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Nine Years After Georgia-Russia War, ‘NATO Hustle in Caucasus Looks Suspicious’

Sputnik – 08.08.2017

Exactly nine years ago Tbilisi launched the US-backed Operation “Clear Field” against South Ossetia and Abkhazia. While the operation led to the resounding defeat of the Georgian armed forces, it appears that the lesson remained unlearned, Sputnik contributor Alexander Khrolenko notes.

If Georgia, the US, and their allies don’t take into account the interests of Russia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the Caucasus, that’s not going to be good for anyone, Sputnik contributor Alexander Khrolenko points out, recalling that exactly nine years ago Georgia kicked off its Operation “Clear Field” aimed at depriving South Ossetia of its independence and sovereignty and invading Abkhazia.

“On the night of August 8, [2008] Georgian troops attacked the capital of South Ossetia Tskhinval and the positions of Russian peacekeepers with massive artillery shelling (including cluster munitions), followed by the invasion of the South Ossetian territories by Georgian Special forces and tanks,” Khrolenko wrote.

However, Georgia had not launched the invasion on its own — Tbilisi was backed by the US and its allies.

“The invasion was carefully planned and exercised in the course of joint Georgian-American military drills,” the journalist elaborated, “Kiev delivered ‘Buk’ and ‘Tor’ missile defense systems to Tbilisi along with Ukrainian combat crews. Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) experts also provided their assistance [to Georgia].”

“In August 2008, the US urgently organized an ‘air bridge’ to transfer arms and ammunition from Jordan to Georgia,” he added.

Furthermore, Washington and NATO spent $2 billion from 2004 to 2008 to train the 20,000-strong Georgian national military contingent, which boosted its skills in Iraq. The alliance worked out a concept of conducting combat operations in mountainous conditions and developed a plan aimed at what they called “restoring the constitutional order” in South Ossetia.

Although the US and Georgia spent a lot of effort in preparing for the invasion of South Ossetia, their plan to create a NATO foothold in the South Caucasus failed.

“Their calculations proved wrong and Georgian troops fled in panic from Tskhinvali to Tbilisi, throwing down their weapons and equipment, from an adversary which was equal in number to [Georgian forces],” the journalist emphasized.

It transpires that the $2 billion was spent in vain, Khrolenko writes, citing the fact that neither the strategic nor the geopolitical goals of the US-Georgian partnership were achieved.

The journalist quoted Svante E. Cornell, a Swedish scholar specializing on politics and security issues in Eurasia, who underscored in his article for The American Interest that “the war in Georgia and the financial crisis were a double whammy that fundamentally altered the balance of power in the Caucasus to the detriment of the West.”

However, it seems that the lesson remained unlearned for Tbilisi, Khrolenko remarked.

“Georgia continues to accuse Russia of ‘infringement’ of sovereignty, persistently strives for NATO membership, and proceeds with its claims for the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, renouncing the principle of non-use of force,” the journalist noted.

On the other hand, Georgian military forces continue to take part in NATO drills on a regular basis.

On July 31, a US Army Europe-led exercise Noble Partner started at the Vaziani military base in Georgia.

“The exercise serves as home station training for the Georgian light infantry company designated for the NATO Response Force and includes eight participating nations: Armenia, Georgia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United States,” the US Department of Defense official website reads.

Citing US Ambassador Ian Kelly the Pentagon reported that “this year’s exercise seeks to enhance interoperability and readiness by improving the participating nations’ ability to conduct multinational mission command and control and measure the ability to support a multinational operational scenario.”

In addition, the US Congress signaled its willingness in mid-July to mull over Georgia’s membership in the Atlantic military bloc.

It looks rather suspicious, Khrolenko emphasized, adding that by boosting its ties with NATO Tbilisi is seemingly making steps which may shatter the fragile balance of power in the region.

Interestingly enough, almost simultaneously, Europe is considering the issue of creating a refugee center in Georgia. Needless to say, that is likely to further aggravate tensions in the Southern Caucasus.

Alas, “after many years of devotional service to foreign interests, Georgia has not won the respect of its ‘senior partners’,” the journalist wrote, “One way or another, Tbilisi will have to pay for a visa-free regime and its pro-Western policy.”

August 9, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Military Base Attacked in Venezuela, Two Dead

By Katrina Kozarek and Rachael Boothroyd Rojas | Venezuelanalysis | August 7, 2017

The 41st Armored Brigade of Fort Paramacay in Carabobo State was attacked by civilians and ex-military officials in the early hours of Sunday morning as part of an unsuccessful attempt to provoke a military rebellion, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has confirmed.

According to the president, the attack occurred at 3:50 am when 20 armed men entered the facilities and headed directly for the arms depository, where a confrontation ensued until approximately 8am. The confrontation left two dead and one injured. A further ten have been arrested in connection with the attack.

Moments before the coordinated assault, flyers were dropped outside the military base referring to the action as ‘Operation David’ and calling for all members of the armed forces to join the “military rebellion”. The messages also told the soldiers who refused to mutiny against the government that they should consider themselves a “military objective” and “face the consequences”.

The attack was also accompanied by a video released on social media by former military commander Juan Caguaripano Scott, who had reportedly fled the country during the 2014 opposition protests known as the guarimbas and has since lived between Miami, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia.

“We declare ourselves in legitimate rebellion, united today more than ever, with the brave Venezuelan people, to refuse to recognize the murderous tyranny of Nicolás Maduro. This is not a coup d’état, this is a civic and military action to restore order and to save the country from total destruction,” states Caguaripano in the video.

It is not clear when nor where the video was recorded.

Though Caguaripano and several international media sources have referred to the attack as a civic-military rebellion, the majority of those captured were not active military personnel. One of the detained men was identified as ex-lieutenant Oswaldo José Gutiérrez Guevara who deserted the military after being investigated for theft. The remaining nine were paid civilians recruited from the states of Zulia, Yaracuy and Lara, and all had criminal records, said the Ministry of Defense. They were aided and abetted by First Lieutenant Yefferson Gabriel García Dos Ramos, who was in charge of the fort’s weapons depository.

