Chrysalis

Here is the text of my article from today’s Evening Echo:

This is a serious question asked at a poignant time when we have seen the images from Damascus, the lines of white faced motionless and innocent babies. They were killed, it seems because they lived in a suburb opposed to President Assad. It is heart-breaking and infuriating that we continue to see such carnage but what is more so is the international reaction to this atrocity. So far it has been nothing more than political manoeuvring. Hamstrung by the lies we were told prior to Iraq and Afghanistan the US is finding it hard to build support for intervention.
So back to the question I pose in this piece; what is the point of International Law if it can be so easily and tragically flouted. What is the point in the United Nations pretending to be a borderless police force if it allows itself to be thwarted by vested interests in the Security Council? Should we scrap the project or strengthen the aspects of the UN that work such as its Humanitarian arm.
As the cliché goes we are where we are. US Secretary of State John Kerry has been on tour building support for intervention. Congress is set to vote this week with marginal support expected from the Senate but a loss is predicted in the House of Representatives. The US people seem to be very much against intervention as they fear another Iraq or Afghanistan. The UK has already voted against supporting intervention because the British people have had enough of seeing injured, demoralised and dead soldiers returning from abroad.
It is easy to understand the reticence of people in the US and the UK to support another war abroad after their leaders led them down the path of lies in Iraq. The rhetoric led by George W and his posse at that time is so similar to what we are hearing now from Obama et al that credibility is hard to find. The big difference however is that this time we have seen the results first-hand the use’ sanctioned or not, of chemical weapons in Damascus and so we should be compelled to act.
So should that be led by the US probably not but the impotence of the rest of the world has left them as the only force ready to act. It would take a longer piece than this to go into the realities of why the UN is the way it is and the United States part in that but now is time to act. We saw with Bosnia that dithering only leads to a more severe crisis. It looks now that the US will act and that action will not involve ‘Boots on the ground’ as they say so it will be air strikes. What will this achieve? Well we know it will only achieve more death and distress; more innocent lives will be lost. Attitudes to the West will harden and when Assad finally falls the people of Syria will have to pick up the pieces. They will return from the refugee camps to rubble and ruin and who will they blame? The West and why wouldn’t they?
Is it not time for the World to grow up and either commit to International Law and put in place a proper World Force to ensure this is not allowed re-occur or stop the posturing in New York and let the cards fall where they may. Throughout history we have seen social experiments where communities and cultures have come together through force or trade and after a period something happens and things change; could we be on the cusp of such a change? If the US attack Syria unilaterally and innocents die in great numbers without a speedy regime change it could be the spark that inflames the tinder box that is the Middle East.
Surely an international force armed heavily and committed fully arriving in force to a region like Syria with a remit to protect the population and react with strength when threatened would be far better than what was witnessed in Srebrenica. I fear that the special interests of the big nations like the US, Russia and China will inevitably lead to a conflict on a scale my generation has never witnessed. We have become comfortable in our cocoon of televised conflict. How will we cope with the reality of war on our door steps? It would be naïve of us to believe it could not happen. I don’t have the answer but I hope that greater minds than mine have.
On Syria I think if we are to agree that International Law exists than we have to enforce it and if that takes on the ground intervention then so be it; it might be the lesser of two evils for the innocents.