Hell on Earth
“The Assad-led bombardment of eastern Ghouta, a Damascus suburb of about 400,000 people and one of the last rebel-held areas, is being called one of the most violent episodes of the seven-year war. Since Sunday at least 310 people, many of them children, have been killed. That’s in addition to nearly 500,000 Syrians killed countrywide since 2011,” editorializes the New York Times.
Bashar al-Assad, along with his Russian and Iranian allies, have unleashed a “new round of carnage” against civilians. Shame on them all, writes the new York Times. Ghouta, though technically part of a de-escalation zone, has actually been under siege for years. This week’s massive attack has only made things worse. “It seems intended to force rebels to surrender so the government can reclaim the territory. Most of the civilian casualties resulted from airstrikes on residential areas, the United Nations’ human rights office said. There have been signs that a government ground assault may soon follow.”
“Complicating things even more, the civil war between Mr. Assad and the opposition, once seen as the core of Syria’s instability, is now understood as just one element in a web of conflicts tearing Syria apart. In addition to Russia and Iran, Turkey, the United States and Israel all have a presence in Syria, and their competing interests are raising the specter of wider war, which must be avoided.”
“What of diplomatic solutions? Russia, after feigning to lead such an effort, lost credibility by siding with Mr. Assad and his route to more carnage. And while the State Department condemned the regime’s violence and named Russia as holding a “unique responsibility” for the suffering, Mr. Trump has effectively abandoned America’s international leadership role in the matter.”
“Unicef, the United Nations children’s agency, may have been more honest. Unable to muster more bromides, it issued a statement saying only, “No words will do justice to the children killed, their mothers, their fathers and their loved ones.””
A PR dream come true
“The Olympics has been a PR dream come true for the murderous Kim dictatorship,” write Gary Kasparov and Thor Halvorssen in the Washington Post. “South Korea’s Moon administration claims to be using the games to foster goodwill, but the reality is that the Hermit Kingdom has taken this opportunity to stage one of history’s great whitewashing operations, where the breathless focus is on the fashion style of the Dear Leader’s sister instead of his forced labor camps and police state.”
North Korea is the worst human rights violators, they write. Its leaders are complicit in oppressing the state’s citizens, and subjecting them to censorship and indoctrination.
“For decades, the regime has tried to maintain a strict censorship of all foreign news, books, movies, TV shows and more, and imposes severe punishments on anyone found consuming forbidden media. Individuals found consuming outside media can face long stints in the country’s reeducation centers, where they are worked nearly to death, tortured and abused by guards and underfed to the point of eating locusts and rats found on prison floors. In some cases, those caught with prohibited media are executed and, typically, such events are done in broad daylight with the local population forced to attend.”
“If South Korea and the rest of the free world want to win the information war against the North Korean tyranny, and prevent the regime from winning any more propaganda gold, we need to do more than just expose the regime’s crimes,” they write, going on to give a list of recommendations.
First, they write, the International Olympic Committee should bar the country from participating in future Olympics. Next, the world needs to actively counter North Korea’s propaganda war.
“North Koreans risk hard labor and torture just to access content that we take for granted in the free world. If we really want to help the North Korean people — if we truly care about them — then we must focus on helping them win the information war,” they write.
Britan vs the rest of the world
In The Guardian, Martin Kettle writes that the world is “clear-eyed about Brexit”— it’s a bad idea. Compiling a representative list of foreigner’s opinions on Brexit, Kettle writes that “these are three views from three people who do not know each other but who each know Britain’s oddities. Brexit is a pity. Brexit is stupid. Brexit is an act of English self-love.”
“But the bigger picture is that all three are right. They get it. And they speak for the overwhelming majority of the rest of the world – or at least the bit of the world that doesn’t welcome the weakening of the rules-based order, of international standards, and of open, pluralistic liberal societies,” Kettle writes.
“A reasonable person has to accept that Brexit may happen and that, if it does, life will go on. However, that does not justify or excuse Brexit. There are serious material and domestic political reasons for opposing it – the loss of jobs, higher-priced imports, weakened safeguards at work and elsewhere. But there is also a bigger picture. That bigger picture is the importance of liberal democracy’s ability to play the long global game.”
“Brexit brings nothing at all to this long game. It only undermines it. Our foreign friends see this from their vantage points. We also need to see it from ours. For Britain to do its bit in the world, Brexit must be softened and eventually reversed. It may take time. But we are in a long game,” he writes.