Day: June 16, 2016
Dear UN,
Riyad Hijab, who heads the High Negotiations Commission of the Revolution and Opposition Forces, writes:
UNOFFICIAL TRANSLATION
Number: 256
Date: 16/6/2016
H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon
United Nations Secretary-General
New York
Excellency,
Al-Waer neighborhood in Homs has been under severe siege for over three and a half years. During that time, al-Waer’s residents have come under enormous pressure – because of dire humanitarian conditions, bombardment and starvation imposed by the Assad regime – to agree to a local truce. The United Nations Damascus office has helped the regime enforce the terms of this truce. In March 2016, the regime again targeted Al-Waer residents. As a result, the neighborhood is now on the brink of an epic humanitarian disaster. Food items have been denied entirely and medical, emergency, and surgical supplies have not been allowed to enter for over two and a half years.
Al-Waer neighborhood has been continually subjected to systematic bombardment. The regime’s siege exacerbates an already deteriorating humanitarian situation. Additionally, more than 700,000 residents have been displaced, none of whom have returned. Despite this, the UN team in Syria has asked the Al-Waer negotiations committee to meet in the hopes of continuing local negotiations.
We are deeply concerned by what has been relayed to us by the Free Homs Provincial Council and relevant entities in Al-Waer about the UN team there. The UN team has reportedly stressed to the residents through the Al-Waer negotiations committee that the political process in Geneva, per UN Security Council resolution 2254, will not lead to improved humanitarian aid delivery to Al-Waer, and that the only way to receive aid is to submit to the illegal siege tactics of the Assad regime.
We need clarification from the UN about what exactly was meant by the UN country team’s comments in its meeting with the Al-Waer negotiations committee on Saturday 12 June, in which the humanitarian situation in Al-Waer was discussed. The UN team stressed that the Security Council resolution cannot be implemented on the ground without the Al-Waer negotiations committee making major concessions. The UN team stated that the issue of airdrops to besieged areas was nothing more than words that could not be implemented. The best way to get aid to Al-Waer neighborhood was thus to succumb to the Assad regime and agree to its terms.
Unfortunately, this behavior is not limited to Al-Waer. We have seen it repeated by UN staff in several other areas. In addition, UN staff have permitted expired humanitarian aid items into some areas, leading to cases of serious poisoning and the death of some civilians.
Excellency,
We place this matter in your hands with full certainty that you will give it due attention, as we know you are keen for the United Nations to implement Security Council resolutions and to maintain the confidence of the people it serves. Syrians now desperately need the UN to play a strong role to ease the suffering and end the tragedy they have endured for their rejection of oppression and demand of freedom, justice, and the rule of law.
Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.
Dr. Riyad Hijab
General Coordinator of the High Negotiations Commission
of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces
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Dump Trump
I’m a Democrat, albeit one who votes often for local Republicans. I don’t like the one-party “state” I live in. I’d have preferred to register as an independent. But that means my voice would never be heard. Elections here are almost always decided in closed primaries. The District of Columbia isn’t even a state like the other 50, which means I don’t get to vote at all for Senators or a voting member of the House.
So I had absolutely no voice in whom the Republicans chose as their candidate. Nor did I much care, since I wasn’t going to vote for any one of the 16 (or was it 18?) candidates who joined the primary horse race. Even Governor Kasich, the most proven of them, had a record on abortion and gay marriage that we used to call neanderthal, until we discovered that they were pretty smart.
Trump is smart too. He understood that many Republican primary voters are racist misogynist xenophobes. His anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-abortion rants and sound bites gained him their votes, while his competitors split the remainder. Trump voters like his bold, unsubtle grab, accentuated by his repetition of vacuous and unsupported claims that the people he just offended will “love” him.
The trouble is they don’t and won’t. His negatives among women, Hispanics and minorities generally (including Blacks and Jews as well as Muslims, gays and lesbians) are astronomical. Even the Republican leaders in Congress don’t like him and are refusing to defend him. Utah is thought now to be in play! That we, and the rest of the world, have to put up with another five months of this loser’s narcissistic bombast is unfair, cruel and unusual. Those who didn’t vote for him in the primaries and won’t vote for him in the election don’t deserve this.
This screed wouldn’t be complete without some reflection on foreign policy and national security. Trump is already having an effect there: his anti-Muslim rhetoric supports the Islamic State claim that the West is at war with Islam, his pro-Putin sympathies give comfort to our antagonist in Ukraine and Syria, his offer to meet with Kim Jong-un undermines efforts to isolate a fanatical nuclear proliferator who threatens American troops and important American allies.
Yesterday he sought to boost the value of a commodity he owns that has lost almost one-third of its value from its peak around five years ago, by suggesting he supports returning to the gold standard. That’s a dumb idea with zero chance of becoming reality. What other personal interests will he seek to promote during the campaign?
The only way out is for Republicans to dump Trump. That won’t be possible at or after the convention. He has too many pledged delegates lined up. It has to be prepared in advance and implemented by Trump himself. The Republican leadership in both houses and in the party should tell Trump now that the joke is over. He needs to step aside and allow the convention to choose a serious replacement. Any serious Republican will do: Romney is the obvious choice and would surely do better against Clinton than Trump.
Failing to dump Trump will risk bringing to office an unqualified pathological liar capable of doing serious damage both domestically and internationally.
Or, in the more likely event of his defeat, it will spell the end of the Republican party as we know it, and likely just the end of the Republican party. This will be its third presidential loss in a row, one I expect will be resounding. The Democrats survived that kind of near-death experience in the Reagan/Bush 41 period, but they retained control of the House and regained control of the Senate. This time the Senate and maybe even the House will turn Democratic. The Republicans will likely split if not implode.
That’s my fear. I prefer that the two-party system survive. There is only a month for the Republicans to save it. I hope they have the courage to do so. Dumping Trump will save their party from an ignominious defeat and preserve a serious electoral competition.
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