Calhoun's Cannons for Sept
3, 2013
. . . the best lack all conviction, while the
worst
Are full of passionate
intensity. . . .
W.B.
Yeats
The
Second Coming.
It's sure a great time to be a cynic. Halcyon days, really.
Syria's
Assad slaughters an estimated 1,400 civilians, including hundreds of children,
with chemical weapons, in clear violation of international laws in place since
the Great War. President Obama goes on
TV to declare that the world has "watched in horror."
No, it didn't. A good
deal of disgust, perhaps, but not horror.
Horror requires outrage. Horror
requires action, intervention, the stopping of the horror, the holding to
account the perpetrators. But the world
is having none of that, thank you. With
the collapse of the "Arab Spring," I suspect that the world has come
to the conclusion that the middle east is now in the throws of a Muslim version
of the Thirty Years War: a savage mixture of God-driven blood soaked religious
struggle combined with hard-eyed, heavily armed state politics. In that world,
brazen killers fare very well indeed.
And it's a world made for a cynic's delight. Consider Assad. Yes, he's a weird, sub-set sort of Muslim,
but a Muslim nonetheless. And killing
innocents, especially women and children, is considered an appalling violation
of one of the deepest held tenants of Islam.
Anathema. A terrifying breach of God's holy word. Yet when a Christian president (Obama) called
upon the civilized nations to intervene, to form a coalition of the willing to
bring the world's wrath down upon Assad's murderous head, The (Muslim) Arab
League suddenly discovered a forgotten urgent appointment and sidled out the
door. And the mullah's, who lost no time
issuing a fatwa on an author who wrote fiction, had other things to do when it
came to real murdered children. Sorry, we must away, As-salam Alaikum.
Russia,
too. Of course, they're
"godless," so I'm sure religious wars are just another useful
dialectic to them. Plus they've had a
long, long history of
"horror." Plenty of experience in accepting "moral
obscenities." Not to mention their skill in dealing with brutal realpolitik. Which translates into Russia
never allowing mass murder to interfere with the art of the deal..
The U.N., too, has perfected the art of appearing to be fully present while not
actually being there. It's the cynic's highest
art form performed on the world's stage.
Viewing with alarm, pointing with dismay, hand-wringing sorrow expressed,
then suddenly, the remembered appointment, the hurried rush out the door.
And for sheer pleasure, a cynic cannot ask for anything
better that the rhetoric that is now flowing.
"Moral outrage" is always tricky coming from a country with a faulty
memory and a sad history of using chemical warfare itself. I mean, what is Agent Orange, if not a chemical
weapon that was used by the U.S.
against innocents, including women and children. Not to mention our own veterans who, 30 years
later, are now reaping the cancers and other maladies Agent Orange bequeathed
to them by their own government.
Well, what can you do? Moral outrage has to be a shared feeling if it's
to have any effect. No good leading a
battle charge of one. That turns into mere hectoring. So we now have the cynic's snarky delight of watching
the president suddenly switching gears and forcing a dysfunctional Congress to
step up and let the world see just what "moral outrage" is worth in
today's market. Nothing? A few lobbed missiles? A gridlocked non-coalition of the unwilling? World-bestriding Pax Americana suddenly hiding
next to timid, isolationist little Britain
while France (France!) declares for intervention? Awwww,
Gawwwwd.
Well, who can blame Congress for their annoyed fury. Obama has now trapped himself and them all in
their own glib rhetoric and too-facile political and moral posturing. Lines in the sand and now -- Sweet Jesus! -- they'll all have to go on record and vote. A vote that will surely show up on their
record during the next election. And no
good pretending they just remembered they had to leave for their kid's soccer
game before the vote can be taken. There will be no quarter given in this mess.
So here we are, trapped in the sticky web of a part of the
world that's in the throws of No Good Options, and few choices except to
cynically wash one's hands and declare that Syria, indeed, the whole middle
east, has now passed the tipping point and has become a place of senseless fury,
a new blood-soaked Thirty Years religious war that should be left alone to play
out its blood-letting destiny.
And if that's the case, then surely we have come to the
heart of darkness, a place where the only furious reaction left may be a cynical,
savage Kurtzian snarl, "Exterminate all the brutes." Followed by a
shrug. And a remembered appointment. And
a quick slip out the door.
The horror! The horror!
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