“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.” —Orwell
The U.S. Must Act Against Assad by Eugene Robinson
President Obama has to punish Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s homicidal regime with a military strike.
Eugene Robinson
The editorial by this man Robinson (“Punish the homicidal maniac!” ) is just the same as one reproduced this week by the Korea Herald, written by none other than Tony Blair. The latter seems to call for an Iraq-style invasion/occupation of Syria. The editorial was titled “It is time to take action in the Middle East“.
This really is, face it, “warmongering”, strictly.
Both men assure the reader that toppling Syria’s government would be an act of self-defense. In so doing, they nestle themselves snugly into Orwell’s mold of the hypothetical pushers of “every war”, of course.
Blair’s final sentences:
They have to be defeated. We should defeat them, however long it takes, because otherwise they will not disappear. They will grow stronger, until we will reach another crossroads; at that point, there will be no choice.
This all makes me a bit dizzy. Blair seems to be talking about Radical Muslims, but isn’t the Syrian government sort of an Arab Fascist government? I mean, if “fascist” were not a pure pejorative (Orwell wrote an essay on the uselessness of the word “fascist” by the 1940s in English since English already has the word “bad”, I think is what he wrote). Syria’s government is not Radical-Islamic, and is actually trying to kill Radical Muslims on a daily basis, in this war.