There are ways to end the Middle East madness
Perceptions by Gerry Warner
“When war is declared, the first casualty is truth.”
Hiram Johnson
I don’t know a much truer statement than the one above.
But it’s one mankind never seems to learn as war seems to hard wired in our DNA
as the history of the human race demonstrates with numbing regularity.
And it’s happening again now in Ottawa with our Prime
Minister being hammered from all corners for withdrawing our jet fighters from
the Syrian civil war, surely one of the most senseless and destructive wars in
modern history.
This is a war so terrible that it has killed close to
300,000 people to date, including
115,000 civilians in Syria – the bulk of those made up of women and
children – while some 4 million Syrians have fled the country to get away from
the carnage, according to an article in the Feb. 19 Huffington Post. And who’s
killing the civilians? Certainly the army of Syria’s sadistic President Bashar
al-Assad has killed the most, but we’ve got blood on our hands too with
documented incidents of the US-led coalition, which includes Canada, killing
civilians as well. These incidents are always
labelled as “accidental,” but the sad fact of the matter is that civilians are
inevitably killed in any war no matter who’s fighting it.
Think about it. Before they were pulled out Feb. 15,
our six CF-18 jets in Syria flew numerous missions over Syria at 30,000 to
40,000 feet firing supposedly
“smart bombs” (missiles actually) at targets given to
them by US “intelligence” obtained from God knows where that claimed it knew
where the “bad guys” (ISIS militants) were down below and the missiles would
pick them out from the
crowd while leaving the “good guys” (non ISIS members)
untouched as they sipped their chai or knelt on their prayer rugs.
If you believe that, I’ll give you some pills that’ll
turn water into wine! That’s why we end up killing civilians in Syria too –
men, women and children – and why almost a quarter of Syria’s population has
fled the chaotic country with little more than the shirts on their backs
literally walking and drowning their way to the Western World where at least
some semblance of civilization exists.
This is a migration of Biblical proportions. There
haven’t been this many refugees on the move since the end of World War II. And
we’ve only seen the beginning of it. According to a United Nations report, 60
million refugees have been forced from their homes by violence world-wide with 4
million of these coming from Syria alone. Growth of the refugee population has
already accelerated dramatically this year overwhelming Europe including Germany
which has accepted more than a million.
As they pour out of the Middle East, Africa and Asia,
where do you think they’re heading? Certainly a large portion will try to come
to North America where there is lots of space, democratic governments (mostly)
and a standard of living beyond their wildest dreams. As a result, we’d better
get ready for a sea change in world-wide population distribution because it’s
coming whether we like it or not. And yes, there are those who would like to
bar the doors and retreat behind their fortress walls and ignore the misery the
refugees are going through.
I can understand people feeling fearful and uneasy because
change is always disruptive. But ignoring the situation in a globalized world
is no longer an option. Neither is a Donald Trump wall to keep the refugees at
bay. And the war we’re waging now just makes the situation worse. Far worse!
So what’s the answer? Obviously the war must be ended
to stanch the flow of refugees, giving them the opportunity to return home,
which most of them want to do. A UN Peace Force must be sent to Syria to keep
the peace with boots on the ground instead of “smart bombs,” which have never
worked and never will. Finally we’ve got to learn how to love our neighbours without
reservation because killing them just doesn’t work.
Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and militant pacifist.
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