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We really have entered a macabre twilight zone… US-led warplanes massacre civilians in several countries… yet, Washington and its allies condemn others for war crimes. Of course, you can’t expect governments that act criminally to be honest. However, what about nominally independent organisations like the UN and the Western media? The collective deception is damning of systematic complicity. What makes it more disturbing is that if institutions that we rely upon for law and accountability cover-up criminality, then, the world really is in a dangerous dark place.
The latest atrocity involved US coalition aircraft reportedly killing 15 women and injuring 50 others when they hit a funeral procession near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Friday. American-led coalition warplanes, including from Britain, France, and Turkey, are bombing Iraq, supposedly to help defeat the Islamic State (Daesh) terror group. Shamefully, the Western news media, which blares allegations of war crimes against Russia over its military operations in Syria, were largely silent on the massacre near Kirkuk. Only days before that barbarity, there were several other mass atrocities committed by American allies elsewhere in the Middle East. In Syria, two F-16 fighter jets belonging to NATO member Belgium killed six civilians in the village of Hassadjek, near Aleppo. Within hours of that murderous assault, warplanes from Turkey, another NATO member, were responsible for killing some 150 Syrian civilians in multiple air raids also in Aleppo countryside, according to Syrian state media. Meanwhile, in Yemen, the US-backed Saudi air bombardment continued its slaughter of innocents despite cynically declaring a non-entity ceasefire earlier in the week. Three farmers died in Saudi air strikes in Sa’ada province… almost a week after American and Saudi warplanes massacred 140 people attending a funeral ceremony in the capital Sana’a. This was just another grotesque “anti-terror” operation.
Now, Washington and its allies are openly bombing sovereign countries without any legal mandate. As such, these actions constitute the crime of aggression… the gravest violation of international law. The Western states who haughtily pontificate to Russia take part in a redux of 1930s fascist banditry. In Syria, the US-led coalition including Britain and France, have carried out airstrikes on that country for over two years, killing hundreds of civilians… all in the name of “fighting terrorism”. Three months ago, in late July, US and French warplanes murdered over 100 civilians, including women and children, in and around the town of Manbij, near Aleppo, in wave after wave of bombings. Occasionally, the Western news media do give reports on such crimes. However, generally, their duty is to minimise it, by describing such incidents as unfortunate “collateral damage”, if not to wilfully cover-up, as in the latest atrocity near Kirkuk.
Nevertheless, gradually, the entire hideous Western charade is being exposed. In Syria, for nearly six years, a US-led covert war for régime change has almost completely destroyed the Arab country. To achieve this illicit objective, Washington and its NATO and regional allies funded, armed, and directed a proxy army of the most vile terror groups. Last year, Russia and Iran intervened to help their Syrian ally against this international criminal conspiracy; they brought back the country from the brink of devastation. They routed the terrorist proxy army supported by Washington, London, Paris, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar from hundreds of towns and villages. Russia and Iran are liberating Syria from a scourge unleashed in March 2011 by US-led insurgents under the guise of a “pro-democracy uprising”. That narrative has always been absurd for anyone with critical thinking. Head-chopping jihadists for democracy? Sword-wielding Saudi and Qatari despots advocating pluralist elections? Besides, Syria already had a relatively robust democracy under President Bashar al-Assad. Before the US-led war for régime change, Syria enjoyed a reputation for religious freedom, peaceful coexistence, and benign social development.
The Western media, in the service of promoting their governments’ geopolitical agenda, grossly distorted events in Syria. Instead of investigating a Western-backed criminal subversion involving state-sponsorship of terrorism, the media violated honest independent journalism with outright lies and fabrications. They told the Western public that Washington and its allies are bombing a (sovereign) country to “defeat terrorism” when in fact any genuine critical inquiry shows the opposite to be the case. In the northern city of Aleppo, the Syrian army supported by Russia is liberating tens of thousands of civilians held under siege, against their will, by the West’s terror proxies since 2012. Western media coverage on Aleppo is a diabolical sham.
