More on Syria

[rowan]

The level of hypocrisy here is astounding. But all very edifying:

Je suis Syrie (again):



http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-new ... IAR4H.html

[rowan]

Truly shocking, and America is operating within Syria uninvited and therefore completely outside the law. It is obvious that their intention is now to maintain a military presence there under the pretense of fighting ISIS (by bombing schools and mosques, evidently), and that they may even be trying to re-ignite this conflict again, given the rebels/terrorists they're supporting have also been back in action lately.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — At least 30 Syrian civilians were killed in an airstrike by the United States-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants in a rural area of Raqqa Province early Tuesday, according to residents, activists and state television.

The coalition said it had no indications that an airstrike hit civilians, but in its daily report on coalition strikes, the United States military acknowledged that strikes were carried out in the area. It said that coalition warplanes carried out 19 airstrikes on Tuesday — an unusually high number for a single day — on a range of Islamic State facilities near the city of Raqqa.

The attack, which hit a school in the town of Mansoura, where civilians had taken shelter on Tuesday night, was the second time in a week that Syrians had accused the United States of involvement in a strike that killed dozens of noncombatants.

Forty-nine people died last week when American warplanes fired on a target in Al Jinah, a village in western Aleppo Province. United States officials said the attack had hit a building where Qaeda operatives were meeting, but residents said the warplanes had struck a mosque where hundreds of people had gathered for a weekly religious meeting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/worl ... trike.html

[rowan]

Of course, America's bombing of a school in Syria on Tuesday, killing upward of 30, and its bombing of a mosque last week, killing around 50, are simply the latest in a long sequence of almost continuous war crimes extending right back to WWII:

There appears to be something about launching bombs or missiles from afar onto cities and people that appeals to American military and political leaders. In part it has to do with a conscious desire to not risk American lives in ground combat. And in part, perhaps not entirely conscious, it has to do with not wishing to look upon the gory remains of the victims, allowing American GIs and TV viewers at home to cling to their warm fuzzy feelings about themselves, their government, and their marvelous “family values”. Washington officials are careful to distinguish between the explosives the US drops from the sky and “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD), which only the officially-designated enemies (ODE) are depraved enough to use.

The bombing list

Korea and China 1950-53 (Korean War)
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-1961
Guatemala 1960
Congo 1964
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Grenada 1983
Lebanon 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1980s
Nicaragua 1980s
Iran 1987
Panama 1989
Iraq 1991 (Persian Gulf War)
Kuwait 1991
Somalia 1993
Bosnia 1994, 1995
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia 1999
Yemen 2002
Iraq 1991-2003 (US/UK on regular basis)
Iraq 2003-2015
Afghanistan 2001-2015
Pakistan 2007-2015
Somalia 2007-8, 2011
Yemen 2009, 2011
Libya 2011, 2015
Syria 2014-2017

[rowan]

More here:

More than 30 Syrian civilians were killed when the US-led coalition bombed a school in the town of al-Mansour in the Raqqa province, Turkish Anadolu news agency reported.

Earlier in the day, an informed source cited by the SANA news agency also said that the US-led coalition raid struck a school south of the town of Mansour, nearly 19 miles west of Raqqa. Unverified reports estimated up to 33 people may have been killed in the strike. The school was being used as a shelter for refugees.

The refugees were peaceful citizens who had fled the fighting from the cities of Aleppo, Raqqa and Palmyra and had come to al-Mansour for safety.

The province of Raqqa is still under the control of Daesh terrorists, but there are also Syrian civilians living there.

The bombing killed mostly women and children. It is noteworthy to point out that it was the Syrian Human Rights Monitoring Center that confirmed the attack as being carried out by the western coalition.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/2017 ... ool-raqqa/

[rowan]

Don't bother with the investigation, let's move ahead directly to the conclusions:

No crime committed, everything under control, nothing to see here, move along.

& don't forget to blame the Russians . . .

