Yesterday, Assad struck, with his fighter jets, civilians in the Idlib province that led to the death of six children. Simultaneously, Obama’s strikes against ISIS killed a family of seven in Aleppo with five of them children. One mistake and a whole family disappears.
While Assad intentionally kills civilians, the U.S. does not and would never target civilians in Syria or any where else. Still, the damage from the collateral damage of US strikes against ISIS have long-term repercussions.
In a recent U.N. report, investigators for the international body revealed that children in Syrian government detention have been sexually abused, forced to fight against the opposition, tortured and used as human shields. It was estimated that over 10,000 children have died since fighting began in March 2011.
To add to the misery of Syria’s children and women, they now must worry about US fighter jets killing them by mistake. This kind of collateral damage should be unacceptable under any circumstance. Syrian children do not deserve to be bombed by Assad, and if they survive his terror, face U.S. bombs.
Americans have to see this untenable situation from the Syrian people perspective. Both the Assad regime and America are killing Syrian civilians. In their eyes, there is no difference between Assad and Obama. They are both killers of children and women. This is certainly not the way Syrians should remember the greatest nation on earth.
The American public is not privy as to how targets are selected and who decides to strike where and when, but if collateral damage continues to manifest itself, you might as well write off the whole country. Everyone becomes ISIS. Collateral damage franchises terror and boosts it. Now, who would want that?
Besides the president, the blame for the gratuitous death of Syrian children falls at the feet of JCS Gen. Martin Dempsey. His intelligence on Syrian targets is lacking and his tactics are damaging to U.S. interests. How could driving millions of Syrians to hate America be helpful? Better miss an ISIS target than risk killing innocent civilians.
Organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Reporters Without Borders must escalate the pressure against Obama and Dempsey to hold them accountable for the unnecessary death of Syrian children and women. Is it not enough Obama did not help Syria’s people to overthrow Assad by sending them weapons to defend themselves with? Does this president also need to kill innocent civilians and look like he is an accomplice of the Assad regime?
Collateral damage is unacceptable. The Syrian people have suffered enough already.
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