The New Yorker Festival 2013: Obama & the World Panel

A panel with the Syrian activist Ammar Abdulhamid, The New Yorker’s Dexter Filkins, the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation’s Andranik Migranyan, and the New America Foundation’s Anne-Marie Slaughter took place on October 6 as part of  The New Yorker Festival 2013.  The panel was moderated by Steve Coll, the New Yorker staff writer and the dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, and was attended by around 200 participants. The photos were just released.

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The Weapons Behind the Ghouta Attack

The Weapons Behind the Ghouta Attack: The New Yorker.

Whether it’s the massacres in Houla, Darya, Bayda, or the chemical weapons attack in Ghoutah, the evidence is overwhelming and the perpetrator known: the Assad regime and its militias. Yet, no one did anything, and world leaders keep speaking of a political solution, as though someone who commits such crimes can be induced to embrace politics, or have not gone beyond the pale. These crimes against humanity are enabled by the crimes perpetrated by world leaders against our sanity and decency. Knowing the truth makes little difference in a world intent on ignoring its responsibility towards it. So a genocide unfolds again, and people rush to bury their heads in the sand, again. Its timing was inconvenient, we are told. O Lord, when we will you grant us criminals who are more considerate? I am sure this is the essence of Obama’s nighttime prayers.

Syria talks should focus on fighting ‘terrorists’: Russia

Syria talks should focus on fighting ‘terrorists’: Russia | Reuters.

Lavrov is right in that the fight in Syria has always been against “terrorists,” but terrorists in our midst come in many flavors and he can only taste one. That’s why his country remains part of the problem.