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War is an obscenity. Yet somehow a civil war transcends even that. Today Syrians are killing Syrians with an intensity and ferocity that seemingly knows no bounds. The sheer scale of the attacks now being launched by the Syrian State on rebels and civilians alike has bought about howls of anguish from across the Arab World and beyond.
The seemingly venal role played by the Russians and Chinese at the United Nations Security Council, has to all intents and purposes signalled a green light for an almighty offensive by the Syrian regime, determined as it is to snuff out all resistance to what has long been minority Allawite rule.
I've reported from inside Syria on a number of occasions, as well as from the United Nations where I was based as Al Jazeera's UN Correspondent. I have few illusions about the nature of the Ba'athist state that is Syria, although in common with others did believe for a time that President Bashar al Assad was a closet reformist. As for the United Nations, it remains the sum of its many parts, and just because China and Russia decided to set themselves against an unusual Western and Arab alliance, does not mean that the institution is somehow a failure. This is the shorthand of despair, property of the unilateralists.
To many, especially those facing the heavy weapons of their own regime in Syria, the decision to veto a Security Council resolution calling upon Assad to step down by the Chinese and Russians seems inexplicable and inexcusable. Commentary on virtually every Western media outlet has been uniform in its condemnation. Sometimes journalists have fallen into a vernacular of saying "There is nothing we can do". By way of explanation for the Russian veto, there is reflection on that country's historic ties with Syria which date back to the Cold War and the Soviet Union. But there is something else. Both Russia and China do not accept the idea of 'regime' change by international order. For today it is Damascus, yet one day it could be Moscow or Beijing.
There is something else too. Both Russia and China watched as the United States and Britain bamboozled the UN with tall tales of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. They watched as Resolution 1973, designed to protect Libyan civilians drifted into a mission creep of daily British and French sorties across Libya designed at regime change. And much as the more sensible Western voices urge proportionate action, the hot head American neo conservatives, championed by the likes of former US UN Ambassador John Bolton, champ at the bit. Their target is Damascus and then Tehran. Bolton and his apocalyptic friends mean war. Israel, they hope, will be their willing Sepoy.
There is now a very heavy duty of responsibility on the shoulders of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. His has been a consistent voice, one that has grown more determined as the weeks of mayhem and murder have disfigured Syria.
He has dedicated his second term as Secretary General in part to supporting the Arab Spring. In this he speaks boldly and clearly for a global majority. And he does so in the same way when he continuously counsels calm and a diplomatic solution for the Iranian imbroglio. He now has the unenviable position of once again having to try and square the circle within the UN Security Council, a task which history shows is far from being impossible. He also has to calm the hot heads whose urge for precipitate action threatens to set the Middle East on fire.
But above all, as UN secretary General, he does in the words of the respected former UN diplomat and British Foreign Office official, Lord Michael Williams, have the ability to invoke 'Responsibility to Protect'.
Syria's civilians, now sheltering from their president's murderous attacks surely deserve the protection that the international community was prepared to afford the people of Benghazi. But this time, any command to enforce RP2 must belong to the UN Secretary General, and not be freelanced out. Regime change on the other hand is a matter for the Syrian people - and people the world over will help them achieve just that.
Follow Mark Seddon on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MarkSeddon1962
It's no accident that during the destruction of US-occupied Iraq, Syria was the favorite destination of refuge for the Sunni and Christian homeless, whom the not-wealthy secular Arab neighbor tried to accomadate, despite the fact that the wealthy and powerful nation that was responsible for the Iraqi dispossession was completely indifferent to the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Not only that, but at the same time the US and Israel were launching unprovoked military attacks inside Syria that killed hundreds of people, As if that wasn't enough, the US, Israel and their proxies in Lebanon immediately and persistently tried to pin the assassination of Lebanese PM Hariri on Syria, despite a total lack of evidence to support that theory.
I would suggest that readers examine Israel Shahak's translation of Oded Yinon's so-called "Divide the Arab World" proposal published in "Kivunim" in 1982, Richard Perle & co's "Clean Break" plan presented to PM Netanyahu of Israel in the mid-1990s, and the Project for the New American Century's intentions toward Iraq and Syria in order to better understand events.
OK The Russians and Chinere are nasty baddies and we wear the white hats - maybe that will get published.
Enough with the balls analogies. People are dying for want of a strategy. Russian and China do not want regime change in Syria, while other nations seem to. Syrians that are being slaughtered, just want sanctuary. Bashar is unlikely to want to alienate two supportive nations. Therefore, couldn’t the UN Secretary General offer sponsorship for Russian and Chinese civilian observers to be stationed inside Syria? Any refusal on their part would signify contempt for Syrian people’s lives. An objection or the continued use of force on Bashar’s part, could terminate those two remaining friendships. Especially if casualties amongst impartial observers were to occur. Hopefully, a temporary peace would ensue. So that discussions rather than percussions could perhaps find a way forward.
The US is the most egregious user of the veto and has consistently vetoed any attempt to criticise Israel for its wanton acts of destruction and violence which are a major contributing factor to instability in the middle east. The USA used its veto over 70 times during the 20th century. On the majority of occasions, the USA vetoed resolutions that were favoured by the majority of the world's nations
Very little of the USA's voting patterns is reported in the Western media. When other countries consider voting against a resolution put forward by the USA, they are usually demonised in the Western media and the whole basis of the United Nations called into question as with the current Russian veto of intervention in Syria.
Even with its faults, the United Nations is not a few people in an office - it is the world community. It is the rest of the world - the 94% of the world's population that is not from the USA. By damning and ignoring the United Nations, the USA is snubbing the majority of the world's population.
By using its veto so frequently and so consistently against majority world opinion, the US devalues the UN and makes it easier for Russia and China to side with the likes of Assad.
You are a rare piece of work.
You want to protect the Syrian people by bombing them? Surgically, of course?
But I guess you have not heard? There is a civil war mounting by the day in Libya, because you solve no problems, you only hurt people, take from them, harm them.
I guess you have not heard -- the US army utterly defeated Hussein in Iraq, but the war lasted 10 years and COUNTING.
"To many, especially those facing the heavy weapons of their own regime in Syria, the decision to veto a Security Council resolution calling upon Assad to step down by the Chinese and Russians seems inexplicable and inexcusable."
The Arab League's plan was for Assad to step down and his brother to take his place. This is the poison pill in negotiations - just like Rambouillet that the west used to launch its Crusade against Yugoslavia.
And how has the United States protected civilians in neighboring Iraq? Many Assyrians are in Syria because US troops allowed the atrocities to happen to them. Something about liking clean maps, I think. Bahrain is run by a foreign minority-led government, and Obama just sold this regime the deadliest tear gas.
And there is the final joke these articles play here. The Arab League is owned now by the Islamic theocracies of the Arabian peninsula, since the secular autocrats are gone, and every other state is incapable of putting together a government. How can they be allowed to put their hands on anything called "democratic" or "human right"?