1 So wheres AMESTY INTERNATIONAL where the usial liberal wussies where the usial birdcage linners that are always making comments?

2 Horrible news. A Kurds serves in the Syrian army and is killed by Syrian troops. Horrible.

3 Sandpiper here is the link to the Amnesty International webpage devoted exclusively to Syria. I found it by googling Amnesty Internatioal Syria. There most recent item was April 3rd.

4 http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/syria/news.do AMNESTY INTERNATIONA SYRIA

5 Arab nationalists? Barbarians? I totally didn't know. Anyway, yes, the entire middle east is run and populated by barbarians*. This is not news. Scan some news items for Africa some time - ho-hum and other comments. The silly part that nobody realizes is that even dictatorships do not govern without the consent of the governed. Through a combination of force, fear and moralistic stances, the powers-that-be in Arabia have gotten the de facto consent of the (vast?) majority of the arab population. Yes, the choice is to leave the country, rebel or give your support (through tax dollars, or just contributing to the economy, or whatever) to the government. The plain fact of the matter is this kind of stuff cannot (currently) happen in the USA - the people here would not tolerate it. Now, ask yourself this: if these people are more than willing to submit to dictatorships, whats preventing them from just voting in next week's flavor of islamism or arab nationalism into dictatorial power? But democracy is democracy, right? *There are exceptions. Most of them reside in the US or are getting here as quickly as possible.

6 Yes but ABU GHRAIB! GUANTANAMO! DOMESTIC WIRETAPPING! DICK CHENEY SHOT SOMEONE!!!

7 Dick Chaney shot someone? Are you sure, IM?

8 Well done, John Ryan. Nice to see facts introduced to counter rhetoric. Anyone that knows anything about Amnesty knows that they would be on Syria like white on rice. Just because they don't always support violent overthrows of government doesn't mean they don't criticize those governments. And just because they criticize our human rights abuses doesn't mean they are blind to Syria's. As for this unfortunate Kurd: the Kurdish people's dream for a Kurdistan is one of the great unsolved problems of the region. It was the same at Versailles. They are, along with the Palestinians, one of the largest stateless ethnic groups in the world--and they have a much more distinctive "nation" than the Palestinians. Yet, in their own "kurdistan" of N. Iraq, they are behaving with increasing brutality and authoritarianism. Meanwhile Kurdish extremism is on the rise again in Eastern Turkey. When Iraq falls into a bigger civil war, I think Kurdistan goes up in flames. This has security implications for Turkey, Iran, and Syria...won't be pretty.

9 just because they don't always support violent overthrows of government doesn't mean they don't criticize those governments. Yes, just imagine how many world problems have been resolved by criticizing Governments, with strongly worded letters, or scathing speeches in front of a microphone, I hear Iran trembles when Kofi gets out his pen.

10 "The silly part that nobody realizes is that even dictatorships do not govern without the consent of the governed." Uh, royal families that inherit thrones without a vote? Fraud at the polls? Military coups? I wouldn't call that "consent".

11 So JD, you support the brutal repression of the Kurds then?

12 No, IM, I don't. In a perfect world, the colonial powers would have carved a Kurdistan out of the collapsing Ottaman empire at Versailles, or in the upheaval of British departure from Iraq. Now, the millions of Kurds are spread out among Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria (fewest in Syria, incidentally). They deserve to live under governments that allow them to speak their unique language and practice their unique culture. I've met many Kurds in my time, and I respect their aspirations for freedom. In fact, when I was in Istanbul, I really pissed off some Turkish friends by pressing too hard for Kurdish freedoms. But what is the solution? Kurds want to take land from all four of those nations. The maps of Kurdistan they fly in N. Iraq are not just Iraqi Kurdistan. They include huge chunks of each of those nations, as well as Kirkuk and Mosul, cities in Iraq with large Turkomen or Arab populations. We, the US, have fucked over the Kurds several times, abandoned them in 73 and then again in 85, when we deepened our relations with Saddam, and then again in 91, when we encouraged a revolt and then stood back (although we eventually did hte right thing). But what is the right policy on Kurdish aspirations? I have some ideas. What do you think?

13 "Uh, royal families that inherit thrones without a vote? Fraud at the polls? Military coups? I wouldn't call that "consent"." If you do not rebel or leave, you are consenting to live under their rule. The choice is certainly less easy than casting a ballot - indeed, it often entails putting your life in danger - but that is certainly no excuse to passively accept a despot. There are no "innocent civilians" in Iraq. They all contributed their share to the problem - in fact, their own cowardice and complacency is the reason that we're there in the first place. Similarly, there are no "innocent civilians" in any other mideast dictatorship. Bush ought to remember that these people have all chosen that silent suffering under a dictator is better than standing up for freedom, the next time he tries to pass around his nonsense about how democracy will make everything better.

14 This is very interesting, MiB. I agree that even the most brutal dictatorship relies on the submission and consent of the governed. This goes back to Hobbes. But I must say that there are innocent civilians in Iraq and throughout the Arab world. Here are some examples: 1. Those who were not yet adults when Saddam fell (A large percentage of the population, incidentally). You can't ask a 15 year old to understand that rebellion is the only option, when every adult he knows tells him that those who rebel against Saddam end up getting their parents and family killed. 2. Those who were living in our no-fly zones from 92-2003. They had no reason to rebel, since they were not under Saddam's direct control anymore. This is particularly true in the North, since it was the great dream of Kurdish nationalism to establish their own (unfortunately corrupt and authoritarian) regimes. 3. Those who were, in fact, rebelling against Saddam. There were many domestic opponents of his regime, who lost tongues, ears, limbs, and yet lived. Surely they are "innocent" by your definition. Call it 20-30% of the population. That's a lot of innocents, millions of them. Finally--I myself am not so quick to judge those living under one of the world's most brutal dictatorships. It would be nice to think that we would all be Patrick Henry's, bravely saying "give me liberty or give me death". But at the cost of seeing your mother raped and killed in front of you? Then your daughter? Then your son? While electrodes are put on your genitals? It's easy for us, in the US, where liberty has not been seriously under threat in that fashion EVER, unless one were black in the age of slavery or Jim Crow, to criticize them for not resisting. But I just don't know, sitting amid easy wealth and freedom, that I would possess that kind of heroic courage.

15 Mib: You did hear that the Iraq desert is full of mass graves of 'dissidents' who did rebel in some form or other right? some of them didn't even pick up a weapon and had themselves and their immediate family wiped from the genepool. To sit back and say that if you didn't try and fight Saddam's regime they're all cowards is an arrogant point of view.

16 I think his point, such as it is, is that the living ones are cowards, and only the dead had courage. Surviving Saddam is prove of pusillanimity.