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

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

I'm not 100% sold on this. These days, most leaders are reluctant to use small arms against protesters, so I'm not seeing that there is a big potential for the use of chemical weapons against one's own civilians. Also, the number of leaders who would likely use chemical weapons has been shrinking and probably will continue to do so just because most people agree it is not a nice thing to do to one's own people.

Iraq's use of chemical weapons against the Iranians, which was a clear violation of international law, and their use of them against the Kurds, which was a violation of "international norms" didn't trigger a renewal of the use of chemical weapons, why should we assume Assad's more limited use would? If there are a whole bunch of leaders who are looking at this as a green light, why would an incredibly amount of dithering followed by a bombing campaign that is designed to be limited change their minds? The signal already sent by the UK and Germany seems stronger than that sent by any limited bombing campaign would be.