Mahler's Prodigal Son

Food for thought in this piece from FAIR (below) as the world witnesses hordes of people stream into Europe from, amongst other countries, Syria.    And of course there are all those Syrians who have fled Syria to find shelter (?) in what have become huge refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. "It didn’t take long for the universal and entirely justified outrage over a picture of a dead three-year-old to be funneled by the “do something” pundits to justify regime change in Syria. The “do something” crowd wants us to “do something” about the refugee crisis and “solve” the “bigger problem,” which, of course, involves regime change. To create the moral urgency and to tether the refugee crisis to their long-standing warmongering, these actors have to insist the US has “done nothing” about Syria. Here’s the Guardian editorial from Thursday:  The optimism of the Arab spring is spent. Colonel Gaddafi was a tyrant, yet Libya has unravelled violently in the afterm...

A sobering analysis (on Counterpunch ) of the death of Aylan Kurdis - sadly, but one of many - and the throng of refugees fleeing across Europe.... "Terrible pictures arrive onto social media of refugees from Syria and elsewhere, washed up on the shores of Europe. One in particular is particularly ghastly – the body of young Aylan Kurdi. He was only three. He was from the Syrian town of Kobane, now made famous as the frontline of the battle between ISIS and the Kurdish militias (largely the YPG and PKK). Aylan Kurdi’s body lay in a fetal position. Few dry eyes could turn away from that photograph. The Jordanian cartoonist Rafat Alkhateeb drew an image of Aylan Kurdi. The infant’s body lies on the other side of a barbed wire fence that separates him from the continents of the world. Children like Aylan Kurdi are disposable in the world’s imagination. Untold thousands of Syrian children have died in this conflict. Tens of thousands of children die in conflicts around the wor...

We all know that politicians would rather we didn't know what is, and isn't, going on in a country.      And it doesn't necessarily mean what political hew the country has.  The New York Times editorialises in " Foreign Journalists Under Fire " on the killing and arrest of journalists: "A kangaroo court in Egypt recently sentenced three journalists from the Al Jazeera English network to three years in prison for committing journalism. On Tuesday, in Azerbaijan, an award-winning investigative journalist was not allowed to finish her closing statement before a judge sentenced her to more than seven years in prison. Authorities in Turkey, meanwhile, took three journalists from VICE news, a media company, into custody last weekend, claiming, spuriously, that the journalists were aiding the Islamic State. Later in the week, police officers raided the office of another company that owns news outlets. These efforts by governments to silence journalists are h...

The USA, as many other countries, herald that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. A group of Palestinians - academics from various backgrounds - put the oft-repeated assertion to the test recently.   Perhaps not surprisingly they found the so-called democracy in Israel sorely missing, certainly so far as it relates to Palestinians and Arabs.    Their report appears on The Electronic Intifada . "US President Barack Obama, in a recent interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, reaffirmed his support and love for Israel because, as he claims, “it is a genuine democracy and you can express your opinions.” He further expressed his commitment to protecting Israel as a “Jewish state” by ensuring a “Jewish majority.” The US government’s support for the “Jewish state” has always been far more than rhetorical, backed by billions of dollars of military funding and consistent pro-Israel vetoes at the UN Security Council. We are a group of US-based ac...

Australia's PM has often been compared to George Bush - inept, foot-in-the-mouth statements, lack of judgement, intellectual cripple, bovver-boy, etc. etc.  Under the present Australian government, treatment of refugees has not only been inhuman, inhumane and simply indecent, but brutal to boot.    It's a subject taken up by The New York Times in yesterday's editorial. "Some European officials may be tempted to adopt the hard-line approach Australia has used to stem a similar tide of migrants. That would be unconscionable. Prime Minister Tony Abbott has overseen a ruthlessly effective effort to stop boats packed with migrants, many of them refugees, from reaching Australia’s shores. His policies have been inhumane, of dubious legality and strikingly at odds with the country’s tradition of welcoming people fleeing persecution and war. Since 2013, Australia has deployed its navy to turn back boats with migrants, including asylum seekers, before they could get close...

Credited to Patrick Chappette, The New York Times

All too often it is the innocents who suffer when there is war.    A UNICEF Report highlights the loss of education children are facing because of the various wars in the Middle East and North Africa. "Surging conflict and political upheaval across the Middle East and North Africa are preventing more than 13 million children from going to school, according to a UNICEF report released today. “It’s not just the physical damage being done to schools, but the despair felt by a generation of schoolchildren who see their hopes and futures shattered.” The report, “Education Under Fire,” focuses on the impact of violence on schoolchildren and education systems in nine countries* that have been directly or indirectly impacted by violence. Attacks on schools and education infrastructure – sometimes deliberate – are one key reason why many children do not attend classes. In Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya alone, nearly 9,000 schools are out of use because they have been damaged,...