Nuance: the first casualty of war

Nuance is in very short supply at the moment. All over the place, sledgehammers are being used to crack walnuts. Binary thinking is commonplace. Seeking a sensible middle ground is out of fashion. Extremists at either end of the political spectrum gain traction. We are truly living in pathetic times.

And this brings us to the disgusting spectacle of Assad gassing his own people once again in Syria. This was followed by Donald Trump ordering airstrikes without the permission of Congress, although this latest intervention has now received conditional bipartisan support. This is in sharp contrast to Trump's campaign rhetoric about not dragging the US deeper into war in the Middle East. But apparently he saw some distressing footage of gassed "children of God" on telly and now it's bombs away!

This, in turn, caused further astounding spectacles. Trumpian cheerleaders, such as Milo Yiannopolis, Paul Joseph Watson and Ann Coulter, all felt betrayed by their phlegm-haired father figure and swiftly announced their disappointment to the world. They seem genuinely stunned that Trump changes policy like he changes his socks, even though it was clear before the election that his foreign policy was always going to be a hot mess. The poor little snowflakes.

Then there was Friday's Stop The War debacle. Stop The War should perhaps be named Stop The War If It Is Waged By The West But Let's Never Call Out The Crap From Tyrants We Cravenly Apologise For Particularly As Our Chairman From 2011 Until 2015 Is Happy To Cash Cheques from Iranian State TV And Russia Today, but honesty is seldom catchy. @STWIIIWBTWBLNCOTCFTWCAFPAOCFTUTIHTCCFISTART is a rubbish Twitter handle,

For an organisation that professes to believe in dialogue instead of bombs and guns, and claims to support the rights of refugees, they were shockingly disinterested in constructively engaging with Hassan Akkad. He approached the protesters to ask them why they weren't protesting against the Assad regime but he was shouted down.

It was a disgrace. Megaphone-wielding, placard-waving fools, the lot of them. Some tosser yelled: "Keep chanting!". Because that is all these people have. They are part of a particularly loud but pointless element of left, and they are as devoid of nuance as Trump's one-eyed fanatics. And, just like Trump's disciples, they hate constructive discussion and seek to silence anyone who might have a different take on things. They are ferociously pro-censorship unless it's something they agree with, something else they have in common with alt-right lunatics.

Hassan Akkad is a Syrian refugee living in the UK. He has been imprisoned and tortured under the Assad regime. He knows first-hand that Syria is not a triumph of secularism, an offensive and ludicrous claim made by many an Assad apologist.

Akkad is an intelligent man who is worth listening to. Here he is sharing the story of his escape from Syria:

Everyone who howled him down at the Stop The War fiasco should watch that video, hang their heads in shame, and personally apologise to him for failing to engage in dialogue or to even try and understand the story of a refugee. Everyone there was a hypocrite.

The protesters refused to listen to a word he had to say. Akkad knows that Trump has no great affection for the Syrian people. He knows that Trump has his own agenda. He also knows that to oppose Assad is to not be an automatic jihadist. And he understands that destroying the airbase in Syria from above is not necessarily a bad thing. Unlike the Stop The War protesters, he is capable of nuance.

Click here to watch the video he tweeted, where he articulately explains his version of events from the protest.

The simple truths are that Assad and Daesh both need to be stopped. A military campaign solely made up of airstrikes will not achieve this. I am not going to pretend that I am sitting here at home in London holding all the answers to the appalling situation in Syria. War is awful but I do think boots on the ground are needed to wipe out Daesh and quite possibly to help the oppressed people of Syria overthrow Assad. Indeed, it has been reported today that US-supported rebels in Syria, with Jordanian and US support, fended off a Daesh assault. The very nature of the conflict, of the geography, of the joint enemies of Assad and Daesh, mean any military action will be long and grinding.

A humane solution for the people displaced by the conflict is also essential. Syria has degenerated into a place where it is hard to tell who the bad guys are and anyone who whines about young, able-bodied men fleeing the conflict would do well to remember this before shooting their damn fool mouths off from the comfort of countries that are not currently war zones.

Boris Johnson has done the right thing by cancelling a trip to Moscow and attending a G7 meeting instead. Anyone who thinks Putin is not in bed with Assad is either naive or stupid. Johnson is in no way suited to the job of foreign secretary, although at least this means he is not behaving like Basil Fawlty in Brexit negotiations. Whether the G7 meeting will lead to a ceasefire and whether any ceasefire will last longer than a New York minute remains to be seen, but it is better than kissing Putin's arse.

Dialogue is essential, military intervention will be a necessary evil, nothing will happen quickly. And if we listen to the experiences of people like Hassan Akkad, people who have lived through the long-term horrors of life under Assad, it might become clear that removing Assad from power and neutering the outrageous influence of Russia are essential to this tragic, horrific process.





