The Yemen Tragedy Further Fueled by the West and Its Allies

Viktor Mikhin
New Eastern Outlook

A most sophisticated demagogy, blatant falsifying of facts, impudent interpretation of events with everything going upside down, these are the thoughts that come to one’s mind when one reads another forgery concocted in the West. We mean the statement addressed to Iran calling for the termination of the actions which are allegedly destabilizing the situation in the Persian Gulf. The statement was made by the governments of the US, the UK and their satellites: the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, on June 24, as reported by the US Department of State press service. In this manifesto, contrary to the obvious facts, the signatories held Iran responsible for the escalation of the situation in Yemen and the attacks on the oil tankers on May 12 and June 13, urging the Islamic Republic to start searching for a diplomatic solution. The intensity of this demagogy, as the saying goes, is beyond the scale.

Let us however, in a quiet fashion and on the basis of the obvious facts, consider the situation in the Persian Gulf area and ask several questions. Did Iran or the poor Yemen suffering a score of internal problems, indeed attack Saudi Arabia? Did the Houthis indeed create a so-called Arab coalition which has consistently bombed the Saudi cities and villages killing the civilians? By no means. It was the Saudis, namely the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud who took up the foreign policy responsibilities due to the old age and numerous diseases of his father, the King, and who gave the order sanctioning the rough intervention of Riyadh in internal affairs of the neighboring state of Yemen and the total bombing of the Yemen cities.

The leader of the Houthis and the President of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee (SRC) Mohammed Ali al-Houthi demanded the UN Secretary General to condemn the war crimes committed in Yemen. Among the crimes perpetrated by the coalition of the Arab countries (led by Saudi Arabia and supported by the countries of the West), the Houthi leader named the ruthless blockade of the Yemen people, the famine in the country, the ongoing air embargo, the blockade of the Red Sea ports, the mass murders (including those of children), the destruction of civil facilities targeted during the military attacks.

The UN strongly condemned the following Saudi air raid on the Yemen capital city of Sanaa which resulted in the death of many civilians, including five children; dozens of people were wounded. The head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Henrietta Holsman Fore, speaking at the UN Security Council session, urged the international community to save the lives of the millions of Yemenite children. She emphasized that, since the beginning of the conflict in the country, according to official figures only, up to 10,000 children had been killed or wounded. According to the UN, the Saudi Air Force “aimed at the civilians systematically,” dropping bombs on hospitals, schools, weddings, funeral processions and even on the camps for the displaced persons escaping from bombing.

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Will the US ever be held accountable for its war crimes?

Jean Perier
New Eastern Outlook

For more than a decade, the United States has been steadily increasing the scale of its illegal military operations across the Middle East, resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.

Eighteen years ago, the US invaded Afghanistan under the pretext of ousting the Taliban who allegedly granted sanctuary to Al-Qaeda. According to a study released by Brown University, more than 140,000 Afghan militants and civilians have died in the fight.

Since December 2001, the United States has been conducting various operations in Somali, and even today the Pentagon carries out both air strikes and ground operations, accompanied by a constant toll of civilian lives.

Back in 2003, Washington launched Operation Iraq Freedom to strip Saddam Hussein of WMDs he didn't even have and to convert Iraq into a «democracy», plunging this country into a state of perpetual chaos guaranteeing that it will remain a Western bastion in the Arab and Islamic World for years to come.

Eight years ago, the US succeeded in destabilizing Libya, when US warplanes attacked the troops of Libya's most successful ruler to date - Muammar Gaddafi. Back then, Washington took every step to ensure his government would be ousted and and its key leaders murdered. The Libyan conflict has since produced tens of thousands of dead. In 2016, Barack Obama said that Libya was probably the "worst mistake" of his presidency.

The seven years of war in Syria resulted in a death toll of half a million Syrian nationals. Here, American troops are stationed illegally to fight ISIS and "indigenous ground forces." The strange wording that Washington uses in its official rhetoric is no coincidence, since more than on one occasion US armed forces have opened fire on both Syrian government troops and civilians, with no official rationale ever being given to explain this brutality.

In Yemen, the United States has been backing Saudi Arabia's efforts to put an end to the Houthi rebellion for three years. Washington carries on supplying Saudi authorities with high-precision weapons, combat aircraft and intelligence. This war has already triggered the largest humanitarian catastrophe of the 21st century, with 20 million people finding themselves on the brink of starvation. 

