Thursday 13 February 2014


Use Force to Save Starving Syrians
 "We should invoke the Responsibility to Protect, the principle that if a state fails to protect its populations from mass atrocities — or is in fact the perpetrator of such crimes — the international community must step in to protect the victims, with the collective use of force authorized by the Security Council. And if a multinational force cannot be assembled, then at least some countries should step up and organize Syria’s democratically oriented rebel groups to provide t
he necessary force on the ground, with air cover from participating nations."
I like the bit about helping the rebel groups the most. As we see the UN wash their hands of the starving young men seized by the Syrian government from the siege of Homs, it is hard to believe any responsibility to protect action by the US and others would not produce some squalid mess. More significantly, I don't think there is any desire in Washington or London or Paris to actually fight any sort of military action in Syria, so calling for direct intervention may just be a dead end.
But the far more important thing is the support for the Syrian revolution, and the understanding that the military fight against Assad underpins the survival of Syria, let alone any progress. There probably will come a time when Syrians are far more divided about the way forward, as will those in solidarity with its aims. But at the moment there is unity about seeing the removal of Assad and his régime as the vital task, and those arguing within that framework are helping. Those who think this is an appropriate time to lecture the Syrians on the hypothetical dangers of the US bombing Assad's forces, rather than protesting that the world does nothing about the real bombs dropped on them by Assad, absent themselves from helping. And as the Syrian crisis gets worse, if the only two options are American intervention or doing nothing, we will end up with the first, especially if the argument to do nothing is based on what ifs, rather than any analysis.

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