Recent military actions by Western powers, backed by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, have certainly proven controversial. But the simple fact is that the civilised and democratic West cannot refuse to act in the face of the indiscriminate massacre of civilians in Yemen … I mean Syria.
Sorry, I got confused. Yemen is where the West is arming Saudi Arabia and backing its brutal war killing civilians and causing a huge humanitarian catastrophe. We support that carnage.
Sorry, I’ll start again. It is a basic humanitarian principle that the world must act when we witness such cold-hearted slaughter of innocents as we have just seen take place in Gaza … I mean Syria!
Sorry about that. I mean, Gaza? Where did that come from? As if the West cares about Israel gunning down unarmed protesters in Gaza?
I mean Syria! Syria, Syria, Syria! Sorry, I’ll get it right this time, I promise.
Yes, we face a powerful moral impetus to act. Future generations would not forgive us if we failed to respond to the recent mass killings in Syria (yes, got it!). The horrific scenes from the Syrian region of Afrin … ah fuck I mean Douma!
No, Afrin is where war crimes are being committed by NATO member Turkey, which has the second-largest army of any NATO nation. It is carrying out its carnage while all powers intervening in Syria look the other way, sacrificing the democratic, feminist Kurdish led-revolutionary forces which did so much to defeat ISIS.
Sorry, it just gets so hard to remember which victims of these atrocities the West is cynically and selectively highlighting as opposed to directly facilitating.
The crimes of the Bashar al-Assad government are terrible and Syrians deserve support, unless, of course, they apply for refugee status in the West, in which case the lazy free-loading bastards trying to take over our society can bloody well deal with the bombs and chemical weapons themselves.
Everyone always wants more help, but do these people think the West is just made of money? Those Tomahawk missiles the US just fired at Syrian targets alone cost US$1.4 million each. Adding to the carnage and destruction isn’t cheap.
At least the response is right: more bombings. If there is one thing everyone can at least agree has been lacking in Syria in recent times, it’s bombings.
Hard to believe it has taken a geopolitical genius this long to figure out the solution to the multi-faceted civil war is more war. They must have slapped their forehead and shouted: “Of course! It’s so obvious, why did no one think to try it before? The only way to stop the carnage in Syria is to add to it!”
Not everyone agrees, however. British Labour Party leader and infamous supporter of peace Jeremy Corbyn opposed the bombings, choosing instead to nitpick over minor details, such as the US, British and French bombings actually being “illegal” under international law.
Read the full article written by Carlo Sands at Green Left Weekly.