[rowan]

Complete absence of images of the carnage; no White Helmets dashing about heroically putting the dust-covered infants into ambulances while the cameras roll or anything. Meanwhile, there has been zero coverage of this here in Turkey, America's ally in Syria; although to be honest there's not much international news here anymore as the nation's leadership spends most of the day on TV instead and dominates the newspaper headlines. I suppose that's what they mean by a 'State of Emergency'

Israel heavily involved in Syria (of course):

Israel has struck Syria multiple times, including before the so-called Syrian civil war began in 2011, as well as periodically over the last six-year period. Just last week, Israel conducted a number of airstrikes within Syrian territory. On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike also allegedly killed a pro-regime commander in the Golan Heights.

According to Jaafari, Syria’s use of anti-aircraft fire against Israel last Thursday night has changed the rules of the game, as Syria will no longer tolerate Israeli fire on its territory. However, Syria’s missile defense system was unsuccessful in bringing down Israeli jets.

Following the use of Syria’s defense system, Israel warned it would respond in turn by taking out Syria’s defenses if Syria deploys them again in future.

In essence, Israel believes it has the right to defend itself from homemade rockets launched from a blockaded, densely populated area that is protected by no air force and no air defenses. At the same time, Israel also believes its neighbor, Syria, does not have an equal right to defend itself from Israel’s vast military capabilities.

In response to Russia’s alleged warning, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has reportedly told Vladimir Putin that Israeli air strikes will continue in Syria to contain threats.

The agreement between Russia and Israel that allows the air force to execute “defensive missions” against targets in Syria still stands, Netanyahu said, as reported by the Jerusalem Post. In such instances, he said, “We attack if we have information and the operational feasibility. This will continue.”

It speaks volumes that Israel conducts airstrikes within Syrian territory without even targeting the terror groups Western media has portrayed as sheer evil, like ISIS. In fact, on multiple occasions, ISIS fighters have left behind Israeli weaponry following a string of defeats.

This shouldn’t be surprising given that in 2013, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, told the Jerusalem Post:

“The initial message about the Syrian issue was that we always wanted [President] Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.”

According to the Post, Oren said this was the case even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated with al-Qaeda.

What this statement signifies is that contrary to popular belief, Israel does not necessarily consider al-Qaeda an imminent threat. It also shows how intent the Israeli government is on ousting the current Syrian government, given pro-government forces have always been on the receiving end of their air strikes.

If anyone needs proof that the so-called war on terror is not at all about prosecuting terror groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, this would be it. Iranian and Iraqi militias, with the help of U.S. air power, are in the process of defeating the terror group.

Israel appears to have other plans in mind, and defeating ISIS doesn’t appear to be one of them.

http://theantimedia.org/russia-warning- ... listening/

[rowan]

It's quite extraordinary, in fact, how much publicity a relatively minor terrorist attack in Britain receives, even here in Turkey, while the American bombing of a school, killing at least 33, is ignored entirely. Meanwhile, the former is immediately referred to as 'Islamic Terrorism' while absolutely no one has mentioned 'Christian Terrorism' in connection with the latter - as though only Muslims can be terrorists, and only non-Muslims can be victims of terrorisim, even though the vast majority of terror victims are, of course, Muslims.

[rowan]

Latest . . .

Reports emerged Wednesday that U.S. planes bombed a school sheltering displaced civilians just west of the Syrian town of Raqqa, killing an estimated 33 civilians.

According to a local group called Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, the school was sheltering around 50 families fleeing violence in the face of mounting U.S. backed coalition attacks on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, reported The Independent.

"There were only two survivors from this," said one witness, according to The Guardian. "And they have still been buried. Most of these people, maybe all of them, had taken shelter in this building from the fighting and the planes. They were hiding for their lives."

While U.S. officials did not confirm the attack on the shelter, they did acknowledge carrying out airstrikes in the area ahead of Wednesday's deployment of Kurdish ground forces as part of the offensive against Raqqa.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/U ... -0002.html

[Zhivago]

It only happened once, no matter how many times you post it.

[rowan]

It only happened once, no matter how many times you post it.

Just updating it as the news leaks out . . .

Latest . . .

Reports emerged Wednesday that U.S. planes bombed a school sheltering displaced civilians just west of the Syrian town of Raqqa, killing an estimated 33 civilians.

