Urban atrocities – Aleppo is the latest sad example

Source: bbc.com

All of us bear responsibility for the unfolding humanitarian disaster in the city of Aleppo, Syria. It doesn’t matter whether our nation is involved in the on-going conflict or not. As  human beings we should not let such a series of horrific events occur without raising our collective voices loudly and forcefully in opposition. 

We should be marching for peace throughout the world. We should be imploring our leaders to find peaceful solutions to the complex issues facing our planet. We should be pushing our leaders to call out aggressors and to impose harsh, but non-deadly, penalties on them.  And most of all, each and every one of us should be refusing to participate in the worldwide military-industrial complex through our investments, our purchases, our votes, and our beliefs.

Source: npr.org

Aleppo is just the latest example of those cities (often non-military targets) being obliterated in order to achieve political or military aims in the past century and a half. Sadly, the list of such cities provided below is only partial.

• Atlanta, Georgia, USA (US Civil War)
• Ypres, France (WW I)
• Belchite, Spain (Spanish Civil War)
• Shanghai, China (Sino-Japanese War)
• Nanking (Nanjing), China (Sino-Japanese War)
• Warsaw, Poland (WW II)
• Oradour-sur-Glane, France (WW II)
• Leningrad, USSR (WW II)
• Stalingrad, USSR (WW II)
• London, UK (WW II)
• Coventry, UK ( WW II)
• Hull, UK (WW II)
• Julich, Germany (WW II)
• Dresden, Germany (WW II)
• Hamburg, Germany (WW II)
• Hiroshima, Japan (WW II)
• Nagasaki, Japan (WW II)
• Seoul, South  Korea (Korean War)
• Hue’, Vietnam (Vietnam War)
• Kabul, Afghanistan (Soviet-Afghan War)
• Beirut, Lebanon (Lebanese Civil War)
• Sarajevo, Bosnia (Yugoslav Civil War)
• Mogadishu, Somalia (Somali Civil War)
• Grozny, Chechnya (Chechnyan War I and II)

Shame on us all…for Aleppo and for the other urban atrocities that we as human beings have inflicted upon one another. May each and every city facing such suffering, danger, heartache, and pain today see a peaceful breakthrough in the new year, particulaly those in Aleppo.