February 11, 2023

"Just six miles away, across the border in Turkey, thousands of tons of relief poured in; support teams from as far away as Taiwan..."

"... answered the Turkish government’s call for help. But Syria, divided against itself and isolated from much of the world, was left to pick up the pieces alone, as it has again and again over more than a decade of war and dislocation. In the shattered town of Jinderis, at least 850 bodies had been recovered by Friday morning. Although hundreds are still missing, few believed there were any lives left to save. 'We needed help here, we asked for help here,' said the town’s mayor, Mahmoud Hafar. 'It never came.'..."
 
From "In earthquake-battered Syria, a desperate wait for help that never came" (WaPo).

"On a rare visit to this Syrian enclave, controlled by Turkish-backed armed groups, The Washington Post found communities gripped by shock and bewilderment, and very much alone. In Jinderis, fathers stood watch over the remains of their homes and told of waking up to find their wives and children dead. As hulking excavators clawed the rubble, searching for a 13-year old boy, a man asked reporters to help him contact the United Nations for help. 'Maybe they don’t know what happened in Jinderis,' he said. 'No one could see this and not come here.'"

26 comments:

Levi Starks said...

The daily worldwide death toll from starvation is around 30,000.

Yancey Ward said...

Syria of today is one of Obama's proudest accomplishments.

tim in vermont said...

Are we the baddies?

"The daily worldwide death toll from starvation is around 30,000."

And we sanctioned Russian fertilizer exports to Africa, South America, and Southern Asia, to name a few sore spots that didn't need a further kick in the teeth or a bigger boot on their neck.

Now Foreign Policy Magazine is starting to fill up with articles about why the global south is turning on America and Europe. Hint: It's those evil Russians and Chinese. That's like leaving a sack of money on your front seat at the mall, and not locking your car, and then blaming "those fucking thieves" for your loss.

tim in vermont said...

The neocons view this earthquake as a gift on a silver platter. Earlier this week in the Washington Post, was a "Let them suffer" editorial, we have American troops, for some reason, sitting on 80% of Syria's oil, and a good part of their wheat production, "to protect the Kurds..."

Does that sound suspiciously like Russia's justification in Ukraine?

This is about forcing regime change in Syria, but punishing its people until the CIA can work up a color revolution there.

Oh yeah, remember when Obama was badgered into drawing a "red line" for the introduction of US forces into Syria as a "chemical weapons attack," and lo and behold, such an attack magically appeared in territory not controlled by Assad? Lot's of analysts call bullshit on the claim that Syria did it, but "noticing things" is considered treasonous in the Good Ole U. S. of A. And after all, the attack was extremely helpful to the neocons.

I am ashamed to admit that I didn't start seeing through their lies until they started lying about me as a Trump supporter.

rhhardin said...

They have a bigger problem than earthquakes.

Curious George said...

Where is Allah when you need him?

MayBee said...

Oof

n.n said...

Political correction to force a consensus by hook or crook.

gilbar said...

i'd bet that Syria's neighbor to the southwest would be Glad to help, if they'd just ask

alanc709 said...

It's not like the Syrian government would seize the relief shipments and divert them to other venues, you know.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

'No one could see this and not come here.'"

At some point seeing was believing... but now... not so much.

Believing is also buried in the rubble.

Iman said...

Yeah, great job with Syria, Obama Administration! Between that and Libya, a case for prosecuting Hillary Clinton for war crimes could easily be made.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

It used to be that we (as nations) would put our differences aside in times of catastrophes.

That might be changing too... for the worse.

rcocean said...

Syrians have to die and suffer to protect "Our Noble Allies" the Kurds. If that doesn't make sense, go ask Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham to explain it. They're the two that got hysterical when Trump tried to withdraw 200 USA troops from Syria.

Birches said...

I have a really hard time believing the quote about the United Nations. Syria has been in a Civil War for a long time, people still living in that horror know the political situation and that no one is coming to help because no one has helped for over a decade.

Mary Beth said...

In Jinderis, fathers stood watch over the remains of their homes and told of waking up to find their wives and children dead.

