Posted on 08/30/2013 5:04:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Humane killer" appears to be an oxymoron that startles with contradiction. Yet talking of war is a way of drawing a fine distinction, not a contradiction. The civilized world clarifies an understanding of how a civilized man can kill an enemy while separating human from inhumane.
When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned poison gas against the rebels and their families, everyone could agree that even in a civil war -- where passions burn hottest -- that's inhumane, and it's not forgivable.
The harsh and mechanical reporting of war rarely invites poetry to make a correspondent's points, but a reader with a yearning for a more penetrating reality turns to the poignant verse of Wilfred Owen, the young British poet who was called to duty when the poisonous mist of chlorine gas settled over the trenches in the Great War of 1914-1918. The poet who dreamed of joining bards and birds "singing of summer scything" turned the poetic power of observation to describe a victim on the front, fumbling with helmet and mask, too late to protect himself from the poison that leaves him "guttering, choking, drowning." We see the victim's white eyes wilt on his face, like a "devil's sick of sin" and listen to "the gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs."
Tanks and machineguns killed many more soldiers in the Great War than gas, but the poison could linger when it did not kill, terrifying and demoralizing both the soldier on the front and the public back home. It was such an inhumane way to kill that its use led to the Geneva Protocols that outlawed chemical warfare in 1925.
Although powerful images of "ordinary" battlefield and civilian deaths have been blamed on both government and rebels in Syria, there's less talk about the grim inhumanity of the weapons than identifying a political rationale for our own self-interest. The fighting simply didn't feel up close and personal when President Obama argued against getting "mired" in such a grim and difficult dilemma. A year has passed since he drew a blood-red line that would be the outer limits of American patience and then declined to follow through when Assad looked at the red and saw it as green.
Photographs of the dead, of women, children and whole families, shouldn't have been necessary to get President Obama's full attention. He could have helped the rebels when they were winning. But the use of chemical weapons is a game-changer, even for a president who leads from behind. The appeal to good will and fair play hasn't worked. He neither "reset" relations with Russia nor did he establish a "new beginning with Muslims around the world," as he promised in Cairo in 2009.
His approach in the Middle East was simple, even elegant, says Walter Russell Mead in a trenchant analysis in The Wall Street Journal. The president's policy was well-intentioned, carefully crafted, consistently pursued, and a colossal failure. "The U.S would work with moderate Islamist groups like Turkey's AK Party and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood to make the Middle East more democratic," he argues. "This would kill three birds with one stone."
This would narrow the gap between the "moderate middle" of the Muslim world (such as it might be) and demonstrate how peaceful, moderate parties can achieve results and isolate terrorists and radicals. The democratic gains that would be achieved would improve economic and social conditions to the point of reducing the appeal of fanaticism that drives people into terrorist camps. It seemed so simple.
The clarity of hindsight exposes many errors in the president's thinking about the world and America's place in it, but no error is so clear now as his refusal to aid the Syrian rebels before their ranks were swollen with radicals and terrorists nobody can trust. The cost in human life from chemical warfare rather than politics inevitably drives us toward getting an involved, unhappy result. Though that may be, many of the rebels are neither friendly nor inclined to learn democracy. The president in failing to win what once appeared to be an easy victory over a dictator backed by Russia and Iran now looks weak and uncertain. President Vladimir Putin in Russia and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran are entitled, from the evidence the president himself furnished, to think Obama is dithering, indecisive and irresolute. We can expect them to act accordingly.
But if an Assad victory would be awful, a rebel triumph might eventually be worse. In the sixth year of his presidential odyssey, Obama is poised to sail through Scylla and Charybdis, anarchy and despotism. Rough seas lie ahead.
Also not proven, so far. Why would Assad, who was supposedly winning, risk the ire of the world for using chemical weapons?
I'm skeptical he did. It is the "revolutionaries" (AlQaida) who has everything to gain from breaking a few eggs...
“When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned poison gas against the rebels and their families...”
And the author makes a statement of fact with NO facts on which to base such an erroneous claim. This is yellow propaganda in its most putrid form.
My gut feeling is that the rebels or somebody else did this. Not Assad.
Talk about a schizophrenic paragraph. Does she think we should go after assad or not? If the rebels are 'swollen' with terrorists nobody can trust" what they hell would we help them for?
“When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned poison gas against the rebels and their families, everyone could agree that even in a civil war — where passions burn hottest — that’s inhumane, and it’s not forgivable.”
This sentence, stated as a fact is nothing but a bald faced lie. There is proof Assad did not do it, no proof he did do it, although obama would have bombed them based on a lie which he knew to be a lie.
Amen Brother. I like the quote on your personal page: “The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda.”
Even if it is true that Assad used chemical weapons, for the US to take action to side with AlQaeda is asinine.
A false flag. Assad had nothing to do with it. Also, those doing it will, with the assistance of the Obama administration, in time be over here doing the same thing.
Absolutely right - this is a hand’s off situation for sure.
Assad = bad guys
Rebels = bad guys
Likely every one of these people hates the west and would slit our throats as soon as look at us.
Let ‘em have at it, then deal with the “winner”.
Frankly, I could give a crap what one Muslim does to another. Interfering in their petty squabbles is not worth the life of one American Soldier or the cost of a simple bullet.
I hope assad wins, he’s been in power for years and we have had no trouble with syria
I’ve been trying to make this point for 2 yrs.
Not helping the rebels in the beginning left them desperate for help as time went on. The mb & alqaeda were glad to fill the vacuum.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Killing 100,000+ by bombs/bullets/torture is acceptable - killing a 1,000 or so with gas is inhumane. Makes as much sense as the Geneva Convention ruling against the original hot M-16 ammo because it would tear an arm or leg off as it killed a person - must have intact corpses to be humane about it - oh...wait...poison gas leaves the corpses intact and bombs and torture leave bits and pieces strewed about. I get so dang confused these days.
That statement might be a little overreaching. Syria has been harboring terrorists for many years and taking part in many nefarious actions in the Middle East.
FMJ only, no hollow points, etc. Explosives OK, napalm not. No germs, no chemicals, no radiation...
I don't reckon it makes you any deader, one way or the other, just harder to box up.
People look at it that way, but any more, it is prudent to think about it. The enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my enemy. That might be helpful, but it makes shaky ground for friendship on occasion.
Ms. Fields' conclusion is absolutely correct today, and was also correct at the onset of Syria's civil war. Assad is a bad actor, but his secular dictatorship is much preferable to the chaos of the irrational Islamists who would inevitably replace him.
I agree. But it’s an arabic saying. And while the word “friend” may not be accurate, as long as his gun is pointed at your enemy, unfortunately that’s what counts when you’re running low on fighters & ammunition.
“I hope assad wins, he’s been in power for years and we have had no trouble with syria”
Ha. Yeah, that’s right...he just acts innocent as he aids & abets hezbollah and the Iranian regime. No problem there as far as you’re concerned.
I also hope Assad wins, though we have had trouble with his Baathist government (and even more with his father's regime before him). But that trouble was manageable because the Assads are rational, and their regimes are secular and non-suicidal.
Like the secular fascist Egyptian government of Mubarak, Assad's Syria has officially been belligerent toward Israel. But as rational players, both regimes reached cooperative arrangements with Jerusalem that avoided disastrous wars - because they wanted to survive. While not friendly, the relationships were manageable. Does anyone believe that Islamist alternatives would lead to anything but total war? I think not.
Assad = Bad
Rebels = Catastrophic
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