Authorities are yet to release the names of the two fatalities, but it is known that both Caguaripano and Dos Ramos were on the ground at the time of the attack and managed to evade capture.

Government officials have since described the offensive as a terrorist attack as opposed to a military rebellion, citing the lack of serving military officials involved in the operation.

According to a tweet from Vice Minister of International Communication, William Castillo, the attack was a “propaganda operation” with “civilians disguised as current and former military officials”.

The Minister of Information and Communication Ernesto Villegas also announced that opposition forces in Venezuela were attempting to create and circulate “fake news” about the country, as well as “trying out the formula [used in] the Ukraine.”

Sunday’s assault on the military fort follows a helicopter attack against the Supreme Court by former investigative police official Oscar Pérez in June. Perez also called on the military to rise up against the Maduro government, echoing similar demands voiced by opposition spokespeople for the past 18 months. Over 120 people have also been killed in violent opposition-led unrest since the beginning of April.

On Sunday, Minister of Defense Padrino Lopez released an official communique on behalf of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) in relation to the incident. Lopez said that although the group had been “immediately repelled” by army personnel, some of the attackers had managed to steal weapons from the fort’s depository and were currently at the centre of a manhunt by state security agencies.

The communiqué also stated that those responsible for the attack will face military charges.

“We will not accept under any circumstances the violation of our sovereignty, and even less that the social gains achieved for the benefit of the great majorities are undermined,” reads the statement.

The document finished by calling on the men and women of Venezuela to work together to find solutions to the current turmoil in the country within a legal framework.

August 8, 2017 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Over 100 Trucks With US Supplies Cross Into Kurdish-Controlled Syrian Territory

Sputnik – 08.08.2017

The United States delivered 112 trucks with supplies, including military equipment, to the Kurdish-controlled areas of northeastern Syria, Turkish media reported Tuesday.

The Anadolu news agency reported that the media outlet’s correspondent had seen the convoy crossing into the territory of the Syrian Hasakah province on Monday night.

The news outlet added that the convoy included trucks, fuel tankers and low-loaders transporting Humvee vehicles and aimed to support the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which Ankara considers to be a branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), outlawed in Turkey.

This is not the first batch of US aid to the Kurdish groups, as over 900 trucks were already sent to the Kurdish-held areas of Syria on Monday, the news agency added.

Within the framework of the Syrian civil war, the Kurdish groups have been controlling vast parts of Syria in such provinces as Hasakah and Raqqa, after driving jihadists from those areas.

On May 9, US President Donald Trump approved a plan to arm Kurdish groups fighting the Daesh (outlawed in Russia). The Turkish government has protested the move as Ankara believes the Kurdish fighters can use the weapons against Turkey.

August 8, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Dozens Reported Killed in US Airstrike on Iraqi Paramilitary Anti-Terror Force

Sputnik – August 8, 2017

The US air force has carried out an airstrike on an Iraqi militia unit called Seyid Suheda, which belongs to Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). The airstrike took place in Anbar province, close to Iraq’s border with Syria, Rudaw reports.

According to reports, 35 fighters were killed and 25 were injured in the airstrike on Monday night. PMU commanders are reportedly among the dead.

PMU commander Ali Hasim Huseyni confirmed the incident in conversation with Sputnik Turkiye.

“US planes bombed fighters of the Seyid Suheda unit. The wounded have been taken to various hospitals in Iraq for treatment. Some of them are in a serious condition. The region in which they were attacked is located on the Iraqi-Syrian border, 20 km from the city of El Baac. We strongly condemn this deliberate attack.”

The recent airstrike is not the first time that US forces have bombed pro-government fighters in Iraq. In October, an airstrike conducted by the US-led coalition in Iraq “most likely” killed around 20 pro-government Sunni tribal fighters south of Mosul, a defense official told AFP.

Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units, or Hashd al Sha’ abi, comprise approximately 100,000 fighters who are mostly Shia. They have played a vital role in anti-terrorist operations in Mosul and elsewhere.

In November 2016, the Iraqi parliament gave the PMU the power of law enforcement agencies, which basically provides the militia with the same powers as the government army and police.

Last week, the PMU assisted the Iraqi army in launching an operation to retake the northwestern city of Tal Afar. Mostly populated by Sunni Turkmen, the city is the Daesh terrorist group’s last remaining stronghold in the country.

The US has also bombed militia fighting Daesh in neighboring Syria. On June 8, the US-led coalition bombed pro-Assad militia near al-Tanf in the area of a deconfliction zone following an alleged attack by a combat drone resulting in no coalition forces’ casualties. It was the third attack by the coalition on Damascus’ allies in the area. The coalition targeted a drone and trucks with weapons.

August 8, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US-led coalition used banned white phosphorus on civilians in Syria – Damascus to UN

RT | August 6, 2017

The Syrian foreign ministry has, in correspondence to the United Nations, accused the US-led coalition of new atrocities against its civilians. It includes an attack on hospital in Raqqa and the use of “internationally banned white phosphorus munitions” against the Syrian people.

Renewing its calls to “immediately dissolve” the coalition which Damascus considers illegitimate, the ministry wrote two letters; one addressed to the UN Secretary General and the other to the Chairman of the UN Security Council, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported Sunday.

Citing the ministry statement, the report said the military alliance led by Washington had bombed residential neighborhoods and civilian houses, as well as destroying a national hospital in Raqqa, where the coalition is extensively backing the fight against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group.

Damascus also claimed the coalition had violated international humanitarian law by deploying white phosphorus munitions in its attacks which targeted “innocent Syrian people in the provinces of Raqqa, Hasaka, Aleppo, Deir Ezzor and other Syrian cities,” SANA reported.

Such actions represent war crimes and crimes against humanity, the agency cited the ministry as saying in its communication to the UN.

“Syria renews its call to immediately dissolve the coalition which was established outside the framework of the UN and without requesting permission from the Syrian government,” the statement added.

Responding to the allegations, the coalition said it “routinely conducts strikes” on IS terrorists in Raqqa and also uses white phosphorus in its operations, the US Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF–OIR) acknowledged in an emailed statement to RT.

