Our society, particularly my generation is almost completely unable to discern the difference between a leader and a cheerleader. Yay...
1
Hardcore Republicans held their noses and voted for Trump to get conservatives on the SCOTUS. It worked and is continuing to work as conservatives are appointed to lower courts as we speak. Trump's lack of fitness is affecting issues far and wide. Elections have consequences but more importantly, elections have unintended consequences.
44
Mr. Cohen,how many civilians did America killed in Iraq,Vietnam,Afganistan and other countries recently?and how many has Russia killed?Guess America wins the killing civilian count.why not comdemn America?Guess your answer is America is special,it can do what others may not do.
14
We have never really had the moral high ground. The Russians need only point to our own bombardment of Raqqa's defenseless civilian population to justify their own use of similar techniques. And no one is buying the poison gas stories any more. Our own government has stooped to hiding the truth and making it up whole cloth. We cannot trust anything we read. Propaganda is used now, as it was in all the past wars to justify the unjustifiable.
12
When I am in Europe people look me (of course they know I am an American) and either shake the heads or smirk. What worries me more is how Americans react to what we are becoming as a nation and people. We are willing to become a bunch of greedy, racist, selfish people willing to turn on each other if I can benefit from your pain. We have no shame here or abroad ignoring any moral outrage. When Trump said during the campaign that the world was laughing at us, what he really meant is that he would turn us into a laughingstock and punch line for the world.
25
I write this with the best of intentions and in the sincere belief that the policy of the Editorial Board and its contributors is misguided and ultimately self-defeating:
Roger, we all (or at least most of us) acknowledge and accept the Holocaust was one of the worst tragedies in human history.
But it was by no means the only one, and its constant reminder in the NYT is counter-productive.
The "Retreat of Shame" began correctly with Syria. It should possibly also have mentioned Yemen, possibly even going as far back in history (sarcasm) as the cowardly and barbaric invasion of Iraq. But, somehow, it managed to involve the Holocaust.
Please, Roger and the Editorial Board, do your utmost in future to bring religions together instead of constantly encouraging religious division, encouraging the Masada Complex in one and resentment of Jews by all the others.
9
Yes but why?
Firstly, most voters care about their immediate environment and not the plight of people outside their ken...as long as the abroad does not threaten them. The post war experience of most Americans is that America has involved itself abroad in war, unnecessarily and largely unsuccessfully. Moreover, many Americans think they were duped into war by lying and corrupt politicians.
No wonder the attractiveness of an America First meme!
America is a naturally isolationist country. We forget that her entry into WW11 was precipitated by the attack at Pearl Harbor and then a declaration of war on America by Germany and Italy.
The interest of the US is only involved with respect to nuclear threats to the country: hence concern with Iran and N Korea and the MAD doctrine of containment with Russia and China. The rest is largely irrelevant.
Europe and East Asian countries should take note...as should Israel. They need to look to their own security. Merkel and Macron and Aby got the message. Moon too. The PM of Israel understands that the US is at base an unreliable partner and hence spends every opportunity (and more) to maintain the relationship.
4
19 hours ago I asked commenters to propose action. Two responses, from "Beartooth" and "JIm Muncy ".
The first advocated a massive military and economic response.
The second was aghast at the first.
Everyone else continues to post self satisfied moral preening without a single concrete suggestion.
7
Isn't it odd that Roger Cohen condemns the Syrian regime and Russia and then criticizes Trump for 'bashing' Iran. Iran with its horrific, murderous intervention in Syria that props up and supports the genocidal Assad regime poison gas and all, that has new military bases in Syria, a convenient spot, so close to Israel's population centers for its ballistic missiles. Iran, aided in its murderous work in Syria and Lebanon by the middle eastern version of the KKK, Hezbollah. Yes,Iran is a major player in this savage medieval debacle, this moral black hole. How can Mr. Cohen speak of Syria without mentioning its key ally? Why doesn't he celebrate the fact that Trump if doing nothing else, is at least bashing Iran? How utterly shameful!!
4
It's time for the rebels in Syria to surrender. They won't, of course, because they are dead men walking already. They cannot win. They cannot escape. The only way to delay certain death is to hide among civilians and dare Assad to kill them all. And so that is what's going to happen.
Let Syria burn... The USA should never have provided weapons or support to rebel groups in Syria. The USA has enabled this mass murder by giving them enough help to maintain a stalemate and extend the war far beyond what it otherwise would have been. Having failed to do enough to win... we must now step back and let Syria burn.
The USA must NEVER AGAIN arm or support rebels in these proxy wars.
10
Trump has done more to counter Putin and Assad than Obama ever did. We are where we are now in Syria because of Barack Obama's fecklessness, his premature withdrawal from Iraq, his judgment that the Islamic State was junior varsity, his failure to enforce his own red lines. But apparently the Obama acolytes lack any shame and are oblivious to the suffering in Syria.
7
In 1970 Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded “The Big Yellow Taxi.” The song contained the lyrics:
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
'Till it's gone.
Roger Cohen says the same thing in his column about the criminal acts being committed against civilians in Syria by Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin and about the rise of grotesque strongmen in Hungary and Poland.
We did not appreciate the moral strength of America, sometimes backed by measured military and economic power, upon which most of the civilized world relied for nearly four decades, until it suddenly disappeared.
Only since the morally empty Donald Trump became president have the overwhelming majority of Americans, and most people in Europe and elsewhere, suddenly realized what we lost by having a self-absorbed simpleton in the White House.
5
What's being battled by fearful white men today is an array of unstoppable forces: a rise of opportunity for women, the end of "races" and even state sovereignty. Ruth Benedict predicted this as Hitler was in ascendance. Her (now ween as quaint) 1934 study "Patterns of Culture."
To paraphrase: Change cannot be stopped. We may long for our old comfortable assumptions and we may even discover a way to accept change peacefully. But sadly -- just at the point where old hierarchies of custom are most in need of change, we are least likely to recognize it. Instead, we go to extremes to protect them. Change occurs, but by calamity or revolution -- not by political will.
4
Interesting read, but in your Business Section yesterday a story about Fake News stood out, claiming that manufactured stories on Twitter that were tittilatingly false, spread faster than authentic tweets. Duh. Today your paper chooses 10 out of 10 negative takes on President Trump, the equivelant of recording Micky Mantle's missed swings just before he hit a home run. You record the misses, not the home runs. That's authentic, fake news.
7
This would be a powerful argument if it were true. But it is not true. Ambassador Nikki Haley has repeatedly spoken out against Syrian barbarism, including the bombing of Eastern Ghouta and she vehemently attacked the Russians for obstructionism. Mr. Cohen is all wrong. Doesn't anybody edit this stuff to make sure it isn't flagrantly false? https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/nikki-haley-calls-out-russia-...
6
Everything Mr. Cohn deplores in this article is practiced by Israel and applauded Mr. Cohn, if practiced by Israel.
Every one of our interventions in the Middle East, including our bankrolling of Israel, have turned out to be disasters and now Mr. Cohn wants us to start another war, or is this Iraq War 4.0?
I think we should take the Trillions of dollars we waste in the Middle East, use the money to develop solar and other renewable energy sources in the United States, create a renewable energy industry in the United States and stop doing the bidding of Israel and the Oil Cartels.
16
Roger, it's time to face up to the vileness of the human race, in most times in most places. Decency has been a blip here or there. Hobbes was right about humanity, not Rousseau. More people were slaughtered in Congo than in the Holocaust. On a per capita basis, WWII (including the Holocaust) can't hold a candle to the Thirty Years War for barbarism and slaughter. Trump won because he knows how vile humanity is, from the inside. No wonder the masses see him, and him alone, as truly "one of us," just like the masses' reaction to Hitler.
6
Mr. Cohen, another accurate, tell-it-like-it-is column. What is different now, at least in the US and Russia, is the culmination of a decades-long effort on the part of the oligarchs to seize complete control. Media is the primary instrument and, together with big money ownership of our political process, has succeeded in thoroughly brainwashing the masses into division and voting for the oligarchs' agenda, in utter contradiction of common interests. Trump is but a sock puppet, albeit an extremely dangerous one. Germany, France, Canada, Australia and perhaps Japan together represent the sole remaining bulwark against authoritarianism. If they too fall, the world is indeed in jeopardy. Perhaps the last word is never said, but this has the appearance of an epilogue for democracy. Vive France. And Canada, Australia and Germany. Please, please hold the line long enough for the rest of us to see our colossal mistake and rejoin you.
6
Since Syria is beyond his investment horizon Trump remains unmoved by what happens there even if it is the humanitarian crisis. As about upholding the American ideals or the question of the US global leadership role, he damn cares for such lofty ideals.
5
Excellent. It's almost numbing to survey the speed and breadth of a trend that recently seemed unthinkable at any speed, anywhere in the democratized world.
We mustn't actually go numb, though. Two of the world's leading democracies, the US and the UK, soon began rallying from the backward thrusts of the Trumpites and the Brexiteers. That's not to say that the particular damage done by those thrusts can soon be repaired, but the will to assert the tenets of liberal democracy against base populism in the respective societies has gained new strength.
The Brexiteer populists carried out a drive-by attack that affected the fate of their union without leaving them in control of it. The Trumpite populists gained control of theirs. Now America is, as you observe, morally absent from places where its example and influence are needed.
If small-d and large-D democrats prevail in the next two election seasons, the US can stand with the UK and other vigorous democracies as a bulwark against a further spread of the current contagion. Then, I hope, example and influence will begin to have effect again. I only wish there were hope for the people of Eastern Ghouta.
6
"Trump, to whom moral indignation-indeed morality itself- is a stranger does not care."
And yet, the clueless hypocrites in the U.S. electorate who call themselves "values" voters overwhelmingly supported this man to represent their country. What's more dangerous than a state of confusion? Perhaps rigid conservatism, so rigid it denies reality.
17
Not me, Mr. Brock. Not. me.
2
Cohen, I agree wholeheartedly with your position. And you forgot to mention a president that lightly suggested that teachers should be trigger ready SWAT members. Surreal.
Yet, without falling into the narrow, simple, and authoritarian right mindset, it has been the left that has also punched and punched at free trade. Free trade not protectionism should be the soul of America. How come the solo Americans cry like babies when free trade replaces industries in the US? Really, the self-made men (women complain a lot less despite the stereotype) are pathetic, frightened chicken clinging to their guns and religion. Of course help is needed, of course we can empower exploitation abroad for cheap products at home.
Isolationism, fear, and in other word, the opposite of freedom, only end in tribal fights. There will be a proliferation of low level border walls, until one elicit a stronger response from one of the superpowers. Syria of course is boiling cauldron. Nobody is checking. I think that only the American voters can stop this madness. But who trust them after their last performance? One day vote for Obama, the next for Trump? Bipolar country indeed.
1
"Fear aroused by women's rights," wow. I think that's probably part of what defeated HRC - hadn't put misogyny into the context of a backlash against democracy itself. But it makes sense.
The Syrian calamity is terrifying. It shows us how thin our veneer of civilization really is.
As for democracy in America, is tragically clear that at least 30% of us and perhaps on entire political party don't care about democracy at all, not really.
14
Every time we have intervened in the Middle East we have failed and the catastrophe has become worse. Most Americans understand that now and will no longer support or tolerate another intervention.
12
Getting to the source of the conflict in Syria needs to be addressed as the world witnesses another humanitarian disaster. Forgotten YEMEN will enter the history books with mass starvation of millions of people in a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Britain requesting Saudi Arabia to allow aid into that country with no effect; making deals with Saudis as the only priority. Blaming Trump the lightweight not a worthwhile exercise because he is just a spectator in the Middle East Korea and Ukraine only supplying the weapons.
5
Berman forgets the growth of inequality. As wealth is concentrated, the wealthy seek power and authority to capture more wealth.
6
America is qualitatively distinct from Hungary, Poland, Russia, and most other countries. We were founded on a set of principles mostly embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. No matter how far we are from attaining a society that deeply and broadly functions on those principles -- and their evolving expression -- our legitimacy and success as a nation is measured by our current relationship to those principles. We are all hyphenated Americans, of necessity from day one fated to travel a collective path with other hyphenated Americans.
Most other countries -- with the notable exception of post-colonial, usually poorly functioning amalgams -- are defined by historical ethnic homogeneity. For them, the very modern push toward citizenship not predicated on majoritarian membership is a major challenge. We need to understand, though most definitely not accept, these differences. For most of the people in those countries, a Jewish Pole, a Muslim Indian, a Hindu Sri Lankan, a Christian Saudi Arabian are all simply oxymorons.
Cohen's painful disappointment largely stems from the fact that our nation is currently in the middle of a period of profound self-doubt, more and more populated by people for whom the adjective before the hyphen has become their primary identity, not the collective noun, American.
America will again come together. Hopefully it will be because of something positive such as the Apollo program, not something negative such as war.
5
"...and then we have this cultural collapse that leads so many Americans to be incapable of seeing at a glance that Trump should not be president.”
