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David Cameron Fighting Fire With Fire
"I am worried for my family - my daughter and my wife - because of the bombing of ISIS areas. I wish...I hope we can get rid of ISIS. Especially for me and my family. But it doesn't make sense from the sky. ISIS now, the fighters, they're living between normal people." These are some of the words spoken by Yasser Al Jassem, a Syrian refugee and father, when he spoke to ITV News.
Yasser fled Syria after his wife and parents begged him to leave for safety. He left because the Assad Regime and ISIS were hunting him down after they killed his brother. He went on to say in the interview that he doesn't think bombing is the answer, and will be ineffective because ISIS don't have "a military unit to bomb".
A week or so after the tragic attacks in Paris which killed 129 people, British MPs met to debate and vote on the issue of joining the air-strike offensives against Syria (more specifically ISIS). Of course, David Cameron got what he wanted and less than an hour after the vote to bomb Syria was confirmed, British planes set off from Greece to drop bombs on Syria. In the process, Jeremy Corbyn (leader of the Labour party, and in opposition of the air strikes) was embarrased because of the fact that 67 of his MPs in parliament voted in favour of the offensive. Success for the Tories.
This stirred the massive pot, and sparked huge debate, including such scenes as the 'Don't bomb Syria' demonstration in London.
These protests, organised by the Stop the War coalition campaign group, started around the 28 November, before the vote even happened. The likeliness is that you've already seen pictures from these demonstrations all over the internet, as well as the "Don't bomb Syria" signs. to me, this brings to the surface the question to what extent do politicians represent us?
Over the past year, US and Russia-led air strikes have been all over the news and have challenged people to question whether they really work or whether they just cause more destruction of humanity.
The media is very careful when it comes to mentioning casualties of Syrian Civillians. For example, after France decided to bomb the shit out of Al-Raqqah a few short weeks ago, they insisted there were absolutely zero civillian casualties...It's up to you whether you believe that or not. The UK media isn't shy when talking about Russia's plans though. We've already seen headlines such as 'Putin threatens to NUKE Islamic State with warheads from Russian submarines'.
By focusing on asserting their power, It seems that massive nations such as the USA, UK and Russia have forgotten about the victims of ISIS. Take a look at the 12 point motion put forward by David Cameron;
You may notice the mention, or lack of mention of Syrian civillians and the rebuilding of Syria after the destruction of war. It may have been hard to notice as there are only three short sentences. The plan also fails to mention anything about the issue of Syrian refugees who seek safety in countries like Greece. I guess they'll just keep on letting them find their own way across the sea.
Politicians, along with us as the public, may see retaliation to the Paris attacks as warranted, considering 129 innocents were killed in Paris in mid November. But what does doing the same thing really do? The media tell us that they are solely targeting ISIS strongholds but if Yasser's comments at the start are true then what are we really doing? We could just be bombing 10 innocents in the hope we kill 1 ISIS member.
Some would say that war tactics will not solve anything, but actually make things worse. The argument is you can't fight fire with fire and expect no fire, or fight inhumanity with inhumanity.
