Alan Howe
From: Herald Sun
June 11, 2012 12:00AM
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/kofi-break-bad-news/story-fn56avn8-1226390531691
ARABS killing Arabs - shooting each other, gassing each other, blowing each other up, murdering each other's children - it's sadly so common that it doesn't always rate as news.
But it can do, if the numbers are big enough.
Right now the numbers are big enough.
The civilised world - which pointedly does not include Russia, confirmation of which we've had this month - is aghast at the vindictive mass slaughters ordered by Syria's President.
The bad news for Syrians is that Bashar al-Assad considers almost every Syrian not directly employed by him, or part of the armed forces or his security services as his enemy.
That's a lot of Syrians. And his forces are killing them as quickly as they can - all under the UN's noses.
In a biblical twist not missed by the West, which is seeking to apply humanitarian standards too often alien to that part of the world, Assad has adopted the role of a modern day King Herod.
Herod - taking notice of a bloke who these days would slot straight in to unwatched late-night television advertorials dealing tarot cards - decided he needed to kill every infant in Bethlehem, lest one of them grow up to usurp him.
The Massacre of the Innocents is one of the most disturbing moments in the Bible, but Assad has outperformed Herod in the past month. Here is a murderous tyrant who thinks infanticide is progress for his nation.
Assad must be eliminated. We could proudly take part in that and Julia Gillard should feel free to put my taxes at work to that end.
Not to do so is to sit by idly while he creates a modern-day holocaust not seen since, well, let's be honest, Bosnia.
In recent days, there have been several massacres in Syria, the two most recent pricking the conscience of the UN, which is no easy task.
In the village of al-Kubeir last Wednesday, Assad's troops shelled the area and then shot or stabbed the survivors and burned many of the bodies.
Leith al-Hamwy, hiding among olive trees, survived. But the troops murdered his mother and six of his siblings, including 10-year-old twins.
There were "bodies everywhere", he said. "Entire families shot or killed with sharp sticks and knives."
At least 55 were slaughtered at al-Kubier, but perhaps 80.
On May 25, at another village, Houla, similar scenes played out when 108 defenceless locals were murdered, 49 reported to be children. Assad's noble warriors had clipped blue plastic wrist ties to some of the kids before their execution.
That former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has been charged with trying to negotiate a solution to Syria's inexorable slide to certain and dreadful civil war is just one of the problems faced by that blighted nation.
On Annan's watch as head of the UN's peacekeeping operations we saw the unmatched brutality at Srebrenica where sometime poet, but full-time butcher Radovan Karadzic organised the massacre of 8000 Muslim boys and men.
On Annan's watch the world also witnessed the unprecedented genocidal rampage of the Hutus against the Tutsis in Rwanda, during which 800,000 people - one in six Rawandans - were murdered, most in just 100 days.
Annan said he could have "done more". Was he sacked? Did he resign? No, he was made UN chief!
Things in Syria are complicated, not least of which by Russia, the rogue state's main booster and arms supplier.
Assad is reported to have moved about $6 billion to Moscow in recent days. That's where he'll end up living, beyond the reach of international law, as soon as the egotistical mass killer realises his days are up.
Meanwhile, Russian-supplied arms and ammunition kill the innocents.
Predictably, President Vladimir Putin is opposed to the sorts of trade embargoes that might cripple this evil regime and so the UN, hopelessly discredited at the best of times, once again bears a title that mocks its vicious, self-serving disunity.
Alan Howe is Herald Sun executive editor
From: Herald Sun
June 11, 2012 12:00AM
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/kofi-break-bad-news/story-fn56avn8-1226390531691
ARABS killing Arabs - shooting each other, gassing each other, blowing each other up, murdering each other's children - it's sadly so common that it doesn't always rate as news.
But it can do, if the numbers are big enough.
Right now the numbers are big enough.
The civilised world - which pointedly does not include Russia, confirmation of which we've had this month - is aghast at the vindictive mass slaughters ordered by Syria's President.
The bad news for Syrians is that Bashar al-Assad considers almost every Syrian not directly employed by him, or part of the armed forces or his security services as his enemy.
That's a lot of Syrians. And his forces are killing them as quickly as they can - all under the UN's noses.
In a biblical twist not missed by the West, which is seeking to apply humanitarian standards too often alien to that part of the world, Assad has adopted the role of a modern day King Herod.
Herod - taking notice of a bloke who these days would slot straight in to unwatched late-night television advertorials dealing tarot cards - decided he needed to kill every infant in Bethlehem, lest one of them grow up to usurp him.
The Massacre of the Innocents is one of the most disturbing moments in the Bible, but Assad has outperformed Herod in the past month. Here is a murderous tyrant who thinks infanticide is progress for his nation.
Assad must be eliminated. We could proudly take part in that and Julia Gillard should feel free to put my taxes at work to that end.
Not to do so is to sit by idly while he creates a modern-day holocaust not seen since, well, let's be honest, Bosnia.
In recent days, there have been several massacres in Syria, the two most recent pricking the conscience of the UN, which is no easy task.
In the village of al-Kubeir last Wednesday, Assad's troops shelled the area and then shot or stabbed the survivors and burned many of the bodies.
Leith al-Hamwy, hiding among olive trees, survived. But the troops murdered his mother and six of his siblings, including 10-year-old twins.
There were "bodies everywhere", he said. "Entire families shot or killed with sharp sticks and knives."
At least 55 were slaughtered at al-Kubier, but perhaps 80.
On May 25, at another village, Houla, similar scenes played out when 108 defenceless locals were murdered, 49 reported to be children. Assad's noble warriors had clipped blue plastic wrist ties to some of the kids before their execution.
That former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has been charged with trying to negotiate a solution to Syria's inexorable slide to certain and dreadful civil war is just one of the problems faced by that blighted nation.
On Annan's watch as head of the UN's peacekeeping operations we saw the unmatched brutality at Srebrenica where sometime poet, but full-time butcher Radovan Karadzic organised the massacre of 8000 Muslim boys and men.
On Annan's watch the world also witnessed the unprecedented genocidal rampage of the Hutus against the Tutsis in Rwanda, during which 800,000 people - one in six Rawandans - were murdered, most in just 100 days.
Annan said he could have "done more". Was he sacked? Did he resign? No, he was made UN chief!
Things in Syria are complicated, not least of which by Russia, the rogue state's main booster and arms supplier.
Assad is reported to have moved about $6 billion to Moscow in recent days. That's where he'll end up living, beyond the reach of international law, as soon as the egotistical mass killer realises his days are up.
Meanwhile, Russian-supplied arms and ammunition kill the innocents.
Predictably, President Vladimir Putin is opposed to the sorts of trade embargoes that might cripple this evil regime and so the UN, hopelessly discredited at the best of times, once again bears a title that mocks its vicious, self-serving disunity.
Alan Howe is Herald Sun executive editor
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