The Right To Resist

(part of A Bridge Too Far series)

(Jewish Partisans in Croatia During WW2)

This message is not to Palestinians or Muslims. This message is to those who claim to practice Judaism. This message is to those who claim to support the cause of a homeland for the Jewish people. This is a message to my brothers and sisters as well as those who support Israel. It is not a polite suggestion. It is not a message of condemnation. This is a reminder of where we came from. This is a reminder of why we, the Jewish people, should have more empathy than anyone else for the plight of the citizens of Gaza. For their present situation greatly mirrors the tragedies through which our ancestors lived. This is a reminder of our faith, our heritage, and our history.

 

 

When my ancestors watched their country be devoured by the barbarism the world called fascism there was little time to react. Yugoslavia was breaking apart. Croatia had made a pact with Hitler to help his armies take the Balkans. Everywhere my ancestors looked all they could see was a world gone mad. For them... the hope of a better life for their children was rapidly disappearing. The belief that the next generation would live in a better world than they did was all but shattered. Yet the will to fight for that hope, the will to sacrifice for that dream, had not been taken from them. 

The fascist began their assault with mass executions and gathering survivors into camps and ghettos. Among those who had fled the massacres were people like my great grandmother. These were people who either were prepared to fight for their homes, their families, or just mere survival. Ahead of them was a long war that looked hopeless. They were ready to fight with no ability to resupply their ammunition, no ability to find food, and no chance for reinforcements. Yet the will to fight was still there. Like a fire deep inside their bones, that will to resist could not be extinguished. 

What the Nazis and Ustase did to my ancestors was beyond barbaric. They took them into the mountains and found ledges upon which to execute them. Others were sent strung up publicly so as to tell their countrymen what awaited all of Yugoslavia's Jews. While others were sent to camps to work for their captors till the release of death overcame them. And yet for those who survived there was a deep seeded desire to resist. The desire to live free, to have their lives back, could not be beaten out of them. Despite all the fascists bestowed upon us in their savage desire to destroy us, we resisted. We fought back. 

During the war against the fascists my ancestors were not granted the rights given to soldiers if they were captured. All those rules made in Geneva were useless to them. If the Ustase or Germans captured them they knew that only torture and death awaited them. They also realized that in defending their families through combat meant that they were endangering entire villages. Anyone that dared to help them (or simply not give up information on them) was fair game to the tyrannical Ustase thugs and Nazi soldiers. To the ruling factions, my ancestors were terrorist. And much like today, their resistance to the oppressive rule of fascism was punishable with actions well beyond the rule of law. 

Today we are proud of our ancestors and what they did to make sure we could be here today, alive and free. We look back on their struggle with pride that can not be taken from us. It is a legacy that has endured even the worst intentions of our enemies. The price they paid in blood has not and will not be forgotten. 

Yet today there are double standards that come with remembering the price our ancestors paid for our freedoms. We tend not to think of their struggle when we look at the plight of the oppressed today. This is especially true when it comes to how many Jews look at the struggle that the Palestinians face. And it is distinctly evident when it comes to the pain inflicted upon the citizens of Gaza.

We as a people have had to fight to survive countless tragedies in our past. As Tisha B'av approaches we will find ourselves reflecting upon the countless times our ancestors were persecuted. During this time we will fast and offer up prayers as we mourn those tragedies. We will also have the opportunity to recall how our G-d delivered us to this day. We will recall how even in our darkest hours He allowed us to reach a time when our people are safe and secure. And yet there is another aspect of our heritage that we should focus upon as Israel carries out Operation Protective Edge... the long history of resistance that has enabled us to reach this day. 

To our oppressors we were once the terrorists. In their eyes we were supposed to accept our fate and go silently into history, never to be remembered. We were painted as sheep to the slaughter by even our friends. Those who had watched us suffer offered us little more than tears as they whispered "oh the poor Jews". To some we had been cast as the meek and suffering oppressed. But for those who wanted us dead, to those we resisted by fighting tooth and nail, we were dangerous terrorists who needed to be slaughtered. 

History has shown how we fought back. History has remembered the millions who perished as the survivors resisted. History has not labeled us as either sheep to slaughter or savage terrorists. It has recorded our suffering and our desire to live. As it will do so for the oppressed that suffer today. 

It is the nature of all mankind to want to live free and full lives. When that is taken from us, we as a species do not lay down and await death silently. While some may accept that life as they knew it is over, most of us will bare our teeth and bristle our manes just like any other animal that has been cornered. We are not timid when we are oppressed. We are not silent when we are tormented. And we are not easily trained to accept our suffering. 

So why have so many of us accepted the suffering of Gaza?

Gaza today rest upon a thin strip of the land allotted to it by the mandate which created Palestine and Israel. The Palestinians living there were once allowed the opportunity to leave the strip and travel elsewhere. They were oppressed in other ways then, but at very least they weren't behind a wall. Since the construction of the "separation barrier" the citizens of Gaza have been virtually stuck in a ghetto. Like our ancestors in Warsaw, they were stuck behind a wall and kept out of sight of the rest of society.

Conditions in Gaza have only deteriorated as Israel has further restricted movement of the citizens of Gaza. Palestinians in Gaza have considerably less rights than those of Israeli citizens right on the other side of the wall. They are not permitted the right to move freely but are rather kept confined like animals in a cage. Like our ancestors in the ghettos of Europe who had to seek Nazi permission, the citizens of Gaza have to seek permission from Israel to leave Gaza (or Egypt when the crossing there is open). Checkpoints are meant to "protect" Israeli citizens from danger while at the same time stripping Palestinians of their basic human rights.

Health conditions also have drastically deteriorated after Israel has repeatedly bombed hospitals and health care centers. Doctors and nursing staff are far less prevalent in Gaza than in Israel. And the numbers of refugees puts a strain on any health care that remains. This does not account for the psychological trauma that goes untreated as Palestinians continue to live under constant siege (well documented at causing severe emotional and psychological trauma). In the ghettos of Europe all of these factors caused an increase in death and even depression and suicide amongst our ancestors.

Sanitation is crippled as Israel has launched aerial assaults and missile attacks on infrastructure across Gaza. Water is at times untrustworthy as treatment of it is not viable at all times. The source of life, the one thing all mankind needs, is denied to the Palestinians of Gaza by the siege Israel has placed them under. The diseases that come with such conditions were well known killers of our ancestors in the ghettos of Europe.

So at what point is it a right of the oppressed population in Gaza to resist the oppression they have been placed under? When does it become acceptable to us to see Palestinians firing rockets back at the nation who is bombing them daily? When do we stop labeling them as terrorists and start realizing that they are resisting in much the same manner as our ancestors did?

In every culture across the globe the death of a child, especially our own, is something that will provoke unmeasurable anger and retaliation. Israel has predicated this latest attack upon the death of three Israeli children. Yet when do we realize that Gaza has sacrificed countless numbers of it's own children to the siege Israel is and has placed upon it in the past? If it was your child that had taken a soldier's bullet or shrapnel from another country's missile would you remain silent?

For me personally the living conditions would have definitely made me defiant. I would obviously take every non-violent step toward dismantling my oppressor and shedding such wretched living conditions as those. But the death of my child, the death of any child, is enough to make me become the most wretched savage my enemy could ever meet. There is no form of punishment fitting for those who would slaughter the innocent for their own personal goals and desires. And for the most part, this reaction is as human as any other emotion. It is ingrained in all mankind to defend their offspring with every ounce of blood that flows through their veins.

