MARK FLEMING
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
    • Excerpt...
  • Articles
    • Scottish devolution and the punk revolution
    • Brainbomb: the facts and fiction
    • Creative writing and mental health
    • Why rock aristocracy are as dead as the Romanovs
    • Ostland, David Thomas
    • 2016: a literary overview
  • Music
    • 4 Minute Warning
    • Desperation A.M.
    • Little Big Dig
    • Axidents
    • Noniconic
  • Horror
    • Horror novels
    • Horror shorts

Crossing the red line in Syria

3/9/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
A few days ago, David Cameron’s call for a military response after the Syrian regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons was defeated by a Commons majority. On the morning of Friday 30 August I listened to various radio phone-in contributers railing about how we should all hang our heads in shame. Chancellor George Osborne told Radio 4's Today programme there would be "national soul searching about our role in the world".

But why? Because our elected representatives acted democratically?  Or equally commendably, because the UK demonstrated we are no longer America’s blindly obedient lap-dog?

                               If the west meddles in another Middle Eastern

                                                 conflict, where exactly do the missiles get pointed,
                                                 when do they stop, what happens after
                                                 they stop, and what if civilians die?

Ten years ago Tony Blair's communications director Alastair Campbell produced the now notorious ‘dodgy dossier’ about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction - biological missiles which it was claimed could target the UK in 45 minutes - in order to justify military action. Inspired by their respective beliefs in Christian morality, Blair joined George Dubya Bush in committing the lives of his country's young men to war with Iraq. Hussein, a murderous tyrant who had authorised chemical attacks against his own people as well as Iranian soldiers during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, was ousted with relative ease. However the invading western forces were not greeted by widespread civilian support, and the political vacuum quickly degenerated into a sectarian bloodbath. The ultimate legacy of the Blair/Bush attempt to liberate Iraq is that car bombs remain a daily occurrence in Baghdad. Ironically, in a region of the planet beset by ironies, the main perpetrators of the violence are Sunni insurgents who share many ties with the anti-Assad rebels.

No-one is disputing the war crimes of the Assad regime, apart from its besuited ministers. (I’ve often wondered why conventional bombs which blow people to atoms are somehow less offensive than chemical ones?) But the situation on the ground is unbelievably complex. Obama should have thought twice before his ‘red line’ rhetoric. Assad is no lunatic like Gaddafi, a dictator who funded the IRA and is suspected of ordering Lockerbie. But if the west meddles in another Middle Eastern conflict, as the likes of Boris ‘Hillsborough victims were thugs’ Johnson or Andrew ‘police are plebs’ Mitchell are advocating, where exactly do the missiles get pointed, and when do they stop, what happens after they stop, and what if civilians die?

Syria's instability has prompted ugly gatecrashing, with proxy fighters like the pro-Iranian Lebanese Hezbollah and the pro-Iraqi Al-Nusra Front fanning Syria's funeral pyre. The forces fighting Assad (and each other with equal enthusiasm), from the Free Syrian Army to Al-Qaeda militants, have often crossed those same red lines of civilized behaviour.

Many right-wing Tories have drawn parallels with the policy of appeasement in the 1930s, when the  western democracies stood idly by as Nazi bombs rained on Guernica, then Warsaw, then eventually London. But the circumstances are completely different. Syria is no Libya, where a dictator was universally reviled. Nor is it a Kosovo, where armed thugs were ethnically-cleansing civilians. Syria is melting-down into a sectarian nightmare of Sunni v Shia, secularist v jihadist. No-one can predict the outcome of raining even more missiles down on Syrians.

