As an antiwar activist since the Vietnam War, I am accustomed to marking the end of personal friendships by the beginning of a war. Many of my family estrangements have not yet healed from the Vietnam War. It wasn’t me who cast off friends but they found it intolerable I would oppose US militarism. That’s life. If we allow personal friendships or kinship to determine our politics, we would become apolitical rag dolls.
Now, with catastrophe looming in Syria, there is a list of people who found FB friendship intolerable with me. FB friendships can be fickle because people feel deeply about politics. Again, that’s life.
We can disagree about the political character of Assad. We can disagree on Russian intentions in Syria. We can disagree on a lot of things about this war since the regimes involved, including Israel & the US, have been unable to present a consistent, coherent view of what they’re doing other than sending war planes. They can’t even get it straight which side they’re on.
But there is one thing we should not disagree on & that is the need for an international antiwar movement to demand no military intervention of any kind by any country into Syria & that Assad stop the bombing of his own people. If we can’t agree on that, then it’s only a matter of time before that difference becomes intolerable to the both of us.