Isis bus tour

It was a difficult dilemma. Under a bizarre negotiated arrangement, the Lebanese government with Hezbollah and the Syrian army agreed to allow hundreds of Isis fighters and their families to leave a town on the Lebanese/Syrian border by a convoy of buses and travel across eastern Syria towards Iraq, about six kilometres away. There was no secret about it, so the US-led coalition, always on the look-out for Isis wherever they are, waited for their moment. Do they devastate the convoy of buses and kill everyone, do they try and distinguish which buses have family and which have fighters to try and avoid "innocents" from being killed, or do they just bomb the road the buses are travelling down to prevent them from going any further? Well, we know the answer. they bombed the road and made large craters to stop the buses. This is possibly one of the most extraordinary "humanitarian" decisions by the all-powerful US coalition. They could easily have destroyed the convoy, killing nearly 700 Isis fighters, all of them clearly intent on going to Iraq to support their comrades-in-Islamic-arms to try and kill Iraqis and Americans. Now I can understand the reluctance to destroy the whole convoy which would have been easy, because of the presence of women and children. But it does seem strangely weird that these Isis militants have been allowed to live to fight another day. OK, their bus journey was halted but I assume they will find alternative arrangements to get themselves back with their fellow militants. The deal with Lebanon was done for the sole purpose of getting back the bodies of nine missing Lebanese soldiers who were kidnapped by Isis in 2014 during border fighting between Isis and the Lebanese army. Sometimes you have to make deals with the enemy. But it presented the US coalition in Syria with an unexpected opportunity to go turkey-shooting and kill the 700 militants. I bet there were some in the US military who thought, "to hell with this negotiated agreement, it didn't involve us, let's go kill the lot". But even in war there are codes and rules. It would have looked pretty shocking for the world to watch as the bus-loads of Isis fighters and their families were slaughtered from the skies. So the Isis militants whose faces were covered with scarves should be grateful not just to the Lebanese, Hezbollah and the Syrian army but also to the Americans for the fact that they are still alive. Will they be grateful? I doubt it. But their wives and children might just offer up a prayer of thanks to their God, and might even possibly quietly thank their hated enemy for allowing them to live. War doesn't always have to be about killing.