Weekend Thoughts on Santorum, Syria and Somalia

It is a cold January weekend here and rain follows snow follows rain in a grey pattern that has everyone a little depressed. I thought it might be a good idea review a few important facts about events going on in the world now, because they are all important but seem to lack detail in much of the news.

1. To tackle the least important first, I think it is time for Rick Santorum to go home and forget about presidential politics. His rather childish, or moronic if one were vicious, remarks about homosexuality (comparing them favorably only to child molestation and human-animal sex) sound like something out of the 16th century. Then, he goes on to trump even the Pope in his declarations about all, yes all, contraceptive approaches being a form of abortion. And, to top it off, he believes that women would be better off, and the world too, if they stayed home and had children to occupy them. So, if the truly right-falling-off-the right-side conservative factions in American politics were looking for the Neanderthal that suits their world view, they've found him. They could have the decency to follow him home and leave the rest of us in peace. 

2. Somalia is apparently preparing to launch attacks into Kenya targeting tourists, and especially British tourists. These terrorist attackers, trained in Somalia by the al-Qaida-linked Al Shabab group, have struck before in Kenya, as Americans will remember from the Embassy bombing. Tourists have also been kidnapped from resort villages along the Kenyan Indian Ocean coast. At least one man was killed, and several people are being held as prisoners in Somalia. Along with the pirates operating out of Somalia, these terrorists are destabilizing the East coast of Africa. Just this week, the US Navy rescued an Iranian fishing vessel that had been boarded by these Somali pirates. The crew was fed, examined medically, and sent on their way with provisions - a long way from Iran's treatment of foreigners who wander into its territory. Mogadischiu is in total anarchy, and the future does not look bright for improvements. The world is going to have to decide, sooner rather than later, if it will tolerate this combination of chaos and organized terrorism along the part of Africa's coast that leads into the Gulf area and is the route for seabound cargoes from India and Asia going into South Africa. 

3. I haven't written about Syria lately. Frankly, there isn't much to say. People are being slaughtered, tortured, and now blown up by rebel fighter bombs in the center of Damascus. Having killed more than 3,500 of his own citizens, Bashar al-Assad has now announced htat he will not tolerate terrorist acts (i.e., the bombings) and will strike swiftly and forcefully against them. It had seemed to me that he was already doing that, but okay, we can take it as his formal declaration of war against the Syrian people. And, to show his true colors, there were lavish displays at the funerals of 11 military killed yesterday by the Damascus bombs. Don't misunderstand me, no one ought to be killed in Syria, and all life lost should be mourned, but 3,500 vs 11 seems to prove again that al-Assad is not thinking rationally. The Arab League observers have come and many have gone, and we are no farther along the path to resolution in Syria. But, a high-placed Syrian whose offices were in the same building as the military GQ, took refuge in Egypt last week. He promptly announced that the Syrian military is using Red Crescent ambulances as cover to patrol and shoot at street marchers. He also reported that the Syrian military arrests not dozens but often hundreds of people in any given day, and places them in underground dungeons catacombed underneath the streets of Damascus, where they are interrogated, tortured and killed. It is getting to be an old question, but I will ask it again -- when is the civilized world going to put an end to this barbarism?