West of Eden: Syria report

Kurdish wedding ceremony, Kobane, 1960s. Via ARA News.

Glad to be able to report that in his first press briefing since the war on the Caliphate began in June, commander Lloyd Austin stressed that US efforts to not kill civilians are not merely humanitarian, but part of the overall strategy:

Austin said political objectives regarding the government of Iraq, as well as those aimed at building a coalition of regional partners, also make planning airstrikes there difficult because of the risk of collateral damage.

“Had we killed a lot of innocent civilians, specifically in Sunni areas, I think that it’s fair to say that we would be in a much different place at this point,” Austin said. “But because we’ve done this the right way, we’ve secured the support of our Sunni Arab partners in the region, and together we are making progress.”  (Chris Carroll/Stars and Stripes)

It struck me as a good time to see if I could get any further than I could three weeks ago in finding out how well they've been doing, and I found a pretty good source this time for Syria, in the website of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tries to record all the war casualties in that unhappy country, and the news seemed kind of reassuring: since the coalition airstrikes began on September 22, they have killed five civilians (including a child) in strikes on oil refineries in al-Hakasah, September 25, and six men in the al-Hakasah countryside on September 27.

After that there was nothing, for three weeks, even as the strikes and the Kurdish fighters on the ground killed anywhere from 374 Da'esh militants to twice that number, and you could really be excused for thinking the allies were making genuine progress.

But yesterday was a setback, when seven civilians were killed by coalition airstrikes on a gas station in Der-Ezzor province, and three more (including a child) in the old fields of al-Hakasah, almost doubling the number of civilian killings so far in a single day. I hope this is not a trend back toward normal careless destruction.

Also, on the more positive side, noteworthy that the Kurdish fighters supported by coalition air power continue to hold on to the besieged town of Kobane, keeping the Turkish border crossing open for resupply and refugee escape in spite of the worry of the suddenly bellicose Jon Stewart that the US wasn't being aggressive enough.

I continue to believe that I'm right to see Barack Obama as, certainly, no pacifist, but a pragmatist who knows how to listen to pacifists, and committed to reducing war by attrition, bit by bit, instead of trying to kill it off in one gigantic blow the way Woodrow Wilson did a century ago. Wilson's way didn't work, as we know; the jury will be out on Obama's way for a long time to come.

Warrior for the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). Photo by PBS.