DATELINE: MAKING POPCORN, WATCHING THE SHOW – Isn’t that what everyone is doing? My set is tuned to Syrian TV, and they have this really vivid, gripping horror movie on about the people there, being persecuted, being shot as they walk out their doors, being tortured because, well, who the fuck needs a reason to torture in a movie, right?
For almost a year this has been going on, in a large part fueled by a big old oil-burning engine that gave Al-Assad more power and money than he ever could have dreamed possible. For a year, the people in that country have lived with terrible daily atrocities, while the rest of us sit and watch, chewing our cud, and wondering what oil prices will do tomorrow because of it. Man, do we have a fucked-up set of priorities.
It is a long-held tenet that the global world does not get involved in ‘civil’ wars. There is a reason for that, an understandable one. I have no doubt that no one really would have appreciated the French picking sides in the American civil war, although, come on, we all know that no one stays neutral. Canada never participated in Vietnam, declared the war to be unjust, yet was more than happy to rake in the coin from the sales of munitions, equipment and other supplies, hypocrites that we are.
War is one hell of a funny thing – and not in the ha-ha sense. A long time ago, it was okay, in fact, it was expected that armies fight to conquer territory for their kings, legitimately crowned or otherwise. Their intent was to ‘civilize’ heathens. There was a lot of death in that civilization process, making it one of the most moronic oxymorons of all time. Then came a time when it wasn’t so cool to move your armies onto someone else’s turf. The bar had been raised, the table set; that shit didn’t happen anymore. The other change, though, was that countries had started to elect their leaders, the people playing a part in the game now as well. When the people spoke, government listened – not just their own, but governments of other countries as well, respecting the will of the people who lived in that country to choose their own path, and all was good.
But then came along a man who wooed his people (as disgusting as the word ‘woo’ might be where he was concerned) and got elected by the people of his country, promising economic fortune, telling them what was wrong with their world, who to blame for it, and what to fear. Once in power, the rules changed though. He built armies, he conquered lands that no longer belonged to him. He then went further, pushing the limits, declaring war on a whole continent that he wanted to call his own. At that point, the rest of the world (well, almost… those tricky Yanks said it was none of their business and had no intention of getting involved) said ‘enough’ and we had our second great war, another war to end all wars.
That’s the thing though, isn’t it? It sort of did, at least by the standards of conquering other lands. Kim Il-Sung and Ho Chi Minh both tried, and thankfully, although no one likes to talk about it, they were stopped. It wasn’t just their thrust for power that was stopped though; it was like a final confirmation that it was not okay to invade and conquer another land… and that was as it should be. Therein lies the conundrum, I guess, because if someone goes in to help, that word ‘invade’ is quickly tossed into the air. The soldiers and marines who went into Vietnam were accused of being involved in something they had no right to be involved in, but that’s not true. They were there to help a people who did not have the means to help themselves, and that is NEVER wrong. In both Vietnam and Korea, the people they were helping were people who had the cards stacked against them, with Russian or Chinese forces backing the original invaders.
So now, we sit back, watch Russia and China make a mockery of the international process created by the United Nations. Did anyone really think for one fucking minute that they would have done anything different? Seriously? Russia, under Putin, is one scary-assed place with a war-mongering power-craving megalomaniac at the helm. We are told that it’s a ‘civil’ matter in Syria – none of our concern.
Let me ask you this though. Suppose it was OUR country who had the power-craving megalomaniac calling the shots (insert hysterical laugher here, cause, well, we do have that) and he changed the rules of the game for all of us. Say it was us who were starving, being shot in our streets by our own government, being forced to live destitute, accept torture and brutality on a daily basis. Say it was us who were unable to set foot outside our doors, unable to get food for ourselves… say it was us who were finding our babies bodies mutilated, decaying, wrapped in plastic and dropped on our doorsteps weeks after they had gone missing and been tortured. Would we not be wanting… praying for someone to come and help us? Is that not what being human, a member of the human race, about?
Had Hitler not gone beyond taking back that which was lost in the Treaty of Versailles, if he had been content with just ‘reclaiming’ land and people, but still went on his binge of cleansing society of all Jews, people of color, people of different nationality, people with handicaps, would that have been okay? Would the world just sit and watch? Would we accept that it was his right, in his country, to kill whoever he wanted? I hope not because what a sad fucking excuse for humans we would be. Let me ask one other question – had Germany been blessed with huge reserves of oil, would we have capitulated and let Hitler run amok? Is a barrel of oil really worth a human life in a fair barter system?
The bar has been set, raised on the lives of incredibly generous men and women who stood up to say ‘that’s not right’. This has nothing to do with any religion or custom, but it has everything to do with greed – ours and theirs. We want the oil. We claim it is better to take oil that is paid for by the lives of little children shot dead in the street, than to take oil that comes from sand pits, and somehow justify that it’s okay. No, I am not making a pitch for Canadian oil and how it is processed. I am saying we have alternatives though, and we should put more effort into finding cleaner ways of extracting what we have, and of using what we have responsibly, but it would still be better than what is happening in Syria. Despots have risen to unprecedented authority because of the money handed to them, by us, for a product we are using in excess to pollute the earth. You want to sit there and tell me we don’t have some responsibility to claim for the terrible abuse the people of Syria are facing today? You are fucking right we do, and we have an obligation, as global community of humans, to help them.
