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

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

You too? You cannot see how someone could change their opinions about the middle east after 10 years? I'm not for military intervention, but I can see how the argument is at least as solid as Iraq ever was, and more.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

No I just don't see how they could go one way and not the other.

ETA:
That someone who started off supporting military intervention on humanitarian grounds might change their mind after seeing the aftermath makes sense to me. Supporting military intervention in Syria without supporting it in other theaters does not.

EETA:
As jeff pointed out...

there's no logical consistency in going from being anti-Iraq to pro-Syria. Iraq was worse off, in worse shape, needing more help.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

there's no logical consistency in going from being anti-Iraq to pro-Syria. Iraq was worse off, in worse shape, needing more help.

And had that been the case made by the Bush administration, as opposed to false information about WMD, false connections to al-Qaeda, and false fear-mongering about immanent threats to the U.S., maybe those who were in favor or Iraq intervention wouldn't have done such a 180 on it when that false information was revealed to be, well, false.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how you consider Iraq worse off by the numbers.

Syria has 2 million refugees and a hot civil war today.

This seems more personal than logical.