However, its deployment of the weapons is not against international norms, the joint task force claimed.

“In accordance with the law of armed conflict white phosphorus rounds are used for screening, obscuring, and marking in a way that fully considers the possible incidental effects on civilians and civilian structures,” the CJTF–OIR statement read.

It added that allegations of civilian casualties are being assessed and will be published in a monthly civilian casualty report.

On Saturday, a new series of attacks by the US-led coalition resulted in more civilian deaths in Raqqa, SANA reported. At least 43 civilians were reportedly killed and dozens more injured after airstrikes hit residential neighborhoods in the Syrian city, the news agency said. Mostly women, children and the elderly were among the victims, SANA added.

In its latest assessment of civilian casualties from airstrikes in Iraq and Syria released earlier this week, the US-led coalition claimed 624 people were “unintentionally killed” since the start of the campaign against IS in the region in 2014.

However, the UK-based Airwars group which monitors airstrikes and civilian casualties in Iraq, Libya and Syria based on open-source reports and military figures, contradict this claim. It suggests the civilian death toll in the bombing campaign is much higher. Data collated by the group indicates that more than 4,350 civilians have been killed in US-led military operations since June 2014.

August 6, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Hiroshima – A Criminal Enterprise From Which Nothing Has Been Learned

By Felicity Arbuthnot | Global Research | August 8, 2016

When Paul Tibbets was thirteen years old he flew a bi-plane over Florida’s Miami Beach dropping a promotional cargo of Babe Ruth Candy Bars directly on to the promotional target area, in an advertising stunt. It was his first solo flight and: “From that moment he became hooked on flying.”

He became a test pilot and: “one of the first Americans to fly in world War Two.” Seventeen years later he had graduated from dropping Candy Bars to dropping the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Thirty years later, the now retired Brigadier-General Paul Warfield Tibbets Junior (image right) told authors Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, for their minutely detailed and definitive book (1) on one of the world’s greatest crimes, of the background to the venture.  Most would surely conclude it was a criminal project from the start, on every level.

Tibbets told the authors:

“I got called on this bomb job … I was told I was going to destroy one city with one bomb. That was quite a thought … We had, working in my organization, a murderer, three men guilty of manslaughter and several felons; all of them had escaped from prison.

“The murderer was serving life; the manslaughter guys were doing ten to fifteen years; the felons three to five. After escaping they had enlisted under false names. They were all skilled technicians … They were all good, real good at their jobs and we needed ‘em. We told them that if they gave us no trouble, they would have no trouble from us.

“After it was over, we called each of them in and handed them their dossiers and a box of matches and said ‘Go burn ‘em.’ You see, I was not running a police department, I was running an outfit that was unique.”

The crime which the “oufit” committed was also unique, making the odd murder, manslaughter or felony on home soil pale in to insignificance in comparison.

In Hiroshima, a millisecond after 8.16 a.m., on 6th August 1945, the temperature at the core of the hundreds of feet wide fireball reached 50,000,000 degrees. Flesh burned two miles distant from it’s outer parameters.

80,000 people were killed or mortally injured instantly. The main area targeted was “the city’s principal residential, commercial and military quarters.”

The entrance to the Shima Clinic was flanked by great stone columns – “They were rammed straight down in to the ground.” The building was destroyed: “The occupants were vapourised.”

Just three of the city’s fifty five hospitals remained usable, one hundred and eighty of Hiroshima’s two hundred doctors were dead or injured and 1,654 of 1,780 nurses.

Sixty two thousand buildings were destroyed as all utilities and transportation systems. Just sixteen fire fighting vehicles remained workable.

People standing, walking, the schoolgirls manning the communications centre in Hiroshima Castle and ninety percent of the castle’s occupants, including American prisoners of war, were also vapourised. Gives a whole new meaning to the US military’s much vaunted “No soldier left behind.”

“The radiant heat set alight Radio Hiroshima, burnt out the tramcars, trucks, railway rolling stock.

“Stone walls, steel doors and asphalt pavement glowed red hot.” Clothing fused to skin. “More than a mile from the epicenter” mens’ caps fused to their scalps, womens’ kimonos to their bodies and childrens’ socks to their legs. All the above decimations happened in the time a crew member of the US bomber, “Enola Gay”, took to blink from the flash behind his goggles. What he saw when he opened them and looked down was, he said : “a peep in to hell.”

 

At home base, as Hiroshima was incinerated, a party was being prepared to welcome the arsonists. ”The biggest blow out” with free beer, all star soft ball game, a jitter bug contest, prizes, star attractions, a movie and the cooks working overtime to prepare a sumptuous fare.

Hiroshima’s destruction had a uranium-based detonation. Three days later on 9th August, Nagasaki was destroyed by a plutonium-based detonation to ascertain which would be the most “effective” in the new nuclear age warfare.

Not even a nod or thought had been given to the Hague Convention which had very specific legal guidelines to protection of civilians in war. One might speculate that Hiroshima also vapourised any pretention of such considerations for all time, in spite the subsequent Geneva Convention and it’s additional protocols.

In May this year, President Obama visited Hiroshima, he said (2): “Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.

“Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in a not-so-distant past. We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children, thousands of Koreans, a dozen Americans held prisoner.

“Their souls speak to us. They ask us to look inward, to take stock of who we are and what we might become.”

Obama ended his Hiroshima address with: “Those who died, they are like us. Ordinary people understand this, I think. They do not want more war. They would rather that the wonders of science be focused on improving life and not eliminating it. When the choices made by nations, when the choices made by leaders, reflect this simple wisdom, then the lesson of Hiroshima is done.”

For a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and a constitutional law expert, his words are especially cheap. The man who began his Presidency with a public commitment to build a nuclear weapons free world (speech in Czech Republic, 5th April 2009) has, mind bendingly, committed to a thirty year, one Trillion $ nuclear arsenal upgrade. (3)

The epitaph at Hiroshima was written by Tadayoshi Saika, Professor of English Literature at Hiroshima University. He also provided the English translation, “Let all the souls here rest in peace for we shall not repeat the evil.”

