Syria barrel bomb attack: At least 16 killed at wake in Aleppo

[oberliner]

Source: CNN

A helicopter dropped two barrel bombs on a funeral wake for children in the Syrian city of Aleppo, killing at least 16 people, Syrian monitoring groups said.

The wake was being held Saturday in the rebel-controlled neighborhood of Bab al-Nayrab, the same area where 15 people were killed in a barrel bombing Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Another group, the Aleppo Media Center, reported a higher death toll of 24 people killed and 30 others injured in the attack.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/28/middleeast/aleppo-barrel-bomb-wake-bombed/

[redwitch]

1. Hell does exist. It's called Aleppo.

Those poor people!

[oberliner]

2. Bombing funeral processions and hospitals

It doesn't get much more depraved than that.

[redwitch]

3. No it does not.

The medical people that are left to deal with this are so amazing but how long can they keep it up? They need protection and supplies and a chance to grieve and it doesn't seem to be happening.

[DetlefK]

4. In other news, the US is evil for stealthily invading Syria.

[oberliner]

5. The US is evil?

This is something you believe?

[DetlefK]

6. Time and time again, I dream of a life without the sarcasm-tag.

While the right-wing has their share of people who believe that the US can do no evil, the left has their share of people who believe that the US can do no good. I was sarcastically imitating their stance.

[oberliner]

7. Understood

Hard to know sometimes where folks are coming from here.

[yurbud]

9. given our government's history of backing religious extremists to overthrow secular regimes...

and that our allies in the Gulf support and do business with them, rather than respond to "barrel bombs" with more sophisticated bombs of our own, we could choke off the funds and weapons the rebels are getting.

[pampango]

8. Assad, the terrorist (though the 'kinder, gentler, don't bring attention to myself' kind) strikes

again. In order to save Aleppo and its people, he has to destroy them. Of course, destroying Aleppo and terrorizing its people is simply a means to an end (keeping President-for-Life Bashar in power is goal #1, #2 and #3).

[yurbud]

10. what is our goal there?

[pampango]

11. FDR said it best: "In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world

founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms

I don't know how we achieve that in Syria or in many other places in the world. The answer will be different in each case. Sometimes that will involve acting; sometimes it will involve not acting. It should always involve caring what happens to people anywhere in the world.

Harry Hopkins (FDR adviser and an architect of the New Deal) interrupted FDR while he was dictating the speech and told FDR that he should not say "everywhere in the world because Americans are not going to give a damn about people in Java".

FDR replied, "Well Harry. They are going to have to give a damn about people in Java from now on."

I think it is safe to say that Trump and his supporters don't care about the people in Java or anywhere outside our borders. Caring does not mean bombing or invading, but it does not include ignoring them.

[yurbud]

12. which of the countries we've attacked militarily or covertly fomented coups have those things been

advanced?

Those are admirable goals, but they about as much in common with our foreign policy as bowling balls do with ballet.

and if we really wanted to advance those, we could start by doing it peacefully with allies dependent on our military aid to prop up their dictatorship, and by no longer backing right wing coups every time time someone gets elected who wants to raise minimum wage or share the wealth of their countries resources with more than a handful of people.

[pampango]

13. We've abandoned FDR on domestic policy AND foreign policy. At least we are

consistent.

FDR seemed to believe in large international organizations to allow countries to work together to achieve his 4 freedoms. Of course, the modern US is more comfortable with unilateral action with generally terrible results.