From the Archive ~ In the Wake of Houla
FROM THE ARCHIVE
IN THE WAKE OF HOULA
1 June 2012
THE CASE FOR SYRIA must be referred to the International Criminal Court. So announces a spokesperson on the floor of the United Nations Human Rights Conference.
When I wrote my last dispatch, Houla, of that atrocity on Saturday morning as the first reports came in, we could all be forgiven for presuming that it might perhaps at least push the Syrian Government into fully cooperating with Kofi Anan and the United Nations Peace-Keeping Force. We would all have been taken aback to be told that not only would the president insist that Houla was a double-feint by the rebels, but that a bus load of 13 factory workers would be taken off the bus within five days, and forced to chant slogans before being summarily executed then and there, where they stood or crouched.
These are either the actions of a government that is either
(a) ‘on the run’ and behind the scenes, crumbling, or
(b) feels so self-confident and solid enough as to behave in the manner that Hitler behaved as he subjugated nation after nation, and even before he caused total war to be declared upon the German People and to their ruination within five years.
Assad defies both the People of Syria and the international community.
And this man will, just as Hitler did, continue to do so while the international community flounders, prevaricates and temporises, and ‘twiddles its fingers’.
President Assad knows :
(a) that there is no western appetite for military intervention
(b) that he has the tacit support of Russia which would certainly oppose military intervention
We do, though, learn this morning that Russia is at least “embarrassed” by the Houla massacre. That’s a powerful diplomatic term.
So Assad has a blank cheque.
Hitler, too, had a blank cheque in 1938 but, history records, was one turned to stone a year later when Great Britain declared war on Germany whereas until then, that evil man had done all the running and jibing and invading. History also records his fate.
Where is China in all of this? They have gone mysteriously quiet.
In the corridors of power of the NATO countries, plans and counter-plans are at this very moment being drawn up to enable government to respond to different situations.
Kenneth Thomas Webb
Liverpool
June 1, 2012
All Rights Reserved
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