On November 3, 1983, an explanation plaque in English was added in order to convey Professor Saika’s intent that “we” refers to “all humanity”, not specifically the Japanese or Americans, and that the “error” is the “evil of war”:

“The inscription on the front panel offers a prayer for the peaceful repose of the victims and a pledge on behalf of all humanity never to repeat the evil of war. It expresses the spirit of Hiroshima – enduring grief, transcending hatred, pursuing harmony … and yearning for genuine, lasting world peace.” (Wikipedia.)

Did President Obama have a twinge of conscience as he read it? Or did he even bother? He is surely amongst the most unworthy of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. And will the rest of the world heed the words, the pledge and the spirit, before it is too late?

Notes

  1. Ruin From The Air, The Atomic Mission to Hiroshima: ISBN 0-586-06705-1
  2. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/world/asia/text-of-president-obamas-speech-in-hiroshima-japan.html?_r=0
  3. http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/162279

August 6, 2017 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

US court overturns prison sentences of Blackwater mercs in 2007 Baghdad killing

Press TV – August 5, 2017

A federal appeals court in the United States has overturned lengthy prison sentences for three former Blackwater Worldwide mercenaries and ordered a new trial for a fourth involved in the 2007 killings of more than a dozen of unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children.

The Blackwater employees had been charged with killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others using gunfire and grenades at a busy Baghdad intersection on September 16, 2007. An FBI agent once described the atrocity as the “My Lai massacre of Iraq.”

Three mercenaries Dustin L. Heard, Evan S. Liberty and Paul A. Slough were convicted in 2014 of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter and using a machine gun – a military weapon — to carry out an atrocity.

They were sentenced to 30 years in prison. They received the enhanced penalty because they were also convicted of using military firearms while committing a felony.

A fourth mercenary, Nicholas A. Slatten, was convicted of murder and received a life sentence.

On Friday, the three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the trial court “abused its discretion” in not allowing Slatten to be tried separately from his three co-defendants, despite the fact that Slatten fired the first shots in the massacre.

The court also found that the 30-year terms of the three other convicts violated the constitutional prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

“We are gratified that the Court recognized the gross injustice of the 30-year mandatory minimum sentences,” Heard’s attorney, David Schertler, said in a statement. Attorneys for the three other men refused to respond to the ruling.

A large number of Iraqi witnesses had testified in the case in what the Justice Department said was likely to be “the largest group of foreign witnesses ever to travel to the United States for a criminal trial.”

Blackwater Worldwide, which is now known as Academi and is based in McLean, Virginia, is the most notorious private security firm that had operated in Iraq.

Many Iraqis believe the US military allowed Blackwater mercenaries to commit numerous war crimes against their compatriots with impunity.

August 5, 2017 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

US Congress to Undermine INF Treaty and Entire Existing Arms Control Architecture

By Andrei AKULOV | Strategic Culture Foundation | 05.08.2017

The House and Senate are currently considering defense authorization legislation which, if passed into law, would start dismantling some of the bedrock agreements of US-Russian arms control – the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), as well as longstanding US–Russia arms control efforts. The treaty eliminated all ground-based nuclear and conventional missiles, as well as their launchers, with ranges of 500–1,000 kilometers (310–620 mi) (short-range) and 1,000–5,500 km (620–3,420 mi) (intermediate-range). Signed in December 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the INF deal is accredited with significantly reducing the threat of nuclear confrontation and accelerating the end of the Cold War.

The landmark deal for the first time eliminated an entire class of missiles in Europe and set up a new framework for verifying compliance. Russia and the US have recently exchanged accusations of breaching the treaty but there have been no substantive talks on the issue.

Both versions of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2018 require the development of medium-range missiles the INF Treaty bans. They authorize programs of development on a new US mobile ground-based cruise missile (GLCM) with a range of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.

Politico cites the Office of Management and Budget, saying it «unhelpfully ties the Administration to a specific missile system, which would limit potential military response options». Legal experts are also criticizing the legislation as congressional overreach, saying the Senate can only ratify treaties and the president alone can negotiate or pull out of them. The House has no role whatsoever in approving treaties, Politico notes.

The House version states that if Russia failed to comply with the INF terms within 15 months of the bill’s enactment, the US would no longer be legally bound by the treaty as a matter of domestic law. A similar provision could be inserted into the Senate version of the bill.

Russia’s alleged violations serve as a pretext for deploying shorter and intermediate range weapons to strike other countries, like North Korea. The US Army is believed to lack sufficient firepower in a large-scale conflict, such as missiles that can hit targets hundreds of miles away. David Johnson, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, believes that «the lack of long-range firepower in the Army [is] a problem that could haunt land forces in a war in Eastern Europe».

Army Deputy Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. John Murray told lawmakers about the need for a «long-range precision fires» program to develop a powerful new missile that can reach targets 499 kilometers out, or about 310 miles. The range has to stay below 500 kilometers to comply with the INF treaty. If it’s not in force anymore, then the Army will get what it wants.

Mark Gunzinger of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) thinks that pulling out from the treaty is the right thing to do. He believes that future ground-based strike systems could help the US suppress Russia’s advanced integrated air defense systems and freedom of action in the event of a conflict. The intermediate range missiles could help the American military gain more advantage over China and North Korea. «Perhaps the time is right for a serious debate over the US withdrawing from the INF Treaty», Gunzinger says. Michaela Dodge of the Heritage Foundation affirms that, the Treaty is no longer relevant, and the US should withdraw.

Launching a program to develop a new ground-based cruise missile would add to the fact that some missiles to be eliminated under the terms of the INF Treaty are used as targets for ballistic missile defense tests, while Aegis Ashore systems use the launching pads that can be used to fire medium range Tomahawks. The Senate version of the bill says the US has no intention to tear up the treaty but the need to close the capability gap opened by Russia is given as a reason for launching the program. The two things contradict each other. The sum of these factors make the US actually abandon the agreement while not leaving it officially.

