France launched a series of airstrikes, precisely 20 as of Sunday, against ISIS and the town of Al-Raqqah on Sunday in retaliation to a series of terrorist attacks in Paris that ISIS has claimed responsibility for. France’s President described the attacks in Paris as “an act of war.” Even though they are specifically targeting ISIS, the town of Al-Raqqah has over 220,000 citizens and is the sixth largest city in Syria. The issue with this is that innocent civilians will be in the cross fire and once again be victims for something they had nothing to do with. As Darakshan Raja, who is the Co-founder of the Muslim American Women’s Policy Forum brilliantly stated, “Bombs don’t discriminate against the innocent and guilty.”
The killings of 129 people in multiple attacks in Paris on Friday have resulted in calls for a NATO campaign against ISIS. Various news sites are speculating that France will invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty, the mutual defense clause, of the North Atlantic Treaty this week. Under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, an attack on one ally is considered to be an attack on all (in reference to the attack on France). The only other time, NATO invoked Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, was after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States. Admiral James Stavridis, a former NATO allied supreme commander, pointed out that the attacks in Paris were similar to the attacks of September 11. Defense Secretary Ash Carter spoke with his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the Defense Department said in a statement, and discussed the campaign against ISIS.
Ben Rhodes, the White House’s deputy national security adviser, said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “What we’ve made clear to the French is we will be shoulder to shoulder with them in this response.” In other words, if France goes to war with ISIS, America will be definitely joining forces with France. Which will eventually result in a war with Syria as the infrastructure of the country will be demolished, which will then result in Russia protecting Syria and so on.
The Wall Street Journal reported on the United States involvement as of now in an article stating that the U.S. would expand intelligence sharing with France “and has agreed to speed the delivery of detailed targeting information in support of possible French retaliatory strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.”
As the week goes on, we’ll learn more on how this is all going to play out. We saw what happened in the first War on Terror, let’s pray this isn’t War on Terror 2 or even worse, World War 3.
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Image: Washington Post