Hamas may be far from decent in their politics and the way they fight their wars. But if it were your children being targeted by a ruthless enemy... would you not side with the devil himself if it meant your children could live?

The right to resist tyranny is as natural to man as any of the rest of our "human rights". The right to resist oppression is what led to our people out of Egypt, saved us from the pogroms, and kept us alive through the Holocaust. It is what has created the heritage of which we are so stubbornly proud. And it is the very essence of why Gaza remains defiant in the face of Israel's brutal war.

As we go through The Three Weeks and Tisha B'av let us remember the tragedies through which our people have overcome tyrants. Let us reflect upon the path our ancestors took to get us here today. And let us offer our thanks to G-d for His mercy upon us and our ancestors. But let us also take a critical look at Israel and it's actions in Gaza. Let us offer up our prayers for the suffering people of Gaza.

Most importantly, during this time of mourning...

Let us cry out for the citizens of Gaza. Let us stand with our suffering brothers and sisters. Let us defend them with our voices as we tell the world that what Israel is doing is wrong. And let us make that cry heard by our leaders and our people in Israel. Scream so loud that your voice reverberates across the distance between us and stirs up the hearts and souls of Israel.

We are here today because great men and women resisted those who would have wiped our heritage from the face of the earth. They stood up against tyranny during the darkest hours of our peoples' history. When nobody else would listen, when it seemed that nobody else even cared, they stood up and fought back. It is through their blood, their suffering, and their resilience that we were even given the chance to do the same.

Pray for Gaza.

Then scream for Gaza. 

The First Casualty Of War

Rabid Dogs On All Sides
(PLUCK series)

'Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.' 

~Samuel Johnson, 'The Idler' 1758

It is the common narrative of those who side with the rebels, often blindly, in Syria that these gun toting militants are somehow valiant characters in the overall plot. They have been cast as the defenders of the downtrodden and oppressed Syrian civilians. They have been painted as noble warriors who arose to take a stand against the savage tyrant in command of Syria. Yet the war which they wage has been brutal in it's depiction of reality. With every massacre there comes the picture of rabid dogs surrounding the citizenry of Syria on all sides. Assad's barbarians remain frothing at the mouth as they clamor for new atrocities. And, contrary to their online propagandists, the rebels are equally savage in their attempts to assert authority in reclaimed areas.

It is the common narrative of the blind support that what you are reading here is wrong. By looking beyond the partisanship of either side we are somehow committing an offense. By sifting through the lies, often pitting them against one another, we are somehow wrong for seeking the hard facts behind the fog of war. If you believe that, if you are so vehemently biased, then this is your chance to leave and go back to the media that feeds your glutinous appetite for lies.

We don't claim to know everything. This isn't a blog to tell you what to think, we didn't start this to make you believe. This is a blog that simply exists so as to make you ask questions. Our only goal here is to make you question everything you have been told. Our mission is to create screamers by unbinding the blindfolds that have covered peoples' eyes for far too long. We don't always have the answers, but we'll be damned if we would ever cease in trying to find them.

Devoured 

Syria's crisis began when Assad violently attempted to crush the spirit which we seek for all mankind. It was in Syria's underclass that the masses began to question the legitimacy of Assad's rule. From the ground up the threat was rising to a tyrant who had held power for generations. Syria's crisis began because the leader of Syria felt his dogs were turning in upon him. 

A system in which the majority of the citizenry do not belong to the same class or religion of the ruling party, is a system that becomes to top heavy to survive. When the masses began to realize that Syria's fighter jets, it's tanks, it's helicopters, and it's savage army were no longer meant to protect them but rather to dominate them... it was already too late.

Guerrilla warfare became the only method by which the underclass could rise up to challenge the bigger dog in this fight. Through ambushing, hit and run, and by utilizing rolling battles to engage the regime; the rebels were seen as fighting for their homes and their people. In the beginning this was symbolic in the fact that it made outsiders believe that Syria's masses were in open rebellion. And yet the people of Syria were not yet ready to sacrifice everything for the whims of this ragtag band of rebels. 

Assad, in all his barbaric glory, launched all out war upon his own nation. Cluster bombs, incendiaries, mortars, heavy artillery, tanks, helicopters, and jets were all thrown into the fight to stop the rebellion his own savagery had inspired. Entire villages were laid to waste as Assad sought to bring Syria back under his control. Nothing was sacred to the now rabid leader as he challenged all conventions of warfare by openly targeting civilians. 

This is how the war began. And in it's own right, this is how Syria was devoured from within. Blood spilled on one side was immediately rectified, if ever it could be, by more blood spilled on the opposing side. And eye for an eye rapidly made all of Syria blind. 

Yet it was the bitterness of war that devoured Syria completely. Rebels who had boasted about their restraint in battle quickly gave into the temptations of war. Retaliatory attacks on citizens who remained loyal to Assad began to mount the death toll on the other side. Men that online supporters claimed were somehow noble turned out to be no less barbaric than the savage they claimed to fight. Leaving many to wonder how the rebels could be praised for fighting Assad when they have mirrored their enemies own sins.

Genocide Produces Yet More Genocides

(A History) 

Namibia, the land of the 20th century's first genocide. It is a country in which the German Second Reich began it's experiments with lebensraum and eugenic philosophies. This is the place where a modern nation imposed race laws, built concentration camps, used chemicals to kill their victims, used slave labor to cause death, and committed outright mass executions of the Herero and Namaqua peoples. All of which occurred a decade prior to the Armenian Genocide. 

Turkish leaders would look back upon their German ally's success in Namibia and learn from the Second Reich what it meant to exterminate an entire ethnicity of man. In Ottoman eyes the colonization of Namibia by Germany was seen as a success because the German people never once said a word against it. Instead the German populace was seen as supportive and as willing participants in their government's atrocities. Thus, without little questioning by Turkish citizens, the Ottomans began their genocides in an attempt to maintain their crumbling empire. 

The Assyrians, the Pontic Greeks, and the Armenians would all suffer the wrath of a failing empire. 1.5 million Armenians would perish as Turkey fought to enforce "Turkification" across their territories. There was no limit to the barbarism that the Ottomans would utilize in their attempts to either deport or kill their victims. 

“Who today still talks about the annihilation of the Armenians?”

~ Adolf Hitler, August 22, 1939

Deir-es-Zor, the Turkish death camp to which Armenians were sent, is to the Armenian people today what Auschwitz is to the Jews. The extermination of the Armenian people was so vast and rapidly committed that Hitler himself referenced it while preparing the Holocaust. It was only 24 years after the Armenian Genocide that the next dictator was preparing to unleash the hell of genocide upon Europe once again. And just as with the Turks, the Nazis were simply expanding upon what their predecessors had done before them. 

Six million Jews would pay with their lives for what Hitler had unleashed upon Europe. My ancestors were taken into the mountains and shot by Hitler's dogs in Croatia. Like the Armenians who were marched away from their homes to die, my ancestors looked back upon their village and knew that they would never return home again. From their blood, from those who clung to life in our darkest hour, I'm here today. 

The suffering of my people was the playbook from which dictators like Idi Amin and Pol Pot took their instructions. Acting in the same savage spirit that had inspired hellish acts like that of the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, these modern heathens unleashed genocides across the world. In Cambodia about a quarter of the population would perish as Pol Pot recreated the crimes committed by the Germans in Namibia. Idi Amin, who admitted to adoring Hitler, attempted to recreate the Holocaust as he plunged Uganda into a hell from which it has yet to recover from. 

