That little boys face in Syria.

Ahem, your faith in the forums compassion is greater than mine, Frank.  The Commander has advised against emotional responses to images of Humantarian Crises, after all.  And of course, the photo is likely to be discredited as staged.

The boys name is Omran Daqneesh by the way.  What a hellhole Aleppo is.

The Camaraman was just interview on BBC2 oZY, he said that he has takeing many photos just as bad-,for me the photo got to the sad side of me.

Nothings going to change for him for a long time, Europe was too busy sending boats to collect all the young men who could afford to pay the smugglers. If they really gave a sh1t about the Syrians they would have airlifted out the ones who couldn't afford to leave.
Assad with the help of Russia won't be defeated in this war and even if he was does anyone really think it would be better with the rebels in charge. These rebels came mainly from the Muslim Brotherhood which Assads father had outlawed years before.
What's yere solution lads, take in 10, maybe 20 million into Europe and then let the rest fight it out? And then when they're done there we'll move on and do the same in Libya, and then Nigeria and then..... What will happen if there's an uprising in Iran, do we get involved there as well?
Syria fought with America in Kuwait in the first Gulf war and it's only 15 years since the Pope visited. Shortly after 9/11 Bush declared them part of the axis of evil and since then Usa/Europe have backed the Rebels
Maybe we should let them mind their own business and we'll mind ours. If we'd spent the last 15 years doing this both would be a lot better off today imo.

Good post winsamsoon. What a godawful mess has been created in Syria. I don't fully understand the minutiae but I fear that Russia will get much more out of it than Europe/the West.
Meantime,I wish the media and diplomatic community  could do better than  periodic emotional splurges over photos of war-affected children. First of the child on the beach, now the kid in the ambulance. What next -the shattered kid in the morgue ? It's just  a media cliché in today's crazy cyberspace. We've seen world wars , mass genocides ,the Holocaust...not forgetting N Ireland. Do we really need another child's photo to get us to realise the intrinsic horror of war and the human suffering it produces ?

Almost certainly, Vubiant.

You personally may be well attuned to the intrinsic horror of war and human suffering but that does not hold true for vasts swathes of the population and especially the younger generations.  These powerful images reach them through social media and briefly shake them from their Pokemon monster searching stupor.

Whether or not increased the awareness that such images bring translates into anything positive is another issue.

There is another boy who's photograph we see on a regular basis,he's languishing in an Egyptian jail.
Fortunately every member of the Oireachtas is calling on those disgraceful Egyptians to sort out their equally disgraceful judicial system.
Its almost racist the way they claim the Egyptians are unable to administer justice.

At the start I hadn't much sympathy for Ibrahim and his rioting sisters but I now admire him,this is a principled young man,a man prepared to die for his cause.


The photograph mentioned by Frank is unremittingly sad but if you import that child and others into Europe you import the bombs with him.

Wonder will we ever see a photograph of that 12 to 14 year old who blew himself up at that street wedding in Turkey.

It could be a natural progression.

The brother of the boy in Syria died in the blast,.... Hard to believe an adult would send a child  in to do such a Horrendous act on the day of a wedding,   we have much to be fearful of whether we like to believe it or not.

Over 50 killed by a bomber , lots of them children . Ozy stays quiet ,strange or what .

This forum and it's die-hards becomes more Orwellian by the day. "Two legs bad, four legs good."

The Orwellian posters are all on Royal Academy's side.

Tis they want the destruction of the nation state,they want to manipulate public opinion through photographs and tis they in the Orwellian figure of Mr Combustible want safe spaces where differing views aren't allowed.

Royal Academy has a visceral hatred of the Catholic Church,fair enough he may think religion is a load of hokum but like all the other liberals has this inexplicable soft spot for the religion of peace.

all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others

what's curious Wildman is that my moderate views are ascribed a certain viciousness by you in line with your usual pseudo psychoanalysis.

You seem to believe if one regularly states something often enough, it becomes the truth.

it would be fair comment to say that you - let's call you Napoleon - are the spreader of the dogma and many simple acolytes seem happy to follow you with unquestioning loyalty. It's remarkable really.

Maybe it is a popular and pragmatic view rather than anyone just "following" RA.

Shouldn't the whole thing have been dealt with at or near source rather than free tickets for chancers being let in to the EU?

Your views on religion are fair enough,that is your entitlement but and i think i'm making a fair point,society has to live with certain values,Europe has mainly Christian values and that works, even at this early stage Cologne and Sweden were shocking episodes.

Europe for 2016 is in a state of terrorism,Merkel has unleashed a Pandoras box,it is wrong from her,selfish on the back of Syria.

" my moderate views are ascribed a certain viciousness by you "

The sad thing is Royal Academy thinks he is moderate.
The viciousness has been expressed here most recently against Katie Taylor,I get you don't like her because she is religious but you added this gem of a rider "the unsettling sight of a 30 year old woman with her father leering in the background " that is just pure vicious and totally untrue.

You also object to the OBrien clan,you found them weird " whether parading in Rosegreen Church or on the Curragh turf "

This isint psychoanalysis its a reading of your posts and its liberal bigotry in its true enlightened form.