Syria: why the West meddling into a 3000 years old realm has failed
By Judith BELLO (USA)
Earlier this week I attended a panel on the ‘Syrian RefugeeCrisis’ at a college about 50 miles from my home at Rochester, NY where
there would be 2 other speakers, both professors at a school. One was a
philosophy professor who spoke about the ethics of war, and the other a
historian who spoke about the European response, and especially the
German response to the flood of refugees. They invited me to give some
background on Syria. Everyone was very enthusiastic and congenial.
There were about 100 people attending.
The philosophy professor basically said that the US had not done
enough – to manage the situation (get rid of Assad). The man who spoke
on Europe was very interesting and had a lot of good facts. He pointed
out that -Syrians were not the majority of refugees, -not all Syrian
refugees are fleeing Assad, -many Syrian ‘refugees’ were really
migrants, young men looking to get seed money to support their families
when the war ends. He also made a lot of clear points about the
specific issues faced by various EU countries. It was very
interesting. However, it later became clear that the only thing he
knows about the war in Syria is ‘barrel bombs’.
I introduced myself by saying that they would be hearing a
different perspective than they are accustomed to. A copy of my talk is
at the end of this note.