The same thing applies to Iran. Formally, the United States has not torn up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. At the same time, imposing sanctions on Tehran over its ballistic missile program makes the agreement deprived of any substance. No matter what pretext is used, the fact is that punitive measures against Iran are in place. It makes Iranians put into doubt the need to further comply with the JCPOA.

The US-Russian relations under ex-President Obama left much to be desired but the issue of violating the INF Treaty was not on the agenda. If the medium-range missile development program had been launched, the Congress would have been in violation of the international agreement. It did not occur then, but it is happening now under President Trump.

This would put into doubt the reputation of the United States as a reliable partner. If one international agreement is breached by the Congress, any other treaty can be abrogated, too.

Other defense programs would suffer, with money directed to implement the program in violation of the INF. The defense budget already includes funding to develop a fleet of nuclear air-launched cruise missiles. The more, the better?

No European ally has given consent to have the weapon on its soil. Would Europeans agree to have nuclear weapons on their soil? It makes the 1983 protests leap to memory.

The US will not benefit greatly if it withdraws from the treaty. It does not have an intermediate-range ballistic missile, and developing a new one will take time and effort. The bill does not mention intermediate ballistic capability anyway. Land-based cruise missiles would not tip the balance into US favor because they are too slow to effectively knock out critical infrastructure sites in a first unexpected strike. The US military need ballistic missiles with short flight times to decapitate the enemy but the Congress wants a cruise, not a ballistic, missile.

If Europe-based cruise missiles are fired, Russia will have enough time for a launch-upon-attack against those European states, which host the weapons, and the United States.

With the INF Treaty effective no more, Moscow will be free to deploy intermediate-range missiles without restriction. In theory, its Iskander-M systems could be armed with ballistic and cruise missiles with extended range, while the American military has nothing to respond with.

The House version has a provision that would prohibit the use of funds to extend New START until Russia complies with the INF treaty. But the conclusion, whoever makes it, about Russia’s compliance can be biased or outright wrong. Signed into law, the bill would undermine the whole architecture of arms control. The New START and the INF are the only two treaties still in place. Without them, the way to uncontrolled arms race would be unhindered.

The Congress would exceed its authority. It actually forces the administration to abandon an international treaty. The Senate can ratify international treaties, not abrogate them. The House does not vote on them. Both versions of the bill encroach on the president’s foreign policy prerogatives the same way the Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act does.

The bill includes provisions to undermine the treaty while the opportunities offered by the Special Verification Commission (SVC) envisioned by the INF treaty are far from being exhausted. The parties could use the SVC venue to consider additional confidence-building measures and information exchanges that take into account technological and political developments that have occurred recently.

The bill wants the Open Skies Treaty that could be used for INF verification to be deprived of funds. The observation capabilities could be upgraded. The NATO-Russia Council could serve as another mechanism to address specific security concerns. A lot of things could be done to preserve arms control regime and prevent its crisis. The world is facing the most serious and comprehensive crisis in the fifty-year history of nuclear arms control with almost every channel of negotiation deadlocked and the entire system of existing arms control agreements in jeopardy. The US Congress appears to be adamant in its desire to make things even worse.

August 5, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Coalition hits Raqqah hospital with white phosphorus: Red Crescent official

Press TV – August 5, 2017

The US-led coalition purporting to be targeting Daesh in Syria is said to have hit the National Hospital in the northern city of Raqqah with internationally-banned white phosphorus bombs.

Dina al-Asa’ad, who is the deputy director of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent’s branch in the city, said coalition warplanes had struck the hospital on Thursday, the country’s official Syrian Arab News Agency said.

She said the aircraft also released more than 20 apparently conventional shells against the facility, which hit its interior, electricity generators, and ambulances.

The facility, she said, catered to the needs of more than 100,000 patients.

Al-Asa’ad also blamed the coalition, which has been bombing Syria-based targets since 2014, and the US-backed anti-Damascus so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) for leading a “scorched earth” policy against the city, rather than trying to liberate it.

She said the coalition and the SDF had laid waste to all of the city’s schools, mosques, bakeries, its sugar factory, and governmental buildings.

‘Coalition kills 30 civilians’

Meanwhile, Syrian government sources said at least 30 people had been killed in the latest attacks by the coalition in Raqqah.

The latest toll brought to over 65 the total number of civilians killed by US aerial raids on Raqqah since the beginning of the week.

Army gains

Separately, the Syrian army took control of the al-Madkhal neighborhood and Tantor Mountain in the city of al-Sukhnah in the central Syria Homs Province.

Backed by civil defense fighters, the army also made fresh gains in the southeastern Syria al-Suwayda Province near the Jordan-Syria borders, where it recaptured the al-Dhubi’aiyah, Ber al-Rafa’a, al-Hardiyah, and Wadi al-Sawt areas from the US-backed forces, a military source said.

August 5, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Is Trump’s Russia Policy Being Hijacked?

By Pat Buchanan • Unz Review • August 4, 2017

In crafting the platform in Cleveland on which Donald Trump would run, America Firsters inflicted a major defeat on the War Party.

The platform committee rejected a plank to pull us deeper into Ukraine, by successfully opposing new U.S. arms transfers to Kiev.

Improved relations with Russia were what candidate Trump had promised, and what Americans would vote for in November.

Yet, this week, The Wall Street Journal reports:

“The U.S. Pentagon and State Department have devised plans to supply Ukraine with antitank missiles and other weaponry and are seeking White House approval … as Kiev battles Russia-backed separatists … Defense Secretary Mattis has endorsed the plan.”

As pro-Russia rebels in East Ukraine have armored vehicles, Kiev wants U.S. tank-killing Javelin missiles, as well as antiaircraft weapons.

State and Defense want Trump to send the lethal weapons.

This is a formula for a renewed war, with far higher casualties in Ukraine than the 10,000 dead already suffered on both sides.

And it is a war Vladimir Putin will not likely allow Kiev to win.

If Ukraine’s army, bolstered by U.S. weaponry, re-engages in the east, it could face a Moscow-backed counterattack and be routed, and the Russian army could take permanent control of the Donbass.

Indeed, if Trump approves this State-Defense escalation plan, we could be looking at a rerun of the Russia-Georgia war of August 2008.

