A year ago, I wrote a post entitled “From DC to Damascus: Where Are All the Good Men?” I ended that article with the title question: Where are all the good men?
To date, I haven’t found a satisfactory answer.
In late June, at this year’s Aspen Ideas Festival, a composer from Syria began as the first in a string of afternoon panel presenters and discussions. Featured guests included Mitt Romney, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, NPR legend Nina Totenberg, CBS News anchor John Dickerson, and other big names in politics, media, and money.
But none came close to the impression Malek Jandali made. He opened his piano pieces by talking of the ongoing civil war in Syria, how many children have been killed by Bashar al-Assad, and what a devastation this monstrous evil was, for all people. Jandali shared the little known fact that the first written music known to mankind was found in Syria. He played a gorgeous piece composed around those ancient notes.
(Jandali is the first gust, after a brief introductory note. You absolutely can, but there is no need to, watch the entire three hours of conversation):
Jandali closed with a story of a Syrian boy who lay on an operation table, having been mortally wounded by a bomb. He looked at the doctor, and before he passed away said that he was going to “tell God everything.”
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Last week, the photo of Syrian boy Omran Daqneesh captured the world’s attention. He sat on an orange ambulance chair, covered in soot and blood. Later, his brother would die from injuries suffered in the same bombing that put Omran on the world’s radar.
But he’s not the first child to capture international attention. Last year, the body of Aylan Kurdi washed up on a beach, the three year old drowned in a failed escape attempt.
Outrage ensued. People were horrified.
Nothing changed.
Here’s the truth: until Bashar al-Assad is completely defeated, these horrific attacks on children will continue. That his forces are commanded to specifically target hospitals is proven by the recent move of many to underground facilities.
Jandali closed with a story of a Syrian boy who lay on an operation table, mortally wounded from a bomb. The boy looked at the doctor, and before he passed away, said that he was going to “tell God everything.”
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Assad will not stop, and he is not constrained by normal rules of engagement. He has used sarin gas on his own population. He has tagged dissenters with that old standby of human evil: numbers in place of names. We only know this because a government photographer risked his life to document the tortured bodies, and smuggled them out to America. He goes by the code name “Caesar” and has testified before Congress on the brutality of Assad’s regime.
What has all this exposure accomplished?
In a year, what has been done to stop Assad?
Nothing. Simply: nothing.
Instead, we have a president who promised consequences if the “red line” of chemical weapons use occurred. Well, it did. And there were no consequences.
Instead, we have two presidential candidates who respectively describe Assad-ally Vladimir Putin as “interesting,” and a wannabe “best friend.”
Putin is targeting those hospitals filled with kids.
What in the everlasting h*** is going on with American politicians?
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Part of the problem, I think, is with the way media caters to what we, the customers, supposedly want.
We want the scandal of Trump outrage. We want the scheming of the rich and powerful. We want sexy, exciting stories.
I do not think the media is right. I think if Syrian war coverage became a standard, an across the board daily staple news feature, Americans would listen. And they would care.
And they should care. Our government failed utterly to save the lives of over 250,000 Syrians killed thus far by Assad. And make no mistake, our government could have done something. Later during the course of the Aspen Ideas Festival, I would hear General Petraeus say that had Obama acted on his threat, and bombed Syrian air bases back in 2013, it is at least plausible that none of this descent into hell would have transpired.
Please think about that.
Children are being bombed, targeted specifically. Political dissidents were picked out, rounded up, routinely tortured, and buried away as if they had never existed at all. Sarin gas was released on a civilian population.
Millions of refugees are flooding into Europe.
This is the story we should be paying attention to, and if you want to get up in arms about injustice, please allow me to implore: start here.
Because if God is real, and that little Syrian boy does tell everything, then our inaction and willful oblivion will condemn us too.
If nothing else, history will rightfully judse our self-absorption in the face of genocide as what I think it is: complacent acceptance that the suffering and murder of middle-easterners is just fine.
Photo: Getty Images