Genocide has been looked upon by governments as the perfect crime because it is supposed to destroy the "problem" at it's root. Yet there are always those who survive. There are always those who watch the crimes and record them in their hearts and souls. These survivors and onlookers are the ones who refuse to let the sins of the past die in the killing fields. And thus, genocide for all it's absolutes, is never a crime that is easily forgotten. 

It is a crime that breeds more of it's own horrific acts in every generation to follow. In cases like that of Rwanda there is the immediate threat of the victimized community retaliating, and thus perpetrating genocide, once the killing stops. The bitterness that remains once the killings end is the seed that genocide sows wherever and whenever genocide occurs. If it does not obtain fruition in one culture it will seek out another in which to grow. It knows and respects no borders society has attempted to create. Every society is vulnerable to it's lures. 

And this is where we are today in Syria.

The brink of allowing one genocide to breed another. 

A War With No Victors

Assad watched other dictators across the Middle East get away with the very sins he has committed. It was only in recent history that Assad has seen tyrants fall to the hangman's knot. And therefore it may be this reality of repercussions for his actions that keeps the dictator clinging to power. He has nowhere left to run. His followers have nowhere left to cast their support. The battle lines are so deeply drawn that there is no crossing over. There will be no forgiveness, there will be no repentance, this is a fight to the death.

It is in the rigidness of Syria's war that the end has already been made clear. An end that will find both sides defeated in their own ways. Syria has no prize for the conquerors. It has nothing left to offer the side that claims victory. For this is a war that will have no victor. 

Far too much blood has been spilled by the true owners of Syria, it's citizenry. Too many young lives have been altered so drastically that there is no walking their hearts and minds back to civility. Young Syrians will now watch as others return home to families that they no longer have themselves. They will be left with the bitterness that comes with seeing a world move on as they remain in hell. Far too much has been taken from the true owners of Syria's hope... it's youth has been bled out. 

The rebels may be the lesser of two evils in this fight. But they are not the heroes. That is a title that they will never be able to claim. For there have been far too many innocent lives lost as their militants pulled triggers and planted bombs that should have never been. Their excesses have stripped them of any praise that civilized man could have ever offered. It is in their sins that they have been found unworthy of any support.

This brings us to the final point of this long winded method of asking...

If the rebels in Syria do manage to win their war and commit even more retaliatory reprisals against the Alawite minority, will their supporters call these acts genocide?

Just as not all Sunni Muslims have offered their support to the rebels (thus marking themselves for reprisals too), not all Alawites have offered their support to Assad's regime. Yet the genocide that has seen Assad targeting Sunni civilians has bred deep animosity against the Alawites as a whole. And it has already been made clear that the rebels exercise little restraint when claiming Alawite areas. They have often been recorded as targeting Alawite civilians trapped by the sudden shift in power. 

In areas where the population is considered traditionally loyal to Assad, the rebels have done little to stop elements of their forces from savagely attacking the unarmed populace. This occurs in all wars as attacking soldiers take casualties and find themselves unable to directly attack the enemy soldiers. It has always been the civilians who suffer the hatred that feeds the will to fight on both sides. Yet when it comes to the rebels these crimes are rarely admitted by their fiercely loyal followers and supporters online. 

Thus we ask once again... If the rebels do win, and they begin targeting supposed supporters of the old regime, will there be the same "humanitarian" outcry by supporters? 

The ground has already been prepared for the next genocide in Syria. Rebels, engulfed by bitterness and hatred, stand ready to commit massacres of their own in the absence of an enemy regime. Civilians who have been told that their neighbors supported the man who killed their families stand prepared to accept that these traitors deserve to die. All the elements are there. The ground has been salted in such a way that nothing but more genocidal acts can grow here. 

So when the rebels, who many of you reading this have so adamantly supported, do openly commit crimes against humanity... will you scream?

“…the Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it… the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense…”

~ Theodore Roosevelt, 1918 

In 1918 Theodore Roosevelt pointed out to the world what they all seemed to be missing as the fog of war began to clear. For all the deaths that had occurred there were still those that the world was ignoring. For all the governments that the world was punishing after the war, there was still one that remained free of society's outrage for it's crimes against humanity. 

In Syria there are still deaths that remain unanswered for. There are still factions within this war that remain free from the outrage of civilized society for their crimes against all of humanity. This is not a war where there is anyone left untainted by the blood that has been spilled. Each and every war criminal deserves to be dragged out and punished upon the world stage. And the fact that anyone who claims to be a "humanitarian" would turn a blind eye to one side while being so partisan as to attack the other... that is why genocide and crimes against humanity go unpunished today. The apathy of good men.

Last Bullet In The Chamber

(A Bridge Too Far series)
(PLUCK series)

(Every Word Has The Power To Wound)

No matter how well I articulate my position on Palestine and Israel I will always be seen as a "Zionist". Of this much I'm certain.

Religion is a vile and despicable construct that has served no other purpose but to divide those G-d created so much alike. Poison from the lips of imams and scholars has taken it's toll upon the moderates' minds. Venom that drips like honey, so as to hide it's bitter ends, flows from those who claim to preach peace in the name of a G-d that has apparently turned His gaze away. Their decorated temples and houses of thieves bring in the sheep to the slaughter. Yet a devout mass makes no attempt to question their masters as they raise the axe above their bowed heads.

Yes, I will always be considered a vile and ill-mannered "Zionist". But not because I hold organized religion in such contempt. No, I am "the enemy" because of my lack of apologies for supposed sins I have never once committed.

For it is not Islam that I hate. It is not Judaism which I hold such abhorrent views of. It is the perverse twisting, the manipulating, of faith in the name of politicized religion. This placement of an imagined devotion to a religion rather than the G-d it allegedly is supposed to serve. This is the source of my discontent.

On the battlefield for the survival of Israel or the "reconquista" of Palestine the main line of battle forms along religion. It is across this barrier that the two sides use the propaganda they have been fed as they release volley after volley of hate filled rhetoric. Yet both claim to be after peace? Both sides claim to be hanging their hats beneath the banners of religions that preach love and yet this is where they decide to mount their attacks from?

All my life my faith has been at war with the religion to which it is supposed to belong. Under the mislead guidance of "men of G-d" I have had to bow my head. Years of internal combat finally broke the shell and released my repulsion with every pit of snakes we so elegantly call houses of G-d. No longer could I tolerate the manipulation of holy words to serve the desires of a few. No more could I tolerate the lies that come with crosses, crescents, or stars.

For years now I my faith has been signified by the kippa atop my head. My only temple to which I retreat is that of the shadows beneath the cover of my tallit. For my faith does not need a scholar, a rabbi, an imam, or a preacher. My G-d does not need a church, a temple, or a mosque in which to confine me. My brother, my akhi... my sister, my ahoti... these are not confined by those who pray to G-d by the same name as I. The world is my alter and the persistent service of my fellow man my religion.

This is faith.

Faith cannot be used to strike at another with hollow attempts at advancing ourselves. It leaves us defenseless before the world. It places us in a state of servitude to those who most need it. In faith we step out onto a battle field where everyone carries loaded guns. Yet faith offers us nothing with which to fire back.

