Syria: Our Shame, Arab Shame

President Obama and the mainstream libertarians I know agree with dictator Assad of Syria that if its bloody tyranny fell, Syria would soon be dominated by Islamists, enemies of America and of the West in general.

I don’t think anyone ever believed that the Kofi Annan “peace plan” for Syria would do any good. The UN is for the most part an ineffectual organization, (for which ineffectualness I am grateful most of the time). Kofi Annan was just one of the ineffectual non-leaders of that non-effectual organization organization. I remember his administration well. The best I can say about it is that his French is pretty good.

His peace plan was always a transparent excuse for doing nothing while pretending to do something about the on-going massacre of women and children by a modern army. The official US policy is a cynical ploy to pretend that the plan would somehow work in stopping the killing. I wrote months ago that the least we Americans could do was to shoot Syrian tanks (and now helicopters) from the sky without warning. I argued then, I argue now, that it would make Assad’s wobbly army nervous, a good thing any way you look at it.

The Assad regime has supported terrorists for thirty years. It is responsible for the death of many Americans in Iraq. It’s the main ally, a useful ally, of a regime of which the Obama administration says it should not be allowed to get a nuclear bomb while that same regime is working hard to get exactly that. It should be an easy call for any US government. It’s not because?

Whether or not the post-Assad Syria will be run by Islamists, no one knows. It could happen. What do you expect? That Arabs who detest tyranny will automatically go back to the good old days of the Magna Carta and of the US Bill of Rights, to the good old days that aren’t their good old days, in other words? The current murderous situation is not acceptable. Therefore, the risk of some sort of Islamist take-over is worth running. If you don’t believe this, think of what you actually believe: Why not maintain this stance, “not our business,” until every Syrian who is not a supporter of the Assad regime is murdered? Would three million slaughter victims be alright with you because we are so afraid of Islamists”? How about six million? (That’s not even a third of the population of Syria.)

Here is a simple ethical rule: If you have the means to stop or impede great evil and you don’t you are evil yourself.

Today, I am ashamed to be an American because of our passivity with respect to the slaughter of Syrian seekers for freedom. And if I were an Arab, from any country, I would be twice more ashamed.

Where are the brave volunteers who were so eager to kill the American killers of the monster Saddam Hussein? Where are they when the time comes to protect their brothers from yet another one of their home-grown monsters?