Seven Minutes that Can Save a Syrian School from a Bomb

In the summer of 2013, I was in the north of Syria on a mission as then-medical director for the charity Hand in Hand for Syria (HIHFS) to assess the quality of our health care services. I was accompanied by Saleyha, a fellow doctor, humanitarian, and journalist. As we dodged Islamic State group checkpoints and visited a number of frontline towns, news arrived of the chemical attack on Ghouta. Our phones were soon buzzing with updates about the atrocity, and horrifying images came in thick and fast.

The regime’s barbarity was known to us, but it had now crossed President Barack Obama’s red line and U.S. retaliation seemed imminent. My father called me, worried. “You need to leave,” he said. “U.S. destroyers are in the Mediterranean, and they’re ready to take out (the regime’s) air force.” I could not celebrate the prospect of yet more bombs falling on my country, but I did want to see the butchery end.

What followed, however, was silence and inaction. And the consequences were catastrophic. I know because I was there to witness it.

Late in the afternoon of Aug. 26, 2013, Saleyha and I were tending to patients at HIHFS field hospital in Atareb, west of Aleppo. Around 8 miles to our east, at the Iqra summer school in Urem al-Kubra, 100 children were in attendance for their daily lessons, unaware that a Sukhoi Su-24 fighter was taking off from the T-4 airbase in Homs and heading toward them with deadly intent. It did not take long for us to see the effects of its infernal payload.

At the time, we had been tending to a seven-month-old baby who had been carried in by his distressed father. The baby had suffered burns from a bomb that had fallen next to their house. As we were treating him, we heard the screech of cars, and dozens of severely burnt children started pouring out of them. They said their school yard had been hit by a war plane. I stood in shock, watching the scene unfold. It was an assault on the senses — the rapidly rising heat, the gut-wrenching smell of burnt flesh mixed with unknown chemicals, and children who looked like they’d come straight out of a horror movie.

https://newlinesmag.com/first-person/seven-minutes-that-can-save-a-syrian-school-from-a-bomb/

The false notion of American Imperialism is designed to cripple American foreign policy, and benefits Putin, Erdegon and Khamenei. We need to be smarter, and the American media needs to do some self reflection about their purpose.