Trying to hype the importance of the Syrian peace talks ongoing in Geneva, Secretary of State John Kerry made what is likely to be a wildly controversial claim, tapping the Syrian Civil War as the worst humanitarian catastrophe in generations, “unmatched since World War II.”
Five years in, the Syrian Civil War has certainly become a humanitarian calamity, with upwards of a quarter million people estimated killed and millions of civilians displaced in fighting. But the 70 year period since WW2 has no shortage of calamities, many of which by sheer numbers dwarf Syria.
Even looking at single-nation civil wars, Syria is just one of many, with Rwanda, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia, China, and countless others seeing civil wars with death tolls as large or larger, and refugee crises every bit as calamitous.
And even there, the death toll of international conflicts have in many cases been far worse than this, from the Korean War to the Vietnam War and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the second half of the 20th century was quite familiar with death tolls in the millions, far beyond what Syria has yet seen.
There is always a tendency to present the most recent calamities as necessarily the worst, both because they are fresh in our minds and because they are unresolved. Yet presenting the Syrian Civil War as “unmatched” does a disservice to the countless millions of victims of other huge conflicts throughout the era.
Kerry is still trying to drag us into one more Mideast war. His claim that this is the worst crisis since World War II is but a front to create a push for a war in Syria. Already we are building an air base in the northeastern part of the country and are set to join Turkey in its invasion plans for the northwestern part of Syria. The slaughter and human carnage that has marked Africa would have been a choice if Kerry really was concerned about humanitarian problems. We are being pushed into a war that we should have never got involved in from the start.
Iraq’s disaster dwarfs Syria. They’ve been killing over 5,000/month lately. Total killing and refugees are far higher too.
Since the US played a rather minor role in WW 2 (compared to that of Russia) Kerry may be partially correct.
It’s not an unmatched war, as you point out. Congo was worse; Vietnam was worse; Iraq was arguably worse. But in terms of impact this one could make those others look minor, because none of those contained the prospect of seriously challenging European social order, let alone open borders. If the second wave of twelve million refugees comes out of Syria, and all head for Germany, or even if the current pace continues, there’s a real question whether Europe will be able to cope.
Worst crisis since WW2? For all the fact that they involved greater numbers, suffering, and carnage, the others were regional, and stayed contained. This one threatens to take down Europe itself.
How can that be – no reference to “another Hitler” that describes all of the other “worst wars since WWII” the government convinces us to get into.
The role is taken by Bibi. So Kerry stays silent about that.
Didn’t Kerry fight in Vietnam? Strange that he forgets another disaster his country precipitated.
What about Vietnam? Let’s not forget the US killed close to 2,000,000 innocent, and inoffensive farmers.