Thursday, January 31, 2013

Syria - The UN's Greatest failure?

Yesterday, after months of doing everything it could to not become embroiled in the Syrian horror story, Israel's air force blew up a Syrian convoy of sophisticated anti aircraft missiles crossing the Lebanese border, on their way to Hezbollah's hands. Meanwhile Jordan is staggering under the burden of a massive number of refugees that have fled the fighting and Turkey is also dealing with the grave consequences of 100,000s of refugees on their border, and lets not forget Lebanon,  under constant threat of being drawn into the Syrian crisis, inflaming the hatreds and violence that simmer just under the veneer of normalcy in that country - Lebanon could easily be dragged back into civil war. 

In Syria itself, not only have well over 60,000 people been slaughtered, what started out as a people's uprising against the brutal Assad regime, has been gradually hijacked by jihadists including Al Qaeda, who now dominate the anti-Assad forces, which regardless of the resolution of this conflict, does not bode well for either Syria or the region.

The blame for this lies with the UN, which in the face of a clear, obvious need for early intervention, found itself so emasculated, so toothless, that it was unable to do more than watch as a country ripped itself apart, to the point where the stability of a volatile region is now threatened. There will be no happy resolution to this Syria, no joyous elections - there will be Islamists & terrorists in charge, a mightier version of Gaza, and they will probably rally the people against their favorite scapegoat, "The Zionist Enemy". 

The UN was formed because of the failure of the League of Nations in preventing WW2. Perhaps its time to look again at this organization that today reflects the views of Islamists  more than western democracy. It clearly cannot fulfill its basic peacekeeping mandate, and any other good it may do is limited by its the political agendas of the power blocks amongst nations. For example, the UN has a human rights committee able to pass dozens of resolutions against Israel, whilst at the same time very nearly inviting a representative of Assad's regime to lead it! The UN seems far more horrified by Israeli's building houses, than Syrian genocide, certainly the Arab world cares more about housing in Jerusalem's suburbs than any city in Syria.

The death toll from Syria, when you factor in those we know are dead, those sick & dying in tents in Jordan & Turkey, and those that could die if the conflict spreads to Lebanon and beyond, could number in the millions and the UN does nothing;  the Arab league is silent;  the Europeans are pretending it isn't happening while they go for a romp in  Mali... Mali???!! 

Of course, if Israel do get sucked in further, everyone will have something to say - unanimous votes in the UN will ring out, British MP's will evoke the holocaust & the shouts of anger will be heard across the Islamic states - what a morally bankrupt world!