Paris and theTargetting of Civilians

     2014 peace in Middle East Rally ( K. Ksen)

Paris and the Targetting of Civilians

The killing of scores of Parisians on November 13. 2015 is sad and a symptom of the corrupting culture in which we all live. Every premature death is tragic, especially when civilians are killed in wars in horrific ways. The people in Paris have my condolences and sorrow. The fascist who committed these murders should be arrested and punished.  ParisianLives Matter.

The targeting of civilians in war has its  modern beginnings in World War II. In 1937 the fascists from Japan committed the “Rape of Nanking.” This was followed by the bombing of Guernica by the German fascists in the Spanish Civil and then the so called blitz bombings of London. The Americans killed 100, 000 civilians in the fire bombings of Dresden. The atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima have been characterized as terrorist and crimes against humanity. CivilianLives Matter.

This year drone attacks have killed thousands in “collateral” damage. The civil wars in Syria, Nigeria, Kenya, Yemen, and Palestine/Israel have killed thousand more.  BackLives Matter. 

The civilians who died in conflicts outside of Europe and America, many connected to the Parisian attacks, do not get the same value as has the Parisians killed yesterday.  ISIS kills Muslim people too.

The price to pay for peace in the World is steep and the price to pay for the endless wars is steeper. All of this talk of striking ISIS or some other group is useless rhetoric designed to placate an angry nationalistic public.  France, Britain, Russia, and the United States do not want to send in millions of soldier to occupy a country for a generation as they did to Germany and Japan.

The American effort to build up an anti ISIS Syrian rebel army was worse than a joke. The 5000 fighters trained by the Americans joined ISIS.  I don’t think a draft would be viable in the United States, despite the chicken hawks.

Even if these powerful countries wanted to occupy vast stretches of the Middle East, ISIS is being supported by Saudi Arabia which sees it as a force against the Shia, and Turkey which is using ISIS to fight the Kurds and other Turkish minorities.

The forces that could stabilize the world were defeated decades ago and have not yet redeveloped; progressive secular humanists no longer are a force in the Middle East and many other countries. The forces needed to stabilize and reverse economic and political disparities, the forces needed to enforce tolerance of religious belief, and modernity for women were destroyed by West in its fight against the Soviet Union in the Cold War.  The CIA and others preferred the likes of Hamas over the seculars in the PLO and Al Qaeda over the Afghan socialists.

Six months from now there will be another 9-11 or another Paris or another attack by Boko Haran. We will all say the same thing about how sorry we all are.  This system we have now is madness for us who live check to check. I suppose the oil companies will make money.  It will take generations for progressive forces in the USA and the world to develop and bring an end to this madness around us.