The Voice of a Quaker Hawk -- Scott Simon, NPR & The Empire by Dan Kovalik

Tweet I have to admit that I had the same bad habit of tuning in to Simon on Saturdays (even when he had the war cheerleader Dan Schorr on), but Mr. Kovalik should know the habit can be broken.  I have done it and am so much the better!  Even though NPR is now Nuanced-Pravda Radio to me, Simon doesn't even have the nuance.  Linda

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/04/scott-simon-npr-the-empire/

EXCERPT:

Of course, if one were to be honest, and Simon does not aspire to truthfulness in such matters, one could fairly ask whether one should be shaking the hands of Western leaders who have been responsible for much greater loss of human life than al-Assad – e.g., Bill Clinton who killed at least 500,000 children in Iraq due to his crippling sanctions there – a result which his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said was “worth it”; George W. Bush who was responsible for the killing of tens of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan; and Barack Obama who, as we recently learned from The New York Times, personally oversees the killing of scores of ostensible militants (though it is quite arguable whether they truly are) as well as civilians through his drone strikes, and who has carried out mass killings and mayhem through his expansion of U.S. war into Pakistan, Libya, Somalia and Colombia.  Simon never dares to ask such questions about these crimes, but rather, cheers them on.

Aside from the obvious hypocrisy here, it would seem that the goal in Syria at this point should be to find a peaceful settlement to the conflict before it descends into a destructive and bloody civil war that would certainly lead to the loss of life of thousands in Syria, and is likely to spill over into other countries such as Lebanon.   And, it is just such a peaceful solution which Kofi Annan is attempting through his meetings with al-Assad – indeed, it is hard to know how he is going to pull off such a solution without meeting with the current leader of Syria.  And, while the Houla massacre was certainly appalling, it is still unclear exactly who was responsible for it, and whether, even if it were pro-government forces as is most likely the case, they were truly acting under al-Assad’s direction and/or control.  Moreover, al-Assad’s forces had, at least up to the point of this incident, shown an ability to honor the cease-fire agreement which al-Assad had made with Kofi Annan.  In short, it does not appear that all possibilities for peace have yet been exhausted, and therefore, under any “just war” theory, peace should continue to be pursued.

However, Simon – as much of a Quaker in his commitment to peace as fellow Quaker Richard M. Nixon was – prefers war as the method of solving international crises.  And so, he followed up his attack on the UN and Kofi Annan — who, by the way, was correct his in assessment back in 2003 that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify the war against that country which Simon cheered on — with a piece entitled, “A Case for Military Intervention In Syria.”    While Simon claimed that he would give the “pros and cons” of such intervention in this piece, he only interviewed one person for the story, and that person, Pentagon analyst Thomas P.M. Barnet, is an outspoken advocate of military intervention.  So much for any “point/counterpoint” here.