Then, to recapture its lost province of South Ossetia, which had seceded in 1992, after Georgia seceded from Russia, Georgia invaded.

Putin sent his army in, threw the Georgians out, and recognized South Ossetia, as John McCain impotently declaimed, “We are all Georgians now!”

Wisely, George W. Bush ignored McCain and did nothing.

But about this new arms deal questions arise.

As the rebels have no aircraft, whose planes are the U.S. antiaircraft missiles to shoot down? And if the Russian army just over the border can enter and crush the Ukrainian army, why would we want to restart a civil war, the only certain result of which is more dead Ukrainians on both sides?

The Journal’s answer: Our goal is to bleed Russia.

“The point of lethal aid is to raise the price Mr. Putin pays for his imperialism until he withdraws or agrees to peace. … The Russians don’t want dead soldiers arriving home before next year’s presidential election.”

Also going neocon is Mike Pence. In Georgia this week, noting that Russian tanks are still in South Ossetia, the vice president not only declared, “We stand with you,” he told Georgians the U.S. stands by its 2008 commitment to bring them into NATO.

This would mean, under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, that in a future Russia-Georgia clash the U.S. could find itself in a shooting war with Russia in the South Caucasus.

Russia’s security interests there seem clear. What are ours?

Along with Trump’s signing of the new sanctions bill imposed by Congress, which strips him of his authority to lift those sanctions without Hill approval, these developments raise larger questions.

Is President Trump losing control of Russia policy? Has he capitulated to the neocons? These are not academic questions. For consider the architect of the new arms package, Kurt Volker, the new U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations.

A former CIA agent, member of the National Security Counsel, and envoy to NATO, Volker believes Russian troops in Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk are all there illegally — and U.S. policy should be to push them out.

A former staffer of Sen. McCain, Volker was, until July, executive director of the neocon McCain Institute. He has called for the imposition of personal sanctions on Putin and his family and European travel restrictions on the Russian president.

In the Journal this week, “officials” described his strategy:

“Volker believes … that a change in Ukraine can be brought only by raising the costs for Moscow for continued intervention in Ukraine. In public comments, he has played down the notion that supplying weapons to Ukraine would escalate the conflict with Russia.”

In short, Volker believes giving antitank and antiaircraft missiles to Ukraine will bring Putin to the negotiating table, as he fears the prospect of dead Russian soldiers coming home in caskets before his 2018 election.

As for concerns that Putin might send his army into Ukraine, such worries are unwarranted.

Volker envisions a deepening U.S. involvement in a Ukrainian civil war that can bleed and break Russia’s Ukrainian allies and convince Putin to back down and accept what we regard as a just settlement.

Does Trump believe this? Does Trump believe that confronting Putin with rising casualties among his army and allies in Ukraine is the way to force the Russian president to back down and withdraw from Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk, as Nikita Khrushchev did from Cuba in 1962?

What if Putin refuses to back down, and chooses to confront?

Copyright 2017 Creators.com.

August 4, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu Alarms Umm al-Fahm with Talk of Population Swap

By Jonathan Cook | Dissident Voice | August 4, 2017

Israel’s crackdown on access to the al-Aqsa mosque compound after two Israeli policemen were killed there last month provoked an eruption of fury among Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem and rocked Israel’s relations with the Arab world.

Three weeks on, the metal detectors and security cameras have gone and – for now, at least – Jerusalem is calmer.

But the shock waves are still reverberating, and being felt most keenly far away in northern Israel, in the town of Umm al-Fahm. The three young men who carried out the shootings were from the town’s large Jabareen clan. They were killed on the spot by police.

Umm al-Fahm, one of the largest communities for Israel’s 1.7 million Palestinian citizens, a fifth of the population, had already gained a reputation among the Jewish majority for political and religious extremism and anti-Israel sentiment.

In large part, that reflected its status as  home to the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, led by Sheikh Raed Salah. In late 2015, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlawed the Movement as a terror organisation, despite his intelligence agencies failing to find evidence to support such a conclusion.

More likely, Netanyahu’s antipathy towards Salah’s group, and Umm al-Fahm, derives from its trenchant efforts to ensure the strongest possible presence of Muslims at al-Aqsa.

As Israel imposed ever tighter restrictions on Palestinians from the occupied territories reaching the mosque, Salah organised regular coaches to bring residents to the compound from Umm al-Fahm and surrounding communities.

Thousands attend funeral

Nonetheless, the three youths’ attack at al-Aqsa last month has served to bolster suspicions that Umm al-Fahm is a hotbed of radicalism and potential terrorism.

That impression was reinforced last week when the Israeli authorities, at judicial insistence, belatedly handed over the three bodies for burial.

Although Israel wanted the funerals as low-key as possible, thousands attended the burials. Moshe Arens, a former minister from Netanyahu’s Likud party, expressed a common sentiment this week: “The gunmen evidently had the support of many in Umm al-Fahm, and others seem prepared to follow in their footsteps.”

Yousef Jabareen, a member of the Israeli parliament who is himself from Umm al-Fahm, said such accusations were unfair.

“People in the town were angry that the bodies had been kept from burial in violation of Muslim custom for two weeks,” he told Middle East Eye. “There are just a few extended families here, so many people wanted to show solidarity with their relatives, even though they reject the use of violence in our struggle for our civil rights.”

Nonetheless, the backlash from Netanyahu was not long in coming.

In a leak to Israeli TV, his office said he had proposed to the Trump administration ridding Israel of a region known as the Little Triangle, which includes some 300,000 Palestinians citizens. Umm al-Fahm is its main city.

The Triangle is a thin sliver of Israeli territory, densely packed with Palestinian citizens, bordering the north-west corner of the West Bank.

As part of a future peace deal, Netanyahu reportedly told the Americans during a meeting in late June, Umm al-Fahm and its neighbouring communities would be transferred to a future Palestinian state.

‘A double crime’

In effect, Netanyahu was making public his adoption of the long-standing and highly controversial plan of his far-right defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

This would see borders redrawn to allow Israel to annex coveted settlements in the West Bank in exchange for stripping hundreds of thousands of Palestinians of their Israeli citizenship and reassigning their communities to a highly circumscribed Palestinian state.

