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Pecos Pueblo

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Empire strikes back

The Syrian regime has circled the rebel city of Homs today and will soon make operational its plans to destroy the city. The word "cleanse" was used by the authorities today, with all the nasty and brutish comparisons to the Khmer Rouge killing fields and other similar places of genocide. Like Hama. The Syrian deathstar has been shelling the city for weeks and now will try for the final "cleanup." They have been remarkably effective at killing their people in the past.

Hamas pulled its agents out of Syria this week. One time recipients of the Alawite dictatorship's largesse, the political heat reached a tipping point and it suddenly looked greener on the other side.

The United Nations has once again been shown to be a largely impotent and corrupt body, useless really, unless the target is something everyone can pretty much agree upon, like censoring the evil zionist state or protecting Islamic warlords in the Sudan. Stopping genocide, they're not so good at.

They have been of course, neutered by those two august members of the Security Council, China and Russia, whose vetos have paved the way for their Syrian friends to kill first and ask questions later.

I was thinking how interesting it is that the countries in our world borne of revolution like China and Russia and in some cases the United States, have all created political systems that do their utmost to guard against it ever happening again. I thought communism celebrated revolution but it instead tends to celebrate the totalitarian status quo. Witness the brutal suppression in both Chechnya and Tibet, not to mention the Uighur population.

The same thing occurs of course in latin america where all too often the people's champions ultimately become presidents for life. Capitalism for all of its faults, is still a cut or two above the available competition.

The situation in Syria is very dire. Rebels smuggled a British photographer and a Spanish reporter out of the country today. Like Warsaw, one hopes that there will be somebody there at the end to bear final witness.

7 comments:

MC. said...

Thanks for writing this.

Anonymous said...

second

Anonymous said...

Actually Russia and China did not abstain because if they had the Resolution providing for potential UN (read U.S.) intervention would have passed. Instead they learned from Libya and vetoed it. The Russians have a naval base to protect and the Chinese got really screwed over by us in Libya so you can't expect any further UN activities (other than the current ones) in No. Africa or the Mideast. R

Blue Heron said...

You are correct, I don't know why I wrote abstain, I have corrected it to veto. You don't sound to have much trouble with the whole dirty business, do you?

Ken Seals said...

When this Syrian regime falls, the retribution will be horrible!
Ken

Anonymous said...

I could not resist commenting. Perfectly written!

Anonymous said...

It's easy to forget the most basic things in life.