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The Buried Maidan Massacre and Its Misrepresentation by the West

Ivan Katchanovski
Consortium News

The new Ukrainian government is faced with reopening an inquiry into evidence of an organized mass killing in Kiev that Poroshenko stonewalled. Ivan Katchanovski investigates.

Five years ago, the Maidan massacre in Kiev, Ukraine, of Feb. 18-20, 2014, was a watershed event, not only for the politics and history of Ukraine but also for world politics generally. This mass killing in downtown Kyiv set the stage for the violent overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine and a new Cold War between Washington and Moscow.

Therefore, it is remarkable that five years after this massacre shook the world, no one has been sentenced for any of the Maidan killings. This was the best documented case of mass killing in history, broadcast live on TV and the internet, in presence of thousands of eyewitnesses. It was filmed by hundreds of journalists from major media in the West, Ukraine, Russia, and many other countries as well as by numerous social media users. Yet, to this day, no one has been brought to justice for this major and consequential crime.

From the start, the dominant narrative promoted by the Ukrainian and Western governments and mainstream media has placed the blame for this tragedy firmly on the Yanukovych government. It contends that forces loyal to former President Victor Yanukovych— either snipers and/or the Berkut, a special anti-riot police— massacred peaceful Maidan protesters on the direct orders of Yanukovych himself. Such charges against Yanukovych, his ministers and commanders and a special Berkut unit—whose five ex-members were tried for the murder of 48 Maidan protesters on Feb. 20, 2014 — are generally taken at face value. With some limited exceptions, challenges to this narrative are treated dismissively.

For the most part, mainstream news media in the U.S. and other Western countries ignored trial evidence, public statements by officials and politicians and scholarly studies that put the standard narrative under question. This includes non-reporting about my own academic studies of the Maidan massacre.

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US Killing Civilians With 'Impunity' in Hidden War on Somalia: Report

Common Dreams 

"The attacks appear to have violated international humanitarian law."

A human rights group is accusing the United States of waging a shadow air war in Somalia that is killing civilians with abandon. 

Amnesty International issued its findings on the African war Tuesday evening in a report titled The Hidden US War in Somalia (pdf).

The U.S. has been covertly engaging in conflicts in Somalia for decades, but in April 2017, the Donald Trump administration upped airstrikes and attacks targeted at the rebel group Al-Shabaab.

The human rights advocacy group studied five of more than 100 strikes on Somalia over the past two years and found that 14 civilians were killed in the attacks. Eight others were injured, the report says.

"These five incidents were carried out with Reaper drones and manned aircraft in Lower Shabelle," Amnesty said in a press release, "a region largely under Al-Shabaab control outside the Somali capital Mogadishu."

The U.S. military denied to Amnesty that any civilians have been killed as a result of American operations in Somalia.

However, Amnesty's report claims its methodology is sound and that the evidence is overwhelming. 

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British Bombing in Syria Reaches Record High

The Morning Star

"New data obtained by research group Drone Wars has “laid bare” the scale of British bombing in the region. The group found that Britain dropped 75 bombs over Syria in December, as planes and drones stepped up their attack on the last Isis stronghold."

Britain carried out a record number of air strikes in Syria during the last month of 2018, despite mounting concerns over civilian casualties and costs.

New data obtained by research group Drone Wars has “laid bare” the scale of British bombing in the region.

The group found that Britain dropped 75 bombs over Syria in December, as planes and drones stepped up their attack on the last Isis stronghold.

It was the most intense month of aerial bombardment last year, bringing the annual total to 464 munitions from 225 separate raids.

And while the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has published the number of air strikes, it is much more secretive about civilian casualties, causing concern about who was caught in the crossfire.

As well as local Syrians, kidnapped British journalist John Cantile may also be among those at risk from air strikes.

The war photographer was snatched by Isis terrorists in 2012 and presumed dead, but last week Security Minister Ben Wallace insisted he was still alive.

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Saudi Arabia Issues Royal Pardon for Everything Soldiers Have Done in Yemen

Jason Ditz
Anti-War

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia announced that it is issuing a royal pardon for any and all Saudi troops engaged in the war in Yemen, covering all crimes related to violating military rules and discipline. They said this is to show appreciation for the “heroics” of the invading forces.

The Saudi invasion of Yemen has been widely controversial internationally. Saudi airstrikes have killed massive numbers of Yemeni civilians, and the war has also caused a famine, and the largest cholera epidemic in human history.

