"Is anybody there?" - Syrian asylum-seekers

Does anybody care?

In Syria and beyond, turmoil continues, not least of it the fate of innocent citizens longing for peace and caught in the crossfire of warring parties. When help comes, it comes from humanitarian organizations and workers from non-warring parts of the world. The citizen workers also likely echo "Does anybody care?" It takes more than food and tents, the usual picture of refugees and displaced persons. It takes governments and policies, strategies and conviction followed by action. The United States should lead, as in the past, to make these innocents vitally important to the leaders of all non-warring countries looked to in the past. That is my view.

Here is part of the record that we, too, need to care about.

Today, attacks on asylum-seekers causes alarm in Germany.

Are Americans ignoring Syria's humanitarian crisis? Mort Abramowitz wrote that he thinks we are, and why he thinks so.

Similarly, "Who cares about Syria?" was Valerie Amos's opinion article in The Washington Post earlier.

Fred Hiatt wrote of a "defense of inaction in Syria," a provocative article about the record of current administration foreign policies.

Finally, but not least, is Thomas E. McMahon's letter to the Post in reaction to Valerie Amos's op-ed: How the U.S. can help Syria's citizens.

Furor over Planned Parenthood's "troubling insensitivity"

The furor over uncovered Planned Parenthood secrets in the sale of body parts of unborn male and female babies has shocked nations.

Anyone speaking out against these newly revealed practices must know feelings similar to those of the prophet Jeremiah, as history repeats itself in disastrous and inhumane decisions. He was punished by a king and the king's ministers for prophesying as God had told him to do.  

Jeremiah warned against the pursuit of false gods and self-interest. And God showed mercy in the delay of his wrath, repeatedly. 

As I read Jeremiah, I realize that the same gods of self-interest are followed everywhere. After videos came out showing Planned Parenthood's practices of human body part harvesting, respectable-looking people went before cameras with words selected to gloss over the implications. A bill was introduced in congress, however, and  reached the U.S. senate for a vote "yes," not to refund Planned Parenthood.   

Senator Tim Kaine voted "no," issuing a statement intended, it appeared, to blur the significant illegalities within Planned Parenthood that violate conscience, morality, and ethics:

     "For many women and families across the country, Planned Parenthood health centers are their only source of high quality health care. That’s why I voted against legislation that would deny more than 2.5 million Americans important primary care services. For years, activist groups like the Center for Medical Progress have sought to create controversy around Planned Parenthood as a way to reduce women’s access to health care. While the recent videos released by this group highlight a troubling lack of sensitivity on the part of a few individuals, moving to unilaterally defund Planned Parenthood is not the appropriate reaction'” (Augusta Free Press).

Enough other senators joined Mr. Kaine in voting "no" to the  bill to defund Planned Parenthood, thereby defeating it. They illustrate a fatal weakness of this nation's increasing tolerance for gross crimes against unborn human beings, growing the way every living person continues to develop into physical maturity, starting inside the mother's womb. 

Sen. Kaine's comments reflect the respectability that is on show, like a rose, for an agency that profits billions of dollars from tax revenues and hundreds of millions from abortions, annually.

Other facts cannot be changed. First, the lives of unborn children were violently taken in abortions, due to other violence, rape and incest; then, the lives of unborn lives were aborted "for any reason or for no reason"; now, up for discussion is the careful harvesting of unborn infants' organs for "caring" reasons. 

Their power, however, cannot touch women who receive their health care at places other than Planned Parenthood, by choice. Women who choose not to use Planned Parenthood record a win every time.

In Jeremiah's day, appealing people that acted with guile eventually had to be silent, as God closed off every escape. 

To sow death and deception means, I believe, a terrible reaping ahead,  a whirlwind.  I would not want to experience such a day. 

"...they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind"...(Hosea 8:7).