May 3, 2013 What exactly are President Barack Obama’s red lines when it comes to the crisis in Syria, and when does crossing them translate into actual global action? This week, reports released by the Syrian National Coalition, the opposition party recognized by the U.S., show that Bashar al-Assad’s regime has used chemical weapons against his own citizens. How much more evidence do we need before we finally step in and stop the atrocities?
According to the latest estimates from the United Nations, more than 70,000 Syrians have been killed and more than one million have been displaced in this two-year conflict. The bloodiest month thus far was March of this year, which claimed 6,000 lives. As if these numbers aren’t outrageous enough, al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons goes beyond a dictator attempting to quell a revolution; this is Saddam Hussein-style tyranny.
The international community has much to be concerned with: trade, development, world security and the most pressing issue being the responsibility to protect others.
When has it ever been acceptable for a nation to lose on average 3,000 lives a month? It’s a volatile situation on the ground, and high risks can lead to high dividends. The international community needs to stop al-Assad and his cronies from exercising anymore shame on our collective conscience.
A post from yesterday reported that in a sermon last month, Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi pleaded with the US to intervene militarily in Syria. However in 2004, Qaradawi issued a fatwa (religious legal opinion) permitting the abduction and killing of American civilians in Iraq in order to pressure the American army to evacuate its forces.
Interestingly, on September 2006 five years after the 911 attacks, MPAC leader Mather Hathout was a arguing against the use of “brute force” by the US, claiming that it was the cause of terrorism (See source below):
There are worries that the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon are silencing the voices of politically moderate Muslims and shoving a generation of embittered Middle Eastern youth into the arms of extremists. There should be no surprises when we decide brutal force is a way of conflict resolution,” said Hathout, a retired cardiologist. “It offers a golden opportunity for extremists to recruit. Anger plus despair equals terrorism.”
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) was established originally in 1986 as the Political Action Committee of the Islamic Center of Southern California whose leaders had backgrounds suggesting they were associated with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. MPAC has since developed into the political lobby arm of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and has opposed almost every counterterrorism action proposed or carried out by the U.S. government, often suggesting that the efforts were aimed at the U.S. Muslim community. MPAC has also acted to support a variety of Palestinian terrorist organizations as well as facilitating a wider range of terrorism by defending or justifying violence carried out by Islamic groups. MPAC and its leaders have made anti-Semitic statements that assert or imply an organized Jewish effort to defame and exclude U.S. Muslims from U.S. political life and has engaged in frequent and virulent demonization of Israel including describing Israeli actions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a “rape of the soul of the Islamic people”, asserting that the objective of Israeli actions in Gaza was “gross killings of Palestinian civilians, including women and children”, and accusing supporters of Israel of using tactics similar to Hitler’s. In December 2009, MPAC reported that “Israeli doctors had extracted human organs from dead Palestinians during the 1988 intifada and into the 1990s.” MPAC has developed particularly extensive relationships with agencies of the U.S. government including meetings with the Department of Justice and the FBI.
(Source: “SEPT. 11, 2001: FIVE YEARS LATER; Reaching Out To Build Trust; U.S. Muslims’ Efforts Help, Strife Abroad Doesn’t, Leaders Say” The Press Enterprise September 11, 2006, Monday)
