STRAIGHT AND TRUE
JOSIE PAGANI
Diary, 9 February 2016
09/02/16 14:04
The most important story in the world today: the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights confirms the involvement of Assad in despicable crimes against humanity, and his “systematic and widespread attack against [the Syrian] civilian population.”
Those who argued against intervention in 2013 to stop Assad and thought themselves secure on the moral high ground should read this. This is not what intervening looks like.
Here’s what I wrote then. “There is no doubt that Assad ordered the murder of more than 1000 Syrians and therefore we are compelled to act, morally and legally. Tyrants must not be allowed to mass murder with impunity. If civilised nations do not respond now, we will be as culpable as we were when our forces stood by and watched thousands of people murdered in Srebrenica." I still think the decision to not intervene was a terrible mistake.
There are good precedents for intervention. Timor, Uganda and Sierra Leone for example. We should have acted. We didn’t.
I interviewed Kyle Orton, Middle East expert, on Newstalk ZB over the holidays. Listen: KYLE ORTON Here’s what he had to say about the report today: "Assad was never a partner in defeating IS and like-minded groups...those who counsel cooperation with Assad should think things through very, very carefully with their own reputations in mind."
The authors of ISIS, Inside the Army of Terror agree. Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan have documented, in laborious detail, evidence of Assad’s state sponsorship of terror, from staffing an office opposite the US Embassy in Damascus to help future jihadists book bus travel to Iraq, to allowing the precursor to ISIS to train its suicide bombers on Syrian soil. This was Assad’s message to the US - ‘Don’t think about regime change in Syria, or else.'
There is no solution to the European refugee crisis, let alone to the Syrian debacle, that involves keeping Assad in place.
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Here’s UK Labour activist Nora Mulready talking to human rights activist, Maryam Namazie, on her TV programme, Bread and Roses TV. How has the feminist, pro-gay rights left ended up an apologist for a segregated, homophobic interpretation of Islam? All in the name of cultural relativism.
*
Here are some amazing pictures from the other side of the Vietnam war.
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Those who argued against intervention in 2013 to stop Assad and thought themselves secure on the moral high ground should read this. This is not what intervening looks like.
Here’s what I wrote then. “There is no doubt that Assad ordered the murder of more than 1000 Syrians and therefore we are compelled to act, morally and legally. Tyrants must not be allowed to mass murder with impunity. If civilised nations do not respond now, we will be as culpable as we were when our forces stood by and watched thousands of people murdered in Srebrenica." I still think the decision to not intervene was a terrible mistake.
There are good precedents for intervention. Timor, Uganda and Sierra Leone for example. We should have acted. We didn’t.
I interviewed Kyle Orton, Middle East expert, on Newstalk ZB over the holidays. Listen: KYLE ORTON Here’s what he had to say about the report today: "Assad was never a partner in defeating IS and like-minded groups...those who counsel cooperation with Assad should think things through very, very carefully with their own reputations in mind."
The authors of ISIS, Inside the Army of Terror agree. Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan have documented, in laborious detail, evidence of Assad’s state sponsorship of terror, from staffing an office opposite the US Embassy in Damascus to help future jihadists book bus travel to Iraq, to allowing the precursor to ISIS to train its suicide bombers on Syrian soil. This was Assad’s message to the US - ‘Don’t think about regime change in Syria, or else.'
There is no solution to the European refugee crisis, let alone to the Syrian debacle, that involves keeping Assad in place.
*
Here’s UK Labour activist Nora Mulready talking to human rights activist, Maryam Namazie, on her TV programme, Bread and Roses TV. How has the feminist, pro-gay rights left ended up an apologist for a segregated, homophobic interpretation of Islam? All in the name of cultural relativism.
*
Here are some amazing pictures from the other side of the Vietnam war.
Tweet