Jamal Zahalka, another member of the parliament, from Kafr Kara in the Triangle, said Netanyahu was supporting a double crime.

“He wins twice over,” he told Middle East Eye. “He gets to annex the illegal settlements to Israel, while he also gets rid of Arab citizens he believes are a threat to his demographic majority.”

Lieberman lost no time in congratulating Netanyahu for adopting his idea, tweeting: “Mr Prime Minister, welcome to the club.”

With his leak, Netanyahu has given official backing to an aspiration that appears to be secretly harboured by many Israeli politicians – and one that, behind the scenes, they have been pushing increasingly hard with Washington and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority.

A poll last year showed that nearly half of Israeli Jews want Palestinians expelled from Israel.

With Netanyahu now publicly on board, it looks suspiciously like Lieberman’s role over many years has been to bring into the mainstream a policy the liberal Haaretz newspaper has compared to “ethnic cleansing”.

Marzuq al-Halabi, a Palestinian-Israeli analyst and researcher at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, believed the move was designed with two aims in mind.

It left a “constant threat” of expulsion hanging over the heads of the minority as a way to crush political activity and demands for reform, he wrote on the Hebrew website Local Call. And at the same time it cast Palestinian citizens out into a “territorial and governmental emptiness”.

Inevitably, the plan revives fears among Palestinian citizens of the Nakba, the Arabic word for “Catastrophe”: the mass expulsions that occurred during the 1948 war to create Israel on the ruins of the Palestinian homeland.

Jabareen observed that the population swap implied that Palestinian citizens “are part of the enemy. … It says we don’t belong in our homeland, that our future is elsewhere.”

Backing from Kissinger

The idea of a populated land exchange was first formalised by Lieberman in 2004, when he unveiled what he grandly called a “Separation of the Nations” programme. It quickly won supporters in the US, including from elder statesman Henry Kissinger.

The idea of a land and population swap – sometimes termed “static transfer” – was alluded to by former prime ministers, including Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, at around the same time.

But only Lieberman set out a clear plan. He suggested stripping as many as 300,000 Palestinians in the Triangle of their Israeli citizenship. Other Palestinian citizens would be expected to make a “loyalty oath” to Israel as a “Jewish Zionist state”, or face expulsion to a Palestinian state. The aim was to achieve two states that were as “ethnically pure” as possible.

Jabareen noted that Lieberman’s populated land exchange falsely equated the status and fate of Palestinians who are legal citizens of Israel with Jewish settlers living in the West Bank in violation of international law.

Lieberman exposed his plan to a bigger audience in 2010, when he addressed the United Nations as foreign minister in the first of Netanyahu’s series of recent governments. Notably, at that time, the prime minister’s advisers distanced him from the proposal.

Mass arrests

A month after Lieberman’s speech, it emerged that Israeli security services had carried out secret exercises based on his scenario. They practised quelling civil disturbances with mass arrests following a peace deal that required redrawing the borders to expel large numbers of Palestinian citizens.

Behind the scenes, other Israeli officials are known to have supported more limited populated land swaps.

Documents leaked in 2011 revealed that three years earlier the centrist government of Ehud Olmert had advanced just such a population exchange during peace talks.

Tzipi Livni, then the foreign minister, had proposed moving the border so that several villages in Israel would end up in a future Palestinian state. Notably, however, Umm al-Fahm and other large communities nearby were not mentioned.

The political sympathies between Lieberman and Livni, the latter widely seen as a peacemaker by the international community, were nonetheless evident.

In late 2007, as Israel prepared for the Annapolis peace conference, Livni described a future Palestinian state as “the answer” for Israel’s Palestinian citizens. She said it was illegitimate for them to seek political reforms aimed at ending Israel’s status as a “home unto the Jewish people”.

Demographic reduction

The first hints that Netanyahu might have adopted Lieberman’s plan came in early 2014 when the Maariv newspaper reported that a population exchange that included the Triangle had been proposed in talks with the US administration, then headed by Barack Obama.

The hope, according to the paper, was that the transfer would reduce the proportion of Palestinian citizens from a fifth of the population to 12 per cent, shoring up the state’s Jewishness.

Now Netanyahu has effectively confirmed that large-scale populated land swaps may become a new condition for any future peace agreement with the Palestinians, observed Jabareen.

At Lieberman’s request in 2014, the Israeli foreign ministry produced a document outlining ways a land and population exchange could be portrayed as in accordance with international law. Most experts regarded the document’s arguments as specious.

The foreign ministry concluded that the only hope of justifying the measure would be to show either that the affected citizens supported the move, or that it had the backing of the Palestinian Authority, currently headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

Anything short of this would be a non-starter because it would either qualify as “forced transfer” of the Triangle’s inhabitants, a war crime, or render them stateless.

The problem for Israel is that opinion polls have repeatedly shown that no more than a quarter of Palestinians in the Triangle area back being moved into a Palestinian state. Getting their approval is likely to prove formidably difficult.

Zahalka rejected claims by Israeli politicians that this was a vote of confidence from Palestinian citizens in Israeli democracy.

“Israel has made the West Bank a living hell for Palestinians, and few [in Israel] would choose to inflict such suffering on their own families. But it also because we do not want to be severed from the rest of the Palestinian community in Israel – from our personal, social and economic life.”

Jabareen agreed. “We are also connected to places like Nazareth, Haifa, Acre, Jaffa, Lid and Ramle.”

And he noted that Netanyahu and Lieberman were talking about redrawing the borders to put only their homes inside a future Palestinian state. “Umm al-Fahm had six times as much land before Israel confiscated it. We still consider those lands as ours, but they are not included in the plan.”

Recognise Jewish state

It is in this context – one where Palestinians citizens will not consent to their communities being moved outside Israel’s borders – that parallel political moves by Netanyahu should be understood, said Jabareen.

Not least, it helps to explain why Netanyahu has made recognition of Israel as a Jewish state by Abbas’ Palestinian Authority a precondition for talks.

