A gauntlet of wars

I started writing this opinion piece while waiting to board my flight to Germany early this week. I was on my way to an international conference where I will facilitate discussions on how survivors of impunity can meaningfully participate in the quest for international justice.

When I received the invitation last April, I looked forward to the trip because of the chance to learn from the practices of other human rights lawyers all over the world and also because the trip would be a welcome break from work. But when Israel and the United States launched their war on Iran, delight turned into apprehension. The conference organizers booked me on an airline which would have a stopover near the Middle East. When I looked at a world map, airlines which fly from most of Asia en route to Europe will have to fly over the airspace of the Middle East region. Asian passengers would naturally be troubled by the war going on. Prompted to read up, I found out that, since the war broke out, airlines have adjusted their flight paths by now avoiding the airspaces of Israel and Iran and those between them. True enough, when I monitored our flight’s path while inflight, I noticed that our plane made a sharp turn northward when we were over Pakistan, before resuming a westward path north of the Middle East and across Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan.

When we reached Istanbul for a three-hour layover, I read the news that airplanes with destinations to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia had cancelled their flights, including our very own Philippine Airlines.

But even with the safer route taken by our plane, the danger that the war could trigger a wider conflict at any time, with the involvement of other countries in the region, was cause for added apprehension. In addition to the US-Israel-Iran war, there’s the horrendous war unleashed by Israel against Palestine which, again at any time, could cause an expanded conflagration of violence in the region. Even if one safely crosses over the Middle East and avoid these two wars, one gets confronted with yet another violent conflict—the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia in Europe which is a potential trigger for a wider war in Europe if things get out of hand. Memories are still fresh of the Malaysian Airlines plane that was mistakenly shot down in Ukraine a few years back. Going to Europe now involves going through a gauntlet of three wars.

This trip reminded me of another flight that I took in the past and that was filled with so much anxiety and apprehension. When the bombings of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City happened in 2001, my connecting flight to Washington in the US was cancelled and I got stuck for almost a week in Los Angeles. When flights resumed, I took the first flight that flew to the US capital. It was a tense-filled flight, everyone was eerily silent, and passengers looked suspiciously at anyone who stood up to go the toilet. Before we landed, the pilot announced that we will be escorted by a fighter jet, and true enough, a military jet was visibly flying beside our plane when we began our descent preparatory to landing.

When I safely reached Berlin, I read the news that, while we were on flight, Iran and Israel launched a barrage of missiles against each other, despite claims by US President Donald Trump that he brokered a truce between the two. I also learned that some of the participants in the conference, were having difficulty completing their trip to Berlin because of the flight cancellations. There’s also the news that thousands of our kababayans in the Middle East have sought our government’s assistance for repatriation back to our country.

Shortly after Iran was bombed by the US, Trump announced that the military operation was “very successful,” and he heaped congratulations on the “great American warriors.” The current US president seems to have a myopic view of “success” after getting his country involved in a war. Despite its vaunted superiority in weaponry, the US has a not-so- impressive record of winning wars in the long run. Notwithstanding its early battle victories, the US was defeated in Vietnam, and it had to eventually withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq. The US could suffer the same fate in the war it started with Iran.

The wars that the US has fomented or supported will impact on the safety and peace of mind of travelers—especially Americans—for years to come. The pitch battles and the specter of a World War III will spook economies indefinitely and will bring about even more economic suffering for those who are already barely surviving. Instead of securing peace and ensuring economic stability, wars will foment long-running violence and engender hardship even for countries not involved in the wars.