Applebaum: Assad’s low-tech WMD: Starvation

To the modern imagination, there is nothing so terrifying as a high-tech weapon. Our horror movies are filled with crashing planes, engineered viruses and rogue computers that have taken charge of spaceships. Our security nightmares have long been focused on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The phrase we use to describe these contemporary horrors, “weapons of mass destruction,” implies something diabolically modern, something so innovative that it can kill thousands in an instant.

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