Opinion: Syria, From a Syrian-American Activist

By Geoffrey Cook, TMO

Silicon Valley–Nr. San Jose Calif.

I. A Syrian-American Activist

Last spring a young Syrian-American activist conversed with me and several people here in Northern California about his natal country.  His name shall be withheld upon these pages because of possible reprisals against his family.

It is a different if you come from one of those communities being repressed is your own.  This young professional is one such who is afraid for his and his family’s lives and safety.

Winter feels like the [Arab] “Spring.”  For, “You can step on the flowers…but you can’t stop the ‘Spring!’

“…Assad [’s]…son is following in his father [the preceding Chief Executive in Damascus’] steps.”

The people are going onto the streets to be slaughtered by the military. 

The demonstrators are being jeered by the loyalists, “Why don’t you fight the Israeli rather than your own soldiers?”  Yet there are secure borders between the Syrians and their neighbors.

II. The Arab League

As conscripts are dramatically deserting to form an armed disciplined rebel army, the specter of civil war looms similar to the phenomena from which Libya has just emerged; a fact-finding delegation from the Arab League enters The Syrian landscape.

Foreign Affairs journal, the foremost American research publication on contemporary U.S. external policy, describes the chair of that delegation, Sudanese General Mohammad Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, who brutally suppressed the Darfur unrest during his nation’s long-simmering civil war — which was only just resolved with the establishment of the world’s officially newest republic, South Sudan — as the world’s worst human rights observer that one could conceive, but at a request I wrote to him anyway:

“…I urge your observation be conducted thoroughly and fairly.

I hope your report will be sincerely submitted to the Arab League with a copy to the United Nations.”

III. Barrack Obama

Continuing along that line your writer received a rather frantic burst from Dr. Radwan Masmoudi of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy in Washington D.C. to contact (U.S.) President Barrack Hussein Obama over honing an American policy respecting the crisis within this most ancient of realms:

“…I am most concerned about the human rights tragedy unfolding in Syria.

“I am convinced that the leadership of the Arab League’s delegation there is questionable, but I believe that the League should be the chief arbiters for a solution, though.  If not, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) should become involved, too.

“A copy of the League’s report should be given to the United Nations (U.N.) upon completion, and, if the contents merit it, should be referred to the Security Council.

“If any NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] action is required, we [the U.S.] should take a backseat [logistical support, etc.] because of our three recent interventions in Muslim-majority nations, and I, therefore, would, further, encourage you to urge the Turk’s to take the lead in [any of] the Alliance’s response although the legitimate aspirations of the Kurds for self-agency should be factored into this, also.

“…I am sure our country is pondering [on] how it may become a positive force in the crisis inside Syria.”

Today, although the Arab League’s presence encouraged the central government to lessen its offensive, snipping from both remains a serious contention, and there are calls for the Arab League’s delegation to leave the country for their own safety, and due to the fact that they may be exacerbating the situation by giving too much unfounded hope to the rebels.

I urge any of my Muslim Observer’s target readers to contact their elected representatives (if in an elected democratic State) on matters where the community’s interest intersect with the State’s.
In the meantime, please pray for the Syrian people!

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