When we use religion to attack one another we are void of the faith to which we supposedly cling. Religion provides us a series of ritualistic defenses to hide our vulnerability. It shelters us amongst a multitude so that we become faceless... nameless. We become Muslims... Jews... we however do not become unique.

Unique talents of the individual are only highlighted in organized religion if they serve the desires of those pulling the strings. These talents that would otherwise be valuable contributions to mankind as a whole are hoarded for the selfish advancement of a few. Thus creating in situations like that in Israel an arm race of sorts that utilizes man as ammunition rather than valuing us for who we are.

The most damning part of religion playing a role in Palestine and Israel's conflict is just how effective it really is.

Through the application of "the Jews" as a blanket statement a political statement implicates not just Israel but an entire religion as a whole. The interchangeable use of Zionist with that of Jew or Jewish makes this connection between politics and faith that much more difficult to break. By utilizing these words, this ammunition, the words of a few place an entire people within the cross hairs.

No matter how moderate or rebellious the individual might be these few words can trigger a reaction based on religious devotion rather than one that might arise out of faith alone. For my faith would guide me to look beyond the words alone and toward the pain from which they originate. And yet the sting of being implicated with the masses instead of being taken as an individual brings forward only hostility. And this is from where a person will draw their reaction to such blanket statements.

For every time that I take up the position to defend Palestinians' most basic of human rights there will always be this familiar sting. As long as there are those who would defend their religion in spite of those who might otherwise align with them... I'm nothing more than a supposed "Zionist". It is this familiar sting that drives many back to the trenches their religion has dug for them and off the position their faith has guided them to hold.

This is the miserable reality of religious perversion on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Entire masses so eager to die for a flag designed for them not by G-d but by the hands of perverse leaders. This is what breaks the heart of a G-d who lives not in Jerusalem but rather in the soul of every man.

We Are All To Blame For Syria

Written by Nanice

The Arab League. The damned Arab League. Where oh where are you? And Jordan and Turkey and Saudi and Qatar and everyone else in the region that should step up. That should have stepped up. Where are you? Why are you waiting for the United States to handle Arab affairs? (In all fairness Jordan and Turkey are bursting at the seams with the refugee crisis.) So why didn't the United States or the European Union get involved earlier as opposed to now? Way before well over 100,000 people have died and now over 3-4 million people are in dire need of humanitarian aid? 

Obama and Cameron condemned atrocities, but sat on their hands and waited. The Arab League condemned atrocities as well, but just sat on their hands. Nowhere to be found. As usual. As always. I can't be disappointed because I am always disappointed. Now chemical weapons have been used so now "we care." The world "cares." The EU "cares." Saudi "cares." France "cares." Israel "cares." The United States "cares." Obama "cares." And so on.

The day Bashar Al- Assad started killing children is when the world, The EU, the Arab League, the US, Obama, Cameron, etc., etc., should have "really cared." They didn't then. They don't now. 

Obama wants to save face and make Americans think he's doing the right thing by going to Congress. What happens if they say no? No to intervention? Will he over ride them anyway? What is his motive NOW vs. 2 years ago? And why does the US get tell the other Arab countries what to do? 

I'm not for US involvement, but I'll be damned if it happens in my name and makes the situation worse. I won't blame the US or EU fully. I will blame the Arab League, KSA, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey, Russia, China and Iran. I will blame everyone but not the US wholly. Why? Because the US does nothing that doesn't protect or benefit Israel. You know this. You should know this. If you don't, you know now.

And all you "Hands off Syria" people, what is your solution? "Hands off!" "Hands off!" Then what? What happens next? No plan huh? No. No plan. Just keep hands off Syria so things stay the same. All I can say now is, SORRY. Sorry children of Syria because all we can say is "Hands Off Syria!" And we can say we need intervention now, and those are short term, easy out solutions that make us feel better. But we do not project. We cannot think. We have nothing else in place for your future. We have no long term solution for you. So you will continue to die and for that I'm so very sorry.

And all you who urge me to call Congress to vote yes or no on strikes? I've been calling Congress. I've called them to ask what their plan is either way. I've called Congress to ask them what their long term goals are for Syria should they vote yes. I've called Congress to ask them what they will do if Assad is weakened and opposition takes over? What Congress will do if Assad strikes back? Or what they will do if he lashes out even harsher on his own people. I've called Congress to ask what if there are more civilian casualties? I've called Congress to say, if you decide not to strike what are your plans now because we've dug our heels in too deep?! What is the next step? What are the next 10 steps? Surely they have a plan? Surely they've thought this out! Surely we all have, haven't we?

I can't be mad and place all blame on countries who I expect to act. I can't be mad at them at all. Not entirely. Countries are run by people, who although have power, they are people just like you and me. They might have the best of intentions, they might have the worst of intentions, but either way there has been no overwhelming flood of public pressure on a world-wide scale to these people in power until now. 

Why? 

Because chemical weapons have been used and now the threat of foreign intervention is real. Very real. So real it now has an affect on us? Now we, you and me, those of us who call ourselves "activists", those who wanted to help but didn't know how, all of us, we, you and me, are frantically trying to help Syrians and ourselves (let's not joke) by either pressuring these powers to intervene or to keep their hands off. Where were we, you and me, and activists and global citizens; those who wanted to help but didn't know how or when? Where were we when the Houla massacre took place? Where were we when it happened in Daraa? When it happened in Hama? In Aleppo? When the refugees reached into the tens of thousands? Then hundreds of thousands? When it reached 1 million? When there was a mass exodus of refugees to Iraq? Iraq for crying out loud! Where were we? We, and you and me, we are to blame. All of us. All of us are to blame because we waited too long. We waited for it to come to this. I am to blame because I sat in the comfort of my own home listening to the screams and cries of Syrians. Men and women and elders and children, all begging for help. I sat in the comfort of my own home while children were butchered, mothers & daughters were raped, while their fathers and husbands were being tortured. I am to blame while I stayed up all night looking through the awful videos and decided to wait.

The Dragon, Tiger, And Elephant

Land Of The Lost 

When my family first came to America they settled in the warmth of the Virginia mountains. In those calm mountains they made a better life for their future generations. The love for those beautiful mountains flows in my veins. It is a desire for their presence that never leaves my soul as I wander the world in search of a peace I will not find out from beneath their shadows. In the hills, among the trees and cool night air, my mind finds itself a sense of being at home.

The picture above reminded me of those Virginian mountains to which I'm so often drawn. In those old forest I see the warmth that first welcomed my ancestors to this land of the free. In those blue shadows I see the gentle peace that brought my family out of Europe's callousness. But I can't help but realize that despite the beauty of that picture there is something far different than freedom nestled in those mountains above.

The picture above is of the mountains in Azad Kashmir. Just to the east of those peaks lay the line of control... a demarcation between Indian and Pakistan. It is one of the world's most militarized zones. It is a place on the planet that two armies stand and stare at one another as a war that officially ended decades ago waits for the spark to reignite it. Millions of men wait to die on both sides of the wire. Millions of innocent souls wait to be caught up in the crossfire.

Kashmir is a land of lost beauty. Despite all the wonders it has to offer the world it is caught between three nations that make life impossible. Everything and everyone that remains between the three beasts does so with the constant reminder that death isn't far away. Every flower that blooms risk being savagely crushed beneath the heels of jackboots on their way to the next massacre. This is the irony of one of the world's most neglected lands... a paradise lost.

