Getting Serious About Syria

Much to my relief (on many fronts) the Compte de Rienville saw fit to pay a visit to the Manor. He was somewhat the worse for wear, having been stationed in Jordan, with a number of trips into Syria, and dodging any number of attempts to force him to shuffle off his mortal coil. Mind you, not THAT worse for wear; relief is what I asked for, and what I received. He really is a wonderful man.

Once necessary needs had been satisfied, and over an excellent dinner, complete with Dom Perignon, I brought him up to date with what had been occurring here, and he raised some mid-East issues that I found intriguing, and herewith pass on to you.

First, the Compte had difficulty understanding why the Canadian press was so focused on Toronto's Mayor and the Senate shenanigans in Ottawa, when Ontario had recently been bilked of close to a BILLION dollars, and Montreal was trying to rival Capone's Chicago prior to the arrival of Eliot Ness. The latter two were horrific, and surely jail sentences loomed; the former were really pecadilloes, and had cost taxpayers little. In his opinion, a very strange media emphasis.

I printed out my previous reports on the Toronto and Ottawa fiascos, and left it at that. What I was really interested in was the Syrian mess, rather than video tapes that may or may not exist, or Senators that were avaricious.

The Compte stated that the Russian action of sending advanced S 300 missiles to Bashar Assad had considerably upped the ante in this situation. This was so, he continued, because the Lebanese group, Hezbollah, already aligned with Shia Iran, gave full support to Assad, while at the same time threatening Israel. The rebels in turn were aligned with Sunni Saudi Arabia, and had recently received support from the European Union, up to and including the shipment of arms. Given that Al Qaeda fighters have been all too evident in the rebel camp, the whole thing is a horror story, made all the more dangerous by the actions of religious zealots.

And as always, it is the innocent farmers and tradesmen, along with Syrian women and children, who suffer the most.

As for the Americans, the Compte could understand Barack Obama, while promising and delivering aid, staying well out of the mess.

"But what", I asked, "of Israel? Surely those S 300 missiles ---"

The Compte interrupted. "According to Moshe Arens, the former Isreali Defense Minister, Israel is not overly worried about the S 300 missiles. In Israeli opinion, they are well out of date, and if Russia has actually sent them to Assad, something he doubted by the way, then it would be terrible marketing. Putin is smarter than that."

So there you have it. We both tried to assess who was most responsible for bringing this about, but here we failed. In this context, the Compte recalled a quote (albeit not the author) that he thought apropos: "Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty."*

*Stanislaw J. Lec --Ed.