By Kathy Ehrich Dowd
In an outdoor affair (click here) that concluded as the sun was setting behind the mountains on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard wed cinematographer Abraham Williams Thursday in a Vedic ceremony that the bride deemed "literally just perfect."
"It was a deeply spiritual, traditional ceremony that held great meaning for Abraham and I," Gabbard, the only Hindu member of Congress, tells PEOPLE the morning after the wedding. "It brought all the important elements of our life together."
"It really was a Hawaiian-style Hindu wedding, from the palm trees to birds of paradise flowers, to the birds chirping in the background," she also says while en route to a yoga session with friends who had flown in for the wedding....
Rep. Gabbard is absolutely correct in that the attempt for a Free Syrian Army while admirable in ideology, is failed due to the inability of candidates for the army unable to pass vetting.
Most major powers in the world have a common enemy and that is Daesh. Europe, Russia, China, Middle East allies of the USA and the USA through any domestic terrorism. Add to that list Australia who saw significant violence within it's own domestic terrorism due to Daesh. It is vital Daesh is defeated and stability in Syria is returned.
North Africa is beginning to stabilize. The credit for that is the new democracy in Tunisia and a return of stability and strength in Egypt. Saudi Arabia is a strong country and the uprisings in Yemen were badly timed. If the Houthis wanted to combat human rights abuses by the then Yemen government, the United Nations is the place for that.
Over throwing a government with extreme instability in Syria and Iraq due to out of control Ba'athists known as Daesh was a really bad idea. Iran has to remind it's crescent diaspora the United Nation's is the first venue of unrest before any arms are taken up against anyone. Without the recognition of the global community any uprisings are mostly viewed as terrorist rather than grievances of a population of Shia.
Iran has a profound responsibility with it's diaspora. The plight of the Shia in the crescent has to be recognized in search of human rights and viewed as a people and not terrorist organizations. If Iran cannot find a way to address the United Nations about it's diaspora, who will? It is important to bring them out of the shadows of violence to people with a right to exist and prosper.
If I recall it was only a short time ago that Russia stated to Iran all the extremism needs to stop. Iran has a friend that is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and together they can find a way to address the crescent. But, for now the major powers have their hands full and while the Shia Crescent needs recognition, without addressing Daesh first, there may be no Shia Crescent to recognize.
