[Gunnair]

Quote:

As the news from Syria grows darker, the silence from the left in Canada grows louder.

In Syria anti-government protesters have told reporters that President Bashar al-Assad’s police are using torture in an especially perverse way. It’s not for information gathering, since they can learn who opposes them by simply photographing demonstrators in the streets. Now they torture to terrify rebels by promising them a hideous death.

The police pick up men at random, keep them a few days, then return them to their families, the many signs of torture readable on their dead bodies. It’s not enough to kill demonstrators with tanks and snipers or have gunboats bombard the port of Latakia. The people are willing to face death. The police want them to fear torture as well. Seventy such deaths in detention have recently been documented, 40 of them in the city of Homs, a centre of anti-Assad feeling.

In the five months since the demonstrations began, the government has killed about 2,000 citizens. The official view is that the state is saving Syria from vicious gangs of criminals. State television reports that events are proceeding as they should.

Even Saudi Arabia and the Arab League have criticized Assad’s use of force. Barack Obama wants him to resign. So far, however, he remains committed to the homicidal style that kept his father’s Baath government in office for 29 years.

Last Saturday about 40 people with anti-Assad banners held a peaceful demonstration outside the embassy of Syria in Ottawa. They all appeared to be Syrians, according to the Ottawa Citizen reporter. They were talking about the monstrous government that’s ruling their homeland and the attempts by pro-Assad operatives in Canada to intimidate them.

But on that occasion, where were all the Canadian-born experts on the Middle East, those vociferous and self-righteous moralists, who come out of the woodwork every time Israel appears to be in violation of some UN resolution or strikes back against an outrage like the killing of the bus passengers on Thursday near Eilat?

Where, during the Syrian protest, were the massed student armies from York University and Concordia and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education? Where were the legions of academics and trade unionists who are always ready to declare what policy should be followed by the wise and the virtuous? Where, for that matter, were Dykes and Trans People for Palestine, who make such a great noise in Toronto and whose website proudly declares they support everyone’s rights?

It happens that the answers to these rhetorical questions are the same in each case: They were all at work on their next Israeli Apartheid campaign. The truth is that leftish Canadians have only one interest in the Middle East, the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis. That appears to be their entire foreign policy. They insist they are not prejudiced; they are devoted to human rights, nothing more.

But when they consider the world beyond Canada, and choose which cause deserves their energy, they usually select the Palestinians. Their chronically narrow focus on a single conflict is self-blinding. It produces a weird aberration of opinion.

When conflict appears elsewhere on the planet, whether it’s in Tibet or Sudan or Syria, our left-wing morality police go limp. They exhibit passion on one issue only. How can they be taken seriously?

In Philip Roth’s novel, Deception a Czech gentile in London asks her American Jewish lover, “Why does everyone around here hate Israel so much. Can you explain that?” Let’s grant, she says, that Israel is a terrible country. Her lover won’t grant that but she continues: “Still, there are many countries far more terrible. Yet the hostility to Israel is almost universal among the people I meet.” Why? How could that be?

He replies that it’s an article of faith among the left. They are wedded to unrealistic hopes for social justice and they resent Israel’s failure to live up to their ideals. People expect moral perfection from Israel and are appalled when Israel doesn’t deliver.

Israelis are expected to live by the highest standards and, in difficulty, “turn the other cheek.” Roth’s male character offers a shrewd point: “You criticize most harshly the people who behave best, or the least badly.”

That novel appeared 21 years ago. Since then, leftists have grown steadily angrier at Israel. Its strange destiny is to be the only open democracy in the Middle East, the only state with free speech and free judges — and to be nevertheless the favourite enemy of the Canadian left.

National Post

.

[jeff744]

Quote:

When conflict appears elsewhere on the planet, whether it’s in Tibet or Sudan or Syria, our left-wing morality police go limp. They exhibit passion on one issue only. How can they be taken seriously?

Better than being the right wing that will just look the other way from mass murdering regimes if they support the right guy.

[Wada]

My guess is that all the lefties are still trying to figure out why Canada is in Libya. Has Harper even mentioned Syria? and where were the righties in this scenario?

You keep laying this trash out there and expect people to eat it up.

[jeff744]

Wada wrote:

My guess is that all the lefties are still trying to figure out why Canada is in Libya. Has Harper even mentioned Syria? and where were the righties in this scenario?

You keep laying this trash out there and expect people to eat it up.

I just found it interesting that it completely ignored mentioning the right wing and how hey are basically just as guilty of ignoring situations but still only blamed the left wing. I'll have to remember to never read anything by the National Post.

EDIT: Just checked their wiki, yeah, National Post is about as credible and conservapedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_P ... ontroversy

[Wada]

To me it's all in the presentation. You don't invite friends over for a barbeque and serve their steaks on garbage can covers.

[andyt]

It's a compliment to Israel. Demonstrating in Canada against Syria will accomplish exactly nothing. Demonstrating against Israel at least has a chance of success because Israel is a democratic country within the pale of civilization.

[martin14]

jeff744 wrote:

Wada wrote:

My guess is that all the lefties are still trying to figure out why Canada is in Libya. Has Harper even mentioned Syria? and where were the righties in this scenario?

You keep laying this trash out there and expect people to eat it up.