The Dragon

China is in Kashmir as it is in Tibet, an opportunistic savage. There is no better way to describe the persistent pain that China has created in the eastern portion of Kashmir. Through aggression and refusal to cede land it never really had claim to, China has injected itself into India and Pakistan's war. 

The area of Aksai Chin was forcibly annexed when in 1956-7 the Chinese military moved their forces into Ladakh to build a road capable of moving military equipment south from Xinjiang province. The excuse that the world has accepted is that China wanted to provide better communication between Xinjiang and Tibet. However this is hard to explain outside the realization that China occupies both Tibet and Xinjiang through military might and has no real claim to either. 

The desire to annex Aksai Chin led to a short but nasty little war in which India's line of control was shifted. This once again divided up the Kashmir and placed yet again more families on opposite sides of the fence. Pakistan took the opportunity to antagonize it's rival to the south by handing over even more land claimed by India at the end of the war. This once again added another layer to the conflict ridden area. 

As for China the move to invade the region was something of an effort to create a buffer zone between it's Muslim population in Xinjiang and the Muslims of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This show of unpunished aggression allowed China the ability to make it's presence felt in the Muslim world. It showed the Uyghur Muslims that the state could and would use force to keep Xinjiang... and every last inch of it. 

This use of force is still reflected upon today as China pumps Xinjiang and Tibet full of military and security personnel. The road that launched the conflict is still utilized to maintain the buffer zone between Islamic ethnic minorities in China and the rest of the Muslim world. Even with the Internet and television weakening that physical barrier, China still maintains it's presence in Aksai Chin. 

The Tiger

Pakistan is often accused of inflaming the Muslim population of Kashmir with propaganda and anti-Indian messages. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the Pakistani government was accused of providing Afghan Mujahadeen with passage into the Kashmir. This claim, mainly by India, was used to explain the influx of Kashmiri nationalism as the youth of the region became increasingly disenfranchised. Though there is a little truth to the allegations that Pakistan has provided some assistance to militant groups operating on the opposite side of the wire the reality of brutal Indian policies should be first blamed. Yet the claims still persist to this day. 

The desire to absorb the Kashmir in it's entirety and the refuse to allow the Kashmir to express it's right to self-determination has been Pakistan's main failure. Unlike China, Pakistan does not appear to want any such buffer zone left between their country and India. The desire to claim the land is further expressed through Pakistan's constant highlighting of the reality that the Kashmir is predominately Muslim. This shows Pakistan's desire to finish the bloody mess the British left behind when the Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus were left to race toward their respective homelands (in which the Sikhs were left empty handed).

This desire to force the Kashmir into Pakistan rule is not a new one. In 1947 the hellish fighting that ensued was a direct result of Pakistan's willingness to push it's will upon the Kashmiri people. The land had been left in a standstill as the rulers decided which country they wanted to join at the end of British rule. Pakistan sent in it's guerrillas to rush along the decision making process while India offered it's military to push back the Pashtuns. The war that followed was the exact reason that India now maintains a line of control and divides the Kashmir region with it's presence. 

Another result of the war is the Azad Kashmir district on the western edge of Kashmir. This strip of land is all that the Kashmir region has to show for it's first attempt at self-determination after the fall of British occupation. A sliver of land that echoes the mistakes of long dead men. 

Pakistan continues to antagonize the Kashmir people with promises of freedom. It shows the world one face while creating excuses for India's overreactions along the militarized line of control. Playing the victim, Pakistan attempts frequently to fly one flag while preparing to run up another. 

This toying with the fate of the Kashmiri people serves only to satisfy Pakistan's desire to rule the Kashmir region. It serves to keep the region in chaos as the Indian government shifts it's weight to maintain control. In this aspect the government of Pakistan seeks to inflict a death of a thousand cuts... biting the elephant ever so often just to keep it bleeding. As a result the Kashmiri people themselves pay for the callousness of Pakistan's actions. 

The Elephant

India's presence in the Kashmir region has little to do with protecting it's territory or the Hindu minority in the Kashmir state. It has mainly to do with taking what India views is rightfully it's own. When the British left the Indian government that took over was less than willing to recognize the right of Pakistan to exist. This meant that Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) was just as much a nuisance as Pakistan was to the newly founded India. These were all areas that the new nationalist felt rightfully belonged to the Indians themselves. After all, these were all lands that had historically been included in the Hindu realm of influence. 

Kashmir fell into the conflict that originated out of Britain's two state solution through the desire of India and Pakistan to segregate the states by religion. So despite India having no real reason to claim an area that was predominately Muslim, the new government took the opportunity to do just that. Disregarding the initial reason for two states, India took the first excuse that came along. 

When the Maharaja signed over their right to self-determination the Indian military flooded the Kashmir. In a war that threatened to engulf the entire region, the Indian pushed the Pakistani guerrillas out of the Kashmir. Then in a sign of things to come, India turned their guns on the Muslim civilians who they had been asked to protect. This was the initial excuse India used to invade the Kashmir. This was the first sign that India wanted to fulfill the promise of two states for two peoples of two different religions.

An often hidden aspect of India's occupation of the Kashmir are the abuses that the Indian government inflicts upon the Kashmiri people themselves. This was best illustrated during Ramadan when the Indian government violently responded to what began as peaceful anti-Indian protest. This once again highlighted the tension felt by Kashmiri people as they coup with the back and forth between India and Pakistan. It also however demonstrated the methods used by India as it shifts it's weight to crush any opposition to it's dominance in Kashmir. 

(Indian Police Fire Tear Gas At Protesters)

On Eid (the end of Ramadan) tensions flared between Hindus and Muslims as India began to crackdown on demonstrations against the government of India. In Jammu the violence became so incredibly dramatic that it overshadowed the Indian government's abuses across the Kashmir state. Curfews came into affect as the Indian security forces rounded up Muslims for what the state officially labelled "questioning". Those who continued to show passive resistance to the police state tactics were brought "under control" with violent force by the Indian military and police forces. 

What has followed can only be described as a blood bath.

This heavy-handed response to Kashmiri challenges to Indian rule shows the world that India has no intention of allowing a peaceful path forward for Kashmiri peoples seeking independence. Though the original British mandate had indicated the right of the Kashmiri people to choose for themselves to which (if either) government they wanted to belong, India claims they made their choice. There is no room in India's resolve to admit that the Kashmiri people were forced into submission. There is no room for admitting that a bribe was all it took to crush the soul of a people.

Self-determination

 

Without a peaceful path to change...

violence devours all.

Just as with the Uyghur, whom China attempts to subdue through ethnic cleansing, the Kashmiri people will continue to seek a path toward self-determination. Without the right to decide their own fate as a people, as a nation, they will strive toward that end goal relentlessly. It is a condition in the human spirit that is undeniable and cannot be withheld from any people. It is the part of a nation's spirit that gave rise to countries such as India in the first place. And yet it is the portion of the Kashmiri story that has been withheld from the start. 

Britain, in all its mistakes, realized that it could no longer control the destiny of modern nations through military dominance. The empire that never saw the sun set fell because it refused to allow ethnic, religious, and cultural groups the right to determine their own path forward. It was for this reason that many of the areas that the Brits left behind are still in turmoil today.

For Kashmir this hunger has devoured the beauty the land has to offer the world. The culture, the food, the knowledge; all are lost to war and greed. The beauty of it's mountains, it's people, and it's heritage; all are withheld as three beasts of nations continue to rip it's people apart.

