The U.S. should conduct a humanitarian airdrop to besieged civilians being slaughtered by Bashar Assad’s military.
Over the weekend, Assad’s forces killed hundreds in the east Damascus suburb of Ghouta after conducting a wide ranging air and rocket campaign. Then, on Twitter, sir squilliam came up with a good idea: Why not drop aid to those in need?
The moral concern is certainly urgent. Ghouta was the site of Assad’s chemical weapons attack in August 2013 and has been an enduring target of his atrocities since then. As the New York Times reports, a top Syrian combat leader is warning Ghouta’s residents to expect only death. “I promise,” the commander said in a regime video, “I will teach them a lesson, in combat and in fire, You won’t find a rescuer. And if you do, you will be rescued with water like boiling oil. You’ll be rescued with blood.”
Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Assad’s atrocities.
In turn, assuming the risk factor to U.S. air crews can be mitigated (if not, the proposal should be scrubbed), the U.S. could load some B-2 bombers with medical supplies and launch a one-time humanitarian airdrop into Ghouta. While doing so would not substantially alter the suffering of those on the ground, it would attract global attention to what Assad, Russia, and Iran are doing, and provide a meager respite to medics working to save lives.
Could it be done safely? I think so. For a start, the U.S. has electronic warfare capabilities with which to disrupt the Syrian air defense network and allow a B-2 flight and escort fighters to gain access to a target area.
It would also represent a proportionate U.S. response to what’s happening in Ghouta. After all, while the U.S. has an important strategic rationale to deter Assad’s use of chemical weapons, those concerns are not currently present in Ghouta. Correspondingly, while U.S. military action against Assad’s forces would be moral in its service of protecting innocent life, it could not be justified here for reasons of risking escalation outside of our national interests.
An aid drop seems to strike the right balance.
