{"id":119950,"date":"2019-03-31T06:46:24","date_gmt":"2019-03-31T10:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=119950"},"modified":"2019-03-31T06:46:24","modified_gmt":"2019-03-31T10:46:24","slug":"why-is-the-u-s-military-running-a-concentration-camp-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=119950","title":{"rendered":"Why is the U.S. Military running a concentration camp in Syria?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Syria\u2019s Rukban Now Little More Than a US-Controlled Concentration Camp \u2013 and the Pentagon Won\u2019t Let Refugees Leave<\/h2>\n

By Whitney Webb
\nMint Press News<\/p>\n

DAMASCUS, SYRIA \u2014\u00a0<\/b>The United States military\u00a0has rejected<\/a>\u00a0offers to resolve the growing humanitarian crisis in the Rukban refugee camp in Syria, which sits inside a 55 km zone occupied by the U.S. along the Syria-Jordan border. The U.S. has also refused to let any of the estimated 40,000 refugees \u2014 the majority of which are women and children \u2014 leave the camp voluntarily, even though children are dying in droves from lack of food, adequate shelter and medical care. The U.S. has also not provided humanitarian aid to the camp even though a U.S. military base is located just 20 km (12.4 miles) away.<\/p>\n

The growing desperation inside the Rukban camp has received sparse media coverage, likely because of the U.S.\u2019 control over the area in which the camp is located. The U.S. has been accused of refusing to let civilians leave the area \u2014 even though nearly all have expressed a desire to either return to Syrian government-held territory or seek refuge in neighboring countries such as Turkey \u2014 because the camp\u2019s presence helps to justify the U.S.\u2019 illegal occupation of the area.<\/p>\n

Though the U.S. has long justified its presence in al-Tanf as necessary to defeat Daesh (ISIS), the U.S. government has also acknowledged that al-Tanf\u2019s true strategic importance lies in U.S. efforts to \u201ccontain\u201d Iran by blocking a connection from Iran to Syria through Iraq. Al-Tanf lies near the area where the borders of Syria, Iraq and Jordan meet. Thus, in the U.S.\u2019 game of brinkmanship with Iran, Rukban\u2019s estimated 40,000 inhabitants have become pawns whose basic needs are ignored by their occupiers.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

U.S. shows no interest in meeting<\/h2>\n

On Tuesday, delegations from Russia, Syria, the UN, and the Rukban refugee camp met to discuss the fate of the camp\u2019s inhabitants after\u00a0a UN survey<\/a>\u00a0found that 95 percent of the camp\u2019s inhabitants wanted to leave the camp, while 83 percent wanted to return to their hometowns in areas of Syria now under Syrian government control.<\/p>\n

However, the U.S. military and State Department officials in nearby Jordan rejected an invitation to Tuesday\u2019s meeting. The U.S. military\u00a0also prohibited<\/a>\u00a0a Syrian-Russian delegation from entering the Rukban camp on Tuesday. The delegation had sought to assess conditions in the camp, which have become increasingly desperate according to reports from a variety of outlets, including U.S. government-funded outlets like\u00a0Voice of America<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

The U.S.\u2019 refusal to attend the meeting or allow the delegation passage comes less than a month after the U.S. military\u00a0blocked the entry<\/a>\u00a0of evacuation buses overseen by Russian and Syrian forces that would have allowed refugees to leave the camp.<\/p>\n

The buses would have entered through the \u201chumanitarian corridors\u201d that were\u00a0recently opened<\/a>\u00a0on the Syrian-controlled side of the U.S.-occupied enclave. While camp inhabitants can, in theory, leave the camp through the corridors on foot, the barren area\u2019s remoteness makes such evacuations unfeasible without vehicle transport. Although some families have left this way, the lack of record keeping within the camp has made it impossible to know how many have tried leaving this way since the corridors were opened last month.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Rukban<\/p>\n

An aeriel photo of Rukban, between the Jordan and Syria borders, Feb. 14, 2017. Photo | AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

An often overlooked problem that has prevented them from leaving is that U.S.-backed and U.S.-trained \u201cmoderate rebel\u201d groups have been known\u00a0to block<\/a>\u00a0camp inhabitants from leaving,\u00a0demanding<\/a>\u00a0large payments in U.S. dollars to leave the area. The U.S. military took control of Al-Tanf alongside \u201cmoderate\u201d rebel forces in 2014 after wresting the area from Daesh. Many of those opposition groups have since been revealed to have ties and sympathies to terrorist groups, including Daesh.<\/p>\n

The U.S. has not given a reason for its rejection of Tuesday\u2019s meeting and had previously said that its rejection of the evacuation buses was based on its view that the buses\u00a0did not meet<\/a>\u00a0the U.S.\u2019 \u201cprotection standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Horrific conditions and a U.S. shrug<\/h2>\n

While the U.S. has claimed that it has blocked refugees from leaving on Russian-Syrian buses are under U.S. \u201cprotection,\u201d it has done little to abet the suffering of the tens of thousands of civilians in Rukban, even though the area is under complete U.S. military control and a U.S. military base is just a few miles away. Indeed, the extent of U.S. \u201caid\u201d to the Rukban camp has been medical training of the handful of nurses in the camp, who work in conditions they describe as being like \u201cthe Stone Age<\/a>\u201d owing to the chronic lack of basic medications and doctors.<\/p>\n

While medical care is decidedly lacking, the most pressing problem is the access to food, as starvation has become a real threat for those living in Rukban. Last October the opposition-aligned news service, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR),\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that the Rukban camp had been without food or essential supplies for months. Only two aid deliveries, managed jointly by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and the UN, were able to enter the camp.<\/p>\n

One of those shipments, however, almost didn\u2019t happen after the UN\u00a0delayed the aid<\/a>\u00a0\u201cfor logistical and security reasons.\u201d While the UN\u00a0did not specify<\/a>\u00a0which \u201csecurity reasons\u201d had prompted the delay, it was apparently not the Syrian government, as the UN also said in the same statement that the convoy had received approval from Damascus. This suggests that the \u201csecurity\u201d concerns were related to U.S.-backed militants in the U.S.-controlled area surrounding al-Tanf. Notably, Russian and Syrian sources\u00a0have claimed<\/a>\u00a0that these same militants often \u201cplunder\u201d the aid intended for the camp\u2019s inhabitants for themselves.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Rukban<\/p>\n

Children look for food scraps in a pile of trash in the Rukban camp in Syria, Nov, 2018. Photo | SNHR<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Since then, the situation inside the camp has continued to deteriorate. Indeed, things have gotten so desperate that, in January, a mother attempted to set herself and her three children\u00a0on fire<\/a>\u00a0after she couldn\u2019t find food for three straight days and preferred to give her children a quick death rather than watch them starve. Others in the camp rescued the family, though the mother and her infant were seriously injured. Recently aid from the UN and SARC arrived\u00a0in early February<\/a>, the first aid shipment in over three months.<\/p>\n

The lack of food combined with the lack of medical care has been responsible for scores of deaths in the camp \u2014 the\u00a0majority<\/a>\u00a0of which are of children under the age of two, who often die from malnutrition and preventable diseases. Others\u00a0have died<\/a>\u00a0from freezing weather owing to a lack of adequate shelter, with eight children dying in January for that very reason.\u00a0Satellite images<\/a>\u00a0taken of the camp in early March showed the recent creation of a mass grave containing an estimated 300 bodies adjacent to the camp.<\/p>\n

Despite the desperate conditions less than 13 miles from its military base, the U.S. has declined to send food, doctors, medical supplies or other forms of aid to Rukban\u2019s inhabitants, while also preventing them from leaving. However, the U.S.\u00a0has been providing<\/a>\u00a0militant groups in the same area with military and logistical support.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rukban provides a pretext<\/h2>\n

In addition to presiding over the squalid and starvation conditions in the Rukban camp, the U.S. has also given militant groups present in the area it controls \u2014 including Daesh terrorists who have \u201cembedded\u201d themselves in the camp on the U.S.\u2019 watch \u2014 free rein to terrorize the camp\u2019s refugees. These militant groups not only control the flow of food and aid in the camp but terrorize its most vulnerable inhabitants, forcing women and children\u00a0into sex slavery<\/a>\u00a0and engaging in human trafficking. All of this is taking place in a \u201cdeconfliction zone\u201d controlled by the U.S. military.<\/p>\n