According to a local group called Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, the school was sheltering around 50 families fleeing violence in the face of mounting U.S. backed coalition attacks on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, reported The Independent.

"There were only two survivors from this," said one witness, according to The Guardian. "And they have still been buried. Most of these people, maybe all of them, had taken shelter in this building from the fighting and the planes. They were hiding for their lives."

While U.S. officials did not confirm the attack on the shelter, they did acknowledge carrying out airstrikes in the area ahead of Wednesday's deployment of Kurdish ground forces as part of the offensive against Raqqa.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/U ... -0002.html

[rowan]

Some perspective from the Guardian, at least. News of the hundreds slaughtered in American attacks over the past two weeks appears to have been completely buried in the US, unsurprisingly, but what's really interesting is the complete black-out in Turkey on two of the three attacks. I've never seen them just completely ignore such major international news stories before, and this can only add to widely-held suspicion the tough-talking sultan wannabe is no more than a US puppet . . .

“An airstrike by the US-led coalition against Islamic State on a school west of the Syrian city of Raqqa has killed at least 33 people, many of whom had fled nearby fighting, sparking further concerns that new rules of engagements may be causing an increase in civilian casualties.

“The attack follows a separate US strike on a mosque complex in the north-west of the country last Saturday that killed at least 52 people. The incident triggered fears that a White House-ordered review of rules governing the use of drones had already given military planners more flexibility on ordering strikes.”

A thank you to the Guardian for covering this extraordinary story.

But the reaction by most of the Western media, including the New York Times?

Meh.

The reaction to the London attack Wednesday in which, not counting the attacker, left three people dead?

Banner headlines and constant updates.

The death of civilians is a crime which should never be tolerated.

But apparently more for some than others.

I’ve spent 30 years in journalism, so I know the closer a story gets — and “closer” includes the same type of people as opposed to foreigners in a supposedly distant land — the greater and longer the treatment.

And some may say that because the London attack happened outside Parliament, it merits even more outrage.

But why is Parliament more sacred than a haven for refugees or a mosque?

And where are all the world leaders offering condolences to the dead Syrian children and other civilians killed by their very own governments?

Sadly, as we all know, this is really nothing new.

But this disproportionate coverage of Europeans versus Arabs — pretty much inversely proportional to the actual death counts — hides a crucial lesson that we just can’t seem to learn.

These attacks are not unrelated.

I have no idea — and I suspect the Western experts don’t either yet — if the London attack was a direct response to the recent civilian slaughters by the West in its battle against the Islamic State.

But regardless of the direct motivation, the mass murders of innocents in the Middle East by the West go at least as far back as the first “Gulf War.”

(They go much further back, but let’s start with the battle against an Iraqi dictator we helped put in and then keep in power.)

Would there have been this most recent attack in London — or even an Islamic State for that matter — without all the endless Western war crimes against Muslims for almost three decades?

Until we — and that includes the media we in the West rely upon — mourn the deaths of the innocents our governments kill as much as the deaths of innocents killed by our enemies, the bloodshed will never end.

And all too likely only get worse.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/24/ ... ont-count/

More here (on the mosque attack, which the Turkish news did cover):

We committed a quiet little war crime the other day. Forty-plus people are dead, taken out with Hellfire missiles while they were praying.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/24/ ... sappeared/

[Zhivago]

Another 130 civvies killed by US
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... obody-came

[rowan]

Another 130 civvies killed by US
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... obody-came

Mosul's in Iraq. Pretty sure this is the same attack that involved a total of 230 civilian casualties on Thursday. I've already run this report, among others, on the aptly titled USA & CIA War Criminals thread.

[Zhivago]

Another 130 civvies killed by US
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... obody-came

Mosul's in Iraq. Pretty sure this is the same attack that involved a total of 230 civilian casualties on Thursday. I've already run this report, among others, on the aptly titled USA & CIA War Criminals thread.

True true. Guess I just associate this thread with the war against ISIS in general.