The US, British, and French governments, as well as other Europeans, are jumping up and down with accusations of war crimes against Russia and its Syrian ally. They present scarcely any evidence to substantiate these unhinged Western claims of what’s happening in Aleppo. Virtually all the information that the West relies on for its allegations comes from Western and Saudi-funded organisations such as the so-called White Helmets and Aleppo Media Center, both of whom are embedded with proscribed terror groups like Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. The Western capacity for denial is astounding. The vast majority of Aleppo residents… some 1.6 million people… are living willingly under the protection of the Syrian army. Yet the Western media never report this. Rather, they focus on a minority district besieged by terrorists whom they lionise as “heroic rebels”. Even when verifiable live broadcasts in Aleppo, set up at the humanitarian aid corridors established by Russian and Syrian authorities, demonstrate beyond doubt that the truces are flagrantly violated by the Western-beloved “rebels”, still the myth-making continues. During a three-day humanitarian ceasefire to help evacuate civilians, observers saw the militants shelling neutral transport arrangements and holding people as human shields. However, the Western media vaguely and mendaciously report on a “lack of security” hampering aid delivery.
Washington and its European allies, primarily Britain and France, as well as UN chiefs Ban Ki-Moon and Staffan de Mistura, the special envoy to Syria, are a disgrace. So too are the Western corporate news media who lied all the way to hide the real criminals in Syria. In this mayhem and madness, it might seem perhaps counterintuitive to be optimistic. Nevertheless, good reason for optimism is that Western governments and their servile media are exposing themselves for the criminals and liars that they are. The rogue-state behaviour of Washington and its allies has become so rampant it is no longer possible to hide it. What happens in Syria and the region isn’t the only cause for public anger and disdain for this murdering cabal. People all around the world are realising the that US-led warmongering and dirty wars are rooted in the same murdering and plundering capitalist system that is killing their own societies and communities. People are realising more than ever that the high and mighty Western leaders who presume to sit as judges casting condemnations on others are actually the lowest and most despicable criminals.
23 October 2016
Finian Cunningham
Sputnik International
https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201610231046633284-us-allies-condemn-russia/
Voices from Russia 
USA and its Allies Massacre at Will, Yet Condemn Russia
Tags: American terrorism, civil unrest, diplomacy, diplomatic relations, humanitarian intervention, Iran, ISIS, Middle East, Middle Eastern, NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, peace in the middle east, political commentary, politics, Russia, Russian, Russian diplomacy, Syria, Syrian Civil War, terror, terrorism, terrorist, terrorists, United States, USA, war and conflict
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We really have entered a macabre twilight zone… US-led warplanes massacre civilians in several countries… yet, Washington and its allies condemn others for war crimes. Of course, you can’t expect governments that act criminally to be honest. However, what about nominally independent organisations like the UN and the Western media? The collective deception is damning of systematic complicity. What makes it more disturbing is that if institutions that we rely upon for law and accountability cover-up criminality, then, the world really is in a dangerous dark place.
The latest atrocity involved US coalition aircraft reportedly killing 15 women and injuring 50 others when they hit a funeral procession near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Friday. American-led coalition warplanes, including from Britain, France, and Turkey, are bombing Iraq, supposedly to help defeat the Islamic State (Daesh) terror group. Shamefully, the Western news media, which blares allegations of war crimes against Russia over its military operations in Syria, were largely silent on the massacre near Kirkuk. Only days before that barbarity, there were several other mass atrocities committed by American allies elsewhere in the Middle East. In Syria, two F-16 fighter jets belonging to NATO member Belgium killed six civilians in the village of Hassadjek, near Aleppo. Within hours of that murderous assault, warplanes from Turkey, another NATO member, were responsible for killing some 150 Syrian civilians in multiple air raids also in Aleppo countryside, according to Syrian state media. Meanwhile, in Yemen, the US-backed Saudi air bombardment continued its slaughter of innocents despite cynically declaring a non-entity ceasefire earlier in the week. Three farmers died in Saudi air strikes in Sa’ada province… almost a week after American and Saudi warplanes massacred 140 people attending a funeral ceremony in the capital Sana’a. This was just another grotesque “anti-terror” operation.
