Category Archives: Regions

Syria – Putin’s New Job

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Middle East, Politics, Psychology, Regions, Russia, Syria

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Putin is a master at having it both ways. Without acknowledging that more Syrians have been killed with Russian-supplied weapons than with poison gas, he could with a straight face insist that all countries stop feeding the flames in Syria so that his Geneva II peace process can flourish.

Putin Needs a Less Cynical Syria Policy – Sonni Efron – The Atlantic 9/14/2013

* * *

“The diplomatic duel” between the Moscow and Washington over what to do with Syria’s chemical weapons had ended in “the great victory of Russia,” Kiselyov declared, while the Obama Administration had seen its “geopolitical amateurishness swept away, leaving only the ruins of narcissism.”

Russia Celebrates a Triumph for Putin After Clinching Syria Deal | TIME.com 9/16/2013

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Image isn’t everything.

However, now that our ironically lovely term “narcissism” has crept into the greater political conversation — soon, I expect to see “malignant narcissism” elsewhere (than here) plus, perhaps, an empty variant in “political narcissism” — we may be treated to the spectacle of the image hypersensitive vigorously denying interest in the management of their image while, in effect, desperately trying to maintain and improve their image.

🙂

It may be difficult leaving the center of one’s own universe and one’s own uniquely valued place in it, but the demand associated with Syria, Egypt, Turkey, and elsewhere along the contours of the Islamic Small Wars is exactly that in immediate service to ameliorating suffering brought about by political chaos, conflict, decay, excessive ambition, and the monstrous attitudes held by some with regard to the life and the lives of others.

Oh superpower leaders, whether or not image matters, act as if it doesn’t and — I am having a Kumbayah moment — show the love.

Selflessly.

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To understand Moscow’s policy toward Syria, it is important to understand that Russia sees Syria as part of its Mediterranean policy and not a part of the Middle East. The Arab Middle East has been a relatively low priority in Russia’s foreign policy. The Mediterranean, however, and especially the Eastern Mediterranean region, is a policy priority for Moscow.

For Russia, Syria is not in the Middle East | The Great Debate 5/20/2013

The “Arab Spring” (more like the “Arab Springboard” and pretty much out of control at that), Mubarak’s fall from grace in Egypt, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia’s pique with these suddenly shifting political sands, and Russia’s neglect of a post-Soviet Syria long due for an overhaul would seem to have made way for this Sumo match that has pitted Anglo-Sunni interests against Russo-Baathist ones in Damascus and overshadowed a nascent developing Russo-Saudi oil rivalry.

Plainly, Syria remains in Russia’s sphere of influence as a critical asset — more than a buffer, a block to political Islam in relation to the seventh dimension 😉 in which the Kavkaz Center worldview would apply; more than a client state and trading partner, the host of a strategic port; and more than an inconvenience, a base for New Russian Influence in the Region: how Putin has eluded taking public responsibility for all of this (not to mention returning Maher al-Assad to business in the battle space), I do not know.

Fix it, Mr. President.

Additional Reference

The New Russian Sphere of Influence: Does Russia’s Eurasian Union Threaten U.S. Interests? 6/27/2013

The Syria crisis is keeping Jordan’s King Abdullah on his toes – Middle East Israel News | Haaretz 9/17/2013

The Jewish Press » » The Saudis are Trembling – Quietly 9/15/2013:

The Saudis were on the brink of victory, and Asad’s use of gas took it away from them. That’s why they are so angry with Asad, and with the West as well, which did not take the necessary steps immediately, to act without discussions, without votes, without Congress and without Parliament.

Related Heritage Foundation Video Published June 27, 2013

▶ The New Russian Sphere of Influence: Does Russia’s Eurasian Union Threaten U.S. Interests? – YouTube

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A Short Note on The Dictator, The Mirror, and the Fragile Surface

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Politics, Psychology, Regions, Zimbabwe

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When Robert Mugabe dies — I predict peacefully, in his sleep — he will go believing himself the most beneficent and magnanimous of leaders, the champion of his state, black and beautiful, bountiful and good.

If the children of Zimbabwe are starving or dying of the cholera he introduced to some parts, if the currency would seem to be forever foundering, if the cries of brutality, corruption, and injustice remain constant in the air and on the airwaves of either opposition or truthful radio, all of that would be no fault of his: he, Robert Mugabe, did what he could.

And he got away with it!

______

Do dictators know what they do?

I don’t think they do.

At least they may not be aware of their effects with a depth in any way anchored in a human and sentimental heart.

In the Great Halls of Mirrors, the brightest reflections are of heroic men, each dictator alpha among others, struggling on their own behalf, their families (not really but it’s made to look that way, for image matters), and their people for place of pride against a world that would otherwise undo and enslave them.

Theirs is a fight for every inch and measurable Nth of property, business, and resource, while every reflection — the stuff of “narcissistic supply” — by way of paid and patronized advisers and associates, fawning (or faking it) family, and permitted controlled media agree with that outlook.

In the contempt and disparagement of others, in the inability to connect with a common humanity, in the abuse and intimidation of others, in the callous disregard of deep injustice and tragedy suffered by others directly or indirectly at their hands, there seems a surface ever ready to shatter, ever uncertain of its own basis in being that has long gone missing.

______

I may slip from analysis to poetry to fiction here as the depth of what one witnesses in such figures eludes “observable-measurable” note making.  However, for this post, the following statement and the URLs accompanying it all report or reflect on what is known:

A power-sharing deal signed on September 15 aimed to bring together the current president Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, signaled a moment of hope for the future of Zimbabwe. Instead, it marked the start of the country’s most recent descent into chaos: water and sanitation services shut down; inflation skyrocketed; food shortages spread across the country; hospitals and clinics closed their doors; outbreaks of cholera, anthrax, and possibly malaria threaten lives; and in a country where where AIDS kills over 400 Zimbabweans a day, care for HIV/AIDS and opportunistic infections have lost priority. While innocent civilians fight for their lives the governing parties clash over the rule of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe Health System Crisis, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, n.d.

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▶ Robert Mugabe Denies Cholera Epidemic in Zimbabwe – YouTube 12/12/2008

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Zimbabwe Economy

allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Intensifying Government Bankruptcy (Page 1 of 2) 2/8/2013

Face up to reality and start talking to Robert Mugabe – FT.com 9/10/2013

allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe Sails Close to Economic Rocks (Page 1 of 2) 8/28/2013:

According to Zimbabwe’s Indigenisation Act of 2007, foreign-owned companies are forced to cede 51 percent of their shares to local people. But economists warn that the indigenisation policy is driving investors away.

“Foreign investors are obliged to bring in 100 percent of the capital, bear 100 percent of the risk, provide 100 percent of the technology, and in turn settle for 49 percent of the equity and pay taxes,” independent economist Kingston Nyakurukwa told IPS.

China, whose labor has been keeping me in sharp western-designed clothing for a while, may prove up to burden of keeping the ever dapper Robert Mugabe looking equally as good.

Zimbabwe Gets Computers to Track Epidemics, Diseases 12/20/2012 — Still, the United States lends a helping hand.  However, notes this article, such aid, which admittedly focuses on HIV/AIDS control and contributes to the American Center for Disease Control (CDC) data base, arrives within this context:

As a result of bankruptcy, President Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe is failing to meet the Abuja Declarations which recommends that African governments allocate 15 percent of their budgets towards health.

Saudi Gazette – Mugabe’s bankruptcy (near direct-to-print URL), n.d.

BBC News – Bitterness and unease in bankrupt Zimbabwe 3/6/2010

Zimbabwe Egalitarian and Equal Opportunity Measures

Robert Mugabe’s land reform comes under fresh scrutiny | World news | theguardian.com 5/10/2013

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa: Peter Godwin: 9780316018715: Amazon.com: Books (2007)

Mugabe and the White African | POV | PBS

Zimbabwe Food Security

Zimbabwe faces looming food crisis, says UN | World news | theguardian.com 9/4/2013:

Zimbabwe is facing a “looming food crisis” with one in four people in rural areas at risk of hunger early next year, the highest number in half a decade, the UN has warned.

The gloomy prediction was seen as a blow to analysts who have argued that Robert Mugabe’s widely condemned land reform programme is starting to pay dividends.

IRIN Africa | Army worm outbreak threatens Zimbabwe’s food security | Zimbabwe | Early Warning | Food Security 1/14/2013

Zimbabwe Health

IPS – Rebuilding Zimbabwe’s Health System | Inter Press Service 6/19/2013:

Every day, eight women and 100 children die from pregnancy- and delivery-related complications in Zimbabwe, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Most of them die of easily preventable causes and illnesses.

Kubatana – Archive – A call to the new government of Zimbabwe to prioritize the right to health and clean water – ZADHR- Sep 12, 2013

Zimbabwe Media

Media group says Zimbabwe police ban on hand-cranked, solar radios illegal ahead of polling | Fox News 2/22/2013

In Zimbabwe’s Media, It’s All About Robert Mugabe : NPR 5/13/2012

Zimbabwe journalists worried: Mugabe cabinet includes ‘media hangman’ – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 9/13/2013

Zimbabwe – Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ’s main Zimbabwe page)

Q&A: Zenzele Ndebele promotes radio in Zimbabwe – Blog – Committee to Protect Journalists 7/29/2013

Zimbabwe Refugees

Zimbabwean refugees: Between haven and hell – Features – Al Jazeera English 8/1/2013

UNHCR – Zimbabwe – “2013 UNCHR regional operations profile – Southern Africa”:

At the end of 2011, there were some 449,000 people of concern to UNHCR in Southern Africa, including 145,000 refugees, 245,000 asylum-seekers, 55,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 4,000 returnees.

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When the day after comes, as it comes to all survivors, how will Zimbabwe remember Robert Mugabe?

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UNHCR Video: “Zimbabweans in South Africa”

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Russia – Syria — Prelude To The End of Lies

13 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Politics, Psychology, Russia, Syria

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Will the report by the UN inspectors, the conclusion of whose work Russia, at a minimum, proposes waiting for, help to resolve the dispute between Putin and that portion of the international community that supports him, on the one hand, and, on the other, the leaders of a number of Western countries, including several regional powers, who have been certain from the outset that the use of chemical weapons was the work of the Syrian president and that he therefore needs to be dealt a retaliatory strike?

The Alchemy of Syria’s Conflict For US, Russia – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East 9/12/2013

The whole world is watching, also judging, thinking, weighing, and a greater percentage of its citizens, from Riyadh to Islamabad, have today the intellectual tools for separating substance from bullshit.

In the above cited piece, Vitaly Naumkin pitches the Putin line — no surprise there — even while knowing that view also may be subject to dissection.

From whence came this:

Who held the camera, edited the recording, produced the music?

Who manufactured the projectile, the rocket engine, the launch platform?

If the production represented a rebel false flag, why is the launch team not in Syrian uniforms?

Would that not have been more authentic?

Or would it have been too much?

Also, who has the reputation for lying baldly?

How did that come about?

When is it going to stop?

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“We don’t know if Syria will accept the offer, but if imposing international control over chemical weapons stored in the country can help to avoid military strikes, we are immediately going to start working with Damascus,” explained Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov yesterday.

Russian Diplomacy Transforms Debate on Syria – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East 9/10/2012

So far, with the Russian navy at least temporarily absent from Tartus and several hundred Russian civilians evacuated from Syria, Bashar al-Assad appears to be driving for advantage with this latest (no pun intended) breathing space formed by the gap between the American and Russian ways of doing business.

American discredit in the region seems to relate primarily to Bush’s dumb lie over Iraq WMDs, but the removal of one of the world’s most vicious dictators and his army plus the restoration of the Marsh Arabs and the securing of the Kurdish Community against Saddam Hussein’s depredations, which  included gassing, would seem to make for a bright side.  Add in the possibility of modern open democracy (MOD, lol), access to international news, and modern education, global in breadth and concerns — perhaps those are worth something too.

While remnants of the still leftward Arab finger in Iraq often points to America for subsequent bloodletting, it really has to point back to itself for the internecine and sectarian bloodshed that continues by way of its own hands.

