DIPLOMATIC EUNUCHS KEEP MOUTHING OUTRAGE
(….while real people continue to suffer and die)

There’s nothing more pathetic than to have to listen to the sound of diplomatic eunuchs mouthing outrage, while real people continue to suffer and die. Such is the situation with Syria today.

All these international community outcries about the barbarity of the Assad regime’s crackdown on popular protest against it, and the indiscriminate slaughter of its people in places like Homs….simply amounts to a lot of noise….signifying nothing.

And the reason the international community continues with its limp biscuit approach to this situation is because doing a more active intervention would run smack into the sticky issue of – sovereignty-. That is, the Assad regime’s sovereignty. But can it truly be considered still “sovereign” if it’s only means of maintaining authority and control over both its people and its territory is by brute force? In this instance the international consensus is probably a resounding…NO!

Even so, there’s also another sticky issue related to that question which is…setting a precedent, especially because there are a number of members in the international community who are just a tad shy of matching the Assad regime’s murderous brutality as their way of maintaining themselves in power.

So it boils down to at what point can the international community draw the line, and justify intervening in such situations, and effect regime change? Unfortunately there are no clear or easy answers to such questions.

Yet, there are already precedents when that’s exactly what happened, such as:

–       Calling on North Vietnam to intervene at the peak of the Khmer Rouge insanity. Which it did, and remained in place for several years until things could be brought back to normal….for Cambodia.

–       Calling on the Syrians to step in at the peak of the Lebanese civil war. Which they did, and like the Vietnamese, stayed until they had worn out their welcome.

–       Calling for international intervention during the Serb-Bosnian-Croat-Kosovo conflicts. Besides boots on the ground, even the US engaged, with missiles, to halt that conflict.

–       In the aftermath of the Gulf War, no fly zones were imposed on the Hussein regime to protect both the Marsh Arabs in the south, and the Kurds in the north, of Iraq. These were enforced and kept in place for ten years, until the invasion of Iraq.

And there are countless other examples of external interventions in Africa, in Southeast Asia, in Latin America, and the Caribbean.

So precedents do exist for such acts of intervention when extreme situations, such as in Syria occur. For some strange reason, however, Syria doesn’t seem to merit the same consideration. Which raises another question…..why so?

What might be a most effective way to intervene in Syria, however, is not with boots directly on the ground there, but with a concerted and coordinated move by its immediate neighbors….Turkey, Iraq(possibly), Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel(iffy), and Lebanon, to establish a 25km deep demilitarized zone, within Syria, all along its borders with them. One where Syrians seeking refuge from the Assad regime would be free from its attacks against them. Their safety being secured by the respective military resources of each of those neighbors. No Assad regime military action would be allowed against that belt of territory around its borders. Other members of the international community could back that up with either aerial or drone surveillance along the edges of those zones.

Once in place, humanitarian and NGO entities could move in to provide the necessary housing, medical, sanitation, water, food, etc. Syrians in refuge there could then organize themselves to form the nucleus for a later national structure when the Assad regime had been terminated, and the rest of their country retaken for themselves again.

If the international community found the moral courage to make such an interventionist move, it could possibly redeem itself. Anything less would just be a shameful act of indifference, proving that when it comes to helping people free themselves from tyranny….the international community is very, very…..selective.

CENTURION