IT is so unfortunate and distressing to see so many current wars that are engulfing so many lives-including women and children as well as astronomical destruction to property and immeasurable agony and suffering.

Currently in the Middle East Syria, Egypt, Iraq and the Gaza are have raging wars on their soils which is not doing anyone any good. On the contrary these wars only increase the existing instability in these countries and create severe economic hardship and escalating the already high poverty levels.
The war in Gaza has already seen over 2,000 lives lost, mostly innocent Palestinian civilians. In Iraq and Egypt, while the cause of the wars is different from that of Gaza, the suffering and destruction is no different. In Iraq the situation seemed poised for a massacre and the UN has called for action to prevent what it says may be a possible massacre in the northern Iraqi town of Amerli.
Special representative, Nickolay Mladenov says he is “seriously alarmed” by reports regarding the conditions in which the town’s residents live.
Amerli, under siege by Islamic State for two months, has no electricity or drinking water, and is running out of food and medical supplies.
IS has seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria in recent months.
Since August 8, the US has carried out 94 air strikes to support Iraqi and Kurdish troops tackling the insurgents.
The majority of Amerli’s residents are Turkmen Shia, seen as apostates by IS.
The town’s inhabitants say they have had to organise their own resistance to the militants and no foreign aid has reached the town since the siege began.
“The situation of the people in Amerli is desperate and demands immediate action to prevent the possible massacre of its citizens,” Mr Mladenov said in a statement.
“I urge the Iraqi Government to do all it can to relieve the siege and to ensure that the residents receive life-saving humanitarian assistance or are evacuated in a dignified manner.”
Mr. Mladenov’s deputy, Gyorgy Busztin, told the BBC that the UN had no contact with IS representatives.
“We are not talking to terrorists and this is a matter of principle,” he said.
“There is no way anybody can have any positive effect on these people. We have contacts with moderate Sunnis connected to the… areas which [IS] has overrun.”
On Friday, the most influential Shia cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, expressed concern over the plight of Amerli’s inhabitants.
As expected US defence chiefs have spelled out their conviction that a complex long-term war will be needed, with intervention in both Syria and Iraq, if Islamic State’s “caliphate” is to be uprooted from those two countries. This is exactly why there can be no peace in the Middle East. The US and its allies do not want peace there because peace will mean less profits for the powerful Military Industrial Complex which actually determines the foreign policy of the US and its allies.
It is these same countries that have hypocritically self-appointed themselves as the world policemen and guardian of human rights and democracy. But yet they have put profits before lives.
Had they exerted the requisite pressure on Israel the Palestinian issue most likely would have long been resolved. Instead they have been supporting and propping up Israel which is giving it the clout to continue its onslaught on the Palestinians who were driven from their homeland.
Unless and until the US and its allies change their policy of putting their interests and profits before lives there will be no peace in the Middle East.