Russian discredit starts with the accusing and contemptuous language of the old propaganda and drifts off into the cesspool of known banditry, corruption, dictatorship, and culture-permeating mafia technique.

Even so, Russia has become a modern state.

Perhaps it faces a primarily medieval post-modern question: if “information is power” how much power may one (man, organization) have over information and its effects in influence, intimidation, and perception?

It’s the question of the day.

The post-KGB KGB-infused (at minimum by Putin) FSB and post-Soviet new oligarch Russia has still in place old business, intellectual, and state political architecture, and while it has demonstrated its power to transfer wealth to its own, perhaps, and drive a Far Out Left propaganda press, perhaps, Syria continues to come down, day by day, hour by hour, and within miles of Bashar al-Assad’s own feet, and there is no one, including Russia,  who wants to fiddle with it other than to let it burn a little more safely — without chemical weapons, if Putin is sincere in this matter — and toward a secular path, as no one between NATO and Russia wants Al Qaeda or Chechnya II either, and the cultural results of apparent if superficial convergent evolution by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar toward the west — neither of those official Al Qaeda or Muslim Brotherhood buddies either — remain to be seen.

Assorted Reference

Direct link between Assad and gas attack elusive for U.S. | Reuters 9/7/2013

‘IDF intercepted Syrian regime chatter on chemical attack’ | The Times of Israel 8/26/2013

Listing Demands, Assad Uses Crisis to His Advantage – NYTimes.com 9/12/2013

Russian Diplomacy Transforms Debate on Syria – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East 9/10/2013

Bouthaina Shaaban, Senior Assad Spokeswoman, Blames Al Qaeda For Syria Chemical Attack (VIDEO) 9/4/2013

mafia state luke harding | Mafia State by Luke Harding | The Guardian

Why Saying No to Syria Matters (It’s Not About Syria) | Alternet 9/1/2/2013

And Recently Encountered

13 Objectively True Statements From The Vladimir Putin Op-Ed – Business Insider 9/13/2013

Vladimir Putin’s New York Times op-ed, annotated and fact-checked 9/12/2013. Excerpt:

But what rankles many analysts about this paragraph is that it ignores Putin’s own role in enabling the already quite awful violence, as well as the extremism it’s inspired. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime has killed so freely and so wantonly in part because it knows Putin will protect it from international action. Putin has also been supplying Assad with heavy weapons. It’s a bit rich for him to decry violence or outside involvement at this point.

Conversations with John le Carré – FT.com 9/6/2013

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A Note on Integrity in the Press

12 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Free Speech, Journalism, Middle East, Politics, Russia, Syria

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“Born liars.  Shameless liars.  You cannot embarrass them.”

The subjects of my friend’s recent Skype-enabled rant: Al Jazeera, China Today, and Russia Today (RT).

The basis aside from what he’s been reading:

Al Jazeera – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar.

Owned!

China Today – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

China Today (Chinese: 今日中国; pinyin: Jīnrì Zhōngguó), formerly titled China Reconstructs (Chinese: 中国建设;pinyin: Zhōngguó Jiànshè), is a monthly magazine founded in 1949 by Soong Ching-ling in association with Israel Epstein. It is published in Chinese L anguage, English, Spanish, French, Arabic, German and Turkish, and is intended to promote a positive view of the People’s Republic of China and its government to people outside of China.

I haven’t yet done the reading, but let’s call it the “Face of the Nation”, a portal with a role to play, and, at that, a role of immense importance, more so to the People’s Republic of China than to the international reader.

RT (TV network) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is registered as an autonomous non-profit organization[2][3] funded by the federal budget of Russiathrough the Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation.[4][5]

Basically, RT would seem the Russian “Radio Free America” or U.S. Information Agency — it was born with obligations and today has impressive reach.

What the world on the World Wide Web needs now, of course, might be a few international media assembly giants of trustworthy record.

One exists already.

He may be called the International Reader.

* * *

Whether owned by capitalists or communists, private parties or states, complicated boards of directors — we should take a side trip to Time Warner to look at how that works, and with such as Kingdom Holdings in an influential position — the guts and substance of a news organization resides in its journalists and in the humanity, independence, and integrity they bring to their work.

