The Tragedy in Syria (and many others)
Posted: April 16th, 2018, 1:14 pm
(Some quick thoughts posted to Steve's column)
I think the world is still fighting the goddam Cold War in Syria in some ways. US vs. Russia. Assad is a bastard with much blood on his hands by now, but at some point we absolutely need to wake up and smell the shit. And really, much, if not all, of the so-called War on Terrorism and seemingly endless asymmetric warfare waged against "rogue states" or "insurgencies" over the last several decades (they just don't televise much of it anymore) also stems directly (or perhaps even more often, indirectly) from the Cold War. And from WW2 (especially in the case of Israel/Palestine).
I don't know if it's even possible to eventually resolve all of these endless wars, rebellions and instabilities, but there is zero chance for any sort of resolution (short of mass-annihilation maybe) if we just keep lying about the root causes of conflict in the name of heavily-armed, tough-guy, fast-talking, profit-based, goal-post shifting jingoistic politics.
I think the world is still fighting the goddam Cold War in Syria in some ways. US vs. Russia. Assad is a bastard with much blood on his hands by now, but at some point we absolutely need to wake up and smell the shit. And really, much, if not all, of the so-called War on Terrorism and seemingly endless asymmetric warfare waged against "rogue states" or "insurgencies" over the last several decades (they just don't televise much of it anymore) also stems directly (or perhaps even more often, indirectly) from the Cold War. And from WW2 (especially in the case of Israel/Palestine).
I don't know if it's even possible to eventually resolve all of these endless wars, rebellions and instabilities, but there is zero chance for any sort of resolution (short of mass-annihilation maybe) if we just keep lying about the root causes of conflict in the name of heavily-armed, tough-guy, fast-talking, profit-based, goal-post shifting jingoistic politics.