generalspeaking

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Shocked and Outraged

"We're not only shocked, but also outraged, at what's happened in terms of human suffering in the past few days for tens of thousands of people through bomb attacks, including attacks above all from Russia."
"We have been, in the past few days, not just appalled but horrified by what has been caused in the way of human suffering for tens of thousands of people by bombing -- primarily from the Russian side."
"Under such circumstances, it's hard for peace talks to take place, and so this situation must be brought to an end quickly."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel

"[Aleppo] is de facto under siege. We are on the verge of a new human tragedy."
"No one should excuse or show tolerance toward the Russian air attacks that amount to ethnic massacres by saying, 'Turkey takes care of the Syrian refugees anyway'. No one can expect Turkey to take on the burden on its own."
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu

‘White helmets’ rescue the wounded but their work has got far deadlier in recent weeks. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The German Chancellor exerted grace and patience under pressure when she acted on behalf of NATO and the European Union as an intermediary with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a time when the international community was aghast and angered at Moscow's decision to annex Crimea and to furnish ethnic Russian Ukrainians with advanced weaponry, training and the aid of Russian military in a bid to excise a large portion of Eastern Ukraine to join Russia.

Now, she is appalled at what Moscow has been undertaking on behalf of its Middle East ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his bid to extinguish his Sunni Syrian population's challenge to his presidency by annihilating children, women and men, both civilians and rebel fighters, to ensure that his reign goes unchallenged and his Alawite governance secured. The bloodshed and the tens of thousands of additional Syrian refugees don't trouble Mr. Putin, but they do Mrs. Merkel.

Russia can indulge in all the ferocity of air bombing it delights in, with no thought of the collateral damage it inflicts on helpless civilians since, after all, what its air force cannot see from their height dropping bombs, simply doesn't take place; they are simply clearing the way for ground troops, the Syrian armed forces and their Hezbollah colleagues, to clear out the rebels and retake signal towns and cities for the Syrian regime.

The dead and the refugees are not, after all, Moscow's problem. None of the refugees has any thought of migrating toward Russia and for obvious enough reasons. They set their sights and their hopes on Europe. But before they can reach Europe, they must pass into Turkey, the gateway to both refuge on Muslim soil, and the entry point to Greece, and eventually Germany. Mrs. Merkel has much to be distressed about; the wretched plight of straggling, struggling humanity to endure.

Refugee children arrive in a cart in Bab-Al Salam, near Azaz, northern Syria.

Refugee children arrive in Bab-Al Salam, near Azaz, northern Syria. Photograph: Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images

And their appearance on her borders, clamouring to be registered in Germany, to be recognized as genuine refugees in desperate need of succour and a future. So, there is Mrs. Merkel, assailed by her countrymen for the clearly unavoidable fact that Germany is being transformed in a way that Germans cannot accept but feel helpless to prevent. German heritage, culture, values, traditions, all being usurped by the sheer force of numbers of aliens clambering onto its geography, in dire need.

In Turkey to confer with the administration of irascibly volatile Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country has taken in an astonishing three million Syrian refugees, adamantly now refusing to open its borders to an additional forty thousand all of whose weighty needs are staggeringly engulfing the country, Germany and Turkey have much in common these days, even more than usual, since Germany's original invasion came in the form of Turks 'temporarily' settling in Germany as a workforce.

"We are going to work together to end the suffering of the Syrian people under these barbaric acts [of Syria and Russia]" said Mr. Davutoglu. "No one can justify or tolerate Russian airstrikes which amount to an ethnic massacre." And the response from Syria? That its troops took control of a village in the northern countryside of Aleppo "after wiping out the last group of terrorists there". The terrorists, needless to say, represented by Sunni Syrians, civilian or rebel.