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Some of the Source Documents used:

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/world/asia/curfews-imposed-in-indian-held-kashmir.html?_r=0

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/the-flames-of-kishtwar/

Huffington Post 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/10/indian-kashmir-protests_n_3737437.html

Channel News Asia

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/curfew-extended-in-indian/772624.html

Gulf Times

http://www.gulf-times.com/india/185/details/362370/kashmir-town-under-curfew-after-violence

Independent.ie

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/kashmir-protesters-take-to-streets-29486019.html

Voice Of America 

http://www.voanews.com/content/police-clash-with-protesters-in-indian-kashmir/1726504.html

When Will It Be "Never Again"

The Hidden Genocide Of Our Era
(Open Eyes series)

(Tamil Civilians In Sri Lanka Concentration Camp 2009)

It had been nearly 65 years since the last concentration camp constructed by the Nazis was liberated when Sri Lanka decided to give into international pressure. The camps that were in question by the world community were "squalid" by polite definitions. In reality these camps had been used in much the same way as the Nazi's had used their camps. The people inside were intended to die from exposure, disease, malnutrition, and direct abuse from Sri Lanka officials. The 26 year war that had been used as an excuse for these camps had ended and yet the non-combatants were still behind barbed wire. Nearly 65 years after the liberation of Auschwitz and Dachau, Sri Lanka was able to establish and run concentration camps without international intervention.

Never Again?

On July 23rd of 1983 the Tamil of Sri Lanka were targeted in one of the worst pogroms the region had witnessed in recent history. An estimated 3,000 Tamil civilians were massacred in what would become known as "Black July". It was an orgy of violence, looting, rape, pillage, and slaughter that would last for about a week. Yet the armed conflict it would spawn would drag on for 26 miserable years. Millions of lives would forever be altered by the horrific consequences of this pogrom. And from what began as an anti-Tamil riot would come the all out genocide of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka. 

This bloodbath of 1983 was just the spark. It found it's fuel in decades of prejudice and the hatred which permeated Sinhalese culture. The divide between the Sinhalese and Tamil people was one that needed only a few drops of innocent blood to create a tidal wave. In 1983 it was the successful ambush of a Sri Lanka Army by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). For the deaths of 13 national soldiers the Tamil people would pay endlessly in their own blood. This was the depth of the hatred that infested Sri Lanka. 

Once the violence began that July the signs of organized effort in establishing and sustaining mobs showed up for the world to see. The mobs were well equipped and supplied by local officials and military personnel. Leaders of the mobs were given voter registration list that highlighted Tamil homes and businesses. If the Tamil family fled the mobs would make return trips to try and capture anyone returning to gather their belongings. Ammunition, knives, and kerosene were supplied by police, politicians, and Sri Lanka's criminal networks. Everything about this violence showed the foreign onlookers that it was premeditated and well organized. Yet no media outlet, foreign or domestic, dared say as much. 

The government of Sri Lanka showed it's willingness to allow the massacres of Tamils most blatantly with the Welikada Prison Massacre of 1983. Following the influx of rumors from the outside, the Sinhalese inmates were allowed access to Tamil prisoners by Sri Lanka's prison guards. The prison, which had been separated into four distinct units, had made habit of segregating the two ethnic groups. However on the two days where 53 Tamil inmates were killed, the prison guards did next to nothing to stop the violence. On the first day of the attacks 35 Tamil inmates were killed by a Sinhalese mob. The next day 18 more Tamils were killed before prison guards decided to separate the inmates once again. No guards or even the prisoner assailants have ever been charged over the deaths of these 53 Tamil inmates. 

By the time Black July came to close the divide between Sri Lanka's majority and it's Tamil minority appeared to be impassable. Open conflict between the rebel militants and the Sri Lanka Army were being conducted as Sri Lanka told the world these were "efforts to end rioting". Those who dug deeper past the lies that Sri Lanka's politicians put forward could see clearly that what was happening was far more sinister than just mere riots. The sustained effort on the part of Sri Lanka's government to crush the spirit and culture of the Tamils was on full display... but only if you were watching. 

In slow grinding genocides like that of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka the flash points which trigger events like the Black July riots are the only parts of the genocide that gain media traction. When several thousand innocent lives are stolen by ethnic hatred the world media churns out a handful of their best reports. Then within days, or even hours, the stories stop and the consequences of these violent acts are widely ignored. The ethnic violence that followed Black July was the unreported consequences of the 3,000 estimated Tamil deaths. Instead of reporting the atrocities that became the hallmarks of the 26 years of war, the outside world largely looked the other way. In slow grinding genocides like this one we tend to forget our promise of "Never Again". 

In the case of the Tamil genocide the world exploited the fact that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were well known for committing war crimes of their own. We largely ignore however the reason for the formation of militant groups like LTTE in the first place. By overlooking the abuses and repression inflicted by Sri Lanka's government we tip the scales in favor of one side over the other without any real level of critical thinking. While no excuse can be given for the excesses of the Tigers, no excuse can be given for a national state committing genocide. 

And yet today, after nearly four years of relative peace, the world continues to put it's finger on the Sri Lanka side of the scale. By ignoring the countless lives lost through direct actions taken by the Sri Lanka government we white wash the genocidal efforts of a government and it's leaders. This results in the lost opportunity to cease war criminals and charging them with crimes against humanity. It means that we fail once again to bring those who perpetrate genocide to justice. 

We gave the victims of the Holocaust a taste of justice at Nuremberg. We have tried to restore a sense of justice to the victims of the Serbs in the ICC. So why is that we ignore the opportunity to bring some justice to the victims of Sri Lanka's crimes against humanity? 

In future post we will be taking a more in depth look at the crimes committed by the government of Sri Lanka and the leaders which helped create the genocide of the Tamil people. In this new series we will attempt to "open eyes" to the genocide itself and the crimes committed while the world looked the other way. This is just the start of Alder's Ledge's attempt to understand this genocide and raise awareness of it. This is just the first "scream" in a long series of screams. 

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Source Documents 

(note: not all sources listed)

The Guardian 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/22/sri-lanka-frees-tamil-refugees

-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/11/sri-lanka-tamil-tigers-civil-war

Tamil Guardian 

http://www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=911

Are You Not Entertained?

The Thin Line Between Entertainment and War
(Screamer Post)

 Are you not entertained Mr.Obama?

Is this not what you wanted Mr Putin?

War does not take from one more or less than it takes from another. All those who are subjected to it's wrath are forever changed. Those who see it's face and walk away with their lives will forever bare it's wounds. It is a crime that makes no distinction between combatant and civilian. It only seeks it's pound of flesh, it's ounce of blood. Once invited... once provoked, war takes us further than we could have ever dreamed possible. Where we give an inch, war tends to take a mile. For the innocent civilians in Syria this has been a war that refuses to end. It was invited through the excesses of a few and yet claims far too many. The wounds it has left may never truly heal. 

The West has sat on the sidelines of this war. Like so many cases that came before it, we told ourselves it was acceptable for a barbaric regime to kill it's own people in any way it saw fit. Then, with the images of children being killed playing on our screens, we made a bloody line in the sand. Our leaders, in all their so called wisdom, decided to play a game of chicken with the enemy of all free peoples. We told a sadist that there was a form of torment that we would not tolerate. We expected that our entertainment with his downfall would continue, that Assad would refrain from provoking us. 

