Thursday, August 23, 2012

The Siege of Aleppo

Is it not amazing that one of the most ancient cities of the world is now, in the 21st Century, being bombarded into oblivion?  Not the entire city, of course, but areas within its outer reaches, where the Free Syrian Army rebels appear to be making inroads.  Although the regime of President Bashar al Assad has its strict orders to purge those areas of 'terrorists'.  They're doing their best. 

Aleppo, once Syria's commercial hub, and hosting the country's largest population has been utterly transformed.  Parts of it are clear of rebels to be sure, but they're clear also of civilians, men, women and children.  Shops are closed, streets are quiet amid the rubble of what once was a thriving, teeming community within communities, and tens of thousands of Syrians continue to flee.

Who would not?  The siege of Aleppo is a furious, fearsome event.  Fighter-jet attacks are more constant now in an effort to intimidate the rebels and those who support them.  Strikes on residential areas in Aazaz nearby brings terror to a wider audience.  The idea being to 'intimidate' not only the rebels, but any who might think sympathetically of them.  Bombs are being dropped at random.

This is state terrorism.  One town after another, not just the city of Aleppo - but towns nearby where a surge of refugees has converged on the theory that these towns slightly distant from the main action will provide a temporary refuge - are being hit.  No one is allowed to feel a sense of safety anywhere in that geography.  With each bombing raid more women and children begin to leave.

They pile themselves into, onto any manner of conveyance, trucks, cars, farm vehicles, in a desperate attempt to remove themselves from harm's way.  And then they head for the border towns, and beyond.  Of course it's not just Aleppo that is being cleansed of the scourge of terrorists.  Damascus too has been infiltrated and requires cleansing.

So Syrian forces shell central Damascus districts in preparation for tanks sweeping through backed up by troops eager to carry out those house-to-house searches to unearth the presence of the rebels/terrorists.  And when they're found justice is swiftly administered.  No namby-pamby arrests, confinement, imprisonment as prisoners of war.  Dozens of bodies are discovered later.

A senior UN official disparaged Iran's arms supplies to Syria, violating UN sanctions.  Yet UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has accepted the invitation proffered him by Iran to attend the meeting of the unaligned nations set for Tehran, a prized coup for the Republic of Iran. 

"In light of its focus on multilateral cooperation, disarmament, sustainable world peace, rights of nations and horizontal relations defying hegemonic structures, the Non-Aligned Movement is a major cross-regional group in the United Nations, and U.N. leaders have always participated in its summits", according to Alireza Miryousefi, Iranian envoy to the United Nations.

Here is Syria slaughtering its civilians in a governmental non-stop assault on its home-grown opponents.  Iran and Hezbollah are fully invested in aiding Syria in every way possible.  And Iran has the unmitigated gall to speak of 'multilateral cooperation, disarmament, sustainable world peace, rights of nations', even while it threatens world peace, seeks to arm itself with nuclear weapons, denies the right of existence of another UN member-nation.

The signal failure of the United Nations, alongside the failure of the Arab League to mount a counter-offensive in protection of other Arab civilians, awaiting action from NATO and the United States rather than become fully responsible simply outlines in indelible shrieking letters how useless the entire apparatus is.

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posted by Pieface @ Thursday, August 23, 2012

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