by William Skink
Tonight I got to have a date night with my wife. We went to see The Martian and then grabbed some sandwiches from Jimmy John’s after the show. The biggest threat of the evening was the possibly alcohol-related drift of the motorist in front of us as we drove home.
In Missoula we are far removed from the consequences of American foreign policy. We have oceans between us and the terrorists our allies are arming.
Europe, on the other hand, has borders, and France’s is closed after the well-coordinated massacre that erupted in Paris earlier this evening, as diners dined and concert goers rocked out to Eagles of Death Metal, a concert where over a hundred people have been reportedly killed.
President Hollande has issued a state of emergency. After the Charlie Hebdo attack in January of this year, there has already been increased security measures. I wonder, though, what the security situation will be like for the neighborhoods where immigrants reside. There is already reports of a fire in a refugee camp:
Fire has reportedly broken out at the ‘jungle’ refugee camp in the port of Calais in the hours following the terror attacks in Paris.
At around 11pm volunteers at the camp began sharing pictures of the blaze on social media.
And soon after an anti-migrant group known as ‘The Angry of Calais’ posted videos of the inferno on Facebook.
One video appears to show emergency services vehicles arriving at the camp, which houses around around 6,000 migrants – mainly young men from Syria and North Africa.
What has happened tonight in Paris is a direct result of America’s failing and increasingly desperate foreign policy. Russia’s intervention in Syria has totally changed the dynamics of reality on the ground, but you would have to be a conspiracy theorist to note the convenience of what tonight’s tragedy will accomplish: eclipse the gains Russia has made against “ISIS” while stoking European xenophobia against immigrants and refugees crossing borders, trying to survive.
A lot of people died tonight and it’s horrible. An estimated 250,000 people have died in Syria. Half a million could die from famine in Yemen. Those numbers are the result of Obama’s foreign policy. And those numbers will rise no matter who gets elected president next year.
Tonight, as I see Facebook and Twitter collectively react, I think wouldn’t it be great if between tragedies more people would actually pay closer attention to what’s happening in the world, day by day.
Today is Friday, the 13th of November. Tomorrow the next atrocious layer will start settling over us. I don’t have much bandwidth left to keep tabs.
Other than just being sad that things will escalate.