Headline October 23, 2016/ ''' SYRIAN -*SCREAMING*- SHADOW '''

''' SYRIAN -*SCREAMING*- SHADOW '''

400,000 DEAD. MORE than 4.8 million refugees, and the destruction of a city like Aleppo that is an expression of millennia of civilization.

Daqneesh, whose brother Ali was killed in this year's Alan Kurdi,  -the dead Syrian child washed up on a Turkish beach  who  prompted  another ephemeral spasm of outrage last September. 

History in Rhymes : SARAJEVO  AND   ALEPPO,  -two cities once part of the Ottoman Empire, two cities whose diverse populations have included:

Muslims and Christians and Jews,  =two cities rich in culture that have been besieged and split in two and ravaged by violence. Two cities where *children/students*  have been victims  -20 years apart.

What a great difference two decades make! Sarajevo was headline news through much of its  44 month  encirclement. NATO planes patrolled the skies to prevent, at least, aerial bombardment of the population.

Blue-helmeted  United Nations  forces were deployed in a flawed relief effort. President Bill Clinton, after being hesitant, authorized the NATO airstrikes that led to the lifting of the Serbian siege and an imperfect peace in Bosnia. Belated American interventions worked, writes, Roger Cohen.

''The United States, if it, continues to be the world's asylum and poorhouse would soon wreck its present economic life,'' the New York chamber of Commerce warned in 1934.

Some readers are objecting : But Jews weren't a threat the way Syrian refugees are! -writes Nicholas Kristof. In the 1930s and 40s, though, a world war was underway and Jews were widely seen as  potential Communists or even Nazis.

There were widespread fears that Germany would infiltrate the U.S. with spies and saboteurs under the cover that they were Jewish refugees.

''When the safety of the country is imperiled. It seems fully justifiable to resolve any possible doubts in favour of the country, rather than in favor of the aliens,''  the State department instructed in 1941.

The New York Times in 1938 quoted the granddaughter of President Ulysses S Grant warning about  ''so-called Jewish refugees'' and hinting that they were Communists[[ coming to this country-

To join the ranks of those- who hate our  Institutions and want to overthrow them.'' 

News organizations didn't do enough to humanize refugees and instead, tragically, helped spread xenophobia. The Times published a front-page article about the risks of Jews becoming Nazi spies, and-

The Washington Post published an editorial thanking the State Department for keeping out Nazis posing as refugees.

*In this political environment   *officials and politicians lost all humanity*.

''Let Europe take care of its own,'' argued Senator Robert Reynolds, a North Carolina Democrat who also denounced Jews Representative Stephen Pace, a Georgia Democrat, went a step further-

*Introducing legislation calling for the deportation of every alien in the United States*.

A State Department official, Breckinridge Long, systematically tightened rules on Jewish refugees. In this climate Otto Frank was unable to get visas for family members, who were victims in part of American paranoia, demagogy and indifference.

History rhymes, breathes Nicholas Kristof. As I've periodically argued, President Obama;s reluctance to do more to try to end the slaughter in Syria casts a shadow on his legacy-

And there's simply no excuse for the world's collective failure to ensure that Syrian refugee children in neighboring countries at least get schooling.

*Today, to our shame, Anne frank is a Syrian girl*.    

To sum up tragedies is never easy, and Roger Cohen does it better than anyone else : Aleppo. symbol of failure, symbol of indifference, symbol of American retreat, should not have been left to bleed. 

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and Twitter !E-WOW!  -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Credibility & Conviction '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless