More on Syria

[rowan]

Robert Stuart, a tenacious blogger, has been picking away at a scab the BBC would rather leave firmly in place.
His forensic research concerns an edition of the BBC’s flagship investigative current affairs show Panorama called Saving Syria’s Children. It was broadcast more than three years ago, as many in the media were trying to push the British government into intervening in Syria with bombing raids against the Syrian government – in a move that would effectively have bolstered ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria.
The Panorama programme was one important piece of evidence advanced for such intervention. The footage it included was broadcast in several different formats, and purported to show the victims of a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian military on a school. The BBC reporter for Panorama was Ian Panell.
From the outset, there were concerns about the authenticity of the footage, as I noted in a piece on my own blog in October 2013.
But Stuart’s sustained research and questioning of the BBC, and the state broadcaster’s increasing evasions, have given rise to ever greater concerns about the footage. It looks suspiciously like one scene in particular, of people with horrific chemical burns, was staged.
Rather than confront these concerns and dispell them, the BBC and Pannell have tried a mixture of going to ground, stonewalling and misdirection. That has included trying to remove the footage from both the BBC and social media sites where it had been available.
Even by the BBC’s current dismal standards, its behaviour has been, on the best view, outrageously arrogant. Remember that the BBC is a publicly funded broadcaster. And yet the corporation appears to think it is not even minimally accountable to the British taxpayers who fund it.
In a fascinating new development, a leading freelance TV and radio producer Victor Lewis Smith – and one with a rare conscience and backbone – has intervened after viewing the footage.
He raised troubling questions with the BBC about the Panorama programme and threatened to tear up his contract for a forthcoming radio comedy pilot unless the corporation provided satisfactory answers.
For the first time, the state broadcaster was flushed out of its hiding hole. First, it tried more misdirection, telling him that Ofcom had reviewed the programme and sided with the BBC. But the Ofcom decision was about an RT investigation into the footage – note that Ofcom has hardly been impartial in its treatment of RT – and not a ruling on the accuracy of the BBC footage’s, which Ofcom admitted it was not in a position to assess.
When Lewis Smith didn’t roll over, as the BBC clearly expected, the corporation offered up Panorama’s editor, Rachel Jupp. She would talk to Lewis Smith to placate him. But she had second thoughts and cried off. Lewis Smith then upped the stakes by asking for Panorama’s rushes and again threatened to terminate his contract.
Finally Jupp issued a feeble statement that did nothing to address the concerns Stuart and others have raised.
The BBC has made clear it isn’t willing to be transparent, open or accountable. British taxpayers wondering whether their money was used by the BBC to support a deception – one designed to bolster the case for a decisive political intervention in an extremely volatile conflict – still have no answers.
Lewis Smith has torn up his contract and announced his intention to make a crowd-funded feature documentary investigating the Panorama programme. Let’s hope he does so. This could prove to be a vital case study to help the British public and others judge whether the BBC is really there to serve them or to serve the British political elite.
- See more at: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2017- ... OSUsQ.dpuf

[rowan]

The Western media's silence is deafening:

The Syrian army, supported by Russian airstrikes, continued to advance against the Islamic State group as unknown militants killed dozens in Damascus.

http://europe.newsweek.com/syria-army-r ... 8481?rm=eu

[rowan]

Pretty damning . . .

the US, Israel and other regional components in the US empire have fueled the conflict by derailing negotiations, levying sanctions, bombing the country and arming, funding and training fighters including murderous sectarians.

urthermore, a US-led coalition has bombed Syria more than 7,100 times since the fall of 2014 in the name of defeating the Islamic State, killing between 914 and 1,361 civilians in the process. Earlier this month, the US sent hundreds of troops into northern Syria as part of the effort against the Islamic State.

It’s possible that the Syrian government will benefit from a campaign that rids the country of the Islamic State. However, it is a mistake to see the US-led war on the group as designed to keep the Syrian government in power.

For example, the Americans have armed the Syrian opposition in the period since the US began bombing the Islamic State. The American effort against the group and the more general regional war is about the American ruling class seeking to enrich itself via the military industrial complex while simultaneously deepening the American capacity to influence what happens in Syria in both the short and long term by, for example, building military bases in the country.

The Washington Post reports that, from at least 2013 to 2015, the CIA spent $1 billion per year – or about one-fifteenth of its budget – to train and equip “nearly 10,000 fighters sent into Syria,” combatants the paper describes as “anti-Assad rebels.”


https://electronicintifada.net/content/ ... gees/19886

[rowan]

A US military presence in Syria was the plan all along http://europe.newsweek.com/us-military- ... 9042?rm=eu

[rowan]

Oops! Wrong target again . . .

The US military said on March 16 it carried out a deadly air strike on an Al-Qaeda meeting in northern Syria and would investigate reports that more than 40 civilians were killed when a mosque was struck in the raid.

"We did not target a mosque, but the building that we did target -- which was where the meeting took place -- is about 50 feet (15 meters) from a mosque that is still standing," said Colonel John J. Thomas, spokesman for US Central Command.

According to a Centcom statement, "US forces conducted an airstrike on an Al-Qaeda in Syria meeting location March 16 in Idlib, Syria, killing several terrorists."

The Centcom spokesman later clarified that the precise location of the strike was unclear -- but that it was the same one widely reported to have targeted the village mosque in Al-Jineh, in Aleppo province.

"We are going to look into any allegations of civilian casualties in relation to this strike," he added, when asked about reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that 42 people had died, most of them civilians.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/Defaul ... sCatID=352

[rowan]

Oops! Wrong target again . . .

The US military said on March 16 it carried out a deadly air strike on an Al-Qaeda meeting in northern Syria and would investigate reports that more than 40 civilians were killed when a mosque was struck in the raid.

"We did not target a mosque, but the building that we did target -- which was where the meeting took place -- is about 50 feet (15 meters) from a mosque that is still standing," said Colonel John J. Thomas, spokesman for US Central Command.

According to a Centcom statement, "US forces conducted an airstrike on an Al-Qaeda in Syria meeting location March 16 in Idlib, Syria, killing several terrorists."

The Centcom spokesman later clarified that the precise location of the strike was unclear -- but that it was the same one widely reported to have targeted the village mosque in Al-Jineh, in Aleppo province.

"We are going to look into any allegations of civilian casualties in relation to this strike," he added, when asked about reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that 42 people had died, most of them civilians.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/Defaul ... sCatID=352

The death toll currently stands at 58 and is likely to pass 60

[rowan]

No hysterical ranting about this then, no accusations of genocide or such-like. One country kills 10 million people and there doesn't seem to be much of a problem with it, another kills a few thousand in the process of resisting the former, and suddenly their leader is Hitler reincarnate. Such is the extent of racism and hypocrisy in the West.

In the evening of March 16, 2017, reports came in that a mosque in a Syrian village in the western part of the Aleppo governorate was targeted by an airstrike, killing over 50 attendees of the evening prayer. Most posts on social media blamed either the Russian or the Syrian Air Force for the attack. Some reports, however, accused the United States (US) and the Coalition (CJTF-OIR) it leads, or said that the planes could not be identified. In this investigation, Bellingcat aims to see what we can establish using open source information.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/20 ... e-bombing/

[rowan]

No hysterical ranting about this then, no accusations of genocide or such-like. One country kills 10 million people and there doesn't seem to be much of a problem with it, another kills a few thousand in the process of resisting the former, and suddenly their leader is Hitler reincarnate. Such is the extent of racism and hypocrisy in the West.

In the evening of March 16, 2017, reports came in that a mosque in a Syrian village in the western part of the Aleppo governorate was targeted by an airstrike, killing over 50 attendees of the evening prayer. Most posts on social media blamed either the Russian or the Syrian Air Force for the attack. Some reports, however, accused the United States (US) and the Coalition (CJTF-OIR) it leads, or said that the planes could not be identified. In this investigation, Bellingcat aims to see what we can establish using open source information.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/20 ... e-bombing/

Je suis Syrie!

[kk67]

Western companies will profit from the slaughter that is occurring. I'm tempted to rephrase that but I can't be arsed.
The whole Syria situation is a farce. It's an entirely engineered war.

[rowan]

Western companies will profit from the slaughter that is occurring. I'm tempted to rephrase that but I can't be arsed.
The whole Syria situation is a farce. It's an entirely engineered war.

Absolutely. People have been so easily duped once again, even after the WMD lies and nonsense about Gaddafi planning a genocide of his own people. That extent of gullibility goes beyond stupidty, it requires a certain degree of evil.

[rowan]

Even more than its genocidal war on Iraq & wanton destruction of Libya, it is America's proxy war in Syria, with all its lies and hypocrisy and denials, which has exposed the true extent of evil it is capable of. & that this has continued now over several regimes, clearly indicates a deep state is running US foreign policy, not the circus clowns that trot out as presidents.

Activists and first responders say the building that was targeted was a part of the mosque complex — and that the charred rubble shown in the photo was where 300 people were praying when the bombs began to hit.

More than 42 people were killed and dozens more injured, according to monitoring groups and local activists. First responders with the Syrian Civil Defence — known as the “White Helmets” — rushed to treat the wounded and dig corpses out of the rubble.

An administration official told the Washington Post that two armed, Reaper drones fired “roughly [the] entirety of their Hellfire payload and followed up w/ 500 lb bomb.”

https://theintercept.com/2017/03/17/pen ... at-it-did/

[rowan]

An excellent article which illustrates the roles of all the major players in the Syrian conflict, as well as explaining just why this conflict, like the ones in Iraq, Aghanistan & Libya, is unlikely to end any time soon:

The “Great Game” being played in the Middle East with Syria and Iraq as the center rings bears a superficial similarity to the power political maneuverings of the dominant European states in their African and Asian periphery during the 19th century. There is a somewhat closer resemblance to the Spanish civil war in the mix of multiple local parties, external powers, and ideological militancy. Yet, what we are witnessing today is quite different in some crucial respects – adding to our confusion in trying to make sense of the plot. Complexity and confusion reinforce each other. That is true for the actors themselves.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/20/ ... free-play/

[rowan]

No screams of "genocide" here??

'The strike was carried out by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.'

At least 33 people were killed in an air strike that hit a school sheltering displaced people near the Islamic State-held city of Raqqa, a group that monitors the war in Syria said on Wednesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it believed the strike was carried out by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.

Observatory activists had counted at least 33 bodies at the site near the village of al-Mansoura, west of Raqqa, Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters. The air strike took place on Monday night, he said.

The nearest Islamic State installation to the site of the air strike was a religious school 3 km (1.9 miles) away, he said.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition has previously said that it does everything it can to avoid civilian casualties and that it investigates those that are reported as a result of its air strikes.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led group of militias backed by the U.S.-led coalition, is fighting to isolate Raqqa ahead of an anticipated assault on the city, which Islamic State has used as a command node to plan attacks abroad.

The head of the YPG militia, the strongest in the SDF, said last week that the offensive to retake Raqqa would begin in early April but a spokesman for the U.S. Pentagon said no decision had yet been made.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-midea ... SKBN16T0RV

[rowan]

No screams of "genocide" here??

'The strike was carried out by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.'

At least 33 people were killed in an air strike that hit a school sheltering displaced people near the Islamic State-held city of Raqqa, a group that monitors the war in Syria said on Wednesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it believed the strike was carried out by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.

Observatory activists had counted at least 33 bodies at the site near the village of al-Mansoura, west of Raqqa, Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters. The air strike took place on Monday night, he said.

The nearest Islamic State installation to the site of the air strike was a religious school 3 km (1.9 miles) away, he said.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition has previously said that it does everything it can to avoid civilian casualties and that it investigates those that are reported as a result of its air strikes.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led group of militias backed by the U.S.-led coalition, is fighting to isolate Raqqa ahead of an anticipated assault on the city, which Islamic State has used as a command node to plan attacks abroad.

The head of the YPG militia, the strongest in the SDF, said last week that the offensive to retake Raqqa would begin in early April but a spokesman for the U.S. Pentagon said no decision had yet been made.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-midea ... SKBN16T0RV

The silence around here is deafening . . .

[canta_brian]

Maybe just tough to get a word in edgeways.

[cashead]

There was a fuck-up and civilians died. What new and stunning insight can be added to what has already been stated? It's pretty clear all you want is an echo chamber circlejerk about how America is a bollocks.

[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.