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THE French have a saying, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same). And so it was with the French government’s reaction to the terrorist attacks in Paris that claimed 129 lives last Friday, 14 years after the blundering Bush administration showed the world how not to do things.
We take this opportunity to commiserate with the French and the relatives of all who died in the senseless violence of Friday the 13th. At the same time we will be remiss if we do not advise the French against a war of vengeance. By now the world should have learnt from the US’ knee-jerk reaction to 9/11 that war begets more war.
The so-called war on terror has since morphed into a war of terror that has claimed an estimated four million lives in the Middle East in addition to creating conditions for the proliferation of groups like Isis. The true test for France was how it would respond to the terrorist attacks given the US’ failure post-9/11.
Sadly, French president François Hollande did exactly what former US president George W. Bush, the self-proclaimed war president, did in proclaiming a war of vengeance for the simple reason that a Syrian passport was found near one of the dead attackers.
“We are going to lead a war which will be pitiless,’’ Mr Hollande said as he declared a state of emergency. It was lost on him that the rising radicalism in the Middle East has been fanned in part by the US barbaric reaction to the 9/11 bombings.
The so-called war on terror has not only left a trail of destruction in the Middle East, but has cost millions of lives in addition to creating conditions for the flourishing of terrorist groups.
Yet just hours after the Paris attacks, the French Defence Ministry ordered an airstrike on the Syrian city of Raqqa, which it claimed was Isis controlled. Yet Raqqa is not an Isis camp, but is home to 220 000 civilians. Despite this, sorties have been launched on the city, cutting off water and electricity supplies to innocent civilians.
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure that the bombs obviously claimed the lives of civilians who were made casualties of a needless war, with the survivors having to contend with the effects of destroyed infrastructure.
But it was all in a day’s work for Mr Hollande who did not see the irony of expressing a determination to be “pitiless’’ on Syrians soon after mourning the killing of innocent civilians on home soil.
And therein is the root cause of terrorism. It is this destructive engagement that breeds feelings of disaffection. The bombs on Raqqa, no doubt left widows and orphans. The orphaned grow up bitter and will one day want to strike back, creating a vicious circle. The answer to the menace of terrorism is non-interference in the affairs of sovereign states. Let those in the Middle East chart their destiny.
Je suis la vie, all lives matter.
Online Reporter