Globe Trot: Sense and nonsense on Syria

For all the week’s nonsense on Syria, here’s some sense: “The administration has cited the need to deter and prevent use of chemical weapons—a defensible goal, though Syrians have suffered from far deadlier mass atrocities during the course of the conflict.”

A chemical weapon never dies. Given that the United States knew last spring that both sides were making moves to arm themselves with chemical weapons, why did it not launch “limited strikes” then, to prevent an actual attack?

Christian leadership around the world is galvanizing in opposition to U.S. military action, and Syrian Christian leaders don’t want Syrian intervention either:

“Those Christians may be no fans of the regime of President Bashar Assad, but they generally prefer it to what they see as the likely alternative—rising Islamic fundamentalism and Iraq-style chaos, in which religious minorities such as themselves would be among the primary victims.”

‘We must say that, what the U.S. did in Iraq, we don’t want repeated in Syria,’ Audo said.”

The debate taking place in the United States this week over U.S. intervention in Syria has virtually ignored the impact an American campaign would have on Syria’s Christians.

On Wednesday, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan wrote to President Barack Obama, urging him to shun military options, saying an attack “will be counterproductive, will exacerbate an already deadly situation, and will have unintended negative consequences.”

So far, many lawmakers and Americans aren’t buying what the administration is selling on Syria.

Fighting continues. Al-Qaeda-linked rebels have attacked Maaloula this week, one of Syria’s Christian villages where Aramaic is still spoken.

President Obama is working today to resolve tensions with Brazil and Mexico over revelations that the NSA monitored their communications.

A popular Indian writer who became the subject of a Bollywood movie has been shot and killed by militants in Afghanistan.

A good, long read on the making of war—Mark Bowden’s Atlantic piece on how to think about drones.