In the Balkans, outsiders stepped in to finally halt the misery. But this is a different kind of conflict
Timothy Garton Ash
The Guardian,
The population of Syria when this armed conflict started in 2011 was roughly that of Yugoslavia when its wars began in 1991: some 23 million. Over the subsequent decade of the Yugoslavian wars, more than 100,000 people died and some 4 million were displaced. In just two years, Syria is approaching the harvest of misery for which former Yugoslavia needed 10.
So why isn't the word "Syria" on all our lips? Twenty years ago, in 1993, everyone was talking about Bosnia. Ten years ago, in 2003, everyone was talking about Iraq.
Meanwhile, we have a UN-sanctioned doctrine of the "responsibility to protect", in response to what happened in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. If the responsibility to protect does not apply to the man-made humanitarian catastrophe in Syria, where does it apply?.......
At the most shameful, this would suggest that for Europeans an Arab life is not worth as much as a European one. Not to mention an African life......"
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