Humanitarian Aid – not more weapons.
The stench of hypocrisy that drifts up the nostrils when we listen to the empty rhetoric which trips so easily from the mouths of politicians in the West – is truly stupefying and very frightening. Everyone wants peace not war. Throwing more weapons into the viper’s nest that is the Syrian civil conflict can only cause more strife and more bloodshed and prolong the divisions between the warring factions as opposed to bring the strife to a speedy conclusion. It is humanitarian aid on a massive scale that is urgently required not more guns, tanks and bombs.
Over 93000 dead, thousands seriously wounded, and 2million plus – now homeless and displaced from Syria alone. We can add this number to the staggering 43.7 million people currently displaced around the world. And what do Western windbag politicians do? Very little of real consequence it seems to me. Save for coming up with the grotesque idea of throwing more weapons at one side that might broadly look to be fighting the cause of seeking to establish a free democratic State. Which every one knows is nonsense of course.
And who are these rebels that the UK and US seem so willing to support in their vague cause of freedom fighting and to oust the Assad regime? The answer is simple – no one really knows – more disturbing- least of all the Western governments. A hesitant Barack Obama, a silly schoolboy David Cameron, (the latter now playing big boy games with real guns and bullets instead of the pea shooters and conkers of the school playground) is playing with fire by agreeing to throw weapons into the arms of the rebels. There is no silver bullet solution. The answer is not more weaponry – everyone knows that. Only political dialogue and negotiation will, ultimately, bring this conflict to an end.
The West, led by US and UK – ever the brothers in arms wherever there is a war to be had – by their authorising of the sending of weapons to Syrian rebels are arming factions that might one day turn those very weapons upon our own troops and people. This is sheer stupid political folly. This conflict is not going end any time soon. This is not a Saddam Hussein or a Muammar al- Gaddafi situation. It is much more serious even than those brutal and evil regimes. Syria’s Assad and his government have a well-armed and very well trained army. They have a powerful backer in Russia’s Vladimir Putin – this war can only escalate not retract.
With the stunning military success that Assad achieved only last week at Qusair, near the Lebanese boarder, and the Syrian leader’s preparation for offensives against Homs and Aleppo have only served to demonstrate that the Syrian government are in this conflict for the long haul. They will fight to the bitter end. There will be no quick surrender here and thousands more lives will be lost.
The whole area is a putrid viper’s nest of different political and fanatical interests. The rebels are made up of various factions including Hezbollah, Iranian fighters, and many al-Qaida linked extremists – and yet we in the West with hapless politicians on all sides seem to be hell bent in giving these groups weapons. I am truly amazed that all the politically disengaged of this country are not marching on the streets to beat down the door of Number 10 in protest at such political madness.
It is not weapons of war we should be delivering but weapons of human kindness. Medical aid, transportable field hospitals, ambulances, food parcels, clothes, shoes, medicines, blankets, mattresses, tents, and hygiene kits – all this kind of assistance the West could airlift in a trice. This positive and worthwhile action would go some way to help alleviate the suffering of the ordinary Syrian people caught up this brutal and chilling catastrophe. It would show the Syrian people that the cup of human kindness, at least as far as Western nations are concerned, has not run dry.