Faced with UN criticism, Saudi officials heavily resisted allegations of wrongdoing, and ultimately got the UN to agree that Saudi Arabia would be allowed to investigate its own forces, and police themselves. This pardon shows none of that is going to matter.

It is unclear what prompted the pardon to be offered no, as the war shows no sign of ending, and there is no suggestion from official reports that the Saudis had punished any of their troops more than nominally for war crimes in the first place.

U.S. Media Whitewashes Gaza Massacre

Jo Lauria
Consortium News

As Israel killed more than 50 Palestinians in cold blood protesting the American embassy move on Monday, U.S. corporate media failed to accurately report what happened in Gaza, once again meekly protecting the government line, argues Joe Lauria. 

Typical of the mindset of corporate media reporting on what happened in Gaza on Monday as Israeli soldiers killed more than 50 protesting Palestinians, is this tweet from CNN. It says: “Death toll rises to at least 52 people during clashes along the border fence between Israel and Gaza, Palestinian officials say. More than 2,400 people have been injured.” CNN’s new slogan is “#FactsFirst.”

Adam Johnson, who writes for the media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, responded to CNN with a tweet of his own:

“This one’s got it all:

• ‘death toll rises’ — no one was killed and no one specific party did the killing, the death toll just mysteriously ‘rises’

• ‘clashes’ — launders all power asymmetry

• ‘2,400 people have been injured’ — all 2,400 are Palestinian but lets go with ‘people’.”                                  

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, said on his blog that he did a Google News search for the word “massacre” and found not one reference to Gaza.  
A New York Times headline on Monday said: “Dozens of Palestinians have died in protests as the U.S. prepares to open its Jerusalem Embassy.” Journalist Glenn Greenwald responded: “Most western media outlets have become quite skilled – through years of practice – at writing headlines and describing Israeli massacres using the passive tense so as to hide the culprit. But the all-time champion has long been, and remains, the New York Times. #HaveDied.”

[Perhaps because of pressure from Greenwald and others, the Times on Monday night changed its headline to “Israel Kills Dozens at Gaza Border as U.S. Embassy Opens in Jerusalem.”]

Yet another CNN headline simply read: “Dozens die in Gaza.” Journalist Max Blumenthal responded: “Maybe they were old. Perhaps they were very sick. They just up and died! Who will solve the mystery behind these deaths?”

Blumenthal later offered a possible solution to the mystery: “According to the White House, Khhamas launched 41 protesters into unsuspecting Israeli bullets.”

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U.S. Moves Forward With Multibillion-Dollar “Smart Bomb” Sale to Saudi Arabia and UAE Despite Civilian Deaths in Yemen

The Intercept

 

Last month, warplanes belonging to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen repeatedly bombed a wedding party in the northern part of the country, killing more than 20 people, including the bride, and injuring dozens of others. In the days that followed, local media published a photograph of a bomb fragment with a serial number tying it to the U.S.-based weapons manufacturer Raytheon.

Now the State Department is taking preliminary steps toward a massive, multibillion-dollar sale of similar weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, three congressional aides, a State Department official, and two other people familiar with the sales told The Intercept.

The State Department has yet to announce the exact details and dollar value of the package, but it is said to include tens of thousands of precision-guided munitions from Raytheon, the same company that was involved in producing the weapons used in last month’s strike.

Reuters reported in November that Saudi Arabia had agreed to buy $7 billion in precision-guided weapons from U.S.-based companies Raytheon and Boeing. Raytheon was “courting lawmakers and the State Department to allow it to sell 60,000 precision-guided munitions to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” according to the New York Times.

The State Department has briefed staff on the House and Senate Foreign Relations committees about the sale, but has yet to release details of the package to members of the committees, according to three aides who were not authorized to speak on the record. Once the chair and ranking member of the committees give the nod, the State Department can formally notify Congress about the sale, which could happen as early as next week.

Under the Arms Export Control Act, the State Department reviews potential arms sales to make sure they align with U.S. foreign policy goals and decides whether to issue export licenses. It then notifies Congress about sufficiently large sales, giving Congress a 30-day window to review and potentially block them.

The sale in question is a direct commercial transaction between Raytheon and the Gulf countries, which does not require the government to publicly announce the sale at the time of congressional notification. That means it will be up to senators to decide how many of the details to make public.

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As Israel continues to kill children with impunity, urge lawmakers to support H.R. 4391

If Americans Knew Blog

It’s time to take action. Israel has a history of indifference toward Palestinian children’s lives, and now it is targeting and killing them in the Gaza March – with vocal support from its leaders.

We need to encourage legislators to cosponsor Rep. Betty McCollum’s H.R. 4391, the “Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children,” which seeks to ensure that United States financial assistance to the Government of Israel is not used to support the detention of Palestinian children by Israeli forces.

from American Muslims for Palestine

As of May 6, at least 43 Palestinian peaceful demonstrators in Gaza have been shot dead by Israeli snipers since the Great March of Return began on March 30. Of those, at least 5 of those victims have been children, with hundreds more injured.

Just last week, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy named Azzam Hilal Uweida succumbed to his injuries after being shot in the head by Israeli forces. He died at the European Hospital in Gaza. A week before that, Israeli snipers killed and crushed the bones of another Palestinian child, a 14-year-old boy named Mohammad Ibrahim Ayyoub in the east of Jabaliya in northern Gaza. The photographer who filmed the death of Ayyoub said he saw the teen standing about 150 meters from the Gaza perimeter security fence. He observed Ayyoub attempting to take cover behind a low sand berm when he was shot and fell to the ground.

Following Ayoub’s state-sanctioned murder, Israeli Brigadier-General Zvika Fogel, the former chief of staff of the Israeli army’s “southern command,” said in a radio interview, “If [a] child or anyone else gets close to the fence […] his punishment is death. As far as I’m concerned, if you can only shoot him to stop him, in the leg or arm – great. But if it’s more than that then, yes, you want to check with me whose blood is thicker, ours or theirs.”

Israel’s disregard for the lives of Palestinian children is well documented. In addition to targeting and killing children with impunity, the Israeli military arrests and prosecutes around 700 Palestinian children annually. The Israeli military detention system is one that denies basic due process rights and is cruel, inhumane, and degrading.

How You Can Help:

As you know, last fall Rep. Betty McCollum introduced H.R. 4391, the “Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children” bill. The bill seeks to promote justice, equality and human rights by ensuring that United States financial assistance provided to the Government of Israel is not used to support the detention of Palestinian children by Israeli forces in a military detention system where ill-treatment is widespread and institutionalized.

1) Please contact your representative immediately to urge them to cosponsor H.R. 4391.

2) Call Jose-Manuel Dobarco, Foreign Affairs Officer and at the Department of State, who reviews Leahy Law violations for the Near East Affairs desk. Dobarco’s contact number: 202-632-2040.

Talking Points: 

• Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes between 500 and 700 children each year in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections.
• Children within the Israeli military detention system commonly report physical and verbal abuse from the moment of their arrest, and coercion and threats during interrogations. Under Israeli military law, Palestinian children have no right to a lawyer during interrogation.
• Ill-treatment of Palestinian children arrested by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank has been widely documented by UNICEF, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Defense for Children International – Palestine. Your support is needed to ensure accountability and change.
• Leahy Law: The murder of Palestinian children using weapons and ammunition paid for by American dollars is in direct violation of the Leahy Law, named after Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), which prohibits the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights “with impunity.” Israel’s brutal assaults on Gaza are a textbook case for when the Leahy Law should be applied.

‘Crocodile tears’: Boris Johnson accused of hypocrisy over tweet on Yemen deaths

Comment: Boris Johnson is a power-hungry cretin and fairly representative of Eton-educated Establishment classes. i.e. arrogant, entitled and no clue about reality. Anything that comes out of this guy's mouth is usually inappropriate and inane. "Oh, he's a real character..." No. He's just a moron trying to mould himself after Winston Churchill and failing miserably. He couldn't care less about dead Yemenis.

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RT

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has been accused of “sickening hypocrisy” after tweeting he is “saddened” by news of Yemeni civilians being killed by the Saudi Arabia-led bombardment of the country. 

Up to 20 people were reported killed after a Saudi-led coalition airstrike targeted a wedding party in Hajja, a northern province of Yemen, on Sunday. The bride was among the dead.

Another attack on Saturday in the Mouza district, a western area of the country near the city of Taiz, killed another 20 when a fighter jet bombed a bus carrying commuters.

The UK has licensed £4.6 billion (US$6.4 billion) worth of arms to the Saudis since they intervened in the civil war in support of the Yemen government.

Despite widespread calls to stop the arms sales amid claims the UK is making itself complicit in the Yemen atrocities, Prime Minister Theresa May in March approved the sale of 48 highly advanced fighter jets to the Gulf country despite protestations.

Johnson’s seemingly compassionate tweet was subsequently attacked, with Twitter users posting that his sadness was akin to “crocodile tears.”

The UN has labelled Yemen “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” and put the death toll in Yemen since the war began at 10,000, with many more wounded.

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See also:  Silence from UK govt slammed after reports of deadly Saudi-led airstrike on Yemen wedding

US-Backed Coalition Bombs Wedding Party in Yemen, Killing Dozens

Mint Press

 

Weeks after President Donald Trump thanked Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince for his country’s use of U.S. military power, the U.S.-backed coalition bombed a wedding party in Yemen, killing at least 20 civilians including the bride. The number of casualties is expected to rise.

On social media, journalist Glenn Greenwald reminded readers of the U.S. connection to Saudi Arabia’s assault on the impoverished country, which has led to what the U.N. has called “the worst man-made humanitarian crisis of our time”—and which would not be possible without U.S. support. 

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Photo and Video Diary from Eastern Ghouta, Syria – by Vanessa Beeley

 Driving towards Wafedin camp in Eastern Ghouta that has been receiving civilian evacuees from Eastern Ghouta. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

Vanessa Beeley
21st Century Wire

Truth always reveals itself. We have seen it in Homs, Aleppo, Deir Ezzor, Raqqa, Madaya – in all areas of Syria where civilians are liberated from the US Coalition proxy army of terrorist groups. Now it is the turn of Eastern Ghouta to expose the Western corporate media campaign for the sensationalist propaganda it has been for the last seven years of this senseless conflict, externally imposed upon the sovereign nation of Syria and its people.

The UN held a press briefing yesterday in Damascus. We arrived late but in time to hear UN figures of 75,000 civilians who have escaped Eastern Ghouta for the safety of the Syrian government centres set up to receive these traumatised civilians as they flee the terrorist occupation of their towns and villages via the Syrian/Russian established and negotiated humanitarian corridors.

According to a UN official, 25,000 of those civilians have been reunited with their families by the Syrian government, the remaining 50,000 are in the IDP centres and are being taken care of by Syrian civil society organisations.

These UN figures are lower than the Syrian Government and Russian negotiator numbers but it is not unusual for the UN to be out of alignment in this respect. Syrian Arab News Agency recently reported numbers closer to 135,000.  However these UN figures still expose western media reporting of much lower numbers as deeply flawed at best, deliberately misleading at worst.

Assaf Abood from BBC Arabic told me that the UN is not doing enough to assist at these IDP centres and he raised this question during the meeting. He also informed me that there are an estimated 130,000 civilians still in Jaish Al Islam controlled Douma.

Negotiations are ongoing between Russia, the Syrian Government and Jaish Al Islam (a Saudi financed terrorist faction) to decide upon their ultimate evacuation destination, among other important conditions for their surrender  and the final release of all civilians under their control.

It is worth mentioning that Jaish Al Islam have the reputation of being the most brutal & extremist of the terrorist occupiers in Eastern Ghouta. The notorious “repentance prison” is located here:

“These terrorists are taking the civilians as hostages, they have a jail in Douma (Eastern Ghouta’s main city) called the Jail of Toubah, do you know what Toubah means in Arabic? It’s ‘Repentance’, you don’t leave this jail until you repent. They have thousands of innocent people taken prisoners, civilians, and put in this jail in Douma. And from time to time they take women and children, put them in cages and drive them into the streets” ~ Syria News

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Will Assad's retaking of East Ghouta be the the last great battle of the Syrian war?

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran

Reading media reports of the fighting in east Ghouta over the last few days has triggered an eery sense of déjà vu.

It is like taking a time machine back to the autumn of 2016 and listening to all the arguments over the fighting in Aleppo all over again.

Just as in 2016 the reports concern fighting between the Syrian military and a large force of Jihadis - in both cases around 10-15,000 men - trapped in a district of one of Syria's two main cities.

In 2016 it was eastern Aleppo; this time it is east Ghouta, which is a suburb of Syria's capital Damascus.
Just as in 2016 the presence of these violent Jihadi terrorists is being ignored, with the fighters 'defending' east Ghouta more often referred to in the Western media as 'moderate rebels' rather than the Al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliated Jihadi militants that they actually are.

Just as in 2016 the air waves and the presses are full of furious denunciations of Syrian and Russian bombing.