Some may be aware of their career options and who is sitting in the board room; some on the happy-face beat may be naturally inclined to write always “the best truth possible”; some in their early years may have latched on to the thought that “information is power” so how much cooler would it be to have “power over information” and write to an agenda?

This morning, one of my Facebook buddies asked me to prove Syria launched attacks with chemical weapons because the German intelligence services suggested some disconnects.  I countered with Obama’s more specific mention of 11 neighborhoods attacked and communication intercepts of high-level Syrian chatter over the results and, admitted, my trump card: complete trust in Israeli intelligence reporting.  If any entity on earth has a premium stake in displaying, promoting, and valuing integrity, it’s that bunch.

Even if recordings of intercepts were furnished by governments and published on the Internet, there would be some readers who would claim that as much could have been put together in a recording studio.

I’ll leave those people alone.

Others, perhaps less troubled, seem quick to buy “Rebels Admit Responsibility for Chemical Weapons Attack: Militants tell AP reporter they mishandled Saudi-supplied chemical weapons, causing accident.”

And articles like it reported out in an odd assortment of left and right — but not middle — oriented publications, from Mint to The Blaze (and between: Global Research, Godlike Productions, Missing Peace, Prison Planet, Activist Post, etc.).

Free Cow has gone to the trouble of debunking “Syrian rebels admit to AP reporter they mishandled the chemical weapons given by Saudi Arabia”, while I’ve merely suggested that the one claim that ‘the rebels done it’ seemed supported by two plants: 1) the claim that some kind of toxic chemicals handling accident took place and 2) a video, and a lot of stills from it, allegedly involving a rebel launch crew plus rocket technology plus a matched launching platform on wheels (that too — one claim: two elaborate stories — I mentioned to the Facebook buddy).

What is it with some readers that they will devour such contraptions — and with some writers that they will invent or promote them?

Better yet: what is it with some leaders that they believe that controlling people starts with controlling their information environment — and that they have the muscle in money and thugs to do it?

* * *

“Follow the BBC,” said my Skype friend.  “At least they try to tell the truth.”

I don’t know about that, but at least the Wikipedia entry has been clever about the organization:

Its main responsibility is to provide impartial public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man.

Impartial!

Fair enough.

BBC one hour ago: BBC News – Assad sets out his terms for chemical weapons convention.

So the rebels didn’t have them after all?

😉

I think I’ll take a look at what Reuters has today on Syria.

Well look at this: Putin wrong to blame Syria rebels for chemical attack, Pentagon says | Reuters 9/12/2013.

Additional Reference

Flacking for Dictators in the 21st Century | Freedom House 3/13/2012

Also Mentioned

Fact-Based, In-Depth News | Al Jazeera America

China General Information, China Information, the People’s Republic of China

RT

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Syria – Obama’s Speech – Words from the Wise

10 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Syria

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“We cannot resolve someone else’s civil war by force.”

“On that terrible night, the world saw the terrible nature of chemical weapons . . . a violation of the rules of war.”

In 1997, the U.S. Senate ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention . . . 189 participating governments . . . representing 98 percent of humanity . . . .

“We know the Assad regime was responsible . . . fired rockets into 11 neighborhoods . . . .  Senior figures in the Assad regime reviewed the results of the attacks . . . .”

“When dictators commit atrocities, they depend on the world to look the other way . . . and forget . . . .”

” . . . not only a violation of international law, also a threat to our security.”

“I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria.”

” . . . targeted strikes to deter the use of chemical weapons . . . .”

” . . . over the last two years . . . diplomacy, sanctions . . .  credible threat (to get) Putin to urge Assad to join the international community . . . give up chemical weapons . . . .’

“I have asked the members of Congress to postpone the vote on whether to (strike Syria).”

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That’s less how I heard it and more how I scribbled it (with really bad handwriting).

Nonetheless, Obama made clear that eleven neighborhoods suffered chemical weapons attacks, that senior figures in the Assad regime reviewed the results of those attacks, and that the Administration was considering a limited, targeted strike specifically to deter the regime’s use of chemical weapons in the future.

