Tortured logic 12-12-2014: ...German philosopher Theodor Adorno was once misquoted as saying that it was “impossible to write poetry after Auschwitz.” Well, after Syria it is simply impossible to listen to American self-righteousness. This is particularly true during the week when the world commemorates Human Rights Day. The question of American responsibility for the war in Syria is a matter of violent disagreement. Most Americans believe that Syria is such a mess that the United States can do almost nothing to alleviate the suffering there. Obama himself infamously referred to Syria as “somebody else’s civil war.” Civil wars are usually “somebody else’s,” but that hasn’t prevented the United States from intervening politically, or even militarily, to end conflicts around the world, from Bosnia to Somalia, and from Haiti to Lebanon. Some of these experiences were unhappy enough to dissuade Americans from repeating them. However, to this day there is also a parallel American sense of shame for failing to stop mass murder overseas. This feeling was notably expressed by Bill Clinton in a speech in Rwanda, recognizing America’s partial responsibility for having done nothing to end the 1994 genocide there. Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book in 2002 entitled A Problem From Hell in which she documented American inaction in the face of 20th-century genocides. The book was passionate and angry; an effort to explain why “time and again, decent men and women chose to look away” when faced with genocide. Today, Power is an important member of an administration that has chosen to look away from the crimes in Syria. She’s no doubt a decent woman, and on various occasions has made known her discomfort with the administration’s policy. But she has not chosen to resign, and until now no American official has done so over Syria, with the exception of Amb. Robert Ford. ...So, congratulations to America for having the courage to peel back the covering over [some of] its own crimes. But it should spare us the bits about moral authority and the early saints. One must bear a responsibility for crimes that he or she has the ability to stop but, instead, does nothing to prevent.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 16:33:06 +0000
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