There is again talk of barrel bombs and of the supposedly intentional bombing of hospitals, though the military logic of deliberately bombing hospitals is never explained and entirely escapes me.

As was the case with the bombing of eastern Aleppo in 2016 much emphasis is given to the killing of children, with vivid pictures plastered all over the media of dead or injured children, to the point where at times it almost seems as if most of the people being killed in east Ghouta are children.

In 2016 there were no Western reporters in eastern Aleppo to observe and report about the bombing there.

Today in east Ghouta there are also no Western reporters present to observe and report about the bombing there.

Just as was the case in eastern Aleppo in 2016 so in east Ghouta today the presence of Western reporters is impossible because the violent Jihadi terrorists who in the autumn of 2016 were in control of eastern Aleppo, and the violent Jihadis who are in control of east Ghouta today, would kill or kidnap without hesitation any Western reporter foolish enough to go there.

The result is that just as was the case in 2016 in Aleppo, the reports of the bombing in east Ghouta come entirely from 'local sources' whose accuracy and objectivity (given that they are reporting from an Al-Qaeda controlled area) must be in doubt.

Moreover the same organisation - the White Helmets - is prominently involved in both places and on both occasions.  

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A Personal Reply to the Fact-Challenged Smears of Terrorist-Whitewashing Channel 4, Snopes and La Presse

Eva Bartlett
In Gaza

"The Guardian, Channel 4, Snopes, and Agnès Gruda are indeed guilty of journalistic malpractice, and war propaganda of the most heinous kind."

 -- Eva Bartlett

 In Part 1, I wrote of the Guardian's quite unoriginal Russophobic story cheering for al-Qaeda's rescuers, the White Helmets. In this second part, I expose other (some serial) offenders, guilty of disinformation on the White Helmets, and war propaganda on Syria to a degree that Goebbels would be envious. They are further guilty of ignoring the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of Syrians who call a spade a spade, a terrorist a terrorist. 

The Channel 4 "Fact Check" Card

In the Guardian article in question, the author began by linking to a Channel 4 News smear piece on myself which had nothing to do with the point she was asserting-whether or not the group had al-Qaeda ties-but which was issued a year ago with the sole intent to cherry-pick my words to discredit myself. Such non sequitur arguments are commonly used by those who cannot backup their statements with facts and who wish to, instead, deflect and mislead.

Had the Guardian had honest intentions regarding the White Helmets article, they might have actually investigated the many members of the White Helmets with ties to al-Qaeda and affiliated extremists. Here is but one example showing the allegiance of over 60 White Helmets members to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

Regarding the Channel 4 smear which the Guardian's own hatchet-piece linked to, it followed my speaking on a December 2016 panel (over 50 minutes, with question period), with three others, including a lawyer and the head of the US Peace Council, in a press room of the United Nations.

In that panel, we spoke of many important issues, including: the illegality of this war on Syria; the need to lift the devastating sanctions on Syria; the statement of unity among over 200 organizations in the US and internationally in solidarity with the Syrian government's fight against foreign intervention; the Syrian reconciliation movement; and the heinous acts committed against Syrian civilians by terrorists, whether from the FSA or Nour al-Deen al-Zenki or ISIS or other.

I spoke for thirteen minutes, noting that my trips to Syria have been self-funded, and that I've traveled widely, interacting one-on-one with Syrians, and seen wide support for their army and leadership.

I highlighted how the over 1.5 million people of Aleppo had endured sieges and the attacks of terrorists groups, which killed nearly 11,000 civilians by end of 2016, and noted being present when on November 3, 2016, terrorist attacks on Aleppo which killed 18 and injured over 200. I cited being present during the November 4 mortar attacks by extremist factions on one of the humanitarian crossroads.  

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See also: Eva Bartlett: How the MSM whitewashed al-Qaeda and White Helmets in Syria

Book Review: Norman Finkelstein's 'Gaza' is an exhaustive act of witness

Marilyn Garson
Mondoweiss

GAZA An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom
Norman Finkelstein
440 pp. University of California Press. $34.95.

After the 2012 war, I told my Gazan team that we needed a new word. 'War' was a goal-oriented pursuit, tempered by mortal and strategic risk. Israel's conflict maintenance was neither.

