Europe turns its back on Syria and Yemen at its own peril

The images of the Syrian boy, Omran Daqneesh, being pulled from the rubble in Aleppo may have shocked the world over - but his wasn't a unique case.

Shedding tears for one injured child is simply not enough; the war in Syria has been raging on for 5 and a half years now and has decimated hundreds of thousands of men, women and children - many just like the bloody and dazed Omran. Dr Zaher Sahloul, who works in Aleppo, knows all about that. He has treated a toddler who had been shot in the head by a government sniper, children who had been mutilated by the shrapnel from barrel bombs and two young sisters who were brought into the emergency room hugging each other, but were already dead. And yet the airstrikes keep coming.

Somehow, Yemen is enduring a humanitarian catastrophe that is even larger than in Syria. For over a year now, two thirds of the population have had no access to clean water, 80% are in desperate need of humanitarian aid and thousands of civilians have died. The worst part about all of this? If the US and UK governments stopped flooding the Saudis with billions worth of weaponry, their bombing campaign - though let's call it for what it is: a war crime - would swiftly grind to a halt.

You may not believe it now, but Europe's destiny is entwined with events in its Arab neighbourhood in a way that the US's is not. For each Syrian refugee who made it to Europe and was treated decently, how many were left to rot in a war zone of the West's creation and will nurture resentment towards Europe? Similarly, reports are filtering out of Yemen that Yemenis perceive it not to be a Saudi bombing campaign but a US/UK bombing campaign, and many civilians blame the carnage on the West just as much as the Saudis.

You might not think that, you, a solitary individual, can do anything to change the US and UK's grotesque foreign policies. But if large swathes of the population became aware of the possibly irreversible damage the government is inflicting on the Middle east, I believe insurmountable pressure could be unleashed on those in power.

In a strange parallel to the events of last summer, the body of the little Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi washed upon the shores of Greece and just like now with Omran, there was an outpouring of sympathy on a global scale for refugees. However, just a few months later, Isis claimed responsibility for the deadly Paris attacks, the world relapsed and the migrant-bashing fanfare became rambunctious all over again.

For the reasons stated above, another terror attack in Europe is probably quite likely. Last time, a bunch of Belgian people killed a bunch of people in France so the British government voted to bomb more innocent people in Syria. There's no logic. We need to respond only with humanistic values, kids like Omran are dying every day. Think about it.

The inevitable state-sponsored attack

Originally posted on 14^th November.

What happened last night in Paris wasn't a random act of violence by a group of unorganised Islamic extremists; it was a meticulously planned attack designed to kill scores of people that was sanctioned by the state.

Before you jump on the conspiracy theorist bandwagon, let's look at the reasons why this could be; after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, France's security levels was understandably placed at its highest possible level. Paris has some of the most advanced surveillance in the world, so how have eight militants managed to rampage through the city killing at least 128 people without the state receiving any information beforehand?

A few months ago, I saw a post claiming all the pieces were in place for another fake terror attack in or near the UK; at the time the mainstream media was howling about the refugee crisis and the possibility of extremists infiltrating Europe. A few months down the line and look what's happened.

Yes, ISIS have taken responsibility for the attack, but how many of you know the true nature of the extremist group? A group which was created and trained by the CIA, further funded by the US and Saudi governments. ISIS are a fabrication of Western governments, that's not a conspiracy but stone cold fact. So where does that place the West's role in the latest "terrorist" attack?

By this point any sane minded person will be asking, why would our own governments inflict such pain and terror on its own people? The same reason it always has, to rule through fear and make a profit. After 9/11, the West invaded Iraq and created a pantomime villain of Al Qaeda (also created by the US) and made a profit of $39.5 billion through Iraq's oil.

Now this attack has occurred, the government and media will no doubt whip up a shit storm of scare-mongering and abuse towards Muslims and refugees trying to enter Europe. This will serve the purpose of creating further divides between different ethnic groups. They also finally have an excuse to put boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria, once again making a profit through war at the cost of more innocent lives. The only winner from this attack is the West, and if they are not successful in creating more war in the Middle East I worry the UK is next.

For those who think this was a religiously motivated attack, you are wrong. As fanatically religious as IS are, at the end of the day they are nothing more than marionettes to the real warlords who pull the strings behind the scenes. If they are funded by the West, they are not going to be pursuing their own agenda.

I hope that people will start to understand the true nature of the "war on terror" and IS, because the truth is that the gravest threat to our society is not Islamic bogeymen, but the governments that claim to protect us.