Another story of Syria

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Jon Stewart returned last night, and the talk of the day was, of course, Syria (and he, of course, tried to inject a little humor into the situation.) However, the interview segment with which he closed out the show was anything but humorous, bringing in Andrew Harper, the head of the United Nations Refugee Agency in Jordan. This is the important story, in my opinion: the story of millions of people displaced from their homes, many of them women and children. It's also the story of nations such as Jordan who are doing what they can to provide a safe haven for some of these people, and the incredible work being done by the UN, an organization that is so often derided by folks here in the U.S., but which does certain things very well; this is one of them.

Any discussion of our response to the situation in Syria should involve the discussion of how we can help these people. While we're talking about what message we should send to the Assad regime, or whether or not we should act militarily, and in which way, here is an obvious human crisis where we could all put our money where our mouths are. I'd prefer to see this story given the lion's share of airtime on our cable news stations, over constant redundant talking heads debating back and forth on questions of chemical weapons and factions and military responses and political calculus.

Here's the interview, in two parts:

If the embedding doesn't work for some reason, here are direct links:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-3-2013/exclusive---andrew-harper-extended-interview-pt--1

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-3-2013/exclusive---andrew-harper-extended-interview-pt--2

Comments

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Well, you have to remember that the left isn't a monolithic entity (and there are some that would say that the progressives aren't even really part of "the left".) Yes, there are some who were against the Iraq war for sake of being against war or being the world's policeman - and those same people are some of the ones you are seeing out there currently speaking out against this. The other "progressives" only really soured to the idea of involvement in Iraq after it was shown how shoddy the intelligence was. In this case, it's (hopefully) a more clear cut case that has been made, and in that light, it's not exactly hypocritical to have been against the Iraq war (after having been for it, briefly) and now being for this war.

A good question that supports your questioning is this: why are the supporters so trusting of THIS administration's evidence when the government has been shown to lie (or at least be wrong) about war before (Iraq, Tonkin, Iran-Iraq War?) Are they more trusting this time because it's their man in the big chair? Maybe there's a small amount of that partisan favoritism of which we're all guilty.

Overall, though, I think it's important to remember that many of those supporting Obama now DID support Bush back then at first, until it was shown that the information we were given was false.


If this were really about the plight of the refugees we wouldn't be talking about cruise missiles, we'd be talking about peace-keepers, and large-scale evacuations/amnesty.

I think a valid point can be made that this should be our only business over there right now. I'm not saying I agree with that point (because I am still so torn between the various arguments of what is best, and how best to - and whether we must - respond to the use of chemical weapons) but at the very least, this should be a HUGE part of our focus.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Helping refugees is the most effective way to help the most people. Bombing is a selfish moved designed to advance "American interests" (for some Americans more than most).