BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON | DEC 20, 2016
“My belief is that when the military is used as the sole instrument of power, that never has a good outcome. If there’s no one to take ownership and develop that failed state, human suffering can be even worse than that created by the conflict itself. “
— Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Army General Martin Dempsey
For decades the sole instrument of power in Syria has been the military, an instrument of death and destruction wielded by the dictatorial family of Assad, a father and son who have carried out unimaginable atrocities against their own people illustrating the unlimited potential of man’s inhumanity to man.
The numbers don’t do the Syrian genocide justice. But they help tell the story. In just five years, almost 11 million human beings have been forced from their homes by bombs, gunfire, chemical weapons, and torture, left wandering the globe seeking refuge. Three million have fled to Turkey, one million to Lebanon, 655,000 to neighboring Jordan, 228,000 to Iraq, and more to Greece.
They are the lucky ones.
At least a half million have died, many women and children. That’s the equivalent of wiping out the entire city of Minneapolis. More innocents are trapped in Aleppo and other Syrian cities and towns, not really sure who the enemy is, not caring because all of the combatants are killing and injuring them, separating them from their families and leaving the dead to be hauled away in wheel barrows.
The devastation just in Aleppo is very hard to watch, even in the quick 30-second film bursts on the network news shows. They come right after more important news, like where Trump’s daughter may sit in the White House. There it is, an entire city looking like Berlin after World War II, mangled concrete and steel, people roaming through the streets, and the most revolting scene, young children huddled in bombed-out buildings begging for someone to wake them from the nightmare, not even flinching at the sound of another bomb exploding. The city appears from the drones overhead that there is nothing left over which Assad and Vladimir Putin can claim victory. There are no spoils for the victors in Syria, only rubble.
“Historians will record—they will not have to dig deeply or interpret wildly to conclude—that all through the excruciations of Aleppo, and more generally of Syria, the United States watched,” Leon Wieseltier of the Brookings Institution wrote recently in the Washington Post.
“If Obama wants credit for not getting us into another war, the credit is his…If he wants credit for conceiving of every obstacle and impediment to American action, in every corner of the globe, the credit is his,” Wieseltier wrote. “But it is a shameful and incontrovertible fact of history that during the past eight years the values of rescue, assistance, protection, humanitarianism, and democracy have been demoted in our foreign policy and in many instances banished altogether. The ruins of the finest traditions of American internationalism, of American leadership in a darkening world, may be found in the ruins of Aleppo.”
It was President Obama who “spoke of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian boy who washed up dead on a beach in Turkey, during a UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants,” Wieseltier wrote. “‘That little boy, on the beach could be our son or our grandson,’ the president was quoted as saying. ‘We cannot avert our eyes or turn our backs,’” he said.
But then, Wieseltier noted, “we then proceeded to avert our eyes and turn our backs.”
The spectacle of the President drawing red lines on chemical weapons, claiming that we must never be bystanders, and our globe-trotting Secretary of State declaring one victory after another in his agreements with Iran and his series of cease-fires in the Middle East, juxtaposed over the scenes in Aleppo are an international embarrassment as egregious as what spews forth from our President-Elect. The current Administration’s embarrassments have had deadly consequences.
It is not just Aleppo and the supplanting of American leadership by the Russians and Iranians. It is the same, with some less consequence and less press coverage around the globe. In South Sudan, the newest country on the planet, 3.9 million are at risk of starvation. Thousands are already dead. Another 2.3 million are on the run. Boko Haram insurgencies in Nigeria are creating the same crises. Similar tragedy is occurring in Chad, Somalia, and other countries in Africa. Crisis exists in Myammar, where 30,000 Muslims have fled across the border. Jordan and Egypt, Lebanon and Greece have been further destabilized, crushed by the weight of refugees. Did I mention Ukraine?
“We cannot avert our eyes or turn our backs.”
But we do.
A greek friend sent me this from a young English poet:
“I don’t know why everyone
is still trying to find out
whether heaven and hell exist.
Why do we need more evidence?
They exist here on this very Earth.
Heaven is standing atop Mount Qasioun
overlooking the Damascene sights
with the wind carrying Qabbani’s
dulcet words all around you.
And hell is only four hours away
in Aleppo where children’s cries
drown out the explosions of mortar bombs
until they lose their voice,
their families, and their limbs.
Yes, hell certainly does exist
right now, at this moment,
as I pen this poem. And all we’re doing
to extinguish this hellfire
is sighing, shrugging, liking, and sharing.
Tell me: what exactly does that make
us? Are we any better than the
gatekeepers of hell?”
~Kamand Kojouri
We all understand that these tragedies are not the sole responsibility of the American people, and President Obama isn’t the only leader in absentia. These crises are international in scope and consequence whether they are rooted in civil war or international religious or political strife. The entire membership of the United Nations is to blame. Civilized society is to blame.
But blame accomplishes nothing. Only leadership does, and if it has to be one leader nurturing other leaders and those leaders creating other leaders until there is an international coalition of conscience effectively bringing about change, then so be it; that one leader can and should be our leader.
Merry Christmas.
Editor’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff. He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.