Assad showed that he was far more than capable of crossing that line. 

Bombing bread lines, using cluster munitions, utilizing chemical weapons, and firing SCUD missiles upon his own citizens; Assad showed the West where his line in the sand was. It is a thin line between his own ego and total war. It is a line that he is happy to dance around while the West remains shocked by the brazen arrogance of Syria's tyrant. All the while Putin and China try their best to drag Assad well past the point of no return. 

For three long years we have dictated to the rebels in Syria what we wanted of them. We criticized them for allowing extremists into their ranks while refusing to answer their pleas for intervention. We told them to avoid acts of barbarism that parroted Assad's own abuses while refusing to ship them weapons with which to defend themselves. We told them to avoid shooting prisoners of war while refusing to provide them supplies with which to keep the captured Shabiha alive. For three long years President Obama has used the Syrian resistance as pawns in his games with Russia. 

When was the last time we seriously attempted to bring the war to an end? When was the last time we honestly asked the Syrian people what they actually want? Why can't America and Russia back down and allow the Syrian people the right to self-determination that we all claim for ourselves? 

If we were to strip the radical mercenaries from both sides of the battle lines, if we were to send the Hezbollah thugs back home, if we were to make the Iranians leave the front lines; what would Syria have to say about it's own fate? 

If Putin was to back down from his support of a tyrant he is attempting to make into a puppet, if Obama was to honestly back away from his supposed support of the rebels; what would the civilians in Damascus want the world to hear about this war? 

(Female rebels prepared to fight alongside their male comrades)

Would we hear stories of families being forced to surrender their sons and daughters to a fight they didn't want in the first place? Or would we hear tales of entire communities sending all able-bodied men, women, and youth off to the front? Would we see families torn between loyalist dedication to Assad and open rebellion against the dictator? Or would we see the battle lines drawn strictly between communities and religious factions?

War has a way of fogging the reality that rest just beneath the surface. It creates a barrier between what is real and what we want it to be. Once the line between the two is erased we are left with a brutal realization of where we failed to act and where we overreached. Syria has not broken that barrier in the eyes of Western onlookers. It remains shrouded by the haze that war brings with it.

For the time being we are not able to see the complete picture of what is happening on the ground in Syria. Yet we find ourselves fixated by the carnage that peeks out from beneath the fog. For some it is heart wrenching. For others it is a perverted form of entertainment as they cheer one side or the other.

In the politics of the West verse East Syria is a form of perverse entertainment. Even though it threatens to force us over the thin line between entertainment and proxy war, Syria remains a chess game for politicians who act like dictators in their own right. While the people of Syria face one of the worst humanitarian disasters of our time our world leaders use their suffering to gain political capital.

(Syrian Refugees Fleeing For Turkey)

When this is all over will we be able to look the victims in their eyes? Will we be able to tell ourselves that we did our part in protecting the vulnerable? Will we be able to say before the world that we took a stand against this hedonistic slaughter? Or will the world have to hang it's head and apologize in the same way we did after Rwanda... after Bosnia... after Cambodia... after the Armenia?

As for our leaders, for those who hold the power to call off the dogs of war, are you not satisfied? Have these past three years not been entertaining Washington? Moscow? London? Beijing? Tehran? Have the people of Syria not suffered enough for your selfish desires? Or have they not paid enough in blood to satisfy the divide between the West and East?







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View The World Through American Eyes

Clinton's Failure To Become Obama's Inspiration
(part of The Darkness Visible series)

(Close Enough To Watch The Massacre Unfold)

In 1995 the UN pretended to do what it had promised after the Holocaust. It pretended to uphold the promise of "Never Again" while the Bosnian Muslims were being slaughtered by Serbian nationalists. By putting "boots on the ground" and fighter jets in the sky above the UN pacified it's conscience. However, much like in Rwanda the year before, the UN soldiers were constantly ordered to stand down and retreat if fired upon. They were rarely armed and when they were the ammunition was considered more valuable then the Bosnian civilians they had been sent to protect. 

America watched the carnage unfold every night on the nightly news. We watched as Bosnian civilians ran through city street zig-zagging so as to avoid the snipers' bullets. With every week we watched as Serbian artillery fired upon villages and cities so as to keep the siege grinding away. Our reporters brought us stories of death camps much like that of Auschwitz being erected by Serbian militias. News came through of rape camps being used all across occupied areas of Bosnia. For us Bosnia was viewed through American eyes and lost upon callous hearts. 

Bosnia wasn't considered part of Europe. And even when it was, we considered it the European Union's problem; not ours. We had sent boys into Somalia after some war lord not long before Yugoslavia imploded. We had watched American GIs being dragged through a third world country's streets by cheering crowds. Bosnia was viewed through this prism. What came out the others side was simply impalpable to American voters. We just had no stomach for another war... another police action in some foreign hell hole. 

Today Syria is viewed through American eyes. All the things we have ever heard about Syria, all the lies and distortions we have ever considered even remotely true, we place upon the shoulders' of Syria's innocent victims. We don't view Syria as a country breaking apart at the seams. We don't see the children being used as pawns only to be slaughtered at the hands of barbaric heathens. We don't see the bravery of Syrian youth who take up arms to defend their families, their homes, themselves. We just don't have a stomach for another war in the Middle East... another failed invasion of some country in which we don't believe we belong. 

Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya... America has had it's fill of losing wars. We have had far too many American boys come home in body bags. The ones who have come home from the "sandbox" have no desire to be sent back. The boys who lost their friends, their brothers, their comrades over there don't want to see the next generation of GIs sent off to die for blood lust and oil again. That is how far too many see Syria. It is through these American eyes that Syria is viewed. 

Most of this is due to rather horrible leadership in America's government. We aren't led by men who know what it means to win a war. We are led by men who seek out profit and fame at the cost of other peoples' suffering. When the polls that dictate their follies point away from what is right they never turn back toward the truth. Their ears are deaf to honest suggestion. Their eyes blind to the pain their leadership has caused both here at home and abroad. Their souls lost to greed and lust. For this reason when we are presented with a good fight, a reason to sacrifice, we as a nation turn away. 

For Obama this is a repeat of Clinton's failures. By listening to a man that sacrificed 800,000 Tutsi lives to news polls and narcissism, Obama fails to see where history will judge him. After all, America doesn't write the history books anymore. The failures that Obama is racking up when dealing with genocide won't be erased like those of American presidents who killed off the Native Americans. Syria and Myanmar won't be so easily forgotten. 

In April of 1994 the Clinton administration was questioned daily following the sudden eruption of genocide in Rwanda. Every news reporter in those White House briefings wanted to ask the same question. On their lips rested the damning words that would haunt the Clinton presidency for the rest of time. 

"Is this Genocide?"

From the start of the killings in Rwanda the Clinton administration began sending out orders to it's staff and it's contacts in the media that all read rather bluntly "Don't use the word 'genocide' when talking about Rwanda". The immediate fear the Clinton White House had about the word genocide was that the legal ramifications of such a charge could possibly drag the United States back into Africa. Somalia was far to fresh for the fragile Clinton presidency to be starting up another war in another African country (especially one most American's couldn't even point to on a map). Even worse was the fact that Clinton didn't exactly know where Rwanda was either. 

Next came Bosnia. 