The shock of this chilling experience delivered by 30 year friends can not be forgotten. The sun still shines, but my shadow is less shared.
3
America is qualitatively distinct from Hungary, Poland, Russia, and most other countries. We were founded on a set of principles mostly embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. No matter how far we are from attaining a society that deeply and broadly functions on those principles -- and their evolving expression -- our legitimacy and success as a nation is measured by our current relationship to those principles. We are all hyphenated Americans, of necessity from day one fated to travel a collective path with other hyphenated Americans.
Most other countries -- with the notable exception of post-colonial, usually poorly functioning amalgams -- are defined by historical ethnic homogeneity. For them, the very modern push toward citizenship not predicated on majoritarian membership is a major challenge. We need to understand, though most definitely not accept, these differences. For most of the people in those countries, a Jewish Pole, a Muslim Indian, a Hindu Sri Lankan, a Christian Saudi Arabian are all simply oxymorons.
Cohen's painful disappointment largely stems from the fact that our nation is currently in the middle of a period of profound self-doubt, more and more populated by people for whom the adjective before the hyphen has become their primary identity, not the collective noun, American.
America will again come together. Hopefully it will be because of something positive such as the Apollo program, not something negative such as war.
2
Cohen is stretching it to suggest that other illiberal world leaders are being empowered by Trump. This is Cohen's analysis and it is wrong. What largely is happening round the world is the re-emergence of nationalism, which rears its head when peoples feel economically threatened, by globalization, immigration or any other thing. Russia, China, European countries see this, so does half the US. In such times, saving people in war-zones or in other disasters becomes less of a priority. Institutions like the UN become even more useless than in other times. Cohen hailing Macron's call to Putin misses the point; the only reason Macron is interested is because the French have a long history of colonial interference in Syria. If Cohen thinks Macron, Merkel or May are somehow more altruistic than Trump he really should get out more. There isn't much difference between world leaders excepting the Chinese sea-grab and Russia's determination to bump off former spies in the most conspicuously gruesome ways possible.
4
Roger Cohen talks about the tragedy of Eastern Ghouta. But Syria has been suffering from population growth averaging 3% per annum for decades up to 2007 and in the last few years the death rate has risen dramatically, most recently because of the civil war.
What are the actual choices once a society becomes severely overpopulated. We can hope the people don't murder each other because of sectarian differences. But if they don't the overpopulation leads to outright starvation.
Many would rather die in battle than starve to death.
Yes, the tragedy in Syria could have been avoided. But to do that we needed action on population growth. We needed a foreign policy that made contraception available and encouraged small family size.
Yet the problem of population growth is never even discussed in the NY Times.
Liberals seem to believe that it is a problem that will solve itself.
Yet there was a time in 1968 when Paul Ehrlich warned us in the Population Bomb of the negative consequences of inaction.
How sanctimonious of Roger Cohen to blame Trump for our own avoidance of discussing the problem for 50 years.
Even now those who talk about controlling population growth in the US are characterized as racists for opposing illegal immigration.
Isn't it better to follow China's example and have a one child policy for the US. And help Mexico adopt sensible family planning initiatives that stop the need for people to flee Mexico?
Smaller families can still save planet earth.
4
FREEDOM AND EXCEPTIONALISM
Men and Women are condemned to be free
But, may be not destined
For, time and history are a witness
That in the name of people's freedom and human rights
The worst crimes have been committed by the Chosen Few
Who feel vindicated to right the wrongs of history
As if they believe that a balance is needed
For the aberrations of the past may haunt the future generations
But they forget that Exceptionalism is an anathema to Freedom
Since Freedom demands Equal respect to the others also
Even though they may seem insignificant
Freedom is the Law of Life
As Human nature responds better to persuasion rather than fear
So, Freedom from fear is the need of the hour!
1
This is a great quote, “freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want.” It looks like some countries have government's who want just the opposite. I list the US with trump and the GOP and Bashar al-Assad’ who has destroyed his own country just to stay in power.
4
I will agree that this war is also ugly. But this has to be examined in the light of day.
What is happening in Ghouta is the direct result of the US providing those 50 moderate terrorist gangs of Islamists and mercenaries with money and weapons a few years ago, specifically designated for their use to further conduct the goal of overthrowing the Assad government and making a regime change in Syria (as in Iraq, Afghanistan etc.)
Why are you complaining about the US government now? If the US had succeeded or will succeed as in Iraq, will you discuss the re-emergence of ISIS, the horrific refugee crisis being created and the hundreds of thousands killed in Syria as in Iraq.
Your thesis does not pass the smell test. Why don't you just appeal to the rebels to go home and put an end to this stupid seven year old misjudgement that has caused one of the most horrible humanitarian disasters in recent history.
It has been the root cause of Brexit and the nationalistic resurgence in Europe and around the world. Crying about the US mistakes doesn't help. Let's hope that Ghouta ends soon to eliminate and remove the invaders and finally let the people there live in peace.
7
Call it freedom instead of "liberal democracy."
"Freedom" strikes a chord: "liberal democracy" does not.
2
Yeats great poem keeps coming back to me, particularly the iast two lines. I think of the Republican congress.
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
-Yeats, The Second Coming
4
"Trump, to whom moral indignation — indeed morality itself — is a stranger, does not care."
Right on. And if it is not on FOX AND FRIENDS it does not crawl inside of the minuscule attention span of our CEO.
3
America is qualitatively distinct from Hungary, Poland, Russia, and most other countries. We were founded on a set of principles mostly embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. No matter how far we are from attaining a society that deeply and broadly functions on those principles -- and their evolving expression -- our legitimacy and success as a nation is measured by our current relationship to those principles. We are all hyphenated Americans, of necessity from day one fated to travel a collective path with other hyphenated Americans.
Most other countries -- with the notable exception of post-colonial, usually poorly functioning amalgams -- are defined by historical ethnic homogeneity. For them, the very modern push toward citizenship not predicated on majoritarian membership is a major challenge. We need to understand, though most definitely not accept, these differences. For most of the people in those countries, a Jewish Pole, a Muslim Indian, a Hindu Sri Lankan, a Christian Saudi Arabian are all simply oxymorons.
Cohen's painful disappointment largely stems from the fact that our nation is currently in the middle of a period of profound self-doubt, more and more populated by people for whom the adjective before the hyphen has become their primary identity, not the collective noun, American. We will again come together. Hopefully it will be because of something positive such as the Apollo program did, not something negative such as war.
1
Financially comfortable Americans can be so worried about the world’s conflicts that they fail to see what is going on here, at home.
Despite the rosy employment figure, many remain unemployed (especially in the mid-west), and others are barely surviving financially.
Unemployed men and low wage earners do not make attractive marriage candidates. Their girlfriends have children with them, but do not marry them. The result is that 40% of American children are now being born out-of-wedlock. Most unmarried parents split apart by the time their children turn 5. Their children are growing up only with their mothers - who are trying so hard to make “ends meet” that they have little time or energy left to spend nurturing them.
Not only are families no longer living together, entire blue-collar communities are falling apart. Children are growing up without traditional support systems. Research has found that this puts boys at particular disadvantage both in school and later in life. What will happen to our society as these boys grow older? Will many of them find a “home” in an extremist identify group?
It would behoove Rodger Cohen to take a closer look at American society today. If we do not take care of our own citizens, we will not be able to help those of any other country.
9
Trump won by a hair while losing the popular vote. The answer to our woes, at least the woes that we (the U.S.) can influence, is to vote back in the Democrats, in both houses of Congress and in the presidency.
2
Roger Cohen's piece appears in the newspaper of record of the nation that helped starve 500,000 kids to death in Iraq and recently bombed Mosul and Raqqa killing thousands more civilians. And let's not forget the role Bernard-Henri Levy played as the intellectual point man in the campaign to remove Gaddafi in Libya, another western intervention that didn't turn out so well for the people on the receiving end. Maybe shame is in retreat but hypocrisy certainly isn't.
8
Like many other French citizens, I am deeply disconcerted with Emmanuel Macron's sickening indulgence of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin shortly upon assuming the presidency of France. Inviting the first to a grand scale military parade and the second one to Versailles Palace to indulge the latter's sense of omnipotence : these two acts send the wrong signal on the part of a traditional defender of human rights towards two autocrats actively seeking to upend the relatively peaceful post-1945 order in the developed world.
Europeans who claim to be civic-minded would do well to reserve a citizens' boycott of everything touching American interests during this dark time in the history of the United States. But it has to go much beyond Levi's jeans and Harley bikes. Anything would be preferable to Macron's cynical and undignified role as a doormat for Trump's soles.....
1
"Have we all gone completely mad?" Let's ignore all the evidence around us and proclaim "No! Not all of us!" but the bastions of decency and humanity are in fast retreat, and our president is the standard-bearer.
The Stormy Daniels saga is tawdry, banal and trivial on its own narrow merits, but it a window into the ethical and moral character of our Commander-in-Chief who now, apparently, seeks the authority to send Secret Service agents at his unilateral command to polling booths in federal elections.
2
And, in addition, the oceans continue to fill up with plastic; the climate continues to change; forests continue to disappear; species continue to go extinct. What is the main reason for both the environmental and politico-social disasters -- overpopulation. Fifty years ago the world population was in the neighborhood of 3.5 billion it is now over 7.
Not easy to be an optimist these days.
8
This was not Mr. Cohen's best editorial but he does have to produce them on a timetable. A tall order for a usually great Times contributor.
The most interesting part of this one for me is reading the comments by its smart and literate readers. What divergent and well articulated views.
Often I wonder what it is like for Mr Trump to wake up every day at age 71 and realize he is President of the United States. Wow.
It is troubling how difficult it has been for him to hire and retain the best people in the important posts in the Executive Branch.
Surely some of the lack of attention to important world affairs is due to this fact. And it becomes increasingly hard to hire motivated replacements in light of experiences of its predecessors.
When Trump was elected I thought his Presidency would be a test of the institution of the presidency of the United States. And that he would be impeached or just quit within two years.
We'll see about the latter.
10
Yes, it is certainly "troubling how difficult it has been for [trump] to hire and retain the best people] since trump reports to putin and as we sit back and watch, continues to take his orders from him. Yes, this is a test of our democracy which trump demonstrates daily he will destroy to honor putin.
There is a fallacy at the core of Mr. Cohen's hypothesis. The USA has been involved in every armed conflict since World War II, very often by actions hidden from the American people. The USA has the largest military in the world, dwarfing the comparatively puny military of Russia. The USA has organised the overthrow of multiple Governments and has initiated many armed conflicts in areas where Regime Change has not been successful. Mr Cohen lives in an Alice in Wonderland which is imaginary.
8
Hasn't it always come to this?
Just in my parents' lifetimes: The Holocaust. The Gulag. The Killing Fields. The Hutus and the Tutsis. Bosnia. African famines without number. And now Sudan, Syria, the Rohingyas.
Only rarely did the U.S. intervene when it's direct interests weren't involved.
I admit I don't know as much about the world as Mr. Cohen. But I know it as always come to this.
36
Americans are unabashed phonies when it comes to defending the oppressed, as your litany of preventable génocides indicates.
And American politicians on a bipartisan level are also guilty of sending young people in the service to absurd hellholes, such as Afghanistan where every US soldier who fell died in vain. There is no reason at all to linger in that perennially war torn territory which has never really been united.
3
Roger you know by now what happens every time America interferes in the always dysfunctional Middle East. We manage to make an already bad situation worse. We never know which gang of thugs we're supposed to support and when we choose unwisely (which will be inevitable) we never hear the end of it. Sorry but America can't play the unappealing role of the policeman in the Middle East. The Syrian civil war is just another conflict which goes back centuries. We can't solve these tribal blood feuds and it's time we stopped trying.
12
A few minor factual observations:
(1) Syria did not exist centuries ago. It was created by UK and France after World War 1.
(2) There is no Civil War in Syria. The current Syrian conflict was planned by USA, Israel and Turkey as fully described in a 2006 Cable from the US Embassy, Ambassador William Roebuck, in Damascus.
3
The percentage of caring -loving -noble -courageous and semi enlightened humanists is never enough to overcome the ever voracious needs of the rabble to resist the siren song of ethno-nationalism (the narcissism of small differences) enflamed by male sociopaths.
The history of our species is a testament to the futility of long term peace and justice.
We need a plague and subsequent rule by enlightened monarchs/corporations - And that will hold for a while - but not for long.
Ultimately technology which serves as bread and circus to mollify the masses and which supports an enlightened upper class in their towers is the only hope.
Look at the current science fiction -It presages future existence on earth!
4
With respect we don't need rule by kings, enlightened or otherwise let alone corporations.
I don't get it. How could a person write this in America?
To Mr Nelson
Very well put. With the exception of a handful of thinkers like Elon Musk or Michio Kaku, there are very few individuals who are capable of thinking outside of the box. The world sorely needs more idealistic iconoclasts to counter the juggernauts of destruction such as Trump and Putin.