Now, Washington and its allies are openly bombing sovereign countries without any legal mandate. As such, these actions constitute the crime of aggression… the gravest violation of international law. The Western states who haughtily pontificate to Russia take part in a redux of 1930s fascist banditry. In Syria, the US-led coalition including Britain and France, have carried out airstrikes on that country for over two years, killing hundreds of civilians… all in the name of “fighting terrorism”. Three months ago, in late July, US and French warplanes murdered over 100 civilians, including women and children, in and around the town of Manbij, near Aleppo, in wave after wave of bombings. Occasionally, the Western news media do give reports on such crimes. However, generally, their duty is to minimise it, by describing such incidents as unfortunate “collateral damage”, if not to wilfully cover-up, as in the latest atrocity near Kirkuk.
Nevertheless, gradually, the entire hideous Western charade is being exposed. In Syria, for nearly six years, a US-led covert war for régime change has almost completely destroyed the Arab country. To achieve this illicit objective, Washington and its NATO and regional allies funded, armed, and directed a proxy army of the most vile terror groups. Last year, Russia and Iran intervened to help their Syrian ally against this international criminal conspiracy; they brought back the country from the brink of devastation. They routed the terrorist proxy army supported by Washington, London, Paris, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar from hundreds of towns and villages. Russia and Iran are liberating Syria from a scourge unleashed in March 2011 by US-led insurgents under the guise of a “pro-democracy uprising”. That narrative has always been absurd for anyone with critical thinking. Head-chopping jihadists for democracy? Sword-wielding Saudi and Qatari despots advocating pluralist elections? Besides, Syria already had a relatively robust democracy under President Bashar al-Assad. Before the US-led war for régime change, Syria enjoyed a reputation for religious freedom, peaceful coexistence, and benign social development.
The Western media, in the service of promoting their governments’ geopolitical agenda, grossly distorted events in Syria. Instead of investigating a Western-backed criminal subversion involving state-sponsorship of terrorism, the media violated honest independent journalism with outright lies and fabrications. They told the Western public that Washington and its allies are bombing a (sovereign) country to “defeat terrorism” when in fact any genuine critical inquiry shows the opposite to be the case. In the northern city of Aleppo, the Syrian army supported by Russia is liberating tens of thousands of civilians held under siege, against their will, by the West’s terror proxies since 2012. Western media coverage on Aleppo is a diabolical sham.
The US, British, and French governments, as well as other Europeans, are jumping up and down with accusations of war crimes against Russia and its Syrian ally. They present scarcely any evidence to substantiate these unhinged Western claims of what’s happening in Aleppo. Virtually all the information that the West relies on for its allegations comes from Western and Saudi-funded organisations such as the so-called White Helmets and Aleppo Media Center, both of whom are embedded with proscribed terror groups like Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. The Western capacity for denial is astounding. The vast majority of Aleppo residents… some 1.6 million people… are living willingly under the protection of the Syrian army. Yet the Western media never report this. Rather, they focus on a minority district besieged by terrorists whom they lionise as “heroic rebels”. Even when verifiable live broadcasts in Aleppo, set up at the humanitarian aid corridors established by Russian and Syrian authorities, demonstrate beyond doubt that the truces are flagrantly violated by the Western-beloved “rebels”, still the myth-making continues. During a three-day humanitarian ceasefire to help evacuate civilians, observers saw the militants shelling neutral transport arrangements and holding people as human shields. However, the Western media vaguely and mendaciously report on a “lack of security” hampering aid delivery.
Washington and its European allies, primarily Britain and France, as well as UN chiefs Ban Ki-Moon and Staffan de Mistura, the special envoy to Syria, are a disgrace. So too are the Western corporate news media who lied all the way to hide the real criminals in Syria. In this mayhem and madness, it might seem perhaps counterintuitive to be optimistic. Nevertheless, good reason for optimism is that Western governments and their servile media are exposing themselves for the criminals and liars that they are. The rogue-state behaviour of Washington and its allies has become so rampant it is no longer possible to hide it. What happens in Syria and the region isn’t the only cause for public anger and disdain for this murdering cabal. People all around the world are realising the that US-led warmongering and dirty wars are rooted in the same murdering and plundering capitalist system that is killing their own societies and communities. People are realising more than ever that the high and mighty Western leaders who presume to sit as judges casting condemnations on others are actually the lowest and most despicable criminals.
23 October 2016
Finian Cunningham
Sputnik International
https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201610231046633284-us-allies-condemn-russia/