Aware of the trap being laid for it, the PA has so far refused to offer such recognition. But if it can be arm-twisted into agreement, Netanyahu will be in a much stronger position. He can then impose draconian measures on Palestinians in Israel, including loyalty oaths and an end to their demands for political reform – under threat that, if they refuse, they will be moved to a Palestinian state.

At the same time, Netanyahu has been pushing ahead with a new basic law that would define Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, rather than of Israel’s entire population. The legislation’s intent is to further weaken the Palestinian minority’s claim on citizenship.

Netanyahu’s decision to ban the Islamic Movement as a terror organisation fits into the picture too.

In a 2012 report by the International Crisis Group, a Washington and Brussels-based conflict resolution group, an official in Lieberman’s party explained that one of the covert goals of Lieberman’s plan was to rid Israel of “the heartland of the Islamic Movement”.

Conversely, Netanyahu’s Likud allies and coalition partners have been pushing aggressively to annex settlements in the West Bank.

Zahalka noted that the prime minister gave his backing last week to legislation that would expand Jerusalem’s municipal borders to incorporate a number of large settlements – a move that would amount to annexation in all but name.

“The deal is Israel takes Jerusalem and its surrounding areas, and gives Umm al-Fahm and its surroundings to the PA,” he said.

The pieces seem to be slowly falling into place for a populated land exchange that would strip hundreds of thousands of Palestinians of their Israeli citizenship.

Paradoxically, however, the ultimate obstacle may prove to be Netanyahu himself – and his reluctance to concede any kind of meaningful state to the Palestinians.

August 4, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pentagon Enjoys Impunity in Spite of the Rapidly Mounting Civilian Death Toll

By Grete Mautner – New Eastern Outlook – 01.08.2017

Somehow most of us grew accustomed to various media sources reporting horrific crimes against civilians committed by US servicemen in various regions of the world on the daily basis.

For instance, yet another air raid launched by US Air Force on July 25 in Afghanistan claimed a number of civilian lives. Eight people fell dead, including women and children. For local residents the fact that the area where the attack occurred is being contested by pro-government forces and various militant groups is yesterday’s news. However, as eyewitnesses argue, this time the strikes were aimed against civilians. There’s been reports that those who were trying to provide first aid to the victims of the air strike were outraged by the number of wounded minors. It’s curious that the contested Nangarhar province is located on the very border with Pakistan, so there are no large cities where hitting one’s designated target may be tricky. Americans have been bombing the area for a long time.

Under the conditions of self-declared military intervention, local authorities are forced to bear with the fact that the death of a single terrorist killed by US and NATO soldiers would be accompanied by a number of civilian lives lost in the process. However, the best the Pentagon has ever done for the relatives of its victims was the offering of pathetic condolences accompanied by a promise to “investigate the incident”. Just a few days ago US aircraft would “mistakenly” bomb an Afghan military base in the province of Helmand, claiming the lives of 17 Afghan policemen.

American air raids usually result in destroyed Afghanistan schools, as it was on July 15, when yet another school was attacked from the sky in the town of Kunduz, and destroyed hospitals, like the one run by Doctors Without Borders that was destroyed by a coalition air strike last October. Back then a total 24 people was murdered, including 12 medical practitioners and three children. Even wedding ceremonies that can be pretty massive in Afghanistan are not immune to such US and NATO attacks, as it happened in November in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, when a single US air strike would claim a total of 95 civilians lives, while leaving another 50 people injured.

In the first half of 2017 alone a total of 5243 civilians suffered injuries during various skirmishes, with 1,662 of them suffering lethal injuries and 3,581 suffering non-lethal injured, says a report of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). Women and children are still suffering the most from the conflict. According to the above mentioned report, in the first 6 months of 2017, 174 women were killed and 462 injured. UNAMA chief Tadamichi Yamamoto has recently noted that Afghans continue to die, get injured, and be forced to abandon their homes to escape violence.

In Syria and Iraq, the death toll is even higher. The UN and human rights organizations are outraged, since they have long been accusing Washington of neglecting international law and the basic safety of the people they claim to be protecting. But nobody seems to listen.

For instance, the campaign that the West launched to pursue the liberation of Iraq turned out to be no less brutal than the war that was raging in the country. In spite of all sorts of statements that Washington would make about the so-called high precision strikes it would allegedly carry out in Mosul, a number of American media sources would publish satellite images of the city virtually reduced to ruins. According to the Independent, more than 40,000 civilians were killed in the devastating battle to retake Mosul from ISIS – a death toll far higher than was previously estimated.

It is necessary to conduct an independent investigation of the crimes committed against civilians of Iraqi Mosul. This statement was made by the international human rights organization known as Amnesty International. According to the human rights defenders, the US-led coalition conducted a “series of merciless and illegal attacks” in Mosul. In particular, it is asserted that the coalition has been using highly explosive and inaccurate ordinance. As it’s been stressed by the Amnesty International, the battle for Mosul led to a true humanitarian disaster.

But the strikes carry on, as it’s been reported the recent strike carried out by the US-led coalition last week against a prison in Syria’s Rakka, where ISIS would hold its hostages, resulted in a total of 30 people killed.

Syria’s civilian population is dying in hundreds at the hands of US servicemen that have no legal justification to even be present in Syria. The mounting death toll has been carefully tracked by the Airwars portal.

To mislead the international community and hide the true extent of the crimes that are being committed by US servicemen in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, thus preventing an international investigation from giving a careful evaluation of the bloody role that Washington played in the destruction of the Middle East, Washington has been routinely accusing Damascus of chemical weapons usage.

Just last June, the White House would announce that US intelligence sources were in possession of reports about the alleged preparations carried out by Syrian authorities to launch a chemical attack. These reports were followed by unfounded accusations against Damascus voiced by the opposition forces.

However, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford has been forced to publicly acknowledge that the Pentagon has no grounds to suspect the Syrian government of any instances of chemical weapons use.

However, the international community has every ground to accuse the United States of committing war crimes in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, where hundreds of civilians continue to perish due to indiscriminate American air raids, yet, no one has been brought to justice so far.

August 1, 2017 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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