Countries don't feel shame or, at any rate, not in the same way as moral individuals might. Governments and politicians may sound contrite when it is expedient, but they can easily come across as hypocrites. When it comes to collective shame; however, hypocrisy at least pays a certain tribute to the notion of morality. What is truly jarring with dictatorships and authoritarian systems is how they dispense even with the pretense of ordinary morality.
4
My frustration is growing day by day. There is such a disconnect between us and supporters of Trump. Steven PInker says everything is getting better day by day in his new book, but those are just statistics. Are we moving inexorably into a new dark age? Reading Cohen's columns as well many of the other columnists is very disheartening. It is a cosmic tragic joke. Just when things were getting better, just when the world was moving towards more democracy, justice, enlightenment- just then- a past we thought was over, a historical aberration is now ascendant. Kafka, Marquez, Beckett, Jarry- and others who foresaw such developments. We are watching a train wreck happening in slow motion and real-time
17
That's why I have lost all ambition in my mid-fifties. Hoping to slide peacefully towards retirement, even if it is subsistence level. I feel a lot of sympathy for the younger generations who would have to wallow in the mess created by the soulless technocrats -- a future with no professional purpose for the masses and perpetual wars and terrorism accepted as par for the course.
5
Cohen misunderstands or is at least being myopic. "It reflected a core premise of the postwar, American-led order: That “human rights should be protected by the rule of law” if cycles of violence were to be avoided." The FDR that he quotes is the same man that kept us out of war - except to support Europe in the supply of arms in the Lend Lease deal - until America itself was threatened in Pearl Harbor.
America's preference to tend to her own did no start there. George Washington himself warned against involvement in foreign entanglements - "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. ..." What was true at our nation's inception is true now.
Cohen's description of "postwar, American-led order" requires America to be the world's policeman. Contrary to the farce of "mutual assistance" in NATO and other political alliances, it is a one-way affair. America has 185,000 troops permanently stationed abroad - mainly in fairly affluent places including Japan, Germany, S. Korea and Saudi Arabia. America expended treasure and lives to liberate Iraq. And now we are hated for it. Why should we defend a world that doesn't even honor its own commitments to defend itself ? Washington was correct. Let the world take care of itself.
9
Talk about being myopic.
2
Our leaders are a reflection of us. A sizable minority votes in high numbers, and the people they elect are a reflection of their moral vacuity. Ironically, many of these people cloak themselves in the veneer of religious righteousness to provide cover for their amorality.
7
When Trump Moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, the world, the United Nations had a very strong reaction. There have been reactions against Syria, starting in 2011, but how strong have they been? Not strong enough.
Not to defend Trump, but the burdens of Syria, Yemen, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and more are not ours alone. Americans elected a man who can not cope well with our domestic problems, let alone the bigger more complex world. Why?
So will the writer of this editorial define what we should do! Tarring the twin narcissists, Putin and Trump with existential guilt is laughable.
5
Journalists are not politicians nor are they diplomats. I think their job is to point out problems, not to solve them. We have people, who are supposed to be professional, to do that. But someone needs to enlighten the public about the existence of problems, injustices, crimes. It is the public's responsibility then to put pressure on the politicians to create the solutions. To each their respective jobs. Mr Cohen is playing his proper role here. Now it is our turn to tell the politicians to design solutions.
2
I'm sure that there are good people on both sides
5
Surely this is intended as a joke.
Mr. Cohen:
bulletin:
Comrade Vlad instructed DJT to remain in his dog-house and simply await further instructions, no matter how long that may take...
the New World Order - -
dawn on 11/04/20 cannot arrive soon-enough
3
Bernard-Henri Lévy is wrong as usual and isn't listening. The last word is often said.
1
BHL. A grand standing egomaniac with zero grounding in reality. He was the 'genius' who goaded Sarkozy into inciting Colonel Gaddafi's overthrow, with the current aftermath endured by the Libyan population seven years hence...
2
Excellent article. My note of hope came from France's Macron in directly dealing with Putin.
France fights, puts "feet on the ground", as Americans say, against terrorism more than the U.S. They not only fight, they set up hospitals, housing, schools in war torn zones in the Middle East and Africa.
And yet, they keep negotiations open with enemies, and trade with old partners, like Iran.
I'm truly glad Macron and Merkel are the leaders of the free world. Yes, we must deal with populists, but ironically, the nations in the E.U. that hate ousiders the most also feel quite content to borrow billions of euros from the EU and not ever pay them back. They are newly free from Communism, so think their traditional prejudices trump human rights, which they do not.
I must add that Poland is not as Far Right as Hungary--it's a melange.
The EU does not want to bully these disruptive member states, but they will eventually be asked to leave the EU,--for not upholding the EU accord, for contributing nothing but hatred, and for not even trying to pay back their debts.
8
I take a larger temporal perspective than Berman. The social "revolutions" were a loose aggregate, sometimes sporadic and halting - determining a beginning can be arbitrary. 1968 for the US is late imo - I would look at suffrage, Prohibition repeal, the New Deal, WWII's social mobility, the Civil Rights movement and 2nd wave feminism, perhaps Earth Day. '68 does mark Paris and Prague, and a tipping point groundswell of Vietnam War protest.
The efforts at retrenchment, the counter-revolution, are similarly an aggregate of fits and starts, often overlapping "revolution": I note 20th century Jim Crow, US covert action in the '50's, resistance to JFK, the Vietnam escalation, Nixon's Cointelpro and the War on Drugs. A brief Watergate pause, then the post-Roe coalition of conservative religions, the Reagan Restoration (a major counter), and Carter and Clinton's rightward tugs and the beginning of centrism and reckless financial deregulation (a destabilizing force that facilitates social retrenchment as well as inequality). (Imo, there isn't all that much differentiation among the administrations since 1974 - present one excepted - just a little nibbling at the margins.)
"Freedom from fear and want?" Ha! Though there has been a great lifting from economic poverty in 3rd world nations, freedom from fear was never close to fulfillment. It's now a quaint notion in full retreat - 1980 is a useful bookmark, which in the US applies to economic inequality as well.
4
What a wonderful survey of contemporary American social history! I have a different opinion about the nature of presidential administrations. I think most presidents have been reactionary, or "illiberal". The history of the labor, civil rights and veterans movements are testament enough to the preponderance of reactionaries deeply entrenched by birth, business or other affiliation, with the "ruling elites". Every so often a president comes along who is visionary enough to see that a tilted playing field might be great for the rich and powerful in the short term, but catastrophic to social order, and maybe even national sovereignty, in the long run. I'm no presidential historian but I think Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Grant, T, Roosevelt, FDR...and MAYBE Ike, were the presidents who came along just as the country was headed for some cataclysmic internal collision of primal social forces. Each of them developed over time far more progressive attitudes about race, labor relations, the widening disparity in wealth between the masses and the few, and presented a fairly clear rhetorical rationale of American foreign policy. For once I'll say let's don't look at what America does. Look at what it says. That's what Mr. Cohen is really distraught over. Trump will undoubtedly go down in history as anything more than another reactionary, and one with no message to the world at all.
1
This is a profound column in that it gives us a birds eye view of our current world order, I will always believe that education is the only key we have to creating a civilization. Without education we remain barbarians. In our currrent American culture, the anti-intellectual spear has an especially sharp point...and just look at the barbarians wielding that spear.
19
America is qualitatively distinct from Hungary, Poland, Russia, and most other countries. We were founded on a set of principles mostly embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. No matter how far we are from attaining a society that deeply and broadly functions on those principles -- and their evolving expression -- our legitimacy and success as a nation is measured by our current relationship to those principles. We are all hyphenated Americans, of necessity from day one fated to travel a collective path with other hyphenated Americans.
Most other countries -- with the notable exception of post-colonial, usually poorly functioning amalgams -- are defined by historical ethnic homogeneity. For them, the very modern push toward citizenship not predicated on majoritarian membership is a major challenge. We need to understand, though most definitely not accept, these differences. For most of the people in those countries, a Jewish Pole, a Muslim Indian, a Hindu Sri Lankan, a Christian Saudi Arabian are all simply oxymorons.
Cohen's painful disappointment largely stems from the fact that our nation is currently in the middle of a period of profound self-doubt, more and more populated by people for whom the adjective before the hyphen has become their primary identity, not the collective noun, American. We will again come together. Hopefully it will be because of something positive such as the Apollo program did, not something negative such as war.
6
It is sickening. Shame on everybody who voted for, works for, or enables this deplorable man who carelessly plays at despotism. He traffics in dishonesty, resentment and hate. He has transferred trillions from the working and middle classes to the rich. Shame, decency, freedom, and democracy are all in retreat. Xenophobes, racists, and misogynists follow his lead. Yes, it has come to this. It is worse even than the most skeptical of us expected. And this skeptic believes we have not yet hit bottom.
24
Shame is hiding in the closet in the West Wing somewhere, too ashamed to come out. Maybe it'll reappear someday, when the Oval Office has been fumigated. But for now, Shame is stuck in a closet, along with a host of skeletons piling up.
DD
Manhattan
4
We already had every reason to be ashamed after GW Bush blew up the middle east with his ill advised invasion of Iraq, what we see now across the region is the fallout of his action. Of course Bush seemed like a decent man. trump is in fact put a more honest face on a nation that has killed millions for reasons beyond any understanding. He is ugly, dishonest and hateful like the country that has bombed so many countries and families in the name of 'freedom'. We are shamed and trump is the visible symbol of our shame, we deserve him for all the lies we have told ourselves.
3
Eastern Ghouta indeed. Thank you, Roger Cohen, for once again informing me of events and places of which I've hardly been aware before reading your column. It's hard to learn and concentrate on more distant horrors while at the same time keeping up a day-to-day life with all its mundane chores (for which, actually, I'm very grateful) and watching the defilement and disintegration of the Republic.
I'm old, not much scares me for myself anymore; but I look at grandson and all the other children ~ such bright and innocent faces, they certainly deserve better ~ and I'm horrified at the future awaiting them: environmental degradation, climate chaos, declining resources, increasing population, self-serving leadership, the military/industrial/corporate complex, our trigger-happy culture and pistol-whipped congress...and on and on.
In addition to our foreign obligations, shouldn't we actually be planning for the effects of climate change, diversifying agriculture, pursuing energy efficiency and conservation, shoring up our infrastructure, supporting public education, and preserving our heritage of public lands and national parks for the future. Or is a decent, livable future just not in the cards for us?
19
Some of the commenters are right - there will never be enough American troops to guarantee the human rights of everyone on the planet. And if there were, the cure would be worse than the disease, as is nearly always the case with military intervention.
But that's all the more reason to exercise moral leadership. When the leader of the most powerful nation on earth sets an example of intolerance and authoritarianism, it could open the door to a new dark age. In the long run, moral leadership carries more weight than force of arms.
16
I feel sick reading this. How could we have fallen so far.
Yes, I know the US was hardly perfect, but not to raise our voices at wholesale slaughter? Shame on us.
53
That wicked Trump is oblivious to the American tradition of upholding Human Rights and Democracy and the Sanctity of Life, as we did in Mossadegh's Iran, Chile, Vietnam, and recently of course in Afghanistan and Iraq and Ukraine.
Roger this is beyond ludicrous. Stop making a fool of yourself.
7
False equivalencies -moral relativism - general inane blatherings are the province of the wildly ignorant!
The small thinkers who create the fertile ground for the obscenities delineated by Mr Cohen.
5
Assad kills to defend his regime from people even worse than him, who were financed by Saudi Arabia and US. US kills and hires killers to take down any government that won't obey it. There is no moral equivalence here. None at all.
2
Thank you Mr. Cohen. One correction: the nazis did not deport the Jews of Hungary in 57 plus days in spring/summer of 1944. This was done by over 200,000 Hungarians e.g. police, soldiers, judges, city/county officials etc. This fact is important as there were not enough Germans in Hungary to do that job. While it is important to remember that the Shoah was a German/ nazi project, it never would have succeeded with out massive collaboration by other Europeans. Orban still hesitates to correctly admit legal and moral guilt by the then Hungarian government, let alone the legal and moral guilt of all those Hungarians who deported their fellow Jewish Hungarians including members of my family.
38
How rapid has been our fall from grace into the pit of shame. Hard to ascertain the cumulative cost of the bad will we are generating. The Iranian Mullahs must be gratified that good old Uncle Sam, no longer hiding behind a mask of smiling good intention, is revealing his true face to the world.
Mr. Cohen's cri de coeur against our new and heartless transactional world order is sobering. It has come to this, and the reckoning up to us.
17
Thank you Roger,
It was in 1964 not 1968 that the Republican Party became a right wing party sowing hatred and division . The victory of Barry Goldwater meant that liberals like Javits and centrists like Rockefeller were no longer a force in Republican politics. Dixiecrats, Birchers and Nazis proudly carried their Goldwater banners outside the Cow Palace while Karl Hess an anti-government libertarian wrote the Goldwater nomination acceptance speech and America prepared for the 54 year decline in from its zenith in social and economic equality.
