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

[papasha-mueller.livejournal.com]

http://www.kp.ru/daily/26129.4/3020845/ ?

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Yep. No surprise there.

[papasha-mueller.livejournal.com]

So it's true??

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I don't know. But is it relevant?

[papasha-mueller.livejournal.com]

I know it is relevant my question was if it is true.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I said I don't know. And my question is how it's relevant.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

The article is in Russian. Do you expect anyone to be able to read what you're referring to?

For the record: I haven't been able to find a single cross-reference source to back up the claims that are being made in that article. And Komsomolskaya Pravda is not exactly the first source I'd go to in search of facts. Actually it's nowhere near the top half of that list.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I have been able to find sources, all of them in Bulgarian. Seems like a bunch of Roma have attempted to game the system and pretend to be Syrian refugees to seek aid at one of our refugee camps near the border. They were turned down, and then issued a claim for discrimination. It hasn't been the first case of this sort, granted, but I don't know how that's relevant to the issue of the Syrian refugee crisis, apart from being a curious aside.