fri 20 jul 2012 02:34:01 — witte de withstraat
syria situation
i read that russia and china vetoed UN security council resolution for sanctions against assad's repressive regime, which is trying to squash pro-democracy protests. i wasn't actually aware of the close ties between russia and syria, but a large proportion of russia's arms sales go to syria, billions' worth really. and they have a naval base in syria. so syria is an ally of russia. as was lybia under khaddafi and iraq under saddam.
some journalists are saying that russia's foreign-policy posturing against western influence is playing mostly to a domestic audience. just to appear tough to the people at home, rather than to really advance their own global interests.
US and western allies are appalled by the veto, and i guess we're supposed to think that's because of their support for human rights in syria. but the US' record for human rights in the middle east is, to say the least, kinda laughable.
next the US says it will act without the UN, which sounds like a prelude to war in syria. and if they manage to knock off assad, maybe they'll go after iran. it kinda seems like the US only picks on countries that are allied with russia (?). russia has gone on record saying it will not 'tolerate' an attack on their friendly neighbor iran.
what's disgusting is how they pretend to care about the people in these countries. all the big powers are just continuing to play geopolitical chess with our lives. and they want us to think the cold war is over.
in other news, israeli soldiers have been taking away water storage tanks from bedouin people in the jordan valley.