In a little over 50 years liberal democracy had seen America evolve from 90% of its population living in poverty or near poverty to a society of citizen participation, universal education and a shared prosperity. the Civil Rights Act was the pretext to return power to where it belonged for Bill Buckley's entitled White Christian Male Mediocrities. Even crazy libertarians were now part of a party which had no ethical reason for existence other than maintaining power and privilege were encouraged to join the fold. William F. Buckley Jr would had exclaimed that Ayn Rand and her libertarian philosophy was a greater threat than communism welcomed libertarian into the GOP.
The chickens have come home to roost and as promised you have inherited the wind.
As for Europe my Hungarian friend who escaped Communism in 1980 says Hungary was always what we now see but without the packaging the communists were able to put on the peasants.
18
Well said. I think you touched on the salient points that have brought us to the current. Change is always noticeable on the surface but the past lingers longer in the deep recesses.
12
You gave credit to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the wrong Roosevelt.
1
Well said. The tragedy here is not just that American's elected a dishonorable President, who by definition can know no shame, for there can be no shame without honor, but that not a SINGLE Republican has stepped forward to denounce his immoral and corrupt rule. Republicans, in fact, have aided and abetted him for their own selfish purposes. They gamble that with enough money, they can secure their own private security--freedom from the four wants--while the rest of us live lives that are marked by increasing instability, want, and despair. Only time will tell if they are right.
16
When push comes to shove, military intervention will be required. It would be beneficial to provide an estimated number of US military personnel that will be needed to guarantee the rights of every person on the planet because "it has come to this". How many US troops on the ground in Syria ? In Burma ? In Yemen ?
It's the question that Cohen, McCain, Jolie and their friends refuse to answer.
8
Roger, sorry. Orban is referring to controlling Hungarian borders. He won't act like Merkel and allow his country to be overrun by people with no right to be there. By the way, how many migrants do do you have at your place?
5
Any serious call for intervention, anywhere, needs to come with a viable plan, a sound theory as to why this plan is a just plan, what the plan is likely to accomplish, particularly for the most vulnerable, what the risks are of the plan not working, and what we should do if those risks materialize.
The central goal is not to create excuses for quietism, or barriers to action. The central goal is to do the right thing, which always means not to make life worse for those who suffer, then throw up our virtuous hands. ("Well, at least we tried." Tried what, exactly?)
The history of U.S. intervention, and great power intervention in general, demands nothing less. The United Nations Security Council is a good place to start.
4
It's partly that he doesn't care and partly that he doesn't even care to know or attempt to understand. He looks at the world through a lense of self-aggrandizement, immorality and greed. He loathes peoply who are impoverished or in need of support. He feels far superior to anyone who isn't Caucasian. We're at the point where we must accept that the Republicans will stand by, watch our country devolve, and do absolutely nothing. It's The Trump Show now. Expect the worst.
12
How many lives of American service members are your high principles worth? How much was Iraq worth to you?
4
America is a moral vacuum. We elected a self-centered, greedy, lying, hateful, narcissistic, bully with absolutely no honor. I guess, since we're a democracy, we are him.
The 'religious right' seems to promote him and his indiscretions, immoral forays and treasonous acts. So much for being of the 'spirit'.
We abandoned the working class, and so they, in desperation, turn to the loudest voice that says he's the savior and that they're the 'chosen' and they've been used and abused by the 'other' (sounds like so many dictators of the past; including Hitler after the Versailles Treaty and Germany's depression). We watch the concentration of wealth, income, property and power happen, as the middle class dissolves, and wonder how this guy got elected?
We're as good or as bad as our equality is, as our compassion is, as our common good is. We the People need a more perfect Union. And unity does not come with greed and personal gain as our guiding light. No, we advance into a civilized world with a commitment to one another, without a love of lucre or lust for advantage.
We the People. We.
15
I was born in 1948, towards the beginning of the baby boom. My parents brought me up in the knowledge of Nazism with the (now hackneyed) phrase 'never again'.
Through the 60s there was a genuine idealism, but the baby boomers are now the ones who have cynically elected an evil man, Trump. Mr Cohen is right. The situation in Syria is horrendous, but we evidently don't give a damn.
Hopefully when the Millenials take over our world they will retain their youthful idealism
8
Hardly any American wants their soldiers involved in this mess, and the world knows it. If we ever were going to stop Assad, it was years ago. Now, all we can do is watch and feel for the victims, but, the country is just worn out by the endless carnage of this area. Sad, but true.
7
Mr. Cohen--thank you for writing this column. It is a reminder that the world continues to turn in all its cruelty, even when our president seemingly pays no attention.
The situation in Syria is messy, and causing much human suffering. Our strength and place in the world comes with strings--at the very least, to support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We could have supported Britain and France in bringing the matter to the Security Council to reinforce the resolution for cessation of hostilities in Syria.
While our standing in the community of nations is probably being affected, more important is the fact that we all bear witness to the slaughter through the media. It would cost nothing to support Resolution 2401.
Where has our humanity gone?
12
Anyone who's ever read any of my posts knows I'm no fan of Trump. But what, pray tell, could he possibly do about Syria, a failed state in a region where US involvement has repeatedly made things worse, not better? Why should we put our boots on the ground? Moral outrage is not enough.
Modern warfare is inherently an outrage. These are not the days when huge uniformed armies met on clearly delineated battlefields. Modern warfare is decentralized and fought in the midst of civilian populations. Weapons like drones, land mines, and IEDs invariably kill and maim many innocent civilians. In Syria, as in all civil wars, who is on whose side is difficult for their own people to figure out, impossible for outsiders, and today's ally may well become tomorrow's enemy. (Remember, Bin Laden started out on "our" side against the Soviets). As tragic as the Syrian conflict is, Mr. Cohen has not made a convincing case that US involvement would help.
And then there is the problem of what to do with millions of refugees. The US has no answer to this. The world has no answer to this. I doubt Putin has an answer either. Until the world figures out a way to rebuild the region and stabilize it, the battles will continue to rage, particularly with a decentralized enemy like Al Qaeda, which will set up its camp anywhere people are desperate and angry. This requires an economic, diplomatic, and cultural solution, not more military force.
11
Don't forget the role of climate change in this mess. Drought and desertification is impacting the war torn Middle East and North Africa. Even peace and stability, as remote as they seem, may not be enough to stem the refugee tides.
2
Quintessential human weakness is FORGETTING.
WWII was greatest lecture human civilization learned and corrected partially but quite admirably. My generation belongs to post WWII I was born in 1969.
My generation thought that these lessons will never be forgotten and we are not that much vigilant, We were wrong.
I am seeing a world, with all our 20th-century history, is capable to do again WWI and WWII all over again.
Since my generation born world population more than duplicated, so we are not 50% of people they have no inclination to understand or will to comprehend 20th-century history.
I am feeling like everybody willing to write 21st-century history totally devoid of the 20th century.
I agree with Cohen, today world gave a chance to Viktor Orban talk like that, in 1990, he would be executed in front of the Berlin Wall like N Ceausescu in Romania.
10
Aleppo? Where 800,000 people returned since the terrorists were evicted.
Raqqa? Where six months after the US assault, 90% of the population are still missing, there's 80% destruction, 70% infrastructure destroyed, countless bodies still rotting under the rubble, and 10 people are killed daily by uncleared mines.
East Ghouta will fare much better than the places that got the US treatment. Mines will be cleared. People will return. Damascus will be free of the daily random shelling and death.
Your hysteria is based on double standards, Mr Cohen. You are cheerleading terrorists. Mind your own business.
11
Delusion is a wonderful thing - it requires no knowledge, no facts, no accountability and no moral compass. Mind YOUR own business!
8
Hi RealTRUTH.
As for facts and knowledge, was there anything specific you would like to challenge?
Pick a figure that doesn't seem right to you, and I will tell you where it came from.
We all start out believing what we read in our own press. It takes time to come to terms with the fact we are being lied to. But that is where the truth lies on this occasion.
What can be done about this. Yes, we have come to this, this awful state of affairs. Yes, and in such a short time. The answer may be more long term, but as close at the 2018 and 2020 elections. Let us not vote in leaders who have these weaknesses: lack of integrity, lack of decency, lack of intelligence, lack of a desire for knowledge, lack of empathy for the common man/woman and for the common good, lack the appropriate intentions and motivations for public service, and lack of vision for America in classical democratic terms. The lesson is in how quickly we can lose our way, lose our values, lose our confidence in our systems and in ourselves to do anything about it. We still can vote in people of character, drive, and intelligence to represent us and to pull the pendulum back to the basic things that people on both sides of the aisle truly want as the foundations of our country. Come in from the extremes, engage in give and take, do your own research on candidates at all levels, and VOTE! We can do this.
23
We seem to have lost track of what is salvific in our cultural traditions and that loss brings with horrendous circumstances Retreating from the crossroads of shame at which we find ourselves can seem an insurmountable task but we desperately need to restore some human decency to our existence and return to properly understood and humane laws offer before we can relegate this shameful behavior to its proper place as profoundly abhorrent behavior worthy of the utmost condemnation.
Cartoon characters simply pop up after a boulder falls on them. We of flesh and blood will not so easily pop up after real boulders fall on us. Vigilance and applied reason are necessary, not an option. We must wrestle back our country from the cartoon right and it's cartoon king.
5
Under the tissue-thin excuse of fighting terrorism, Syria's Assad with Putin's complete support is slaughtering the remains of the Arab Spring democracy protestors. He did not participate in the war against ISIS in Rakka. He was too busy killing the pro-democracy forces that were trying to unseat him. These people we see every day suffering under this bombing, this massive crime against humanity, r the very non-jihadi pro-west groups that started out protesting Assad's dictatorship. When Assad made war against them instead of steppng down, even America was helping send arms to these non-radical groups. Now that ISIS has followed the al-Qaeda model of decentralization, setting up cells in dozens of other countries, all of Assad's & Putin's murderous bombing & chlorine gassing are aimed at destroying the very people we were hailing as the pro-democracy movement called the Arab Spring. Yet, Trump sits there on his gilt tin-foil throne, frightened to do ANYTHING that might go against Putin's will. There are only 2 conclusions to Trump's refusal to acknowledge Putin & Russia's actions. Either Trump plans to build a kleptocratic tyranny like Putin did & Duterte &Erdogan r doing - possibly thinking of merging with Putin to become the world's rulers, or at least making the billions he has always wanted, but never had, or Putin has so much blackmail fodder on Trump, his family, & friends that Trump dare not oppose him. Probably both. They r the only conclusions Occam's Razor allows.
7
Yes, Trump's complicit silence in the ongoing slaughter of Syrian people is deafening. But then again, this ugly American in-chief is so self-centered and irresponsibly cruel, that, frankly, he does not given a damn. The United States, supposedly the champion for justice in the world, is AWOL. Now, who is going to pick up the mantle of credibility in stopping Assad-Putin's criminal mind...so the maiming and killing of it's own people stops? Their attitude of the "Middle Ages" is much worse, given the ferocity of sophisticated weaponry at their disposal, chemical and otherwise.
7
Trump is a growing stain spreading from America and throughout the global community and he attacks our allies, and is indeed a Putin Puppet. Trump is the first 'Russian' president and it is working out well for Putin.
There are no women rights in America. There are no rights in America for the majority of Americans who cannot buy them like the obscenely wealthy GOP donors donating to PAC's thanks to Citizens United which has to be changed. We desperately need political campaign reform but that won't happen now with the ruling GOP who got most of the benefit of Citizens United.
There are no rights for anyone not white, male and wealthy in America. Trump has destroyed our democracy and applauds all the murdering dictatorships of the world.
Trump is anti immigration from non white countries and his white supremacist views, racist views, and fascist views are now being supported by the morally corrupt leadership elsewhere.
Democracy is under attack in America by our own 'president', and it is under attack throughout the free world and Trump and the GOP are in favor of democracy being destroyed and replaced by an obscenely wealthy ruling plutocracy of kleptocrats.
7
Mr. Cohen, and of Obama's consorting with dictators such as the Castros of Cuba and the Ayatollahs of Iran you said nothing?
6
No rational America wants to see our military involved in Syria, on the ground or in an active role in an air war. Yet, we do have the ability to influence events there through pressure (sanctions particularly) on Russia, the chief supporter of Assad. Trump acts as though he is deathly afraid of Mr. Putin, which is probably appropriate if, in fact, Russian banks are Trump's biggest lenders.
7
This Op-Ed is all emotion with little thought. Civil wars are notoriously difficult to intervene in, and the civil war in Syria is no exception. Whom does Mr. Cohen suggest we should be arming? Whom should we be shooting? As soon as we start serious military intervention, all sorts of indignant commentators will arise condemning us for trying to spread American imperialism. Bashar al-Assad has resisted years of intense 'moral persuasion' in the conduct of this civil war, which began years before Donald Trump was President. What did Barack Obama do that was fundamentally different? How did moral persuasion work for Obama with respect to Syria? Then Cohen links all this with various national movements that have nothing to do with Syria, or America, or anything except his breathless indignation about any political movements that don't correspond to his view of matters, and decides to heap the blame for all this on Donald Trump too.
