Hedges. Chillingly spot on. "The selective moral outrage of the
United States, among both Democrats and Republicans, over the alleged
chemical attack—I know from two decades
of covering war that the truth is very murky and easily manipulated in
wartime—ignores America’s primary responsibility for the wholesale
carnage that has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions as
refugees, including 4 million from Iraq and 5 million from Syria. It
ignores the 12,197 bombs we dropped on Syria last year. It ignores our
role in creating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and our role
in arming and funding these jihadists in Syria. We have made sure that
the Syrians—400,000 of whom have died and half of whom have been forced
from their homes during the war—have many options when it comes to
dying.
Why the moral
outrage now among Americans? Why have we stood by as Syrians died daily
from barrel bombs, bullets, famine, disease and drowning off the shores
of Greece? Why have we been mute as schools, apartment blocks, mosques
and hospitals have been bombed into rubble? Where is the outrage about
the deaths of the thousands of other children, including those we killed
recently in Mosul when a March 17 coalition airstrike took the lives of
as many as 200 civilians? Why are we not enraged by the Trump
administration’s flagrant violation of domestic law by carrying out an
act of war without approval from Congress or the United Nations? Why do
we lament these deaths yet bar Syrian war refugees from entering the
United States? Is American foreign policy to be dictated by the fickle
emotions of Donald Trump, whose perception of reality appears to be
obtained exclusively from a television screen?
The rise of
Islamic State has instilled pride and self-empowerment for many Sunnis,
humiliated by the U.S. occupation. It has exposed the weak and corrupt
ruling elites who have sold themselves to Washington. It is proof that
the Western military forces are not invincible. These groups will suffer
reverses, but they will not go away.
There is no clean or easy
way to exit from the morass we created in the region. None of the
insurgents in the region will willingly lay down their weapons until the
U.S. occupation of the Middle East ends. The wars we started are
complicated. There is a myriad of proxy wars being fought beneath the
surface, including our war with Russia, Turkey’s war with the Kurds, and
Saudi Arabia’s war with Iran. The civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Syria, Libya and Yemen are the human fodder.
This slaughter has
already lasted nearly 16 years. It will not cease until the United
States is exhausted and withdraws its forces from the region. And before
that happens, many, many more innocents will die. So save your tears.
We are morally no different from the jihadists or the Syrians we fight.
They reflect back to us our own repugnant visage. If we wanted this to
stop, we could make it happen. " http://www.truthdig.com/…/…/the_pandoras_box_of_war_20170407
