Sir, – It is surely not beyond the logistical and technological expertise of the “international community” to organise an immediate massive airlift of the terrified, stranded Yazidi community from Mount Sinjar, given its displays of military prowess in bombing poor countries into the middle ages over the last eleven years. Such an airlift should however be carried out under the aegis of the UN and NGOs given the discredited legacy left by the US and Britain, that has killed as many as one million Iraqis, displaced four million and whose policies have fostered sectarian tensions in the country and wider region which have directly led to the rise of the Islamic State forces.
The response by the US of more air strikes at “selective targets” is a last desperate act of futility to mask its failed foreign policy as, in the words of journalist Patrick Cockburn, “a new and terrifying state is born”. This bombing, as recent history shows (look at Libya), will only make matters worse and inevitably lead to more civilian deaths.
We must question also the different approaches taken by the US and Britain to Iraq and to Gaza. Gazans have suffered an appalling military barrage in four weeks that has left almost 2,000 dead, including 460 children, and 400,000 displaced (that’s the equivalent of 4,900 dead and one million displaced in Ireland). No calls here for air strikes against an invading army that wilfully targets women and children or no humanitarian airdrops for the starving, displaced and exposed people of Gaza. Such hypocrisy should warn us of the imperial intentions behind the US and British calls for “humanitarian intervention”. – Yours, etc,
JIM ROCHE,
PRO,
Irish Anti War Movement,
PO Box 9260,
Dublin 1