12
Mr.Trump has not staffed up a State Department with experts who would have experience and ideas about how to end the slaughter in Syria.Consulting with our traditional allies would be a good start.With all the chaos in the White House he has no time to direct his energies to pressing world problems.He is intent on making Israel , the very rich and the steel workers happy.He has no world view-no intent to uphold American values of compassion and freedom.
5
Trump was elected by nearly a majority of the American voters. Social darwinism has been sharp on the rise in America since Reagan, and unions are now even under attack by GOP appointed SCOTUS sophists. I walk through the city and see so many people wearing headphones to close themselves off from their surroundings, avoiding eye contact with homeless people who are just looking to survive. I have been lucky in my life, I was born without physical and mental limitations and blessed to be able to graduate from a great college. I consider it my moral duty to help people without such fortune (through taxes when I lived in the EU and through meaningful charity in the US) but most people around me find people dying in the streets a perfectly acceptable price for a tax break, but of course nobody has the honesty to say this aloud. Thank you Roger, for reminding us that America was once different. I still hope that one day we find our way back to the Franklin Roosevelt days.
9
Birth and rebirth are never easy, never without some pain. So it goes as we move into an age of energy and consciousness from an age of darkness and fear.
It is easier to be afraid than to be brave. Fear is what dictators and oligarchs and autocrats peddle and there will always be some who will buy it.
I am amazed that so many Americans have bought it; but after decades of listening to the lies and propaganda from F(alse)ox News pumping up authoritarian urges, the under educated and uninformed have indeed bought it. It has, indeed, come to this.
3
To everyone here who is agreeing with this column, I ask that you post back and tell us exactly what you would do.
5
Total sanctions on Assad & anybody related to him. Demand that Russia remove all support & military materiel. Commit US airpower to destroy Assad's airforce and weapons, enforce a nation-wide no-fly zone, directly destroy Assad's infrastructure and even his own palace, blockade Syria & announce to everybody, Russia included, that any violation of the sanctions & blockade will result in a military response against the transgressor - including the Russians and the Shi'ite dominated countries like Iraq, Iran, southern Lebanon (under Shi'ite Hezbollah control). All fighting MUST stop immediately or US ships, carriers, & airpower will take military action. Declare Assad must step down within 30 days & fair elections held or Assad will personally be our target. If this can be done under a UN umbrella or through the Arab Union (mostly made up of Sunni Arabs, Shi'a's deadly enemies), then we act alone to prevent further monstrous war crimes and crimes against humanity.
If Assad & Russia win this war, than there is a Shi'ite crescent stretching from Iran in the Persian Gulf through Shi'ite Iraq, then Shi'ite Alewite minority dominated Syria and the southern tier of Lebanon - under Hezbollah's complete control (and therefore Iran's). A path from the eastern side of the Persian Gulf unimpeded all the way to the Mediterranean. And Iran, once walled off by Saddam's Iraq, will supplant the Sunni Saudis, Egyptians, & Jordanians as the region's primary power.
1
I don't know "exactly what I would do" because I do not have the skills and knowledge that a world leader should have. That is why we should elect intelligent and intellectual leaders who have these skills and knowledge, and take the advise of their equally intelligent and intellectual advisors to figure out exactly what we as a nation should do.
3
It's not that hard to imagine, Brian. First. Find a way to rid ourselves of Trump and his cronies.
Practice real diplomacy. Shun dictators and autocrats. Find diplomatic or as a last resort, military methods for pushing back against genocidal actions.
Sure, it's an ugly, dangerous, messy world. But walking away from it appears to be making it more dangerous and bloody.
3
I should like to add another
"Yes, it has come to this:"to mr. Cohen's list:
Mr. Cohen wrote earlier: "In the current vacuum, a dream of one state with equal rights for all peoples — a kind of United States of the Holy Land — has gained some traction. It is pure, if seductive, illusion — flimsy code for the destruction of Israel as the national homeland of the Jews. It will not happen."
So Palestinians should just give up on equal rights in a shared nation where they are a minority even after decennia of sabotaging the possibility of a coherent country of their own by their occupiers.
Yes, it has come to this.
14
“...and to the #FeralRepublic for which it stands...”
Roger. You only have 13 comments. Humans walk away from murder. Got to be some evolutionary thing not to delve on it too hard which causes one to sniff the carcass, make a few circles around it in deference, then walk away.
Where is the Liberal media bleating about this? It would rather bleat EVERY UTTERANCE of a dictator.
1
Trump and his enablers embody the very worst in human nature. It is so much easier to smugly sit in safe enclaves, be they Washington, New Jersey, or Florida, watching the painful suffering of others and simply turn away to more pleasurable distractions such as golf and the ministrations of porn stars.
8
Morawiecki, Poland's PM, "defends a new law that makes it a crime to accuse 'the Polish nation' of complicity in any 'Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich.' He says there were also 'Jewish perpetrators' of the Holocaust."
Yes it is a crime called defamation since the exact opposite happened. See NYTimes 1942 Post: POLES ASK ALLIES TO HALT SLAUGHTER; Report Germans Have Slain One-Third of 3,130,000 Jewish Population END OF NATION IS FEARED Note Charges Extermination of Entire Polish People Is Nazis' Objective https://nyti.ms/2sTCsVm
Yes there were horrible Jewish perpetrators. See Stella Kubler (as one example) (née Goldschlag, 10 July 1922 – 1994) was a German Jewish woman who collaborated with the Gestapo during World War II, exposing between 600 and 3,000 Jews. The Nazis called her "blonde poison".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_K%C3%BCbler
The paragraph after talking about Poland, Cohen writes:
"These illiberal European leaders are empowered by Trump’s dalliance with despotism and by his indifference to the distinction between truth and lies. They have the wind at their backs. They can lie lightly. The values-based American pushback against bigotry, in the name of liberty, human rights and the rule of law, has vanished."
Mr. Cohen is the one who doesn't know his history and is lying. This is so irresponsible and unprofessional. It's unethichal and it's wrong. And if you think this doesn't lead to racism and bigotry against Polish people, you're wrong too.
6
Mr. Szymanski, clearly your attachment to the concept of free speech is selective. You chose to express your highly charged opinions here, but are quite comfortable with that same right being subject to charge and imprisonment in your home country. You protest too strongly, I feel, and reveal your nature.
2
My home is in California and in Poland my right to speak is also protected if I speak the truth, but in both places I would be subject to suit and prosecution if the speech is libelous or defamatory. That’s what Democratic law says.
Mr. Cohen, the Israeli police have recommended Mr. Netanyahu be charged with fraud, corruption, breach of trust. It is Mr. Netanyahu who globally challenged the law that you blame the Polish PM for defending. Have you thought about his motivations? Have you considered the credibility of the source? Why don’t you include Israel’s obstinate bulldozing and suppressing of Palestinians as shameful? The reasons for Mr. Netanyahu’s clearly misleading statements should be considered. Reparation and military funds to Israel have totaled approximately a trillion dollars and it has built a world class tech center with nearly 100 Nasdaq traded companies whose market value is close to a trillion dollars. There is talk of Poland getting repatriation funds for up to $850 billion. That would certainly mean less funds for Israel. Poland’s population suffered at the same level and since then had to endure 50 years of brutal Stalin and communist led rule. Do you have the an admirable article about Poland rather than just repeating what you’ve seen elsewhere? There is a lot to admire. Top economy, resilience, fast evolution. They have been under Russian or Nazi influence for all but two generations (1919-1939 and 1989-2018) since the Third Partition in 1795, alkowy as King as America Jaś come to be. Check out the judicial changes, they are as in the USA where the President and Senate not judiciary approve judges. 500,000 Ukrainians emigrated there from a war torn zone.
1
Trump and the other illiberal leaders did not take over their respective countries in a coup. They were elected by a majority of their voters (well, in the US a slight minority). We need to recognize they are not the cause, they are a symptom of the problem. The problem is that too many people do not know or understand history. Germany was a liberal democracy before the National Socialists took over and Hitler became Fuhrer.
As George Santayana wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." It is a frightening statement. But, we may be on a path to demonstrate it's truth.
8
War is hell. Civil wars are even worse. It is indeed terrible for the civilians in Aleppo and Eastern Ghoutia to suffer. However, one should not ignore the propaganda value of all the injured children to the rebels and to west who desperately wants them to win. The rebels who are fighting there are aligned to (ex) Al Nusra and other Islamic fundamentalist groups. When Mosul and Raqua were destroyed by the Kurdish troops and US bombers (as was evident from the pictures after the battle) to liberate them from another group of fundamentalist, ISIS, we never heard or saw of any civilian casualties. Were there no civilians there ? Did the bombs and the artillery shells selectively killed only the Islamist fundamentalists ? Also in the video and the pictures from Aleppo and now Eastern Ghoutia, we never saw any weapons only suffering children. How are the rebels managing to fight there? Is providing the arms to them by the Saudis and the gulf states and possibly Turkey actually prolongs their suffering ? There are no saints in the benighted Middle East. All this reminds me of the bitter civil war in Biafra in Nigeria in the 60's.
9
We have a COWARD for our so-called president.
He will always back down after bullying ("3-D chess) and not only give us reasons for shame, but do REAL harm to America, domestically and internationally.
He IS carnage.
3
We have become a sad, sick country at the leadership level. Unfortunately, we, like eastern europe, may be headed to fascism at the ordinary citizen level.
4
An empty-eyed man who needs crib notes on how to to show empathy cannot be expected to promote human rights, or any other of the values that American presidents have always promoted. He has the morals of a Mafia don.
21
Human Rights mean NOTHING to the Presidential Apprentice and his regime. It's all about his Ego, and the Money. Anytime, anywhere.
Thanks, GOP/NRA Party. The Collaborators from Hell.
16
And your solution is...what?
4
Really? Is that how we solve problems as a country; point at one guy and shout "fix it, smarty pants!"
Marty, I think you probably know that this is hugely complex. But stop pouring fuel on the fire of despotism and fascism would be a great start!
Look inside yourself and ask the same question. And what have you done to make it a better world - not just write comments.
1
Trump and his supporters don't care about the people being killed in Syria. There is no excuse for their behavior. Missing, however, from this article, is any mention of culpability of the Muslim world. There are 46 members states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. They are strangely (or maybe not so strangely) silent on the genocide of their fellow Muslims. They offer no condemnation nor do they open their borders for their brethren.
If they aren't busy condemning Israel or shouting "Islamophobia" in response to any criticism, they are silent. And the author gives them a pass. That is the real reason this atrocity continues.
27
The destruction of the United States and the annihilation of the concept of human equality and democracy was written into the Constitution of the United States. African slavery enshrined inequality into the soul of the United States. Subsequent genocide of Native Americans enshrined the concept that only those of European extraction were truly "American". Even Europeans from Ireland, southern and eastern Europeans, and of course, Jews were disdained.
Nothing has really changed in the United States.
Harsh? Yes, but sometimes the truth hurts. FDR had it right when he said that all we had to fear was fear itself. The Republican Party has made fear its mantra and trademark.
The world does not need a United States policeman to run it. The world needs to embrace the words the United States has never really embraced. "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
6
From Obama's 2004 convention speech; "Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation-not because of the height of our skyscrapers or our military or economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: "We hold these truths..." "I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs" " My grandfather had larger dreams for his son. He got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that shone as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before" Thank you Mr Obama for words that have found inspiration, hope and self esteem in our history.
1
"it’s frightening"
yes it is.
"The values-based American pushback against bigotry, in the name of liberty, human rights and the rule of law, has vanished."
Mr. Cohen and others may seek to place blame on Trump for this, but they would be wrong. Trump did not seize power. He was voted in by some sixty million of our most racist, xenophobic, bigoted and hateful citizens. They knew he cared nothing for human rights, the protection of civil liberties, or the rule of law when they voted for him. And they know this now. Worse, they applaud his racist, bigoted rhetoric and actions.
We here in the U.S. may want to believe that our leadership has failed us. This would be wrong. One-half our citizenry has failed us. Trump flouts the rule of law daily, and they cheer him on. Trump is no imposter - he is exactly who half of us are. They voted Trump into power because he reflected their values exactly -- hatred and disdain for anyone who isn't white or Christian. It's no puzzle why Trump voters continue to support him so strongly more than a year after the worst presidency in our nation's history.
We need to understand that it isn't some fringe of five, or maybe ten percent of our citizens who would strip ethnic and religious minorities of their rights -- it is nearly fifty percent of us. And if ever, they've grown increasingly vicious. Hate crimes have skyrocketed this past year, as our "president" calls the KKK and neo-Nazis some very fine people. And this will not end well.
30
Well said, but I think you forget the role of the President as leader of the nation. He should be setting the tone by governing to promote the common good. Hark back to his inaugural message that was filled with doom, gloom and impending dystopia.
