U.S. Airstrikes: "Proportionate and Necessary?"

President Biden: "The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world.”

According to an Associated Press report, US forces carried out 85 airstrikes in Yemen today after attacking sites in Iraq and Syria yesterday in response to a drone attack that killed three US soldiers. 

Is this kind of retaliation really "proportionate and necessary?" The attack on our military base this week, in protest of our support of Israel's revenge strikes against Gazan citizens, killed three U.S. troops. U.S.counterstrikes have claimed the lives of at least 40, plus doing an untold amount of additional "collateral damage."

This brings up the question of whether the lives and property of US citizens have infinitely greater value than those of other nationalities, thus justifying our dropping megatons of explosives as a form of "defense."

Do starving refugees and bombing victims everywhere not have equal value? Do people suffering and dying as a result of millions of our taxpayer dollars spent in inflicting harm not equally deserve our mercy and compassion?

And if we really don't want to escalate conflict in the Middle East, why are we in fact escalating it by engaging in massive bombing campaigns?

Chris Hedges, an ordained Presbyterian minister and Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter, writes in his book, The Greatest Evil is War:

"In an instant, industrial warfare can kill dozens, even hundreds of people, who never see their attackers. The power of these industrial weapons is indiscriminate and staggering. They can take down apartment blocks in seconds, burying and crushing everyone inside. They can demolish villages and send tanks, planes, and ships up in fiery blasts. The wounds, for those who survive, leave terrible burns, blindness, amputation, and life­long pain and trauma."

Employing ever more evil means of this kind is far more likely to set off an unimaginably horrific World War III than to bring about any lasting peace.