sound of a car bomb before her first birthday. Extended family from Yarmouk, the Palestinian camp outside Damascus, have been displaced and are forced to seek refuge yet again in Lebanon, a country that doesn’t want them. And even now, we’re making plans for what might happen if the impending strikes on Syria fuel an escalation in Lebanon, where living in the southern suburbs can get you killed if there’s a war with Israel. And yet all of this pales in comparison to what my Syrian friends continue to go through on a daily basis. All that to say that the current conflict in Syria isn’t just of academic interest to me; it’s personal as well. This is partially why I have so little patience for some of the rhetoric I’ve been seeing from Western leftist circles, where this conflict seems like nothing more than a rhetorical bludgeon for scoring ideological points. This has been illustrated by the passing around of an article by Robert Fisk, who asks, “ Does Obama know he’s fighting on al-Qa’ida’s side?” This lazy and facile opinion piece assures us that if the US attacks Syria, then “the United States will be on the same side as al-Qa’ida.” It is the flip side of the rhetoric that was so evident in the run-up to war in Iraq that equated any opposition to an idiotic war with support for Saddam Hussein. Well, guess what? There are lots of perfectly fine opinions that might put you on the same side as al-Qa’ida. Just to name one: if you’re against drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, as I am, then you’re also “on the same side as al-Qa’ida” according to this logic. Continued at.. humanprovince.wordpress.com

To: epicure who wrote (230545)	9/1/2013 9:34:58 AM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543022

I believe in autonomy, not just for us, but for all countries. How countries use their autonomy will sometimes be disturbing- but that's the nature of autonomy. People don't always use it for good. Well, unfortunately, we're the ones that have the cruise missile technology that could probably bring an end to the gassing of children if we decided to use it--so we're the ones who have to decide to act or not. You are the President and a country has started ethnic cleansing of a minority part of its population at an alarming rate--what course of action, if any, do you take? Same question to your students---homework essay? Then classroom discussion?

To: epicure who wrote (230545)	9/1/2013 9:35:28 AM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Respond to of 543022

I believe in autonomy, not just for us, but for all countries. How countries use their autonomy will sometimes be disturbing- but that's the nature of autonomy. People don't always use it for good. Well, unfortunately, we're the ones that have the cruise missile technology that could probably bring an end to the gassing of children if we decided to use it--so we're the ones who have to decide to act or not. You are the President and a country has started ethnic cleansing of a minority part of its population at an alarming rate--what course of action, if any, do you take? Same question to your students---homework essay? Then classroom discussion?