[rowan]

ISIS, so-named by Western media (among other things) amounts to Saudi-backed Jihadists and nothing more than a Trojan horse to justify American military operations all around the world, wherever they please, along with those of their allies. Their only mission in Syria is to destroy yet another Middle Eastern nation not yet under Washington's control, no matter how much carnage they have to create in the process. Everybody knows this, those who try to claim otherwise and point the finger elsewhere are only insulting our intelligence, and in this manner we come to perceive just how racist, hypocritical and thoroughly brainwashed America and its close allies really are (as if we hadn't already)

[Zhivago]

Disaster looming?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... apse-fears

[rowan]

Thought I read something similar a month or two back. Yes, very worrying, but given the horrific devastation America has wrought upon these countries it's not surprising nobody takes notice any more. The US has done to the Middle East this century exactly what it did to South East Asia in the previous one (not to mention Latin America and parts of Africa). It's going to take another generation before Westerners begin to accept this as fact, and by that time American and British bombs will be falling on some other region of the world. That's one thing we can be sure of.

[rowan]

Only slightly more subtle than 'WOMDs' . . .

Syria’s current conflict, beginning in 2011, was the culmination of decades of effort by the United States to subvert and overthrow the government in Damascus. From training leaders of opposition fronts years before “spontaneous” protests erupted across Syria, to covertly building a multinational mercenary force to both trigger and leverage violence thereafter, the United States engineered, executed, and perpetuated virtually every aspect of Syria’s destructive conflict.

Enlisting or coercing aid from regional allies, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Jordan, and Israel, Syria found itself surrounded at its borders and buried within them by chaos.

“Bringing Real Muscle to Bear Against Syria”

But recently revealed CIA documents drawn from the US National Archives portrays recent efforts to undermine and overthrow the Syrian government and the Syrian conflict’s relationship with neighboring Lebanon and its ally Iran as merely the most recent leg in a decades-long campaign to destabilize and overturn regional governments obstructing US interests.

A 1983 document signed by former CIA officer Graham Fuller titled, “Bringing Real Muscle to Bear Against Syria” (PDF), states (their emphasis):

Syria at present has a hammerlock on US interests both in Lebanon and in the Gulf — through closure of Iraq’s pipeline thereby threatening Iraqi internationalization of the [Iran-Iraq] war. The US should consider sharply escalating the pressures against Assad [Sr.] through covertly orchestrating simultaneous military threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq, Israel and Turkey.

The report also states:

If Israel were to increase tensions against Syria simultaneously with an Iraqi initiative, the pressures on Assad would escalate rapidly. A Turkish move would psychologically press him further.

The document exposes both then and now, the amount of influence the US exerts across the Middle East and North Africa. It also undermines the perceived agency of states including Israel and NATO-member Turkey, revealing their subordination to US interests and that actions taken by these states are often done on behalf of Wall Street and Washington rather than on behalf of their own national interests.

Also mentioned in the document are a variety of manufactured pretexts listed to justify a unilateral military strike on northern Syria by Turkey. The document explains:

Turkey has considered undertaking a unilateral military strike against terrorist camps in northern Syria and would not hesitate from using menacing diplomatic language against Syria on these issues.

Comparing this signed and dated 1983 US CIA document to more recent US policy papers reveals a very overt continuity of agenda.

Decades-Spanning Continuity of Agenda contiues here:

http://journal-neo.org/2017/02/20/conti ... ince-1983/

[rowan]

A couple more thought-provoking articles on the issue:

The recent strike launched by the US-led coalition some 20 miles to the west of al-Raqqah resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths, as the bombs hit a former school that served as shelter for refugees, as it’s been announced by the Turkish Anadolu news agency. It was added that the bombardment targeted more than 50 families who fled the towns of Hamas, Homs and al-Raqqah in a bid to save their lives. Local sources of the same agency have also reported yet another air strike launched in the in the area of Tabqa city, which has claimed at least 40 lives.