These extremist groups, including Daesh, are well-armed, according to Jordanian Brigadier General Sami Kafawin, who\u00a0told\u00a0NBC News<\/i><\/a>\u00a0in 2017 that these groups \u201chave whole weapons systems \u2026 small arms, RPGs, anti-aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n

The official reason for the U.S. base in al-Tanf has long been counterterrorism operations that ostensibly target Daesh. However, very few attacks against the terror group have been launched from this base and a UN report released last August found that Daesh had been given \u201cbreathing space<\/a>\u201d in U.S.-occupied areas of Syria, including al-Tanf. The U.S. has stated that it uses the al-Tanf base\u00a0to train<\/a>\u00a0Syrian opposition fighters who then control the area around the base, including Rukban.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Syria<\/p>\n

Unidentified Syrian rebels surround a piece of US weaponry during training by an American special forces member in Tanf. Photo | Hammurabi\u2019s Justice News<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

With the U.S. now having claimed that Daesh has been\u00a0completely defeated<\/a>\u00a0in Syria, the official justification for its illegal occupation of Syrian territory is wearing thin. With that justification now on shaky ground, the U.S. is increasingly having to acknowledge its main motive for its presence in al-Tanf \u2014 containing Iran and keeping Syria divided.<\/p>\n

Indeed, a\u00a0recent\u00a0Reuters<\/i>\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0notes that the U.S.-controlled area around al-Tanf that includes the Rukban camp \u201cis designed to shield U.S. troops at the Tanf garrison and maintain for Washington a strategic foothold in an area close to a crucial supply route for Iranian weapons entering Syria from Iraq.\u201d This was confirmed by General Joseph Votel late last year when he told\u00a0NBC News<\/i>\u00a0that the U.S. base in al-Tanf was key in countering \u201cthe sway of Iran<\/a>\u201d in Syria.<\/p>\n

This followed statements made last July by National Security Advisor John Bolton that U.S. troops\u00a0would remain<\/a>\u00a0in Syria \u201cas long as the Iranian menace continues throughout the Middle East.\u201d This policy of Iran containment has clearly guided U.S. policy in Syria of late, with at least 1,000 U.S. troops\u00a0set to stay<\/a>\u00a0in Syria illegally despite Daesh\u2019s defeat and President Donald Trump\u2019s recent calls for a troop withdrawal.<\/p>\n

The U.S. has been accused of using the civilians trapped in Rukban as a\u00a0\u201cshield\u201d<\/a>\u00a0for its continued operations in Syria aimed at containing Iran\u2019s regional influence. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov\u00a0said earlier this month<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe fact that people are not allowed to leave [the camp] and are held hostage makes one suggest that the U.S. needs this camp to continue justifying its illegitimate presence there.\u201d There appear to be few other explanations for the U.S.\u2019 refusal to let camp inhabitants leave the area.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The hypocrisy of U.S. \u201chumanitarian concerns\u201d<\/h2>\n

The situation in the Rukban camp reveals the dark reality behind the U.S.\u2019 occupation of Syrian territory in Al-Tanf and elsewhere. In order to pursue its policy of Iran \u201ccontainment\u201d and a divided and partitioned Syria, the U.S. is willing to imprison some 40,000 people \u2014 many of them children \u2014 in a concentration camp where international aid is blocked and where food is so scarce that mothers are setting themselves and their children on fire so they can avoid slowly starving to death.<\/p>\n

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a concentration camp is defined as \u201ca place where large numbers of people are kept as prisoners in extremely bad conditions, especially for political reasons.\u201d It is undeniable that the Rukban camp fits this definition to the letter.<\/p>\n

That the U.S. justifies its aggressive policies around the world \u2014 from Syria to Venezuela and elsewhere \u2014 as being motivated by \u201chumanitarian concerns\u201d \u2014 when a refugee camp under the U.S.\u2019 complete control in Syria is facing starvation conditions and its inhabitants are being forcefully kept confined in the camp by the U.S. military despite their expressed desire to leave \u2014 is an obscene Orwellian twist. \u00a0All this to \u201ccontain\u201d Iranian influence in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Top photo |\u00a0The unofficial Rukban camp for displaced Syrians, between the Jordan and Syria borders, Feb. 14, 2017. Raad Adayleh | AP<\/p>\n

___
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