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ABSTRACTPerhaps the most serious ethical challenge to pacifism is the argument for the necessity of military action to protect civilians from violence.  Whether articulated by IR scholars or armed rebels, such argumentation depends upon largely uninvestigated notions about the efficacy of violence as a tool for protection.  This paper takes on this presumed link between violence and protection by examining the case of Syria, where this argument has had particular salience, and whether the formation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in 2011, a few months into the violent repression of anti-government protests, did in fact serve to protect civilians as intended.  This case points to an often overlooked distinction between the refusal of soldiers to fire on unarmed activists and the subsequent decision of these soldiers to turn their arms back on the regime to ‘protect’ unarmed activists—two courses of action that can have radically different effects on conflict dynamics involving a nonviolent movement.  Through analysis of casualty figures, military/security force behaviour, and regime discourse, the article finds, counter-intuitively, that the arming of the opposition did not ultimately protect civilians and may have actually made them more vulnerable than they were when the protest movement remained primary nonviolent.

Nerve injury results in increases in spinal glutamate, which opens the NMDA ionophore channel, causing an influx of calcium. A glycine-binding site must be occupied for the channel to open. GV196771 is a selective antagonist of the glycine-binding site of the NMDA ionophore.

In spring 2002, ambrosia beetles (Coleoptera: Scolytidae) infested an intensively managed 22-ha tree plantation on the upper coastal plain of South Carolina. Nearly 3,500 scolytids representing 28 species were captured in ethanol-baited traps from 18 June 2002 to 18 April 2004. More than 88% of total captures were exotic species. Five species [Dryoxylon onoharaensum (Murayama), Euwallacea validus (Eichhoff), Pseudopityophthorus minutissimus (Zimmermann), Xyleborus atratus Eichhoff, and Xyleborus impressus Eichhoff]) were collected in South Carolina for the first time. Of four tree species in the plantation, eastern cottonwood, Populus deltoides Bartram, was the only one attacked, with nearly 40% of the trees sustaining ambrosia beetle damage. Clone ST66 sustained more damage than clone S7C15. ST66 trees receiving fertilization were attacked more frequently than trees receiving irrigation, irrigation + fertilization, or controls, although the number of S7C15 trees attacked did not differ among treatments. The study location is near major shipping ports; our results demonstrate the necessity for intensive monitoring programs to determine the arrival, spread, ecology, and impact of exotic scolytids.