The shooting that claimed the lives of 14 people in California last week is undoubtedly tragic, and the worst mass shooting in America since Dylan Roof killed nine in a South Carolina church. But it’s important to remember that similarly horrible events occur on an even more frequent basis in other parts of the globe.
"…Such attacks are commonplace in the countries the US seeks to 'liberate,' Daniel McAdams writes for the Ron Paul Institute. "Just yesterday, in the Syrian village of al-Khan, US bombers wiped out at least 36 civilians as they hit the center of the village."
This incident was eerily reminiscent of the US bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, and in both cases, the United States will be responsible for investigating itself.
"As the United States is acting illegally in Syria – there is no UN resolution nor was the US invited by the Syrian government to conduct military activities on its soil – each US strike on Syrian soil is as lawless as the San Bernardino demonic duo," McAdams writes.
He also points to another recent coalition strike that hit a Syrian Army outpost.
"Three Syrian soldiers were killed in the attack and more than a dozen were injured," he writes.
"In similar obfuscating fashion, the US at first denied that any attack had taken place, then admitted an attack had taken place but claimed that it had not been bombing in the area, then admitted that it had been bombing in the general area but not close to the Syrian military outpost, then, when all else failed it resorted to its fallback position: it blamed the Russians for the bombing."
While President Barack Obama called for stricter gun control reform in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, he has, conversely, sought to expand Washington’s military role in the Middle East.
"As President Obama is determined to expand US military presence on Syrian soil and over Syrian skies, it is a safe bet that these are not the last such 'mistaken' attacks on the wrong targets," McAdams says.
"Cynics already suggest that the attack on Syrian Army positions near an ISIS stronghold was yet another example of the real US agenda in Syria: regime change at all costs and destruction of the Syrian Army in the process. It’s like Iraq all over again…"
