Frightening parallels

In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent, Robert Fisk draws frightening and all too familiar parallels between was happened in Srebrenica to what is now happening in Homs, Syria.

"No entry to the International Red Cross. Not yet. Maybe in a few days, when the area has been secured. Men and boys separated from the women and children. Streams of refugees. Women, children, the old, few males. Stories of men being loaded on to trucks and taken away. Destination unknown. Devastation. No journalists, no freedom of movement for the UN. The place was called Srebrenica."

And:

"Our brave leaders have spent much time telling us how they absolutely, totally and completely refuse to interfere militarily in Syria. And odd, isn't it, how we're almost as keen to publicise our impotence over Syria as we are to threaten Iran over its real or mythical nuclear weapons programme, when Iran isn't massacring anyone at all. The West's R2P – "right to protect" – isn't given out freely, especially if the victims are a little too near the fault-lines of the Middle East to be worthy of our guardianship."

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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