The town has been under attack for years by Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces, yet the rebel fighters in Moadamiyeh won't give up; so the whole town is being punished.
Pro-regime checkpoints ring Moadamiyeh, preventing food and medicine from being brought in. Cut off, the town has become filthy. Locals say disease is spreading. The power is dead.
Siege warfare is an ancient tactic. Christian crusaders did it to Muslim towns and cities. Muslim armies encircled and strangled Christian holdouts. Kings, dukes and princes besieged each other's town all across Europe.
Now, in Syria, this medieval form of warfare is making a bitter comeback. And it's not just the regime's forces who use the collective punishment of innocent civilians to achieve their military goals. Rebel forces are guilty of the same crimes.
Friday, February 5, 2016
Heartbreaking And Shameful
Given our membership in the species, all of us should feel deep shame over the actions of our fellow humans:
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Man's in humanity is nothing new, Lorne. There are times when it appears that we have learned nothing.
ReplyDeleteit is a terrible thing that we keep concentrating on our differences rather than on the things that we have in common, Owen.
DeleteWell thank Jeebus our ally, Israel, and our other ally, Saudi Arabia, don't do that, eh Lorne? Except they do. It's what Israel does to Gazan civilians. It's what the Saudis and their Sunni posse do to Yemeni civilians. I sure hate it when people we hold in contempt do it. Apparently I'm supposed to be okay with it when our 'friends' do it.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think, Mound, that our bestial behaviour gives all the other animals a bad name.
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