Opinion

Push for airstrikes in Syria all seems horribly familiar

As always, violence breeds more violence. Following the Paris attacks, violence against Muslims in France and their property rose dramatically. Picture by Peter Dejong, AP  
As always, violence breeds more violence. Following the Paris attacks, violence against Muslims in France and their property rose dramatically. Picture by Peter Dejong, AP   As always, violence breeds more violence. Following the Paris attacks, violence against Muslims in France and their property rose dramatically. Picture by Peter Dejong, AP  

WHEN people are killed, seemingly indiscriminately, we scramble for answers. Of the 130 people killed in the Paris attacks earlier this month, 89 were young concert-goers who simply wanted to watch a band.

Weeks later, 22 people were killed in the Malian capital of Bamako just because they happened to be in a hotel at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Why did the attacks happen? Some have argued that the attackers and suicide bombers in Paris were merely reacting to France’s involvement in air strikes in Syria and Iraq.

Human rights groups have estimated that airstrikes in Syria alone have claimed the lives of at least 400 civilians since September, although the figure could be much higher.

Given that statistic, is it a surprise when Syrian citizens attack Western countries?

Yet we know from our own past that war is rarely clear cut. Killings can be a reaction to injustice, they can be the result of either well or ill-informed opinions, and sometimes, they can happen for no reason at all. Which idea is more disturbing?

That the attackers had a grand plan to specifically target their young peers on a night out, or that they simply attacked indiscriminately, trying to kill as many people as possible, regardless of age, gender or creed?

The attackers did not target the French parliament or the Eiffel Tower. They chose soft targets - people eating in a restaurant, or attending a football match or going to a gig.

What cause has been furthered by the attacks? The killings in Paris and Mali were carried out by people claiming to fight on behalf of Islam.

Yet Muslim groups across the world have pointed out that the killings were in direct contradiction to the faith’s teaching. And many of those who died were Muslims themselves.

As always, violence breeds more violence. Following the Paris attacks, violence against Muslims in France and their property rose dramatically.

A leading French Muslim group, citing official figures, said more than 50 violent anti-Muslim acts had taken place in just six days.

France’s response to the 130 killings was to launch more airstrikes against the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa in Syria.

Yet one activist in the city told a news organisation that French planes had targeted bases that had been abandoned by IS fighters.

He said people in Raqqa were beset by IS on the ground and airstrikes from the sky. “We are trapped,” he said.

Now MPs in Britain are being urged to vote in favour of joining the airstrikes. Prime Minister David Cameron has insisted that military action will make Britain and the north “safer”.

Yet where is the evidence that mass bombings would actually help people beset by IS? Where is the evidence that such attacks would not hurt people in Syria who are trying to fight IS themselves?

Have we learnt nothing from ill-advised ‘interventions’ in dozens of conflicts from Afghanistan to Iraq?

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is facing an internal revolt over his reluctance to vote in favour of airstrikes, has pointed to the West’s chequered history of military intervention.

“We’ve got a record, all the Western countries, of interventions, all across the whole piste, and has peace got better as a result of it?” he said.

“Well, I think you know the answer as well as I do to that.”

A group of Syrians living in the UK, including members of Syria Solidarity UK and Peace and Justice in Syria, said bombing Islamic State would only make it stronger.

In a letter, the group called for a political resolution. Airstrikes, it said, would only anger Syrians on the ground who are fighting to defeat IS. Instead, Western countries should stop Syrian President Assad from attacking civilians.

"The only way to defeat ISIL is by stopping the Assad regime's indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, including areas control by moderate rebel groups.

Once this happens, Syrians will be freed up to drive out ISIL themselves, as they have proved themselves capable of doing," the group said.

"To make this happen, the UK and other countries need to get serious about the political resolution of the conflict.”

It looks as though, within weeks, MPs will vote in favour of airstrikes. It all seems horribly familiar. Rather than jaw-jaw, we opt for the easy, short-term option, of war-war.