Why does news of French retaliatory bombers over Raqqa, Syria feel like a requiem? Or even worse, Armageddon? French & Russian bombers are both bombing a city of over 220,000 people without coordinating operations. Somewhere in the region Syrian & US bombers (along with Turkish, UAE, & Bahraini bombers) are also deployed–again without coordination. What could possibly go wrong?
Raqqa is reported to be an ISIS stronghold & descriptions of how they run the city sound as barbaric as Israel in Gaza & the West Bank or India in Kashmir. But is bombing civilians to death really the best way to address ISIS control?
Media actually claims there are few civilian casualties. Well then what are they targeting in Raqqa? If they know where ISIS is headquartered in the city why can’t they just send their psycho squads, those well-trained Black Hawk down guys, the kind who took out Osama bin Laden?
But let’s cut the crap. We already know from Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, & elsewhere that human life means nothing–it’s all collateral damage, all “worth it” as Madeleine Albright put it, to achieve US-NATO policy goals. And of course therein lies the rub: all the regimes sending bombers have conflicting interests & goals. Isn’t that how world wars begin?
The historic imperative remains: rebuild the international antiwar movement.