Syrian Forces Are Starving a Town Hit by Chemical Weapons

[JI7]

Source: atlantic wire

As part of an ongoing siege against the rebel-held town of Moadhamiya, Syrian regime forces are reportedly cutting off access to food for the 12,000 people living there. The town, known for its olive orchards, is running low on supplies as Syria heads closer to winter. According to the U.N. report on the August 21 chemical attacks, Moadhamiya was also one of several towns targeted in the gas strikes.

The Wall Street Journal spoke to a fighter loyal to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who said the following about the town, which is populated mostly by civilians: "We won't allow them to be nourished in order to kill us...Let them starve for a bit, surrender and then be put on trial." According to the unnamed fighter, the country's army has told his team to make sure no one enters or leaves the town. That's accomplished, in part, by shooting any fighting-age men he sees approaching the exit to the city.

Here's what's going on inside:

An opposition activist inside the rebel-held side of town who was reached by Skype said the situation is so dire now in the rebel-controlled area that people are subsisting on whatever they can forage locally, including olives, grapevine leaves, fresh mint and figs. The activist, who is also in his 20s and spoke on condition of anonymity, said residents finished all grains and provisions that people traditionally store in their homes in Syria for winter.

The U.N. estimates that about 500,000 people are trapped in towns by government blockades across Syria.

Read more: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2013/10/syrian-forces-are-starving-town-hit-chemical-weapons/70138/

[quakerboy]

1. War sucks

Wars really suck

[1000words]

2. Yup ... seiges are particularly heinous

Frankly, I'd rather get blown to bits than slowly expire from starvation and disease.

[Niceguy1]

4. me, too

And in a rough country like that a seige against civilians isn't that difficult.

It will take anlong time for syria to heal after this, if they ever do.

[cosmicone]

3. More Al Q'aeda disinformation campaign

Assad is under a microscope and I seriously doubt he needs to employ his forces in a siege when there are faster ways of killing the opposition. Sieges take a lot of assets with little immediate benefit.

This sounds like more disinformation coming from parties interested in the US starting a war with Assad.

[quadrature]

5. I kinda forgot about this war

time to wrap things up

[Alamuti Lotus]

6. "Rebel-held town"..."populated mostly by civilians"--bit of discordance there, don't you think?

Secondary discordance, though this is endemic to the whole civil war and not remotely unique to this story--where do you suppose the WSJ--and other papers pushing for war--get their "Skype" contacts? On the rare event they're not handed over by the Saudi/Hariri press offices in Beirut and the exile formations in London, these still aren't "activists"--such a euphemistically neutral-sounding veil!--but rather, active members of the armed opposition. That fact alone doesn't discredit what is said. However, it must be read in the sense of being an official press release of some armed faction, and treated with the necessary skepticism of any public relations campaign.

[jamzrockz]

7. If the siege is so bad

Why don't you surrender? unlike the rebels, the govt actually takes POW instead of straight up executing them after they are captured.

[Igel]

8. Heard this in NPR this morning.

And thought back to the seige of Tripoli, when boats entering/leaving Tripoli were sunk or confiscated because it was assumed that anything going in was for the pro-Qaddhafi forces. Even food, fuel, medical supplies. Anybody leaving was assumed to be a Qaddhafi supporter seeking to flee, either to safety when they had to be made to suffer, or to fight elsewhere. The cordon was pretty secure.

Meanwhile, in the city, food supplies were running very low and people going hungry, electricity was touch and go at best so that frozen foods were perishing, and hospitals had few or no medical supplies.

This was a NATO blockade (at sea) and NATO-supported blockade on ground, and therefore a humanitarian attempt to starve the population into submission. It was a holy seige, with beneficent suffering.

Which is an entirely different kind of thing from having Assad do exactly the same thing for the same reason.

It's a matter of unimportance that the Syrian community is actually quite small, and the suffering consequently less, compared to Tripoli.

Before you can decide if collective punishment and civilian suffering is acceptable, first you have to figure out who the actors are. It would appear.

[Nihil]

9. The vital difference:That was "us", this is "them".

Hypocrites, actors, murderers, war-criminals ... it's all a matter of perspective
(and most of the loud "Team America Fuck Yeah!" posters simply don't have any).