The ruthless atrocity displayed by all sides in the Syrian conflict is going on the same as always, despite Russia's intervention on behalf of President Assad. Syrian Air Force helicopters are still dropping so-called 'barrel bombs' on civilian targets indiscriminately.
Here's a video clip of a Syrian Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter dropping two barrel bombs on Darayya earlier this week.
It's claimed that twelve bombs hit the town in a single day, causing numerous civilian casualties.
I don't think we should be supporting any side in the Syrian conflict. I suspect they're all as bad as one another from a civil and human rights perspective.
Peter
Barrel bombs.
ReplyDeleteNo. Normal bombs.
Bombs that could have been made in the good old U.S.A.
I don't know why our propagandists decided that the word barrel added to the word bomb makes the bomber sound more evil, but apparently this works to some extent. Or maybe this is just an attempt to differentiate Syrian bombs from American bombs. Our bombs are the good bombs that, you know, only hit wedding parties, hospitals, and, fifteen minutes later, first responders and people trying to drag the bodies of loved ones out of the wreckage.
Yep, set up fences at the borders, and let them fight it out inside... Not our circus, not our monkeys...
ReplyDeleteEchoing what August says, those look like good ol'fashioned ordnance.
ReplyDeleteOn a separate note, I'm disappointed that you think everyone's as bad as ISIS (beheading journalists and burning pilots alive ISIS).
I don't think that you can judge that mess on a "humanitarian" scale, other than to say "humans are predators, and they are acting predatory;" they should be judged / supported on the likelihood they will support / facilitate the export of jihad and radical Islam. If they'll keep that in check, and keep their local problems local, we should at least nominally support them.
ReplyDeleteIf by alternating who we support we can manage to get them to turn into a meat-grinder that kills off gazillions of jihadies (while tragic on a moral scale) I don't think it would be bad in the long run for the 97% of humanity that are NOT radical islamists.
One wonders if this news from Russia turns out to be actual Pravda (truth,) or worthy of the old Pravda:
ReplyDeleteLast month Moscow launched a bombing campaign against the twisted State terror group, which controls vast swathes of Syria and has forced thousands of people to flee the country.
Many desperate asylum seekers have made their way to Europe via boats to Greece, with David Cameron agreeing to let 20,000 in Britain over the next five years.
But Russia's bid to wipe out ISIS has been so successful that almost a million Syrians are elected to return to their homeland, Russian politician Dmitry Sablin claimed.
A doctor I work with is originally from Syria. We've had many interesting conversations about life under Assad. As despicable as ISIS is, I don't think there's any moral high ground to be found in the region.
ReplyDeleteProper term maybe non-combatants, not civilians. ISIS are not soldiers.
ReplyDeleteGerry
I too wonder why "barrel bombs" are somehow worse than nice, factory-made, properly labeled bombs, given that both do the same things.
ReplyDeleteAlas, Assad is the best of several bad choices. He, at least, protected religious minorities (other than Jews). ISIS is killing anyone that isn't their brand of Islam, and the other rebels, who knows what sort of atrocities they have pulled.
ReplyDelete@Quartermaster: That's a little cynical isn't it? "We haven't heard of these people committing atrocities, so they must be at least as bad as the guys leaving mass graves and slaughtering civilians!"?
ReplyDeleteIt would appear that Syria now has access to proper aerial bombs, so there is no need for them to rely on diy barrel filled bombs.
ReplyDeleteAh, progress...