Murdering fellow human beings in God’s name has brought Syria, one of the most ancient nations on Earth, to its knees. Sadly, the answers seem particularly elusive, even by the violent standards of 21st century civil unrest.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    9/11
    A Can Of Madness
    Alan Brazil
    Alan Sugar
    Amy Winehouse Foundation
    Andrew Mitchell
    Apples: Short Story
    Arafat
    Argentina
    Ari Up
    Armistice
    Arts
    Arts Festival
    Ashdown
    Balconing
    Bankers
    Barack Obama
    Berlin Wall
    Bill Clinton
    Blackshirts
    Bobby Smith
    Body And Soul
    Book Festival
    Brainbomb
    Britains Got Talent
    Cancer Research
    Censorship
    Chav
    Child Cage Fight
    Chipmunka
    Citizens Advice
    Clinton
    Crash
    David Walliams
    Depression
    Depression Awareness Week
    Desperation A.M.
    Dick Smith
    Diets
    Disability
    DOK December 2016 Exhibitions
    Domestic Violence
    Edinburgh Festival
    Elbow
    Faisal Shahzad
    Falklands
    Falklands War
    Festival
    Fiction
    Fifty Shades Of Grey
    Film
    Finances
    Fireworks: A Short-story
    Fortitude
    Frankie Abbbott
    Fred Goodwin
    Fringe
    Gary Speed
    Gerry Anderson
    Gettysburg To High-Tech
    Goodwin
    Gore Vidal
    Graham Crowden
    Ground Zero
    Guatemalan Stds
    Hacking Scandal
    Helga Etsby
    Hillary Clinton
    Hillsborough
    Homelessness
    Horrorshow
    Ibiza
    Ibrox Disaster
    Indie
    Iraq
    Israe Palestinian Peace
    Ivor Tiefenbrun
    Jake Bugg
    January 1971
    Jason Pegler
    Jeremy Clarkson
    Jeremy Clarkson On PQ17
    Joe Strummer
    John Cormack
    John Terry
    Keira Knightley
    Kelvin Mackenzie
    Kelvin MacKenzie: Wants Police Apology
    Kirstie Allsopp
    Kristallnacht
    Leither Magazine
    Lemmy
    Liz Hurley
    Marie Antoinettes
    Mental Health
    Mental Health Prejudice
    Mercury Prize
    Middle East Politics
    Mosley
    National Rifle Association
    Neo Fascism
    News International
    Newtown Killings
    Nicolas Winding Refn
    Noel Edmunds
    One Love
    Organ Donation
    Overdose
    Paddy
    Penumbra
    Picture House
    Poly Styrene
    Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
    Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
    Predator Drones
    Primal Scream
    Prince Harry
    Private Ellison
    Protestant Action 1930s
    Public Service Broadcasting: Lit Up
    Punk
    Rabin
    Race For Life
    Racism In Football
    Red Riding
    Rehab
    Rembrance
    Revenant
    Richard Ashcroft
    Rick Perry
    Robbie Hance
    Rupert Murdoch
    Samaritans
    Sarrazin
    Scars
    Scottish Tories
    Selfharm
    Sepp Blatter
    Sex And Violence
    Sex Pistols
    Shane Meadows
    Shaw Trust
    Shellshock
    Silver Jubilee
    Simon Cowell
    Simon Weston
    Slaughter And The Dogs
    Smit
    Soldiers Suffering Breakdowns
    Spoken Word
    Stigma
    Stranglers Live Review
    Suicide
    Susan Boyle
    Syria - Crossing The Red Line
    Terry Jones
    The Clash
    The Damned
    The Slits
    The Sun
    The Wolf Warriors And Werewolves
    This Is England
    This Is England 86 Review
    Time To Change
    Tombstoning
    Tony Scott
    Tories
    Tower Crane Driver
    Troy Davis
    Urban Noir Photo Exhibition
    Vic And Bob's Shooting Stars
    Wags
    War On Terror
    Wayne Bridge
    Web Trolls
    Wolf Warriors
    Work
    World Cup
    World War One
    X Factor
    X Ray Spex

    Tweets by Fleming584

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
    • Excerpt...
  • Articles
    • Scottish devolution and the punk revolution
    • Brainbomb: the facts and fiction
    • Creative writing and mental health
    • Why rock aristocracy are as dead as the Romanovs
    • Ostland, David Thomas
    • 2016: a literary overview
  • Music
    • 4 Minute Warning
    • Desperation A.M.
    • Little Big Dig
    • Axidents
    • Noniconic
  • Horror
    • Horror novels
    • Horror shorts