It was almost as though Clinton couldn't catch a break. Everywhere the man turned the world was going up in flames. And yet this was a man who wanted to tackle social issues, not be dragged into issues abroad. So once again the Clinton administration sent out orders for their staff to avoid all conversation about the subject. Bill didn't want to discuss the massacres, he didn't want to talk about the Serbian aggression, he just simply didn't want to discuss anything that could drag his presidency back overseas. 

But the media did something that they haven't done since. Honest, aggressive, journalist took to the combat zone to bring home images of what hell was like. Children being shot in the street while their mothers' cried from behind soldiers' arms proved to be a bit too much for America and the EU to ignore. With images of snipers picking off women and children playing on televisions across the country, Clinton decided to go to war. 

Obama played the cowboy when American jets were sent over Libya to enforce a no-fly-zone. He promised a worried American public that there would be "no boots on the ground". It was in Libya that the Obama White House found some relief from Afghan follies. Yet the engagement was still unpopular amongst Americans. The fact that America has been at war in the Middle East for over a decade just couldn't be erased with one "victory" in Libya. 

With his one victory under his belt, Obama seems to have no desire to lose that ace in the hole. It is his own version of a "get out of jail" free card. The fact that he didn't even play it after the right wing cried fowl after the Benghazi attack should prove just how attached Obama is to his own ego. And yet when Democrats demand that Obama play his card with Syria... Obama slips Libya back under the table. 

Syria is a bloody mess. It has been ravaged for years by a stalemate that has proven to be one of the largest human rights catastrophes of our era. Jets strafe civilian neighborhoods over and over before dropping their deadly cargo on innocent souls. Helicopters fire rockets on civilians that try to dig their neighbors and family out of the rubble of their former homes. Shabiha mobs team up with mercenary soldiers from Hamas and Iran to commit massacres upon Assad's orders. If this isn't genocide, it is at the very least a long list of horrific war crimes. 

So why the decision to avoid intervention? Why the hesitation? Are we not committed to the freedom and liberty we claim to enjoy ourselves? 

Obama isn't up for reelection. This is his last term he will ever be able to hold as an American president. The fact that he appears weak can no longer be tied to his fear of reelection. 

It can however be tied to the fact that Russia and China have warned the West of the price they would pay for intervening in Syria's crisis. Russian arms wait on loading docks to be sent off and deployed in Syria at a moments notice. Putin constantly brings up his country's history of trading with Syria as though we should keep it in mind. And the Russian czar isn't afraid to point out that those Syrian helicopters and jets are Russian made. 

Obama on the other hand has taken his sweet time in sending weapons to the opposition in Syria. Constant promises of weapons and funds have been put forward by Obama over the past two years. He has even played around with the no-fly-zone option from time to time. Yet the same obstacle comes up every time Obama makes a move toward intervention... Putin. 

Spinelessness and cowardice are two things that Russia's dictators have never respected. And yet these are exactly what Obama has shown when dealing with Syria. Instead of standing up and fighting for what is right, Obama has knelt down and licked the boots of a KGB thug. While Syrian civilians are subjected to barbarism our leader practices appeasement.

All the while Obama has taken a page from Clinton's book. By looking at the uniformity with which the media and White House have operated when talking about Syria one can only guess the same orders went out as went out under Clinton. Only this time we aren't supposed to see the footage of Syrian children being killed. We aren't supposed to see nightly displays of what hell is like. We are supposed to view this through Russian eyes.

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Source Documents 

(note: not all sources listed)

My San Antonio 

http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Obama-leads-from-behind-Bill-Clinton-4607824.php

The Sydney Morning Herald 

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/bill-schools-barry-on-syria-20130618-2ofy6.html

Toronto Star

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/06/18/russia_wins_on_syria_at_g8_summit_while_stephen_harper_scores_on_tax_walkom.html

BBC News

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22960062

Alder's Ledge

http://aldersledge.blogspot.no/2012/04/is-syria-new-bosnia.html

Break Their Backs

Carpet Bombing and Targeting Civilians
(A look at Syria's war crimes)

"Revolution means democracy in today's world, not the enslavement of peoples to the corrupt and degrading horrors of totalitarianism." ~ Ronald Reagan

The object of war has and will forever be the total destruction of one's enemy. This is the very reason war should never be taken lightly. For no matter how measured the acts of aggression are, no matter how precise the bomb, no matter how careful the soldier aims... somebody dies. And more often than not, it isn't the other combatant. It is the civilian population in and around the battle field that bears the brunt of war. It is upon their backs that the war is waged. It is upon their backs that the battles are won or lost.

Assad has been waging a campaign of "total war" against his own citizens. The line between combatant and civilian has all but vanished in the eyes of the Syrian Army. The man with a kalashnikov is no longer the primary target. Instead it is the little boy playing amongst the rubble, the little girl hiding in the doorway of her house, and the war weary mother who has buried her husband. This is what war becomes when one's enemy no longer is so easily defined. This is how war degrades the value of life by shrouding it in hate. 

Western leaders should be quick to remember that in the war for Syria's freedom it was Assad that fired the first shot. When his people rose up to demand their rights it was the Nero of Damascus that set Syria ablaze. Every death, every martyr, every slaughtered baby rightfully belong to Assad's long list of war crimes. He started this war. It was his brutality that left the masses with no other option but to side with armed rebels. And it will be his brutal tyranny that will inevitably lead to his own downfall. 

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." 

~ JFK

Today Human Rights Watch released statements pointing out Assad's war crimes. Once again the human rights group has pointed out that Assad has been using cluster ammunition to carpet bomb the civilian areas of Syria's cities. They pointed out that Assad has moved on from rocket attacks to heavy "dumb" bombs to level neighborhoods. And in the end they mentioned the ballistic missiles that Assad has begun to use against civilian areas not even involved in direct combat between the rebels and his own forces. 



These sorts of attacks would seemingly warrant some form of UN intervention in any other country. Yet in Syria the attacks, after more than two years of armed conflict, are becoming a part of daily life... or survival of it at least. While children are forced to live without the basic assurance of their safety, lack of access to schools, and face starvation at times; the UN avoids interaction. 

"The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men." 

~Abraham Lincoln

Currently the G8 are meeting to discuss a wide array of issues. Potential war with North Korea has many of the countries sidetracked from the current crisis in Syria. Yet the issue of Assad and the Syrian rebels is said to be up for conversation. But just how much will come out of a distracted and unwilling convention of Western leaders? 

At the same time it is important to note that Barack Obama promised "dire consequences" if Assad crossed the "red line" with chemical weapons. But what about the use of ballistic missiles? Should it be acceptable to allow a dictator the option of annihilating his own citizens just as long as they don't have to suffer like the Kurds did under Saddam? Should we not consider the use of cluster bombs, carpet bombing, and ballistic missiles as being a "step too far"? 

It is clear when looking at Assad's war crimes that the UN is woefully ill-equipped to deal with Syria and it's supporters (Russia, China, and Iran). When it comes to standing toe to toe with Putin and Assad it would appear that the UN has no stomach for that fight. And for that reason the civilians of Syria must have their backs broken under the weight of a tyrant who knows no limits to his cruelty. 











Source Documents 
(Note that not all sources are listed)

Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/10/syria-aerial-attacks-strike-civilians
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/04/10/death-skies

The New York Times
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/filmmakers-capture-chaos-after-air-strikes-in-syria/

Frontline (PBS)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BHUKBaFetJY