In response to Putin’s offer, Obama requested the postponement of a Congressional decision on the matter, garnering time for diplomacy and for the UN to present its findings Syria’s chemical weapons use.

Obama noted he had ordered the military to maintain its current posture and ability to respond.

One more partial quotation: ” . . . that’s what makes America exceptional — humility with resolve.”

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With live television and “live streaming” in “webcasting” the second row seat to history becomes the front row seat, and that advance in technology fairly invites one to report a little even knowing someone else already has the complete transcript, complete and completely accurate quotations, but, nonetheless, if you haven’t read it here first, you just about could.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT: President Obama’s Sept. 10 speech on Syria – The Washington Post 9/10/2013/2144ET

Full text of Obama’s speech on Syria | The Times of Israel 9/10/2013/2308ET

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Syria – Fast

10 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Syria

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Update 130910-1630

Assad Bombs Damascus While Agreeing to Give Up Chemical Weapons | World Affairs Journal 9/10/2013 The Daily Star, Lebanon

Destroying Syria’s chemical weapons is harder than it sounds – The Week 9/10/2013

 

Update 130910-1540ET

Syria Will Sign Chemical Weapons Convention, Declare Arsenal, Foreign Ministery Says 9/10/2013 Huffington Post / AP

UN Council Syria meeting postponed: envoys – Yahoo! News 9/13/2013

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Battle For Ancient Historic Christian Village Of Maaloula In Syria

What is all that about?

I wish I knew — or I’m glad I don’t know.

As suggested by the PressTV inclusion in the above footage, we appear to have a secular dictatorship backed by a Shiite theocracy opposed to a Sunni Islamist force derided by other Sunni Arab influences (in achieved cooperation with London and Washington) in the theater but, nonetheless, the Al Qaeda affiliated are in the field, and it neither looks nor sounds like they’re running short on ammunition or manpower.

Upside-down?

Make that upside-down and all mixed up.

Russia now champions secular rule (yes, as they did back in that other Afghanistan) while the United States would seem to be championing God knows what if it were not for the more granular analyses leading back to the actual make-up of the forces of Syria’s revolution, but it seems only the wonks (and Christopher Dickey) want to get into that.

Fast Reference

Obama’s Syria speech is now a dual challenge – The Washington Post 9/10/2013

Pro-Democracy Forces Still Among Rebels Fighting Assad, Study Finds – The Daily Beast 9/9/2013

Syria: al Qaeda linked fighters take strategic town of Maaloula | euronews, world news 9/9/2013

Syrian Christians Pack Passports Fearing Islamist Onslaught – Bloomberg 9/10/2013:

If Islamist rebels exploit a U.S. attack to advance into their neighborhood, Nakazy will grab the bag and join the 1.2 million Syrians who have fled to Lebanon. At least 450,000 of Syria’s 2 million Christians have been displaced, Gregorios III, Patriarch of the Church of Antioch, said last week.

“We’re worried that the fighters would take advantage of any confusion,” Nakazy, 56, said by phone from Jaramana.

Syria Islamist rebels take control of Christian town of Maaloula – CNN.com 9/8/2013

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Syria’s Chemical Weapons Problem and the Call to Conscience

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Philology, Politics, Psychology, Regions, Syria

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With Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in play, no one really cares about the details: with Syria, the threshold ventured in March would seem to have been crossed in August, scaling up a dollop of death in one context to a brazen full-scale assault — 1,400 dead, 400 of them children, according to the Obama Administration — on innocents.

Must something be done?

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MOSCOW — Syria on Monday quickly welcomed a call from Russia, its close ally, to place Syrian chemical arsenals under international control, then destroy them to avert a U.S. strike, but did not offer a time frame or any other specifics.

Russia To Push Syria To Put Chemical Weapons Under International Control Huffington Post 9/9/2013

Whether a disingenuous gesture to buy time or a sincere one to wage its war with the will of men and conventional machinery and materiel rather than with invisible, odorless clouds of poison, the gesture would seem to acknowledge culpability and guilt, and that with Russian encouragement to assemble, surrender (to international control), and destroy chemical weapons stores while also joining the signatories to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

It appears that a kind of monster born in German laboratories, manufactured in U.S. subsidiaries, and shipped out to several middle east states under cover of the “dual use” use label — all along the conception, development, and delivery line knew it would come to this, even though Syria worked out the details itself — must now be contained and destroyed in an active, “existential”, zero-sum kind of battleground.