I just found it interesting that it completely ignored mentioning the right wing and how hey are basically just as guilty of ignoring situations but still only blamed the left wing. I'll have to remember to never read anything by the National Post.

EDIT: Just checked their wiki, yeah, National Post is about as credible and conservapedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_P ... ontroversy

Wow, even directly presented with a story about Syria,

you still manage to dodge Syria.

Well done.

[BeaverFever]

The article is partisan garbage.

This isn't a left-right issue at all. Right-wing governments in the west have been equally ambiguous on the subject of intervening in the interests of of "Arabs". Reagan's descision to help both sides of the Iran-Iraq war and George Bush Sr's refusal to intervene or speak publicly on Saddam's crackdown on Kurds and Shiites post-Desert Storm come to mind. And western support for the opressive regimes of Mubarak, the Saudi Royal family and others in the region are ready examples. Regadless of what party is in power, the West intervenes in "Arab-Arab" conflicts selectively and only in their own interests. That always has been the case.

And on a technical note, it's bad form to cite the one example of inaction in Syria to make a general statement about "Arab-on-Arab" conflicts.

[jeff744]

BeaverFever wrote:

The article is partisan garbage.

This isn't a left-right issue at all. Right-wing governments in the west have been equally ambiguous on the subject of intervening in the interests of of "Arabs". Reagan's descision to help both sides of the Iran-Iraq war and George Bush Sr's refusal to intervene or speak publicly on Saddam's crackdown on Kurds and Shiites post-Desert Storm come to mind. And western support for the opressive regimes of Mubarak, the Saudi Royal family and others in the region are ready examples. Regadless of what party is in power, the West intervenes in "Arab-Arab" conflicts selectively and only in their own interests. That always has been the case.

And on a technical note, it's bad form to cite the one example of inaction in Syria to make a general statement about "Arab-on-Arab" conflicts.

It's the National Post, just a quick skim on wiki about them shows they are practically the equivalent to The Onion only trying to be serious.

[MeganC]

andyt wrote:

It's a compliment to Israel. Demonstrating in Canada against Syria will accomplish exactly nothing. Demonstrating against Israel at least has a chance of success because Israel is a democratic country within the pale of civilization.

That doesn't make sense. Because some country is really bad you don't say anything but a country that is mostly decent you protest?

[Gunnair]

jeff744 wrote:

BeaverFever wrote:

The article is partisan garbage.

This isn't a left-right issue at all. Right-wing governments in the west have been equally ambiguous on the subject of intervening in the interests of of "Arabs". Reagan's descision to help both sides of the Iran-Iraq war and George Bush Sr's refusal to intervene or speak publicly on Saddam's crackdown on Kurds and Shiites post-Desert Storm come to mind. And western support for the opressive regimes of Mubarak, the Saudi Royal family and others in the region are ready examples. Regadless of what party is in power, the West intervenes in "Arab-Arab" conflicts selectively and only in their own interests. That always has been the case.

And on a technical note, it's bad form to cite the one example of inaction in Syria to make a general statement about "Arab-on-Arab" conflicts.

It's the National Post, just a quick skim on wiki about them shows they are practically the equivalent to The Onion only trying to be serious.

Speaking of something trying to be serious, when are you changing your political symbol to Bloc?

[jeff744]

Gunnair wrote:

jeff744 wrote:

BeaverFever wrote:

The article is partisan garbage.

This isn't a left-right issue at all. Right-wing governments in the west have been equally ambiguous on the subject of intervening in the interests of of "Arabs". Reagan's descision to help both sides of the Iran-Iraq war and George Bush Sr's refusal to intervene or speak publicly on Saddam's crackdown on Kurds and Shiites post-Desert Storm come to mind. And western support for the opressive regimes of Mubarak, the Saudi Royal family and others in the region are ready examples. Regadless of what party is in power, the West intervenes in "Arab-Arab" conflicts selectively and only in their own interests. That always has been the case.

And on a technical note, it's bad form to cite the one example of inaction in Syria to make a general statement about "Arab-on-Arab" conflicts.

It's the National Post, just a quick skim on wiki about them shows they are practically the equivalent to The Onion only trying to be serious.

Speaking of something trying to be serious, when are you changing your political symbol to Bloc?

About the same time you start using credible sources.

[Gunnair]

jeff744 wrote:

Gunnair wrote:

jeff744 wrote:

It's the National Post, just a quick skim on wiki about them shows they are practically the equivalent to The Onion only trying to be serious.

Speaking of something trying to be serious, when are you changing your political symbol to Bloc?

About the same time you start using credible sources.

It really doesn't come as a surpise that anything you happen to disagree with is not a credible source. It must be how you exist in that narrow little world of yours.

[jeff744]

Gunnair wrote:

It really doesn't come as a surpise that anything you happen to disagree with is not a credible source. It must be how you exist in that narrow little world of yours.

No, I just make it a rule not to trust a source that utterly ignores the fact the right wing is just as guilty of ignoring Syria while it attacks the left wing for the same thing. I also don't trust a source that has been proven of being blatantly incapable of fact checking or is well known for being completely biased towards one side. If my world is narrow based on that is there even a word to describe how small yours is?

[DanSC]

The world can only be viewed in the context of Left. vs. Right. True story.