Additionally, the US military command confirmed last week that the air strikes it launched in the Syrian province of Aleppo resulted in the death of at least 49 people, which is hardly surprising since the strikes targeted a local mosque in the Al-Jin village during evening prayers. According to local sources, at this time of the day there’s usually around 300 locals praying in the mosque. The Syrian Human Rights Observatory has already stated that the better part of those deceased were civilians. In turn, Le Monde would describe this strike as one of the bloodiest mistakes of the Pentagon since the beginning of its operations in Syrian skies.

It is noteworthy that initially the blame for this strike was pushed on Russian and Syrian air forces, in tune with the Russophobic media campaign that is being pushed upon us all by Washington and a number of European interests. A number Western and Middle Eastern sources were quick to allocate the blame without the slightest piece of evidence to back up their claims.

And the list goes on, with the US-led coalition launching a series of strikes in the southern outskirts of the Syrian city of al-Raqqa on March 12, which resulted in at least 19 civilians being killed, with the air raid being executed during the night hours. Syrian news agency SANA announced that the death toll caused by these air strikes could grew significantly, since a large number of its victims remain in critical condition.


Continues here: http://journal-neo.org/2017/03/24/washi ... ddle-east/

he double standards of the western media are clearly demonstrated in the different treatment accorded the liberation of Aleppo by Syrian and Russian forces and the ongoing battle for the liberation of Mosul by ‘coalition’ (i.e. US) forces in northern Iraq.

Both cities were occupied by ISIS, Mosul from June 2014 and East Aleppo from July 2012. Both cities were part of a range of battlefield successes by terrorist groups, which at different stages have occupied large swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory. Among their successes was the occupation, ongoing, of their self-styled ‘capital’ of Raqqa.

Aleppo at the time was the largest city of Syria, with a population of around 2.5 million, of whom approximately one-third lived in the eastern sector occupied by ISIS. Precise numbers are hard to ascertain with any great accuracy, but the number remaining in east Aleppo appears to be in the vicinity of 400,000 at the time of liberation in December 2016.

Of the balance of approximately 400,000 original inhabitants in the eastern sector, the vast majority either fled the city entirely, or were able to move into the government controlled sector. The most reliable estimates of the number of civilians killed over more than six years of fighting appear to be in the vicinity of 30,000-40,000.

It is in the apportioning of responsibility for that civilian death toll that the western media have been at their most one-sided. The prime responsibility for the death toll must lie with the terrorist groups, of which there were many. If they had not occupied the eastern sector of the city, waged continuous warfare against the legitimate sovereign government of Syria, and shown complete indifference to civilian lives there would have been no loss of life.

Continues here: http://journal-neo.org/2017/03/24/a-tal ... and-mosul/

[Zhivago]

MIT assessment
http://www.unz.com/article/the-nerve-ag ... hun-syria/

[Zhivago]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... qa-says-un

[Digby]

It's a nice sentiment that civilians should not be impacted, but to have influence as an idea they'd need to specify how?

[Zhivago]

It's a nice sentiment that civilians should not be impacted, but to have influence as an idea they'd need to specify how?

Impacted? Why the euphemism? Innocent civilians were brutally murdered. More than 300 from just this incident.

[Digby]

It's a nice sentiment that civilians should not be impacted, but to have influence as an idea they'd need to specify how?

Impacted? Why the euphemism? Innocent civilians were brutally murdered. More than 300 from just this incident.

They're also brutally impacted by other forces active in the region, and if all foreign forces pulled out they'd be brutally impacted domestically.

Without knowing much more about the circumstances of the ops I wouldn't say murdered, killed fine, but it should be a hallmark of our ops that we try to minimise civilian casualties

[Sandydragon]

It's a nice sentiment that civilians should not be impacted, but to have influence as an idea they'd need to specify how?

Impacted? Why the euphemism? Innocent civilians were brutally murdered. More than 300 from just this incident.

They're also brutally impacted by other forces active in the region, and if all foreign forces pulled out they'd be brutally impacted domestically.

Without knowing much more about the circumstances of the ops I wouldn't say murdered, killed fine, but it should be a hallmark of our ops that we try to minimise civilian casualties

We do. You cant avoid all civilian casualties, but there is a legal requirement to take all reasonable steps to avoid them unless there is no other means to conduct the operation.