Ukraine: Humanitarian work comes from many sources. - by joel brown

Many missionaries have left Ukraine. Most have left their cities, gotten their families to safety, and are actively involved with the rescue and relief effort.

They are at the borders helping refugees. They are coming back to rescue people. They are coordinating with people all over the world.

Some are shell-shocked and have returned to their home countries. I don’t blame anyone for leaving.

Read more at: Staying To Serve The “Least Of These” – even in War – Living Water UA

Beirut blast: Dutch ambassador's wife 'donated organs' after succumbing to injuries from explosion | Euronews

The wife of the Dutch ambassador to Lebanon has donated her organs after she died from last week's explosion in Beirut, according to a number of local reporters.

Read more at :
Beirut blast: Dutch ambassador's wife 'donated organs' after succumbing to injuries from explosion | Euronews

USA: Humantarian Aid Coronavirus: Russia sends plane full of medical supplies to US

 Critics likely to claim Moscow will exploit goodwill gesture as public relations coup

Read more at:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/coronavirus-russia-sends-plane-full-of-medical-supplies-to-us?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Add_to_Firefox

Syria: The Mother Of All US Humanitarian and Foreign Policy disasters

David T. Jones writes in the Epoch Times; "The proverbial “law of holes” states, “When you find yourself in one—stop digging.”

So far as Syria is concerned, we seem unwilling to learn this lesson.

And, brutal as is the reality, the West has lost the war in Syria. Whatever our kaleidoscope of objectives has been, ranging from removal of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to support of “democratic” rebels to creation of an Aleppo ceasefire, we have failed.

There is no reason to believe al-Assad will cease military action in Syria until he has eliminated opposition—whether it be Daesh (aka ISIS/ISIL/IS) or assorted “rebel” groups of whatever political philosophy. As long as al-Assad has Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah assistance, he will prevail.

Nor is Aleppo’s ongoing humanitarian disaster going to cause a twinge by those conducting it. The fighting has continued since July 2012; various estimates suggest 30,000 dead with several hundred thousand civilians and combatants remaining in the besieged portion of the city.

However, remembering Russian casualties during World War II, e.g., siege of Leningrad (900 days; one million civilians and 300,000 military died) or Stalingrad (1.1 million total casualties; 478,000 killed), Putin may well conclude Aleppo’s losses are inconsequential—and the Western whiners are trying to play a human rights card in a military reality poker game.

Indeed, Western leaders have misplayed their opportunities from the beginning. We apparently believed the Arab Spring, starting in 2010, which swept away creaky dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, as well as forcing political change throughout the Middle East, would also evict al-Assad.

After all, al-Assad looks like a gawky ophthalmologist (his academic training) rather than presenting the visage of an iron-fisted dictator. Implicitly, we thought he would decamp with lovely wife, family, and uncounted fortune to comfortable retirement in some dictator-accepting/friendly country. But there was steel where we expected Jello; his Army stayed loyal, fought hard, and beat down various rebel groups. Al-Assad “channeled” his father who never caviled at massacring opponents.

Western leaders declined to put “boots on the ground”—removing al-Assad wasn’t initially believed to be worth body bags coming home—or even bomb his airfields and destroy his Air Force, his trump card in combating rebels. So fighting continued, and we lost the easy course of action. President Obama backed away from his personal “line in the sand” demanding al-Assad remove chemical weapons; then the Russians were able to arrange such a removal/elimination and, concurrently, seize a principal position in the struggle.

Consequently, Syrians have fled by millions. Statistics on the tragedy are politicized, but one estimate has 4.8 million refugees plus 6.6 million displaced within the country from a population of 17 million. Most refugees are in neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.

But the exodus has also disoriented Europe, which in a misplaced burst of humanitarianism opened its doors to more than a million refugees."

 The proverbial “law of holes” states, “When you find yourself in one—stop digging.”

So far as Syria is concerned, we seem unwilling to learn this lesson.

And, brutal as is the reality, the West has lost the war in Syria. Whatever our kaleidoscope of objectives has been, ranging from removal of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to support of “democratic” rebels to creation of an Aleppo ceasefire, we have failed.

There is no reason to believe al-Assad will cease military action in Syria until he has eliminated opposition—whether it be Daesh (aka ISIS/ISIL/IS) or assorted “rebel” groups of whatever political philosophy. As long as al-Assad has Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah assistance, he will prevail.

Nor is Aleppo’s ongoing humanitarian disaster going to cause a twinge by those conducting it. The fighting has continued since July 2012; various estimates suggest 30,000 dead with several hundred thousand civilians and combatants remaining in the besieged portion of the city.

However, remembering Russian casualties during World War II, e.g., siege of Leningrad (900 days; one million civilians and 300,000 military died) or Stalingrad (1.1 million total casualties; 478,000 killed), Putin may well conclude Aleppo’s losses are inconsequential—and the Western whiners are trying to play a human rights card in a military reality poker game.