  

Image by zio fabio/Flickr

Another world of stupid because there's just so much of it...

My Zero Tolerance of Idiocy policy is already taking a hammering this year. Here's a summary of the latest tidal wave of stupidity to come my way. Honestly, stemming this tide is like trying to stop a tsunami with a tampon...

1. Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham has wondered out loud if sugary breakfast cereals, such as Frosties, should be banned.* No, they shouldn't. This is a free market economy and there is clearly a market for Frosties. Yes, sugary cereals are gross - but the responsibility for what goes into the mouths of British kids lies with parents. How about education, awareness and parents taking the time to read the nutritional information on food packages? It is all there on the box where anyone can see it.

If reading labels on stuff you are going to feed your children is too hard for you, you're not going to win a Parent of the Year prize any time soon. Assuming the parents of Britain are that stupid and lazy, perhaps a clear, brightly coloured label should be introduced for foods high in sugar, salt and fat. To make it really clear that Sugar Puffs contain sugar. Frankly, there should be a stigma associated with feeding your kids nothing but Sugar Puffs for breakfast, when healthy cereals are just as affordable. But if you're an adult, you have every right to eat whatever the hell cereal you like.

And there's nothing to stop you putting sugar on your kids' All-Bran when you get home. Or perhaps we just need to ban sugar as well. And The Great British Bake-Off...

2. Ann Coulter, queen of non-sequiturs and false equivalencies, says that if the names and addresses of gun owners are made public, as suggested by some Democrats, then it is only fair that the names and addresses of women who've had abortions should be made public too. There's idiocy all round here. Publicly naming gun owners could backfire, if you'll pardon the pun - burglars may target houses of people they know to be unarmed, or if an intruder wants to target the house of someone they know to be armed, they'll probably just rock up with a gun of their own. Guns should be registered**, but it isn't terribly productive to have the list easily available via, say, a Google search.

Equally, the details of women who have had abortions should not be available for all the world to see because, just like records for any other medical procedure, it's nobody's damn business.

3. Prince Charles has stuck his head over the parapet and said he is concerned for the future of the planet, especially as he has a grandchild on the way. That's great, Chuck. How about you start by telling your mother she probably doesn't need to drive a Range Rover. And you could always set an example by flying economy class when you travel internationally and insisting your family does likewise.

4. And while we're on the topic of royal ridiculousness, Prince Charles is apparently*** also concerned that the consequences of allowing a firstborn daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to ascend to the throne or allowing heirs to the throne to marry Roman Catholics haven't been properly thought through. Good grief. The fact that this is still being discussed in 2013 is beyond absurd. Republic, anyone?

5. And while we're on the topic of non-news invented by the Daily Mail, that excuse for a newspaper is still trying to create a controversy where none exists over Jack Whitehall's jokes on The Big Fat Quiz of the Year. Not content with reprinting the allegedly offensive gags and trying to imply that Gabby Logan and Richard Ayoade were uncomfortable with it all, the Mail published a bizarre article about the price of houses in the Whitehall family, ex-girlfriends of Jack Whitehall's father and other such stalker-like material. Did Jack Whitehall spurn the advances of someone in the Dacre family?

6. And speaking of pearl-clutchers, there has been a predictably hysterical reaction to an excellent article about paedophilia in the Guardian by Jon Henley. The charge of poor reading comprehension was led by ex-MP Louise Mensch who started a Twitter storm over it all. Except the article doesn't actually condone paedophilia or say it's acceptable. Henley has instead offered a balanced, even-handed account of how there is still much disagreement among experts on paedophilia, its definition and its consequences - and why understanding paedophilia is important when finding ways to protect children. Read it here and judge for yourself.

7. I've received a press release for wedding chests. Wedding chests that cost £2,600, to be precise. The press release, spruiking on behalf of Tom Aylwyn, claims this is a modern take on the wedding chests of old. Except it's not. It's still a box in which to put housewifely stuff. This seems a bit insane if you've already moved in together. And even if you haven't shacked up, surely you'd rather spend £2,600 on useful stuff for the house rather than a goddamn box.

Here is one of the chests. You can't even sit on it without getting a weird pattern on your bum...

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* Despite this idiocy, I'd prefer Andy Burnham to be Health Secretary instead of Jeremy Hunt. Yes, Jeremy Hunt really is that unsuitable for the job. Or for Parliament.

** Yes, I know criminals will always get their hands on guns, but that is not actually a reason to give up on registration.

*** This is according to "friends" of Prince Charles who told the Daily Mail. So it could be a total load of bollocks. But my point still stands that such discussions should have ended some time in the 16th Century.