Many people and corporations take their cues from him. So to some degree we do have to point and deride him for not leading for the common good and promoting peace, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He seems to find perverse pleasure in the alternative.
1
So, where is our own "Dear Leader" focusing his efforts today? His priorities include asking witnesses how their time with Robert Mueller's team went. And then there is the Stormy Daniels issue that just doesn't go away. Until 11am each day, he remains focused on what the cable news channels are saying about him. He needs to look at the web sites featuring pictures of the top three DOJ officials dining at a non-Trump venue. And since he can't fire them, he plans revenge with ad hoc trade war battle plans.
With that exhausting schedule, he also has to fit in time for Tweets, figuring out what to do with Jared, calling friends about how he he's doing and determining what he can next blame Hillary or Obama for. So, time for Syria mass murder isn't making it on to the calendar right now. Plus, no doubt he is confident that his secret pal Vladimir can handle this one.
4
Wonderful column. Thank you! I wonder how much worse it will get, before it gets better.
2
Assad learned well from his father’s destruction of Hama. The West hasn’t.
1
I had just written a lengthy comment excoriating tRump and his effect on totalitarian regimes , and as often happens with my iPad , the electronic monster within it ate it before I could press SUBMIT . However , this gave me the opportunity to read Eric Caine's salient comment . I heartily agree with him
and feel that his analysis deserves more readership .
Even though I voted for President Clinton twice, I felt SHAME died in the US the moment he did not resign after being caught lying about Monica Lewinsky.
Just think how different the world would be if VP Gore had taken command and won the election against W. Bush.
7
Individualism or "meism" however one wishes to describe it has resulted in a destruction of communities and countries. When every man is for himself we have these tragedies such as Syria. I do not look for it to get better soon.
“There is always a counter-revolution”. The American Revolution and the Federalist party ultimately brought us Andrew Jackson. Robspierre gave us the Directorate that led to Napoleaon who ultimately gave us 1848.
These cycles were described by Schlessinger Jr. a half-century ago. In America, The two Roosevelts and Wilson led to the Republican party revolution of Nixon and Reagan. And so it goes. Where will the white nationalist and oligarchic ascendancy of Trump lead?
Do not assume it will lead to a liberal democratic triumph any time soon. The cycles are long and unpredictable. With luck, the American electorate will create another cycle of liberal restoration through the ballot box. How bad this current agony will last , and how long it will take to revert towards a liberal restoration no one can predict.
Historically, American cycles can last half a century. Assuming our current Reactionary wave against American liberalism began in 1980, we may have to wait a while.
2
It brings me the greatest sadness that it is under this cloud of kleptocracy, autocracy, and idiocy that my final years will be spent.
My entire life was built around the premise that society was progressing to a more peaceful, orderly and civilized condition. And look what we've become.
2
As much as I disliked Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, I never had to equate them to "leaders" like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban. For all their faults, they were fundamentally decent men who accepted the limits on their own power and believed in America's power to be a force for good in the world. If Trump had his way he would be named President for Life tomorrow and his children would succeed him. His motto for America is not "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," but "Get lost." He appeals not to Americans' better angels but to their basest instincts. On its present course, this country is destined to become as ugly, self-centered, hateful, and hated as Trump himself.
3
One of the cruelest things about shameless criminals is they leave it to US to feel for them. Why am I ashamed I was molested? Because it causes others pain to hear about it. I do not wish to cause others pain, so I shamed myself into silence.
I have no shame regarding this anymore, and those who are discomforted, now you know how it feels to have feelings no one wants to share.
1
If human history is generally cyclical yet arcing or progressing upward toward a more morally decent world, the counterrevolution of which Mr. Cohen writes so evocatively is certainly troubling, but is it enough to fill one with despair? If we humans could beat back the horrors of the 20th Century--perpetrated by dictators like Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Mussolini, among others--will we also emerge victorious eventually against weaker authoritarians like Trump, Putin, Assad, Orban, Morawiecki, Erdogan, and Duterte in this century?
The underlying problem in both centuries, and which Mr. Cohen elides, is one of nationalism, and its prettified stepsister patriotism. Both historical forces are used by morally compromised leaders like Trump and their supporters to mask their racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, religious bigotry, and/or homophobia. Nationalism has been responsible for more killing, maiming, torturing, and destruction and thievery of property than any other historical force, save perhaps religion and greed. And that is only because human greed and religion predate the formations of nation-states.
I have very little doubt that if Americans continue to elect fear- and war-mongers like Trump, we will be fighting another world war by the end of this century. For nationalism qua patriotism has been bubbling over in Russia and China no less than here in the USA, the world's most prolific war-maker since WWII.
3
Homo sapiens are amazing. We evolved as social animals to be both remarkably caregiving, and remarkably murderous simultaneously. I disagree that history demonstrates that we have moved away from social Darwinisim and toward social justice. History is not destiny, however. I suspect it is our shame, and our pain, that will drive us to stop cowering in our impotent institutions, and when the unknown becomes less scary than the known, we will try again to destroy the power that the predator within us has over us. Will history then rhyme? Nobody knows - our knowledge about who we are, and what we, the species, has done to ourselves, and the world we depend on, grows, and changes our actions, regardless of our caregiving, or our murderousness. Whether it can break the hold that our murderous instincts/behavioral predilections have on us, whether our caregiving can overcome our murderousness, is unknowable until/unless it happens.
There are telling images available on the result of the attack on Mosul which reduced the city to the equivalent of Dresden after the second World War. The city was destroyed by intensive bombing and the killing of many hundreds of American Air power. Not one word of this crime against humanity was mentioned in the Corporate Media and certainly not by Mr. Cohen.
Yes, it has come to This!
4
As they say, the victor gets to write the history books. I think everyone recognizes that Dresden and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrendous. But the world was at war with these nations and their leaders had the means to stop the conflict but chose to continue.
Dredging up painful times of seven decades ago doesn't obviate the argument Cohen makes that world leaders have allowed civility to decline and hostility to be manifested.
1
The World was not at War with those nations; there was a World War involving those nations. The USA did not need to use the A-Bomb on Japan – Japan had already offered to surrender. The use of the A-Bomb was a demonstration to the Soviet Union that America had fearsome power and that America was the new Hegemon. The USA did not know that the Soviets had already penetrated the Manhattan Project and within a few years the Soviet Union was able to demonstrate its own fearsome power. After that followed a period of “mine is bigger than yours” as USA and Soviet Union ‘tested’ bigger and bigger megatonnages until we settled into the Mutually Assured Destruction MAD standoff.
There has never been a satisfactory explanation for the deliberate firebombing of Dresden and the massive toll of civilian life. Dresden was a wholly irrelevant City in Military terms and it was full of Refugees from Countries to the East of Germany.
1
The best money ever spent by Russia was the buying of Donald Trump.!!!!!!
1
Better think something other than that it's always been "this" and Trump
is just the naked lunch.
Thank you.
Why doesn't Roger mention Israel and it's continued occupation of the West Bank and the misery of the Palestinians, as long as he is talking about Shame?
3
What can you expect with Ignoramus_Rex at State?
1
Very sad to read that Roger Cohen quote the outgoing UN Human Rights commissioner to support opinion that is justifiable. Is a commissionner that Israel bashing is all he accomplished crefible to you, Roger? Could you not find a better « human rights icon » to quote?
Shame is an emotion that paralyzes good people and never dawns on bad people. Stop feeling ashamed about your errors you regret, you didn't know any better. But if you pursue them like a vocation, you deserve to be banished from society.
I wish there were more stories like this one on the front pages...
Chemical warfare on hospitals and while putin blinks : Over 400 children die in agony?
And no one cares?
Has The God of Chaos Triumph?
I don't think we are in a position to make any complaints about human rights. We are the nation of Guantanamo, Abu Graib, bombing a hospital and killing 800 civilians, thousands of civilians dead in drone strikes, President sexual abuse guy, police killing black men, the My Lai massacre... We can't complain because we need to get away with our use of dark arts.
1
OK, Nick, it's dangerous and it's frightening. That's easy to write.
Why is it happening? That's harder to understand. Clearly too hard for you.
The rise of Trump is culminating in the rest of the world going in the same direction. He has no shame. We are still the country that others look to for guidance and leadership. So when Trump is elected and represents tyranny here, along with the Republicans, other countries see no reason to believe that they are acting inhumanely. After all, the USA is now turning into a Banana Republic. The whims of the leader and his cohorts are now how the U.S. is governed. Just as in Banana Republics, we are becoming hostage to some of the worst inclinations of Trump and the Republican Congress. None are above lying and backing up lies. Think of Hope Hicks and her "white lies". There are no "white lies" in the Administration. They are out and out lies.
So we should spend more time cleaning up this country and maybe the next President will decide that we also should be condemning those leaders in other countries who are going down the road that Hitler trod. After all, "people who live in glass houses should not throw stones."
2
What would you have the U.S. do Roger, not "back Israel"?
Where then would the ultimate refuge of worldwide Jewry be?
Poland, Hungary, Iran, Russia, France, Sweden, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, the North Pole?
3
It is the triumph of the id. What a relief not to have to feign concern for high-minded values and concepts that never meant anything after all. Where’s the harm in finally letting go of all those troubling ideals that self appointed moralists brandished to shame us from pursuing our desires and beliefs? See it in the face of our avatar: who cares?
2
(In case your comments are not to be read as sarcasm): The harm comes from the results of a lagging moral compass set to "those troubling ideals" the result of which is millions of suffering people whose lives are seemingly unimportant anymore because of the want of "high-minded values". Out of context, but still relevant, I will paraphrase that famous quote from the McCarthy-era dangerous loss of liberal values: "Have you no decency, sir?"
1
No, that was intended as sarcasm, pure and simple. The permanent damage to the body politic in one "short" year is staggering and tragic. My comment was a wail from the depths.
Dear RHJ: Thank you so much for setting my thinking straight on the intentions of your first comment. I join with you in your wailing!
Our unqualified support of Netanyahu and failure to speak out against Israel's very public mistreatment of the Palestinians is contributing to the rising antisemitism in Europe and other parts of the world. Trump's utter indifference to the suffering of the Syrians and millions of others in the Middle East leaves a void into which Russia and Iran find the opportunity to extend their influence. I am ashamed that my country has abandoned its responsibility to speak out against the violence and violations of human rights.
37
The remedy is a long way off!
1
No, not really, only the next election.
Mr. Cohen writes with the accumulated wisdom of a 5000 year old culture. We have seen this before in the evils of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, the Romans, the Hungarians, the Poles, Mao, etc. The demonization of minorities and those that "are not us" has disgraced mankind for aeons. Just because it WAS does not mean that it can continue. Nationalistic (whatever THAT means in this diverse country where the only true Americans are the Native Americans) tribalism is destructive in any civilization, as has been seen throughout history. One would think that, by now, people would have realized that. Without education, compassion and a world view this evil will continue to destroy a civil society.
38
Well said Mr. Cohen. Who needs shame if truth dies? And who is better at killing truth than Trump, though he is not alone. We are drowning in lies, about taxes, deficits, Mexican immigrants, guns, the Affordable Care Act, climate change, clean coal, voter fraud, Social Security, Medicare, Muslims, and the number of people who attended Trump's inauguration. We cannot keep up with them. Facts are no longer an antidote.
We were not always innocent, but we used to be able to admit at least some of our mistakes and even correct them. We even found ways to compensate unintended victims. Not today. Not here under Trump's Administration and not in Poland or Hungary as you point out.
Ironically Germany, once a country that deified lies and trampled on human rights, now stand among the truth tellers and protectors of innocent refugees.
Shame on us, one of the founders of the United Nations, for retreating from human rights and truth.
62
An iliberal counterrevolution for not again involving the US is yet another Middle East civil war? Sorry, not buying it. Putin is trapped in a quagmire in Syria; the US should stay away from any direct involvement but support humanitarian efforts. There are always going to be atrocities in other countries but the US should not continue to feel compelled to independently interject itself into every one. The UN was set up for this type of response so let the collective nations of the world work together to resolve these humanitarian crises.
I am tired of the US squandering precious lives and treasure in the Middle East, a largely tribal region carved into artificial countries after WWI and WWII. The US can not and should not single handedly try and put the region back together again. Let's remember, we thought we had the moral high ground in Vietnam as well.
2
“We do not want to be diverse and do not want to be mixed; we do not want our own color, traditions and national culture to be mixed with those of others.”--Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary.
The above is the translation of "Make America Great Again." It is why Donald Trump is the American president.
44
I get it: Nothing seems to work anymore, if it ever did, not diplomacy, not foreign aid, not military invasion, which often becomes an endless quagmire. People are just too emotional, irrational, greedy, ignorant, lazy, or spineless for lasting peace and widespread sanity to prevail. Not a lot of Gandhis out there.
Yeah, Trump could send in the troops. That strategy worked so well in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba*, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. We can't fix the whole world; we can't even fix our own serious, unending domestic problems. And nowadays if you break it, you own it. Are you willing to pay for that?