Women and children hardest hit. How did the earthquake spare the men while killing women and children?

M said...

Syria and its culture refuse to integrate and work with the rest of the world. While I have sympathy for the people affected by this tragedy I also wonder how much they reject the western mores that the UN are supposed to exemplify?

Always bailing people out of the problems their cultures create has only made things worse for the west and for the people they are trying to positively influence. Not that I would begrudge ANYONE help to dig out survivors of an earthquake. Not even Nazis or communists.

Indigo Red said...

How many of the terra moto deaths were actually Covid-19 or Vax deaths?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Maybe Russia can send the Syrians some balloons?

MadTownGuy said...

From the United Nations' website:

More aid reaches Syria’s quake victims but it’s not enough, say UN aid agencies

"A total of 14 trucks crossed into opposition-held areas of Syria from Türkiye at Bab al-Hawa, the UN migration agency, IOM, confirmed.

That crossing is the only one authorised for aid deliveries by the UN Security Council, which has prompted calls - including from the Secretary-General - “to explore all possible avenues to get aid and personnel into all affected areas”.

Road access hampered
Echoing the growing international calls for quicker and easier access into northwest Syria via new routes, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said that it was ready to move supplies there, although roads had been damaged by Monday’s earthquakes.

“That slows down our deliveries,” said Corinna Fleischer, WFP Regional Director in the Middle East, Northern Africa and Eastern Europe. “We need to be able to go across the borders, we need customs officials to be there in sufficient numbers…We need all parties to do the right thing now.


More at the link. I'll take their word at face value for now, but will reserve judgment until more information comes in.

Inga said...

“Where is Allah when you need him?”

I’m quite certain that there were Christians and Jews who asked where God/Jesus was/were when they were in dire straits.

Wa St Blogger said...

I have heard it said that most poverty and depredation in a country is due almost entirely to the national government's own policies and actions. Relief often does not make it to the poor because of the corruption of the ruling class.

takirks said...

You reap as you sow.

Syria is the mess it is today largely because they signally failed to deal with the various Iraqi factions that they allowed to take shelter in and operate out of Eastern Syria. Those groups are the ones who later turned on the regime, and tried taking the country over for their own benefit. If Syria had chosen not to play games during the Iraqi occupation, then those parties would have had nowhere to go, and would not have been able to build up networks in Syria the way they did.

It's all self-inflicted wounds, all the way down. I've got limited to zero empathy; a bunch of my friends and fellow soldiers died at the hands of Syria-based "insurgents" who were supplied out of Syria, and who sheltered behind their borders. I know for a fact that we reported multiple occasions where those assholes crossed the border to safety, and the Syrian government did nothing. It was obvious that the bad guys had government protection.

So, cry me a river, Syria. What you visited upon others has returned upon you tenfold.

Gahrie said...

I’m quite certain that there were Christians and Jews who asked where God/Jesus was/were when they were in dire straits.

And I'm quite certain that they didn't receive any aid from Muslims.

Mason G said...

"I have heard it said that most poverty and depredation in a country is due almost entirely to the national government's own policies and actions. Relief often does not make it to the poor because of the corruption of the ruling class."

From CNN...

Ceiba, Puerto Rico

The stockpile of bottled water stretches down an unused runway in Ceiba. Case after case, pallet piled upon pallet, blue tarps and plastic glinting in the sun.

The emergency supplies were brought in by FEMA in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which smashed the island and left its residents without power, without roofs and without running water.

Federal officials commandeered the area in the far east of the island last fall as a staging ground, collecting the water and containers full of tarps to patch damaged and destroyed roofs in surrounding neighborhoods.

And there the supplies sat. And sat. Storm survivors were collecting spring water from the mountains for cooking and bathing, even with the threat of disease that brought.

more...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/12/us/puerto-rico-bottled-water-dump-weir/index.html

n.n said...

Those groups are the ones who later turned on the regime, and tried taking the country over for their own benefit.

Historical rhymes: revisiting the second state solution in the Kingdom of Jordan.