Some poetry for you Itchy....
The Unknown by Donald Rumsfeld
As we know, There are known knowns
There are things we know we know.
We also know There are known unknowns.
That is to say We know there are some things We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know We don't know.
Itchy reminds me of Jedward's X factor audition.
Not very good and incredibly annoying
but something intriguing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWwW_DYmxEw
He wants to understand the Middle East
He definitely has the potential
Perhaps you could help him understand, then. He has asked a number of questions. That's usually how people arrive at an understanding. Here are just two from his selection:
- How should the international community act on Syria in the short term (I.e now) to stop people being gassed to death or should they not act at all?
- Would you support a unilateral intervention on behalf of Palestine by a western power?
These seem reasonable to me in the context that Assad is murdering his people, the opposition is an unholy alliance of all types from the moderate to the lunatics and the UN is unable to act because of Russia's veto. I haven't come to an opinion myself. I'd be interested in your opinion as someone who has spent time in the Middle east and probably has a better understanding of it than myself (or Itchy).
The international community firstly has to let the UN inspectors carry out their work. The UN is the only body with the right to actually intervene but the full facts need to be determined first. People will die in the meantime unfortunately but that is a sad fact of this mess. Is the option of a ground force of UN peacekeepers to limit civilian casualties an option? Is that viewed as intervention and can it be vetoed by the Power 5?
Syria (and most of the Middle East) is an outrageous mess and is the worst humanitarian crisis of this century so far but as far as I am concerned and the past century proves my point that any western military intervention will just make the scenario a whole lot worse. Western intervention in this part of the world has caused alot of the instability already and if Obama, Cameron or Hollande think they can make matters better by bombing the shit out of the place then they are dreaming.
I'm of the opinion that in the long run the Syrian people need to determine the path to go down. There are very few cases in history where outside military intervention has improved the internal situation in the long term.