So, gasp, maybe 45's semi-isolationism is the cold-blooded blueprint for our future, the ugly, but necessary new direction. These foreign conflicts, when we get involved, usually go from bad to worse. Can we deal with that depressing, but real possibility? (I doubt it.) History seems to teach that the role of world's policeman is beyond any nation's powers; even the Roman Empire minded its own business to a large extent.
Yes, it's hurts one's pride to be a mere pragmatist with a Realpolitik's mindset. The choices are indeed bleak and nauseating. We will not all live happily everafter. Nonetheless, I predict that my homeland will continue to keep its nose firmly and deeply planted in other nation's social and political problems.
Santayana taught:“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Maybe we should actually listen to that advice for once.
2
Thank you, Mr Cohen - Keep speaking out loud for all of us to hear.
4
Paul Berman is quoted in the article as saying "You can only understand the macho cartoons that are Putin and Trump through the fear aroused by the revolution in women’s rights. Fear of globalization, too, and then we have this cultural collapse that leads so many Americans to be incapable of seeing at a glance that Trump should not be president.”
This is certainly an important part of it, but what provided the opening for this fear. The financial crisis and the failure of the established political power structure to adequately address it by endlessly clinging to a failed policy of austerity, helped to created the stagnation and economic insecurity *in the middle class* that provided that opening. Early on in the crisis Hungary was an early harbinger of this. That and the evident increasing inequality as more and more of the economic benefits concentrate higher and higher up the economic ladder were important contributors.
Turning a blind eye to this or taking a simplistic view that since it is not necessarily the *least* well off who support authoritarianism, that there cannot be any economic causality, misses one of the essential drivers of this crisis.
And the GOP sits by the sidelines, complicitly allowing this destruction of our democracy. And for what? Power? Money? What it all mean if we have civil war, or worse, a dictatorship?
4
I don't understand why the Syrian rebels do not surrender. They have clearly lost the war. Is it their religious animosity that prevents surrender?
2
They are paid not to surrender. it is the interest of the USA, Saudi Arabia and Israel that the Syrian War is never ending.
1
you are really simplified the issue to the dry bone.
When the revolutionary independence declaring American Founding Fathers shamefully gave birth to a divided limited power constitutional republic nation state that denied the humanity as persons of enslaved Africans and the equality as persons of people who did not own property or were black or were female or Native there was no humble humane empathetic moral beginning to retreat from. The Civil War, Reconstruction and Civil Rights eras were the advancement of honor and courage.
1
This is why we elected Trump. If they want to destroy (or I should say continue destroying) their land and people, so be it. Trump has been on message for three years: America first. We are tired of using our resources on lost causes. Let's get our own house in order. Yes, it is sad but they need to work it out. They have been trying to work things out for thousands of years. It ain't gonna change.
4
One problem: Trump is NOT getting our national house in order. Even basic management of the White House is beyond him. He is abdicating leadership abroad while destroying healthcare and the environment at home.
Shame requires an absolute sense of morality, not a relative one. In today's world, all events are processed according to how they affect different interest groups, and how much power those groups have. Politics are a question of whether your group is strong enough to assert their 'rights' over the 'rights' of other groups, not a question of right and wrong.
This started decades ago, with the politics of interest groups. Trump's only innovation was to identify a new group, the white working class. He did not create the politics of identity; he simply extended them to their natural end point.
1
Mr. Cohen seems to have a very short memory. Trump's world? This is Obama's world. Mr. Obama is the enabler of all of this mess. Does the siege and destruction of Aleppo ring a bell, just as one example.
So this is Obama's world and it is his world of shame and Trump too has done nothing, but he is just following the lead of his Nobel Peace Prize laureate predecessor.
3
to: J. Schwartz: Spoken like a right-wing supporter of your morally and ethically
tainted Netanyahu. This is hardly President Obama's world now - it is filled with
Trump's indecency and unfitness for the job of President, not to mention his intellectual incapacity.
How dare you compare Trump with Obama in any way, shape or form.
2
We are now watching a film called the "Wizards of Oz." When the final curtain is pulled back, we discover media-puppeteers Trump and Putin pulling the strings of their authoritarian con-game.
Last night, when we heard the South Koreans at the White House deliver a staged gushing stream of praise for "the leadership of President Trump," we sensed it must have been Trump himself who insisted on those words, since "he alone" deserved to receive the royal bows of adoration.
Yes, it has come to this, but "the last word is never said."
1
It has been my voiced concern for many years now that civilization is but a thin veneer, papering over tribalism and its corollary, violence, which lurks in the hearts of many folks. The whole reason religions were invented was to give average people a code of civil conduct to live by. This neatly should prevent them from attacking their perceived oppressors; although it doesn't always work. If it weren't for religion, especially Christianity, the blacks in the USA would have killed all the whites, or vice-versa for the savage treatment meted out to them.
I often find myself wondering if xenophobic and racist folks ever consider how much they are despised by those they denigrate. Or has their white privilege so deadened their capacity for empathy that they just never see the contempt in which they are held? More likely is they just don't think about it much at all, and care even less.
The pendulum swings and right now it's heading to a worse place than most of us have seen in our lifetimes. For the rich and powerful, nothing much will change, but for the rest of us a less harmonious and fractious society is coming. This will be so difficult, but as the saying goes - you never appreciate what you have until it's gone.
2
We have a president for whom traditional American values hold no sway. He values only money and power. Shame? He has none, only resentment towards those who call out his transgressions and unbridled hedonism.
I am reminded of Army counsel Joseph Welch's famous question asked of Senator Joseph McCarthy. "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" In Trump's case, we already know the answer.
2
Roger: We revolutionaries of 1968 are still around. still fighting these old battles anew, still trying to be humane, to do good, and to save the planet. Call us Quixotes, perhaps, still tilting at windmills-- but I don't think so. As you mention so incisively, these enemies are real, and relentless. Otherwise, Eastern Ghouta is the fate of us all. Great column here, as ever. Thanks!
1
Your most excellent and challenging article is best described by one currently misused word "sad."
1
In my 1971 eighth grade social studies class as an offshoot of a discussion of the war in Vietnam, I asked my teacher why the USA needed to solve the world’s problems, only to be hated for it by those who felt we were imposing our will on the world.
My teacher couldn’t give me a credible answer then and apparently, neither can mr Cohen today.
4
Who is talking about waging a Vietnam style war? The point of this article is that Trump has abandoned any idea of diplomacy or concern for human rights in Syria. He is looking the other way entirely while other world leaders try to pressure Putin and Asaad.
1
Unfortunately, it appears that Donald Trump is doing and excellent job of demonstrating to the rest of the world that not only are we not the “indispensable country”, but that they might very well be better off without us in any new ventures.
If the U.S. has indeed finally stopped caring about Syria, then I can only say this is a truly positive development in U.S. foreign policy. Kudos to Mr. Trump. Now if we can only adopt the same posture with the rest of the Middle East, we'll be home free.
3
What does Cohen want....boots on the ground? Not happening. I'm not a fan of Trump. But he's right on on Syria. We need to stay out of this civil war. It isn't our fight.He had the guts -something liberals & progressives don't have- to recognize reality. Our entry into this quagmire in a big way will cause more people to die The people who have pushing us to enter this on going disaster are self-deluded charlatans. In the past 70 years trillions have been spent trying to solve various Middle East problems. We've engaged in horrifying wars with no end in sight because of our involvement . A 2013 Harvard study estimated that future medical care & disability benefits for veterans of these war will exceed $900 billion. What do we have to show for it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The Peace in the Middle East is a sham pushed by people who should have known better. We can't waste anymore American lives, money, or time on this. It's a tragedy. But not one we created.
3
All that is said by Cohen is true. What is left out is that this has occurred because the Republican Party backed a greedy, immoral man so they could get their greedy immoral laws passed. The Republicans sit and watch as these things continue. They have the power to intervene but they do nothing. This is a flawed party run by deeply flawed men. They have no shame. They have been consciously at this for 40 years.
They are the sons and grandsons of the German sympathizers who haunted the streets and board rooms of America in the 30's.
American has the power to change this in November. Will it??
Vote the Republican bums out in 2018 and lift the vale of shame that has descended on America.
3
Seeing the president of the USA congratulate despots is truly shocking and, I suppose, if he did condemn Hungary, Poland and others, his words would likely ring hollow to most of us. I also feel he is exacerbating the retreat of democracy inside the USA by further polarizing rich and poor, black and white with his policies. The world needs democracies that function with strong middle classes, cultural diversity, safety nets for the poor, etc. Seems like we are heading back to the dark ages.
2
Trump, and Trumpism, must stop. There is no other solution. And that solution is available in this year's election. All energy should be focused on that.
2
It seems that we Americans can not or will not see these frightening developments, or in observing them are paralyzed by fear, ignorance and greed. I am no longer proud to be an American unless we can awake and reclaim our moral mission. I fervently hope our youth will lead the way. I always look to Roger Cohen to speak out for the truth.
2
Great article, I would wish that the United Nations would be more engaged in following Roosevelt's words that the world of our the future is in making tomorrow is now
1
I share Roger Cohen's outrage and shame at the terrible turn in Europe and Asia toward unbridled brutality and/or chauvinistic indifference to the fate of "the other." However, I do not share his pollyanna attitude toward the now fading American post war (WWII, that is) hegemony. I suggest he read any of the books of Chalmers Johnson on the non-benevolent and destructive nature of that hegemony. Perhaps his last, NEMESIS, would be a good place to start. Arguably, American military presence throughout the world has contributed tragically to the present difficulties -- both in the world and in the USA itself. Chalmers calls the situation "The Sorrows of Empire" in a 2004 book. That is not to deny the good, celebrated by Cohen, that American hegemony has achieved. But to ignore the "sorrows of American empire" as contributing to the present situation will not help us to get out of this mess.
Leon Surette
3
While I rue the illiberal counterrevolution, and agree with Cohen's motivations for it, I equally rue war destruction for honor when it is unwinnable. Smart were the Danes and Czechs to not try to fight the Germans in 1937 and 1940 when it was clearly unwinnable (and bravo to UK/US for standing up to them). The Syrian rebels should have never taken up arms in the first place, and should have put down their arms long ago - they are more complicit than the regime, in my eyes, for all the destruction of places and human lives. And shame on any countries that aided their attempt to violently overthrow a government no matter the potential nobility of the cause; the US Confederacy thought they had a noble cause also, and how sympathetic are we today towards their violent revolution? Not much. There are many parallels between the Syrian and US Civil Wars, all of them sad ones - but if the US is to stand on high moral ground, that must include not supporting violent revolutiouns against legitimate governments. Would we want Russia or any other outside force supporting a violent revolution against our government? I believe the US press has taken sides and never appropriately holds the Syrian rebels responsible for the destruction they have fomented - they are at least 50% responsible if not 90% since they are the ones that took up arms, and won't put them down....like ISIS.
1
Trump cleared an air field in Syria by advance notification to the Russians of where he would strike. Trump has figured out that the way to distinguish himself in Syria is not to disturb Assad, it is to shill for Russia. Is anyone not betting now, that at Panmunjom he will invite Russia to be a guarantor of his promise of security for Kim's régime?
2
You are right, Roger. I weep.
5
Wars and famine. Lack of clean water. The global military industrial complex and ecological disasters. People moving to avoid being killed by bombs. People moving to have clean water to drink or crops to grow. And nobody knows what to do with 'Them'. As if the Syrian refugees moved to Germany to deliberately vote against Germans. Maybe they just wanted not to be bombed?
The powers that be, including America, can share in the creation of this mess and the human response of mass migration but choose not to accept responsibility. 'They' should stay in their 'own' defined little space and take whatever comes their way. Sort of like the American Indian. 'They' need to stay on the reservation!
The threat of 'They" or 'Them' is falsely defined and shaped into fear by the powers that be. A great tool to justify power continued and abused. Racism and bigotry used to justify exclusion and harm. If 'They' are not fully deserving of human decency then the powers that be don't have to worry about treating 'Them' with human decency. Those Syrians should stay in their place and take it, whatever it is. Shades of slavery and the plantation come to mind.
The globalized powers that be are confronting the consequences of what they have created with denial, fear and cruelty. It's easier to ignore. Building and creating solutions based upon morality, ethics and respect seem too much effort. Convoluted reasoning says "They' aren't deserving of such effort.
1
On another page, Katherine Mangu-Ward, the very epitome of false equivalence and sneering conservatism pretends that she sees nothing of this. While you urge us to look beyond our borders and see where so much of the world is heading our far right is busy sticking its head in the sand and paying no attention at all to the shout outs from Trump to America's white nationalists. There is no good possible from ignoring the fact that we too have a growing white nationalist problem and a president who embraces it while disregarding any normal moral and ethical standards.
2
The question of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Have we all gone completely mad?”, can be only answered by "No, we have always been mad".