Aleppo - Syria

Indeed, Western leaders have misplayed their opportunities from the beginning. We apparently believed the Arab Spring, starting in 2010, which swept away creaky dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, as well as forcing political change throughout the Middle East, would also evict al-Assad.

After all, al-Assad looks like a gawky ophthalmologist (his academic training) rather than presenting the visage of an iron-fisted dictator. Implicitly, we thought he would decamp with lovely wife, family, and uncounted fortune to comfortable retirement in some dictator-accepting/friendly country. But there was steel where we expected Jello; his Army stayed loyal, fought hard, and beat down various rebel groups. Al-Assad “channeled” his father who never caviled at massacring opponents.

Western leaders declined to put “boots on the ground”—removing al-Assad wasn’t initially believed to be worth body bags coming home—or even bomb his airfields and destroy his Air Force, his trump card in combating rebels. So fighting continued, and we lost the easy course of action. President Obama backed away from his personal “line in the sand” demanding al-Assad remove chemical weapons; then the Russians were able to arrange such a removal/elimination and, concurrently, seize a principal position in the struggle.

Consequently, Syrians have fled by millions. Statistics on the tragedy are politicized, but one estimate has 4.8 million refugees plus 6.6 million displaced within the country from a population of 17 million. Most refugees are in neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.

But the exodus has also disoriented Europe, which in a misplaced burst of humanitarianism opened its doors to more than a million refugees. "

Bottom line: Syria has become the mother of all US failed humanitarian and foreign policy disasters.

The question that Europe must answer, rather sooner than later is, can it continue to blindly walk in "lockstep" with the US, when it comes to their totally failed Middle East policies, or develop its own independent and more constructive foreign policy objectives?

EU-Digest

Middle EastL China ‘to upgrade Syria military ties’

Guan Youfei, the Chinese military official charged with overseeing international cooperation, announced the development on Tuesday.

The official, who visited Syria for talks with Syrian Defense Minister Fahad Jassim al-Freij, said Beijing was seeking closer military ties with Damascus.

“The Chinese and Syrian militaries traditionally have a friendly relationship, and the Chinese military is willing to keep strengthening exchanges and cooperation with the Syrian military,” he said.

Youfei also said the two sides had “reached a consensus” on the Chinese military providing humanitarian aid to Syrians, without elaborating.

The Chinese official and al-Freij also discussed the enhancement of training for Syrian soldiers by the Chinese military.

The visit marks a new precedence, given China’s refusal in the past to proactively concern itself with the Syrian conflict.

China has, meanwhile, been vocally backing Russia’s anti-terrorism efforts in Syria, which has seen Moscow carrying out large-scale bombings of Takfiri militants there.

Read more: PressTV-China ‘to upgrade Syria military ties’

Refugee Crises: How Canada is putting the world to shame on Syrian refugees, in one paragraph - by Libby Nelson

In most of the English-speaking world, the idea of taking in Syrian refugees is political poison. Fear of refugees fed into the anti-immigration climate that drove Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. 

Australia’s treatment of refugees is infamously harsh. In the United States, Donald Trump has proposed a ban on Muslims entering the country at all.

The exception is Canada, which had the opposite reaction to the refugee crisis — outrage not that Syrians might not enter the country but that they weren’t arriving fast enough. As the New York Times’s Jodi Kantor and Catrin Einhorn wrote:

The Toronto Star greeted the first planeload by splashing "Welcome to Canada" in English and Arabic across its front page. Eager sponsors toured local Middle Eastern supermarkets to learn what to buy and cook and used a toll-free hotline for instant Arabic translation. Impatient would-be sponsors — "an angry mob of do-gooders," The Star called them — have been seeking more families. The new government committed to taking in 25,000 Syrian refugees and then raised the total by tens of thousands.

Kantor and Einhorn raise plenty of caveats about what could go wrong, from Syrian refugees who turn out to be terrorists (although the screening process is thorough) to cultural clashes between refugees and their sponsors. But their deeply reported article, which follows three Syrian families and the Canadians who sponsor them, mostly found Canadians who are enthusiastic about helping immigrants settle into their new life and Syrians who are happy for the welcome.

If there’s tension, it springs from the sponsors being too eager to help — one Canadian woman helped the refugee she was sponsoring create a résumé and practice for a successful job interview at a Middle Eastern grocery store, the type of work he’d done before arriving in Canada. 

But the man eventually turned down the job, deciding he’d rather learn more English first and do different, more skilled labor in his new country. (Everyone involved was slightly annoyed, but mostly embarrassed and apologetic, a very Canadian reaction that suggests the refugees are integrating just fine.)

Read more: How Canada is putting the world to shame on Syrian refugees, in one paragraph - Vox