Unreasonable!

Jimmy Carter and Robert Pastor wrote:

“These preconditions should not be controversial, but they mean that Syrian factions — and their supporters — would have to back down from their former unreasonable demands.”

Yeah, I guess demanding freedom from tyranny is really quite unreasonable. That’s why I guess, the U.S. did not support us, and pro-democracy activists and moderate rebels were left to face Assad’s killing machine, oiled by Russia and Iran, on their own, seeing that Saudi, Qatar and Turkey supported the other extreme.

Indeed, it will unequally “unreasonable” now to demand that a genocidal maniac be brought to justice. Genocide should be forgiven, because things can get worse, we are told. For whom, I wonder? For the Syrians who supported Assad’s genocidal venture? Or for the Syrians who stood by and watched as though the whole event was happening on Mars? Or, for neighboring countries who supported extremists on both sides? Or for Europe fearing a massive wave of immigration? Or the U.S. fearing the emergence of Al-Qaeda state on the shores of the Mediterranean, and right on the border of Israel?

At this stage, an agreement in Geneva wouldn’t make much of a difference in the lives of those suffering, so don’t expect their cooperation, don’t expect them to be “reasonable.” As for the Islamists, Al-Qaeda included, it’s no more reasonable to expect them to cooperate with the international community to see their dream of an Islamic state come to an end than to expect Assad to cooperate in bringing down the end of his regime. To me, it’s this expectation that is unreasonable: expecting genuine cooperation from those who are benefitting from the current mayhem is what’s unreasonable. So does expecting a wolf to make peace with a lamb, or a two-headed monster that is feasting on our flesh to come magically to its senses and turn vegan.

Genocidal maniacs and Fascists should be punished not appeased, else justice would lose all significance, and then, how can we ever have peace? “No justice, No Peace!,” as Afro-American civil rights activists taught us at one point. Or, to be more bluntly, as I am always want to do, justice denied is war enabled.  This “thing” in Syria, whatever you want to call it, – revolution, civil war, genocide, – this thing will last and will spread until we all have felt the fire, and Assad and his ilk, spawn and minions are no more. The price already paid for demanding our freedom has long reached that critical point where exacting more makes little difference, especially for those who lost everything. What’s “reasonable” will not work anymore, because in this case it will deny justice to victims and will reward the unjust. Count me among the Unreasonable!