Syria
I have this vision of Syria at the end of their current
civil war. I see a field stretching out
forever. This field is filled with destroyed buildings and dead bodies; human
bodies that stretch to the horizon.
Standing atop a mound of these bodies are two men, Bashar Al-Assad and
Vladimir Putin. They are shaking hands
and smiling. Above them stands a banner
that says, “Mission Accomplished!” There
is no question that Syria will end up a destroyed country with a leader who is
inexorably tied to Russia. I know that
this I a very dystopian view of things, but can you imagine any other outcome?
Some editorial writers have decried the west’s reaction to
the war in Syria. Maybe if we had done
something right at the beginning in 2011 things could have turned out
differently. But it was the season of
the “Arab Spring” and we were actively or tacitly supporting the efforts of “friendly”
rebels to overthrow dictatorial regimes.
As it turned out, only one of those movements had any successful
impact. The others either returned new
dictators or devolved into bloody civil wars.
This ongoing war in Syria is the result.
Once Russia stepped in to support Mr. Al-Assad, it left very little room
for the west to manoeuvre. The “pin prick” attack, as one commentator described
last week’s missile attack by the U.S., Britain and France, was maybe as far as
we can go and avoid a serious clash with Russia. Russia has a way of carrying out proxy wars in
someone else’s territory. For the west
to introduce thousands of troops, for that is what it would take to play a
meaningful roll, would open a whole new can of worms to the area. That region has already seen long, drawn-out
encounters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do
we want more of the same? And who would
we be fighting? Certainly not just the Assad
regime but several of the many factions already fighting in the country. Whose side would we take, for example,
between the Kurds, who have been the west’s ally, and the Turks, our partner in
NATO?
If I had an answer to this dilemma I would voice it loud and
clear, but I don’t. And neither, it
appears, has anyone else. Even those
editorial writers have only accusations, never suggestions.
Canada
Pipelines seem to be the topic of the last couple of weeks
as controversy over the Trans-Mountain continue in the headlines. The dispute between Alberta and British
Columbia calls into question the varying interests between provinces. That story, and another small one in the
papers about the Supreme Court’s decision that provinces have a right to limit
how much alcohol can be transported between provinces, begs the question of the
integrity of Confederation. Are we one
country or thirteen individual fiefdoms only held together by the money that is
dole out to the provinces by the federal government? One must wonder. If British Columbia can block a national
program what else can provinces do to other provinces or the country as a whole? We have already seen the same thing when the
actions of Quebec essentially sounded the death knell of the Energy East
pipeline. This pipeline would have benefited many people, particularly the Maritime Provinces who could have
weened themselves off their dependency on foreign oil. This program would have made sense for all of
Canada. If provinces can make laws that
contravene national laws and can convince the Supreme Court of their right to
do so, then it’s time to put up border crossings between every province and
territory.
