by AFSHIN RATTANSI
A sizeable minority has opposed the “government” – actually representatives of a crony corrupt elite – for decades, now. Members of that minority have been imprisoned in per capita numbers higher than Stalin’s Soviet Union or Mao’s China. The government sanctions torture. The government kills them by stealth or by the gun. It subjects its people to surveillance. And the very same government sponsors external militias. It is surely time to covertly arm that minority to remove the head of the snake. Nothing made it clearer than the killing of journalists, targeted in the heart of the Middle East. Time and again, the government says it will reform. Even politicians, usually so beholden, say that never before has the nation been so threatened by its government. Even in the corridors of power, nervous advisors from all sides say the same thing.
The nation is, of course, the U.S.A. Except that if one listens to pundits, politicians and the commentariat, the nation is Syria. You would have guessed I was talking about America, if I had said that the nation sponsors militia states or the nuclear arms programs of militia states instead of “external militias.” However, the U.S.’s toy poodle, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague couldn’t even bring himself to mention Israel’s nuclear weapons when he warned the world of a nuclear cold war in the Middle East.
How we came to a point at which NATO states oppose most of the world and want to arm the rebels of Syria is a tragic tale of disinformation. It hardly needs saying that there is no excusing the brutal crackdown on civilians by the Syrian government, but then in our Manichean media, any call for dialogue or investigation is greeted with hysteria. “You’re an apologist!” they say.
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