(Salty language warning.)
It’s probably dangerous to get your foreign policy
foundations from Eddie Izzard, but comedians have this certain knack of putting
things rather simply.
So when I think of Syria, possible US intervention there,
and how most of the rest of the world is turning their backs on what’s going on
there, Eddie Izzard comes to mind:
There were other mass murderers who got away with it. And
the reason we let them get away with it is because they killed their own
people. And we’re fine with that. “Oh, help yourself!” We’ve been trying to
kill you for ages.” Hitler killed people next door. “Erm . . . Stupid man.
After a couple of years we won’t stand for that, will we?”
Bashir al-Assad is in the killing his own people phase, and
most of the world seems fine with that. Well, not necessarily fine, but fine
enough that they don’t want to do anything to stop what’s going on. There are
folks like Russia and China turning a blind eye to the evidence. But I’m not
sure that’s worse than those who see the evidence and yet do nothing at all
about it.
But doing something. That’s the scary thing. Post-9/11, we
spent a lot of time doing something, and not many would agree that all that
something we did turned out well.
But doing nothing? That’s worse than doing something that
incites a lot of political disagreement over the goodness of the results.
If only things worked as simply as Mister Izzard suggests:
I just think Japan and Germany should be the peacekeepers of
the world. They should be parachuted in. Something breaks in, parachute in the Germans
and Japanese . “Look, we’ve done this before, we’ve done the killing, take it
from us, just chill out.” They could organize peace really quickly.
Interesting bits and bobs in the news. Secretary of State
John Kerry has been adamant that any attack on Syria “won’t be like Iraq.”
President Obama has said unequivocally that “This is not Afghanistan. This is
not Iraq.”
Meaning, of course, that it is.
Where are the Japanese and Germans when you need them?
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