In life that is a never-ending struggle between the Good and Evil, each gains alternately the upper hand. Xenophobia is an atavistic feature of Man that wanted to protect his territory from the incursion of others. The main problem of the Occident is its submission to the propaganda of the radical left and the consequent kneeling before Islamic terrorists who are bent on the annihilation of the Judaeo-Christian foundations of the Western society. The West resembles now a society facing an invasion of "barbarians on flesh-devouring horses" (Kafka) and behaving itself as day-dreaming lotus eaters without free will.
We are all shamed - not just America. No world leader - including Canada's Trudeau - has spoken out. Yes, yes, he and some other leaders are working behind the scene, trying diplomatically to bring a return to recognizable decency. But it's not getting any results.
it's too little, too late for the 400.000 civilians trapped and dying in eastern Ghouta, and for the Rohingya in Burma, and the countless dead and dying in many parts of the African continent and so many other places around the world.
After the Holocaust we said "Never again" but it keeps happening and we do nothing, or so little it makes little difference.
How do we as humanity, begin to return to the international rule of law and supposedly common decency? We can speak out. We can make our concerns known to our leaders. We can contribute to aid agencies. But it all seems so inconsequential when faced with news images of the agony.
While we're trying to figure it out, we can start by being kinder in our personal lives. It is, at least,a small way to make a better world.
3
What's truly dangerous is a continued program of regime change, where the US funds, either directly or indirectly, ultrareligious jihadist groups in an effort to oust a leader, and in the process destroys a country and the lives of millions of people. And for what? To put the most fundamentalist regime in the region, Saudi Arabia, in charge? That's frightening. And, to pretend that's not what happened in Syria is just a flat out lie. It's also a disgusting fact of American foreign policy.
4
One should read this essay either before or after the one by David Brooks, whose abstractions about the student "mobbists" argue that they would be better served to view their opponents as something other than malicious.
There is evil in the world. There is maliciousness. As this article argues, "for shame" to ignore it, to pretend otherwise.
1
Why are the Syrian people being devastated in this way? Because Hillary Clinton's emails were more important to the American people than human rights violations in Syria and across the rest of the globe. How quickly we forget. How easily we are duped.
Trump admires dictators: Putin, Duterte, Saddam Hussein, Xi Jinping, el-Sissi, Erdogan, Kim. Why should we be surprised at Trump's shame, and that it is reflected onto the United States? In America, we got what we deserved, what we brought on ourselves. Unfortunately, we inflicted it on the rest of the world as well. That is tragedy.
3
The only “human rights” of concern to Trump and his cadre are their rights to make money, whether legally or not.
3
I dont know what is worse, active terror or indifference to terror ? We all want so badly not to get involved and we all are so busy leaving decisions to leaders offering simple solutions. We all know, we have put politicians in power who should not be there and we all wisper out our complaints and discust, hoping its not going to hit us in the end. The fact of the matter is that it will hit us and we shall be faced with our own decisions or rather lack of same. And we will all be shamed in the end having quietly accepted slogans of national pride and superiority for quick-fixing problems which actually demand the opposite. We all get what we deserve in the end not having been willing to face realities and deal with them.
Trump may indeed, "know nothing, and care even less," but the oligarchs behind his ascendance have been working since the New Deal to roll back Roosevelt's progressive advancement of human rights and enlightened government. It's not just decency that's at stake, it's honor, humanity, and the entire constellation of virtues that has guided mankind away from social Darwinism and toward social justice.
173
Before the New Deal, there were the pipe heads who fled to Paris to escape justice for Tea Pot Dome. They had motive to form resistance to social justice. They lost their ill gotten riches by trial in abstentia.
Those folks fostered a plot to bottle fascism and ship it to the USA before we could register it. PU, Coty! 1934.
The plotters preferred the French form ala the Croix de Feu, an anti-Semetic veteran's club outfitted with uniforms, weapons and trucks for rounding up immigrants, upitty labor and political opponents of industry.
In 1935, 400 CF's came out of a Limoges theatre in uniform shooting down a crowd including police there to manage the protest of their extralegal mobilizations. Then they mounted their trucks and road away unscathed. Later that year, their leader declared they were NOT fascist, like Hitler. Sacre Bleu! They were CORPORATISTS, PU.
No horse cart labor con like Hitler's for the cultured fascist. Labor was the CF's enemy! Trump prefers the latter, while the oligarchs recall Hitler lost them their war. I read it all here, but it's top shelf stuff.
Coty began this group, but industry and finance took it over and tried to get US to buy it. See Smedley Butler for the surprise ending. Congress looked into it after he ratted them all out. JP Morgan funded the expedition to find the perfect sedition!
When FDR found out, he crammed Glass-Steagall up their noses and dared them to a sedition trial. They took the deal.
1
Mr. Cohen,
Thank you for another superb column. The world has lost its balance, but you remind us what it should be and will be again.
100
"the last rebel-held enclave close to the Syrian capital"
So how about they evacuate? They lost the war anyway. And they are our enemies too -- al Qaeda. Remember? They attacked us.
No. They force the civilians to stay as human shields, and our neocons decry the suffering of those human shields not allowed to leave.
Our neocons take any excuse to bust up Syria, and blame somebody else.
31
The U.S. is NOT responsible for everything that's wrong in the world, Mark. Syria is a failed state and it should have been "busted up" long ago- into separate entities for Alawites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Joe Biden was right all along and no it's probably too late for the world to act rationally..
63
@ stu: Joe Biden actually wanted to divide Iraq into three different entities, Kurds, Shias and Sunnis, and they all would have seats in a newly formed central government in accordance with the size of their population.
48
Stu -- The US is not responsible for "everything" but it is responsible for things it did. One of those is running the insurgency into Syria for years.
10
"The last word is never said" at the end of this column is something to reflect on and gives a glimmer of hope for a CHANGE in the near future. I respect Mr. Cohen's ideas a great deal and am so glad that he is able to make a difference with his strong morals. I wish other journalists were as brave. I wish other so called "moral" leaders of our country were brave too but they have disappeared.
This time is so reminiscent of the dark days of Vietnam and it took the youth to turn that mess around. We can only hope that moral leaders show up soon.
81
"This time is so reminiscent of the dark days of Vietnam and it took the youth to turn that mess around. We can only hope that moral leaders show up soon." And our youth are just as persistent and loud about it as they were back then.
1
The youth of 50 years ago had a vested in turning things around. Young men were being shipped off to Viet Nam by the hundreds of thousands unless they were smart enough or rich enough to secure an exemption or a deferment from military service. Thousands fled to Canada. Once the draft ended, young people could largely tune out wars. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan only affected a small percentage of US households.
MR. Cohen has highlighted our failure and probably our aiding of this retreat from shame. Remember our criticism of France, and our renaming fries as freedom fries. We are now deserving of criticism, not the French, who have taken amoral stand.
Mr. Trump and his cadre of hypocrites in the Republican party, who not only defend him but urge his retreat of shame morally and legally.
Mr. Mueller's investigation must come to a conclusion soon, so we can end our national shame.
106
France is by far a more civilized country than the United States.
Trump's behavior and the behavior of those supporting him highlight this fact.
3
I agree with Mr. Cohen that basic principles of human rights are in retreat across the globe. I might add and at home as well. And I agree that Roosevelt's "Four Pillars" as a foundation for a new international order are being swept away.
But the question is why? There are always counter revolutions against any liberal revolutionary movement. But there has also been that same counter revolution in the US.
This is especially significant given the role we played in the post WWII international order and the contradictory role we have always played in the field of human rights.
The human rights of Roosevelts "Four Freedoms" has always conflicted with our international economic order. Freedom from want always brushes against an economic system that is designed to allow the wealthy and powerful to exploit the poor and weak.
The US role in this contradiction has been mixed at best. We embrace freedom in S. Africa as long as the mines remained foreign owned and the miners continue to dig.
We support free elections, except in Venezuela when a freely elected leader demands that oil revenue be used for human development, not personal profit.
And we rightly condemn Syria and Russia for their bombing campaign while ignoring our very same campaign and same toll on the innocent, but this time In Mossel, not Aleppo.
The new order we face may aptly be described by the title of the African novel, "When Things Fall Apart."
131
The message that SHOULD be clear is that there are few solutions imposable by ANYONE to fundamental problems of tribal identity in “nations” that encompass warring tribes. Trump can’t solve them, Putin is hardly likely to even try, and Assad’s only interest is that HIS tribe wins and that he re-imposes general hegemony on a geography by whatever means available – the shell, Russian jets, chemical weapons. ALL other players merely seek to retain some semblance of partial autonomy over increasingly-narrow slivers of land where their OWN tribal interests can barely survive. Irreconcilable tribal interests are today’s catastrophic human failures.
And they did it to themselves.
All the excuses about France and Britain carving-out ersatz states at the end of WWI that bore no relationship to indigenous tribal realities are distractions: what they practiced was the age-old habit of creating new conditions for survival for the affected peoples that has been the privilege of conquerors for all of human history. Those affected failed to satisfy those new conditions for survival by evolving beyond purely tribal entities and finding enough common ground to survive as confederations, as true nations. And those who always suffer most are the children.
Time to stop blaming the winners for the inadequacies of the losers. The losers failed to create the conditions that protected their own children and provided for their future peaceful prosperity. Social Darwinism is cruel but implacable.
17
Don’t expect Hungary or any other viable nation to embrace Kumbaya and welcome hordes of aliens steeped in precisely the failed tribal totems that have destroyed Syria and other contentious “states”. They have no intention of ceding voting rights to minorities that share nothing of their culture, indeed would be happy to transform it into something more familiar to and comfortable for them; and perhaps precipitate their own national destabilization.
Syria and the tribal problems seen in Myanmar, Afghanistan, numerous sub-Saharan and Northern African countries, and many more troubled areas, cannot represent a tribal future for humanity. And the rest of the world, focused on protecting its OWN children and laboring for their future prosperity, have other fish to fry. Any solutions for these sorry holdovers from a long-obsolete method of group-governance whose real purpose is to perpetuate the power of a few to exploit the group unimpeded, needs to come from within.
Blaming Trump for all this is irrational: like other leaders, he’s focused on a long list of priorities and must draw a line across the page separating the highest from those that can’t be addressed robustly with available resources. Blame the tribes, and those who insist on perpetuating them.
13
Mr. Leuttgen: you express precisely the same xenophobic thoughts that were expressed when waves of Italian and other Southern and Eastern European immigrants, including my parents and grandparents, came to America 100 years ago from their "loser" countries. Their "tribal" language, culture, and religion was "alien"; they were considered unclean, uncivilized, racially inferior, and a threat to the existing American culture, religion, and ethnicity. The point of Mr. Cohen's op-ed is not that such xenophobia does not exist, but that since the Second World War America has stood as a beacon of human rights as has condemned and opposed dictators who mass murder ethnic or racial minorities or political opposition. While such efforts have often been insufficient or have failed, Mr. Trump is the first American President who is willing or even pleased to accommodate this new generation of authoritarians. Sadly, many Americans want exactly this same agenda for our own country.
60
This is about American leadership, imperfect but essentail, gone missing. Period. Stick to the issue.
12
"Trump, to whom moral indignation — indeed morality itself — is a stranger, does not care. His Middle East foreign policy has two components: Back Israel, bash Iran. With respect to Putin, he is compromised, or enamored, to the point of incapacity. Let Syria burn."
This makes me think of that famous clip whereby it's pointed out that Vladimir Putin murders his opponents, and Trump's best response was, "we're guilty of plenty of killing too."
The false equivalency of immorality, stunning silence in the face of chemical attacks on Syrian children, and this bizarre but unsubtle endorsement of authoritarianism
In spirit, our president is no better than any leader of Poland, Hungary, Russia, or Syria and the fact he yearns for their increasingly unfettered power is blatant and shameless.
Being president has gone to Trump's head, which one could say was plenty big enough before his victory.
I hope columnists like Roger Cohen, with his deep global and moral perspectives, continues to remind us of how quickly things turn when leaders avert their eyes from atrocity and evil goes unchecked.
293
This is scary and more than a little unsettling, ChristineMcM, but today I agree more with Richard Luettgen's post than yours. (May be early onset of Alzheimer's?)
For fuller details, see my post. Who am I and what have I become? :-/
Does the PDR mention Luettgenism under mental disorders? Is there a cure? I could infect others. Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?
1
I say we buy back the Savarona from Turkey, and let Trump set sail on a proto-fascist ship of fools for the rest of his retro-fascist days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Savarona
The wikiwhack conveniently omits the ownership of one of Tea Pot Dome's plotters. He had it retrofitted for OIL. Thus he beat JP in the Viking funeral thingy. William Boyce Thompson. His daughter sold it.
What a role model is our Don!
In his name commit Sins upon,
Beelzebub's twin,
Don's a worthy kin
From whom all morality's gone.
115
Okay, Larry, you've made your point almost daily: 45 is satan. We get it. Honest. I enjoy your poetic thoughts, but you can run even a good horse to death. Please select a new target. I recommend: Putin, Xi, Rocket Man, or, best of all, Newt Gingrich. Mocking Newt just never gets old.
6