Some cease-fire

Must’ve lost something in translation

Shape without form,

shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture

without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes,

to death’s other Kingdom Remember us—if at all—not as lost Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

—T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

THE PROBLEMS in Syria finally got out of hand, and the diplomats at the United Nations decided that this calls for immediate discussion! They discussed and debated, negotiated and complained, and last weekend—finally—cranked out a resolution demanding a cease-fire in Syria. The Russians agreed not to veto the resolution, which was the least they could do. Never let it be said that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin doesn’t do the least he can do when it comes to world peace.

The UN’s security council, which is all council and has very little to do with security, voted to demand a 30-day cease-fire all across

Syria. The shelling and shooting and bombing and mortaring was supposed to stop, according to the resolution, “without delay.”

Here’s what happened since:

A few hours after the UN so bravely voted, the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad’s gang—emphasis on “bash”—began a brand-new ground attack on rebel positions just east of Damascus.

In eastern Ghouta, two airstrikes crashed through suburbs before the ink was dry on the UN’s resolution.

The next day, more shelling was reported between the government and rebels.

Also, hours after the vote, reports trickled in, then flooded in, about a chlorine attack in Ghouta, which sent several people to the hospital with breathing problems, and one infant to the morgue. Bashar al-Assad, a true son of his homicidal father, was forced to remove chemical weapons from his land in 2014, when America was still leading from behind, and Russia promised to help Damascus authorities load the things up and ship them out. But somehow chlorine didn’t make the list of banned chemical weapons, since it has so many civilian uses. Including filling up civilian mortuaries.

In the past, President Assad has claimed that the rebels somehow found a plane or helicopter and somehow found a stockpile of chlorine and somehow found the expertise to bomb themselves, in order to frame him. And him an innocent man, yet. It would not seem to be the best strategy to kill your own people, but you never know about those tricky rebels. Few believed Assad’s government/gang when it made those claims in the past, and few will believe them now. Not that that will stop the press releases from coming out of government bunkers. Who are you going to believe, President Assad or your lying eyes?

THE GOVERNMENT in Syria, such that it is, has the backing of the Russians and the Iranians in its “siege, starve and surrender” campaign. Why not? It worked wonders in Aleppo, where a group of concerned folks based in Conway, Ark., have an operation to help schoolkids and women who need saving.

The strategy is simple, and lethal. The government bombs schools, grocery markets, mosques and hospitals so that people can’t eat, worship or be healed. In short, they can’t live. Then the government begins a ground campaign to take the place house by house. And in the end, they stop the killing. For there’s no need anymore. And the West generally and America specifically chastise the murderers. Proving once again that to be America’s enemy in this world is dangerous, but to be her friend can be fatal.

What is to be done? Those of us who can do little else can at least shout bloody murder. And record these war crimes, and the reactions to them, from the world’s leaders—or rather their non-reactions. Some of us are going to do our best to make sure it doesn’t go unnoticed—that is, the unfolding disaster in Syria and the shameful (non)response to it.

At the end of “The Hollow Men,” the poet ends his thoughts thusly:

This is the way the world ends/ This is the way the world ends/ This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper. Modern Syria, as the rest of the world watches, provides examples of both, actually. The government and its Russian and Iranian allies provide most of the bangs. The whimpers you hear come from the mouths of women and children before they take their final breaths.

And at the UN, there is much discussion.