The bloodshed in Syria is playing out much like the genocidal violence in Bosnia in the 1990s. Enclaves of opposition to a brutal authoritarian regime are besieged, and civilians are dying by the hundreds. A massacre of thousands in one of these enclaves could happen any day.
Russia's veto of the U.N. resolution is no surprise. Vladimir Putin is a cold, calculating, larger-than-life figure ... a James Bondesque villain. Russia has had strong political, military and economic ties with Assad regimes in Syria for decades. Putin knows the stakes are extremely high. And as the state-sponsored violence in Chechnya has shown, the death of thousands of civilians does not weigh heavily on his conscience.
China is vying to become the world's prime superpower. The Chinese government's veto of the U.N. resolution is yet another grim example the kind of world the Chinese leadership is trying to craft. Time after time, from the Cultural Revolution, to Tiananmen Square, to the mountains of Tibet, Chinese leaders shown they place minimal value on human rights or even the very lives of those perceived to be in their way.
The Chinese government poses a grave threat to anyone who cares about freedom from government oppression. I'm not opposed to strong ties with the Chinese or any other nation. But people around the world need to stand up to this barbaric regime and demand that the Chinese state act responsibly at home and abroad.
