CHILDREN THE TARGETS OF WAR

Syrian citizens check the damaged school entrance in Akrama neighborhood in Homs province, Syria, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014

“Twin bombings near an elementary school in Syria killed at least 32 people on Wednesday [Oct 1^st], including at least 10 children, with the second blast going off as screaming parents frantically searched for their sons and daughters in a street littered with school bags and body parts.

Syrian children are frequently among the victims of attacks in the country’s civil war, but on Wednesday they appear to have been the target. …
The attack occurred outside the Ekremah al-Makhzoumi elementary school in a government-controlled area of the central city of Homs dominated by minority Alawites, the offshoot sect to which President Bashar Assad’s family belongs.”

This AP story of car & suicide bombs appears a few days after President Obama, at the behest of the armchair war strategists, authorized the aerial bombing of Syria. Those bombs are directed against ISIS a Sunni militant sect, among at least 4 or 5 that battle against President Assad and his Alawites. All these groups were at some point in the recent past supported by our CIA and the Saudis to depose Assad. These militias, as witnessed above, kill children if it suits the cause. We still back up all, but ISIS, whom we now attack. None of them claims responsibility for this act—but it’s the way they work in their fight against Assad. Our “smart” bombing in Syria is not surgical and kills children too. Paradoxically we at this moment fight against ISIS, in virtual alliance with Assad's government an avowed enemy.

Al Nusra fighters - BBC

ISIS explained in 'The Economist' 1-20-14

Which side are we on when all sides are heavily invested in the technology of killing?

Continuing the above article --

“All sides [certainly including Assad’s government] have carried out horrific attacks on civilians during the conflict -- now in its fourth year -- but rarely have children appeared to be the direct target.”
Take time to read all of the tragic account and background—one of the millions of seldom told individual stories of our perpetual war in the Middle East, which began by proxy, rising from the ashes, hubris, and spent fuel of WWII. In all wars children are certain victims.

There is no winning in this war. Syria follows a similar pattern to Libya, which has been left in ruins—its government, and our embassy, in exile, a host of militant militias in turbulent struggle to see who might be momentarily in charge. They were the ones we paid, armed, and to whom we provided air support, until they succeeded in executing strongman Qaddafi. Then all hell broke loose, as ever it does when the dogs of war are unleashed.

I’ve been paying attention to modern military industrial conflict since 1966. The peace and justice morality seeded by Sacred Heart Seminary and Vatican II began to take form in many of us, against the politics of the Vietnam war, all war. We need to respond now to the mounting call to conversion, a plea for spiritual sanity, “When will people ever learn that war is madness and conflicts are only resolved by forgiveness? – Pope Francis, Sept 14^th 2014, speaking 100 years after WWI.

Paul Cheng Image - Bad Tree Good Tree

It is not easy in our inwardly satisfied, outwardly militarized society to truly renounce war, cooperation with its evil—and seek the ways of peace. Lord Jesus we believe, help our unbelief. Suffer the children to come to you--where there is the courage of love, protection, and no more suffering. We must stop building bullets and bombs.