Operation Ostrava: Month 1, Week 4, Day 4.

The Czech Republic's third largest city is the name I've given to the current situation in Syria. The date refers to Saturday February 4th 2012 (4/2/12) when Russia and China vetoed the proposed United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on Syria.

Back in 1930's Germany there was a very unpleasant man called Adolf Hitler. In response to an economic crisis his Nazi Party were given a seat in a German government of national unity. However due to restrictions placed on the German military by the international community the Nazi Party's twin militias - the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Schuzstaffel (SS) - were quickly able to oust the coalition government and install the Nazi Party as the sole, legitimate representative of the German people. Almost immediately Nazi Germany began supplying weapons and technical support to political insurgents in neighbouring Austria who wanted to liberate themselves from the oppression of the Austrian government. The Austrian insurgents used those weapons to carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks that led to a civil war and eventually saw the insurgents take power in a military coup in March 1938. Days later the insurgents welcomed in the German Nazis with open arms and the Adolf Hitler became the sole, legitimate representative of the Austrian people too.

Boosted by this early success Nazi Germany began supplying weapons and technical support to insurgents in what was then Czechoslovakia. Again these insurgents used the weapons to carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks that forced the Czech army to move into the border regions to restore order amid wild allegations of atrocities and human rights abuses. On Hitler's instructions the insurgents issued the Carlsbad Decrees which called on the Czech government to set up safe havens along the border with Germany in which the insurgents could exercise political freedom and rule themselves in accordance with Nazi principles. While the Czech government was considering adopting the Carlsbad Decrees the insurgents provoked the Czech security forces into attacking a demonstration in Ostrava on September 7th 1938 (7/9/38). Hitler used this incident to demand that the international community allow him to invade Czechoslovakia in order to prevent the slaughter of civilians. The international community in the form of the League of Nations was powerless to stop him and in October 1938 Edvard Bene's government fell leaving Adolf Hitler as the sole, legitimate representative of the Czechoslovakian people.

In September 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland leading to the effective collapse of the League of Nations and six years of total war across four continents that saw the Nazi Holocaust and the dropping of two atomic bombs. As a result the founding principle of the successor to the League of Nations - the United Nations is that no nation may proactively interfere militarily with the political affairs of another nation. That is the principle that is under threat when people call for intervention in Syria.