When ISIS claimed responsibility for the horrendous attacks in Brussels last week, President Obama was unequivocal: the US and its allies, he said, “can and will defeat those who threaten the safety and security of people all around the world.” More bombing, it hardly needed to be said, was on the way. For their part, the presidential candidates only disagree on the scale of military action needed to stamp out ISIS — not on the appropriateness of yet more American warfare.

The call for a muscular response, however, overlooks the casualties the US has already inflicted.

To date, US-led coalition airstrikes in the war on ISIS have likely killed at least 1,044 civilians in Iraq and Syria. Even the brutal calculus of “collateral damage” cannot rationalize such deaths. They’re simply the latest victims in the latest phase of a decades-long, US-led campaign that has visited death and destruction on countries across the globe — particularly in the Middle East.