Rick Ungar writing for Forbes today notes well the motivation: “Putin understands very well that he stands to gain far more by being the man responsible for taking Assad’s chemical stockpile out of the game than he stood to gain by being responsible for any future use of the same.”

It’s hard remaining evil when one wants most to look good and to be perceived as just and heroic.

Still, one recognizes that one recognizes a correct and right course and side, and that is the consequence of the presence of conscience.

And if Putin has a conscience . . .

😉

It’s not all public relations.

The world will not care whether Obama or Putin or other forces remove from battlefields — and if for all time, then good — the chemical weapons option.  It is the other side of the equation — the one that would forestall the wanting to use such weapons — that would seem troublesome, i.e., the cultivation of conscience sufficient to turn a destructive capacity and drive, also the license afforded grandiose ambitions and delusions, toward courses more empathetic, kind, liberating, noble, and productive.

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Aside: a world that wants for basic resources, starting with energy and possibly ending with oxygen, must tame war itself, even if starting with the most barbaric of its rough edges, for the contemporary mix of exceedingly dangerous nuclear technologies and equally fragile alternative wonders (like solar-electric farms) demands that the exceptionally egotistical and reckless among leaders — those who too readily sacrifice others, including their own constituents and their children — be no more.

Such have become everyone’s monsters.  

Fast Reference

By dragging Truthout URLs to this section, I have not joined the left, but I have as broad a spectrum of civil and gracious friends as I believe it possible to have in the online social networks, and so, as may we all, I get a good walk around the dimension of subjects of interest.

Chemical Weapons Convention (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons)

Obama’s Case for Syria Didn’t Reflect Intel Consensus Truthout 9/9/2013

Putin Offers Surprise Plan For International Control Of Syrian Chemical Weapons-Moves To Steal Obama’s Thunder? – Forbes 9/9/2013

Syria – Ambassador Rice’s Comments | BackChannels 9/9/2013

Syria: Six Alternatives to Military Strikes Truthout 9/6/2013

The Jewish Press » » Meet the Monster Behind Syria’s Chemical Weapons 8/29/2013

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Syria – Ambassador Rice’s Comments

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Syria

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Speaking for an audience gathered by the New America Foundation, U.S. Ambassador and National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice laid out the Administration’s case for intervention in Syria on the basis of the regime’s chemical weapons use.

Hitting the keys:

  • Chemical weapons are different from conventional in scope and scale;
  • Syrian stockpiles among the largest in the world;
  • Only Assad has chemical weapons stocks, “the opposition does not”;
  • Senior officers planned the August 21 attack and covered the evidence with subsequent shelling;
  • The Assad regime has used chemical weapons since March, and with fewer casualties, but the regime appears to be lowering the threshold for use;
  • Failure to respond means that more will die from similar attacks, that the same will bring us closer to the day when chemical weapons are used against Americans abroad and at home, and that the door will be opened to the use of other weapons of mass destruction and the madmen that would use them.

That leaves out a lot (I just couldn’t scribble fast enough), but Rice went on to discuss the meaning of a limited, defined, proportional response to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons, noting that such an effort would take away any battlefield advantage to the regime relative to their cost to use.

Cited by Rice: Reagan, Libya, 1986; Clinton, Iraq, 1998.

Said Rice: “The United States will not take sides in sectarian struggles . . . but can and will stand up for certain principles in the region.”

Update – 9/9/2013/1337ET

” . . . this atrocity has been most gut wrenching . . . children lined up in shrouds, their voices forever silenced, devastated mothers and fathers kissing their children goodbye, pulling the white sheet up around their faces as if tucking them in.  There are no words  . . . for capturing such infinite cruelty.  Where words fail us, actions must not.”

Fast Reference

Syria | The White House

Obama adviser Susan Rice pushes president’s case for strike against Syria – The Washington Post 9/9/2013

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