"Among the roughly 250,000 people trapped in the insurgent redoubt of the divided northern Syrian city are 100,000 children, the most vulnerable victims of intensified bombings by Syrian forces and their Russian allies. Though the world is jolted periodically by the suffering of children in the Syria conflict -- the photographs of Alan Kurdi's drowned body and Omran Daqneesh's bloodied face are prime examples -- dead and traumatized children are increasingly common."
This propagandistic narrative has bled into the U.S. presidential campaign with Martha Raddatz, a moderator of the second presidential debate, incorporating much of the evil-Russians theme into a question that went so far as to liken the human suffering in Aleppo to the Holocaust, the Nazi extermination campaign against Jews and other minorities.
That prompted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to repeat her call for an expanded U.S. military intervention in Syria, including a "no-fly zone," which U.S. military commanders say would require a massive operation that would kill many Syrians, both soldiers and civilians, to eliminate Syria's sophisticated air-defense systems and its air force.
Based on the recent Wikileaks publication of Clinton's speeches to investment bankers and other special interests, we also know that she recognizes the high human cost from this strategy. In one June 2013 speech, she said, "To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we're not putting our pilots at risk -- you're going to kill a lot of Syrians. So all of a sudden this intervention that people talk about so glibly becomes an American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians."
Yet, during the campaign, Clinton has spoken glibly about her own proposal to impose a "no-fly zone" over Syria, which has become even more dangerous since 2015 when the Russians agreed to directly assist the Syrian government in fighting Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Also, left unsaid about such a U.S. intervention is that it could open the way for Al Qaeda and/or its spinoff Islamic State to defeat the Syrian army and gain control of Damascus, creating the potential for even a worse bloodbath against Christians, Shiites, Alawites, secular Sunnis and other "heretics." Not to mention the fact that a U.S.-imposed "no-fly zone" would be a clear violation of international law.
Over the next few weeks, we are sure to hear much about the Islamic State using the people of Mosul as "human shields" and thus excusing U.S. bombs when they strike civilians targets and kill children. It will all be the terrorists' fault, except that an opposite set of "journalistic" rules will apply to Aleppo.
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