Since the Friday missile attacks against a Syrian airbase, US forces have been busy with their own airstrikes backing various militant groups in northeastern Syria. They are killing an increasing number of innocent civilians in their own right. On Saturday alone, US airstrikes near Raqqa killed at least 21 people, mostly civilians, and while some of the strikes were near the fighting between US-backed militants and ISIL, at least one strike appears to have been a deliberate attack on a boatload of civilians attempting to cross the Euphrates River.
The boat was carrying about 40 people, and NGOs say that at least seven bodies, six of them children, have been recovered so far, with more missing. The US has dropped leaflets in the area urging civilians to flee toward the Euphrates, but in fact dropped a second leaflet warning them not to try to cross the river or they’d be attacked! The airstrikes centered around the village of Hanida. Additional reports suggest more civilians killed in the US strikes on the village.
That the US is attacking the village is puzzling, because ISIL is not believed to have any presence in the village itself, and it appears to be at least some distance from the fight. Nevertheless, it's a reminder that President Trump didn’t order the bombing of the Syrian military base Friday to protect the civilian population. This was never the intention. As the rising number of civilian casualties in the new US airstrikes indicate, the idea is still regime change and support for terrorists. Even some US congressional lawmakers agree. Along with the international civil society, they express concern about the factual basis for the attack and the new escalation in the six-year conflict.
American lawmakers who question the evidentiary support for Trump's missile strikes, say it is plausible but unproven that President Assad is responsible for any chemical attack on his own people. In their words, "We all can assume Assad was responsible, but that's an assumption at this time. We think the rush to judgment ought to be slowed.”
This brings to mind the fake news and false reports that acted as “evidence” for the United States and allies to invade and destroy Iraq in 2003. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was deliberately justified by fake intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, and the leader of a UN probe into a chemical attack near Damascus in 2013 that he was unsure of who was responsible for the assault. The US also blamed that attack on President Assad, nearly leading to military action.
The same pattern is repeating itself again, which should be a wakeup call for the international community, particularly the United Nations:
Swedish Doctors For Human Rights (swedhr.org) has just analyzed videos and the rescue after the alleged attack by Syrian government forces in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, on April 5. The doctors found that the videos were counterfeit, where even Arabic stage directions were overheard, and that the alleged “rescue” in actuality is a murder. On first analysis, it looked as though the doctors working on the child assumed he was already dead. The collective findings of the Swedish doctors (swedhr) with regard to the propaganda and fakery by Al-Qaeda in Syria (Al Nusra Front) are also in line with the findings of leading German and International Scientists for Syria War.
It is yet another evidence that the Trump White House is acting recklessly and deliberately without waiting for the collection of evidence from the scene of the chemical poisoning. The world has a lot of questions and the Trumpsters, unsurprisingly, have no answers, dodging all questions about the illicit goals of the new escalation and what the overall strategy or even next steps either militarily or diplomatically is.
All the White House would say is that the US attacks are “very decisive,” even if they are not and they aren’t all that clear what decision they even made. Beyond that, US officials are talking up the idea that they will launch more attacks, all while downplaying the rising number of civilian casualties.
As per International Law, however, the new wave of US attacks against the Syrian government and the Syrian people is an act of aggression against a sovereign state. It is unjustified, is under a far-fetched pretext, and has no UN authorization. It is also designed to support terrorists and create even more civilian casualties.
These are dangerous times, as few people are attempting to promote a balanced perspective by pointing out that the Empire of Chaos has been responsible for causing massive civilian casualties in Syria, and that they produce hardly a ripple in the “fakestream” media. Although the American media outlets understand in the abstract the wisdom of people around the world empathizing with the suffering of people in Syria, such a reminder of wrongs committed by their own government and armed forces get little hearing and is soon overshadowed by an accelerated Trump war of regime change.
It is time for the international civil society to continue their efforts to develop understanding and compassion in Syria, where US military forces are directly responsible for many civilian deaths. The world should address the question “how many people has the US killed in Syria?” These massacres would not have taken place if the United States had not deliberately used the heavy hand of its power in the proxy war - in flagrant violation of International Humanitarian Law.
[farsnews.com]
10/4/17
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