An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

With the latest news that Britain will be joining in airstrike missions and operations over Syria, I ask each of you this question: Will it be worth it? Will the lives of innocents that will be lost in each of these strikes be seen as a worthwhile sacrifice to eliminate potential IS who, ultimately, was a product of wars led by the west? Will the financial cost to Britain be better off spent in yet another war which, if history is to be noted and repeated, may become another conflict where many innocent lives are lost, hatred and determination from terrorists increases and countries becoming ravaged as a result of a relentless operation of strikes be a worthy monetary sacrifice in a way that is, literally, fighting fire with fire? Wouldn’t a better way to spend the approximate estimate of £508,000 that it costs to fund an airstrike mission (based on these figures posted by ilmfeed.com – £210,000 for a 6 hour Tornado mission, 4 Paveway bombs which cost roughly £22,000 each with an additional 2 Brimstone missile strikes costing an additional £105,000) be to help fund further progress and increase budgets to parts of society that see a day to day shortage of staff with the emergency services coming to mind which, as shown in the attached picture, could pay the salaries for departments which media outlets are only too keen to write articles on how stretched and overworked public sector workers are?

I’m sure by reading just that introduction, it must be blatantly obvious that I’m against the decision UK parliament made in a staggering (and shocking) majority vote with a 174 vote gap with a total of 397 MP’s pledging support to the proposed (now active) plans to attack what they call as “Daesh strongholds” which, whilst being a location to which IS CONTROL and bully, include many innocents of whom live there that will now live under additional fear of the destruction of their homes or being injured or killed in such operations doesn’t seem to resonate any sort of thought that such attacks will only help drive the cause IS wish to portray that the western world is the enemy and help strengthen support for their warped, barbaric and twisted cause and ideology. This being not only the opinion and many of which have been shared under the “#NotInMyName” social media trend but that of UK’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, of whom quoted on the 4th of October that Russia’s bombing campaign will “lead to further radicalization and increased terrorism and terrorist threat” (with a video link to the interview in which the quote came from being available here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWVpRB4JTTo). So why is it now that Mr Cameron has had a change of heart 2 months later? Possibly to show a strong alliance with the French to bring the war to so-called “Daesh” on a united western front to exact revenge on the bloody and barbaric Parisian massacre of Friday the 13th of November 2015 which killed 130 innocents and injuring a further 368, with 80-99 critically injured. In turn, this cycle and ideology that the west should embark in a “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” mentality to fight such a battle will only end in more bloodshed.

Instead should we not be bringing more attention to the war to IS on a platform which, unlike any other war, has been relied heavily on before; The Internet (in particular through encrypted messenger services on the dark web and social media accounts on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube)? Under the hashtag #OpIceISIS, Hacktivist group “Anonymous” have shown just how quickly IS-related social media accounts can be identified , with an estimated 25,000+ IS related Twitter accounts alone, being taken down disrupting communications and IS propaganda being shared whilst also cutting a vital part of how IS has become able to spread it’s deluded ideology to brainwash and recruit individuals across the world. IS have also been able to communicate their plans of terrorism through channels on a messenger service named “Telegram” which has a similar features to apps such as WhatsApp or Kik but allows for anonymity through it’s usage of end-to-end encryption, with Anonymous assisting and identifying 78 IS channels which have now been blocked by the messengers creators. These means of attack have proved to be successful in identifying not only the identities of IS recruiters and terrorists through “Doxing”, in disrupting online activities of IS on social media platforms but also foiling potential ISIS plots which were uncovered by Anon with the information gathered privately reported to several security agencies where plans were uncovered including the FBI. All this being, in my opinion a vital part of the war against IS but without a single drop of blood shed by Anon.

I’m not saying that the evil known as IS can be defeated solely through defeating them on the cyberspace frontline but if such plots are being uncovered with terrorists being able to be identified the internet, the west should look more into trying to adopt such tactics to help contain the spread of IS’ propaganda and foiling potential plots by taking appropriate actions against potential perpetrators. Though I can’t offer an opinion on how a war should be fought physically, I know that an “eye for an eye” attitude to it won’t help relations in the middle east and will only drive the determination of IS’ barbaric plots and twisted ideology to succeed in creating a “worldwide Islamic (and I use that term very loosely as their actions are anything but Islamic) State”.

To finish this post, I’d like to link a video of a speech by Tony Benn in 1998 during the conflict with Iraq which has been circulating social media over the past few days and echoes the ugly truth to war 17 years later – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfXmpJRZPYI

“Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.” – John F Kennedy