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Monday, April 8, 2013

November 2012:  Israel attacked the Gaza district of Palestine.


If a Jew were in my shoe, singular, because my parents could afford to buy only one pair of shoes (made in China) that I share with my sister and that, for fun, we sometimes swap left and right depending on the political mood of the country, a country that we don't have... I digress. 

If a Jew were in my shoe and lived on the seashore where Asia meets Africa.. The Jew would see soldiers in uniformed moustaches with two dark lines extending from the tip of the upper lip up to the nostrils. "Ari" was their name, each one of them! I hear glass breaking, again! and it's daytime but the Jew in my shoe thinks it's night, the night of the broken glass, kristallnacht! It's like a weird dream where me and my shoe and the Jew are scared of the soldiers with the black moustaches but this time the soldiers are the Jew, the Jew in my shoe! How could that be? The Jew was supposed to understand.. but the Jew took my shoe! 

Gaza girl.

Syria, now what?


Knowing what we know today about what has happened in Syria in the last two years, the thousands that died, the refugees, said to be in the millions, the destruction of historic landmarks, neighborhoods, towns and cities etc..

Knowing all that today would the powers that fed this "revolution" do the same thing today?
What could be done today to end the killing and the suffering?

Tunis is not a model to topple Arab leaders.   Egypt and Libya had different results and the African trio's revolutions are far from over.   Bahrain is quiet in the western media.. so the west does not look favorably on toppling Arab leaders that follow certain policies compliant to American interests, or so it seems!

When the Jordanians started acting up, American help in the form of money found its way to the Jordanian capital.  Money, channeled properly, seemed to cool things a bit there.

You can tell much about American and Israeli interests by the moves of one US senator..John McCain and his buddy, now retired, another staunch supporter of Israel, x US senator Lieberman who had been seen in video and photographs whispering in McCain's ear what to say at press conferences while touring the "Middle East"..  So, McCain goes to Libya, arms the rebels and brings the demise of Qaddafi in a short period of time.  After 40 years of his reign, the west saw fit the removal Qaddafi.  And the question is why now?

Trouble in Syria!! McCain stands on the senate floor and says let's arm Syrian rebels.  Al Qaeda and Al Nusra are enlisted and so is Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia providing enough to bleed Syria but not enough to bring down the Assad regime quick enough.. which would theoretically save lives, unless of course some Afghani-Taliban style Islamists take hold of the country, as they did in some small town in Syria, and try to impose a style of living that  the indigenous Syrian population does not know nor would approve of.  That would lead to bloodshed of a different sort and for other reasons.

Bleeding Syria seems to be the end game that might also weaken other players in the region.  In Lebanon there are people that support and others not, the Assad regime.   And this could start another fire in a place that needs it the least.

Before March 2011 Syrians did not enjoy freedoms of a free country, many wished to travel abroad and stay abroad dreaming of a better life.  Americans too want to find a place where the economy is good and jobs are plentiful and they too are having a hard time.  The difference is that, here in the US, the government keeps printing money and keeps borrowing money, in the trillions and any economist would tell you that this is not good.  There are people protesting and many movements such as the Occupy people, they  demonstrate from sea to shining sea however, another difference between the US and Syria here is that there is no Syrian senator McCain to arm these American rebels.

So, knowing what we know today about the events of the past 2 years on the Syrian scene:
1- Would the players make the same moves leading to the same results we see today?  and
2-  What's done is done.  What can be done to end it?