After the 2014 war, while we still wore those 1000-yard stares, I set out to assign proportionate responsibility. I read books on military accountability, the arc from force projection to force protection, law of war handbooks, and every report I could find. I could not unpick their crazy-making inconsistencies. From their conclusions, I could not recognize what I had seen. I told my team that we needed a new kind of scholarship. Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom, enables a different scholarship. Norman Finkelstein has set out to deconstruct the false narrative of war in Gaza, by refuting its component parts. One by one. Finkelstein is an author, activist and scholar with decades of archives and outrage to bring. Gaza is one exhaustive act of witness. I differ with some of its choices, and I note that in order to emphasize that agreement is not required. I found Gaza hugely valuable as an argument, a demand for accountability, and as a response to the question my team repeated, "What do they think we are?"

From the outset, Norman Finkelstein is specific about his task. "This book is not about Gaza. It is about what has been done to Gaza." The following 400 pages confront and debunk a decade of headline violence. Finkelstein excoriates not only Israeli political and military actors, but also those NGOs and institutions whose work should protect Gazan rights. Instead, he says, Gazans are pounded by the military, and then "betrayed" by a complicit set of institutions.

Finkelstein has said that he sought to combine rigorous scholarship with his anger at the lies which enable the violence. He digs his heels in, and he does not let go. And although he warns of the book's tedium, I found his writing highly readable although, of course, his content is shocking.

To aid others' research, I greatly appreciated the choice to include extensive footnotes, not endnotes. They are rich with sources for further reading. I would have loved a comprehensive bibliography, although that might have doubled the book's length.

He wades straight in, with little repetition of the history.  

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The Mass Killing of Civilians, Now in Syria and Iraq, Is Part of a Long Depressing Pattern of American War Making

Alternet
Frank Joyce

A recent New York Times op-ed by Micah Zenko documents a new increase in civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria. The headline asks the question, Why Is the U.S. Killing So Many Civilians in Syria and Iraq?

The answer, which should be obvious, is this: because that’s what the United States military does and always has, that’s why.

There are peace loving nations in the world. The United States is not one of them. It never has been.

Untaught History

The belief that our “freedom” requires the application of violence to others, especially others who are not white, is deeply embedded in the national psyche. The genocidal idea that the best Indian is a dead Indian precedes the Revolution of 1776. The violence required by the slave trade and the enforcement of slavery itself was also established early on.

The founding fairy tale of the United States credits George Washington and others with nobility and heroism in the violent conflict with the British Army. Often ignored is the messy detail that many Indians and black people fought on the side of the British.

The point is that the true military DNA of the nation is rooted in the nonstop business of slaughtering Native Americans, rebellious slaves, Mexicans, Hawaiians, Filipinos, innumerable Latin Americans, Asians, and sometimes even white people deemed to be in the way of our “God ordained” global mission. One requirement throughout has been worship of those who serve in the military.

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‘Dying in silence’: Suffering of Syrian children at its worst, millions under attack, says UNICEF

Comment: We can thank US-NATO governments for this disgusting spectacle.

 

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RT

 

There are now nearly 6 million Syrian children suffering from the perils of war, including hundreds who were killed, maimed or recruited to fight in 2016, the worst year on record for Syrian children, a UN watchdog has said. 

 

“The depth of suffering is unprecedented. Millions of children in Syria come under attack on a daily basis, their lives turned upside down,”said Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, speaking from Homs, Syria. “Each and every child is scarred for life with horrific consequences on their health, well-being and future.

At least 652 children died last year, and 255 of them were killed in or near their schools, the UNICEF report said. That signals a 20 percent increase on the number killed during 2015. 

“A father in Aleppo lives with the trauma of letting his daughters go to school,” Cappelaere said, retelling one of the many heart-breaking stories from the conflict. “They left their makeshift home one morning with their schoolbags on their backs. Only their lifeless bodies returned after a shell slammed into their classroom.”

UNICEF also believes more than 850 children were recruited to take part in hostilities – double the number in 2015 – and were used as executioners, suicide bombers or prison guards.

While horrifying, the number pales in comparison to the 5.8 million Syrian children who are  dependent on humanitarian assistance – a twelvefold increase from 2012, the organization said.

“Beyond the bombs, bullets and explosions, children are dying in silence often from diseases that can otherwise be easily prevented. Access to medical care, lifesaving supplies and other basic services remains difficult,” the report added.

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UN: 10,000 Civilians Killed, 40,000 Wounded In Saudi War On Yemen

Mint Press News 

SANAA, Yemen (REPORT) — The United Nations’ humanitarian aid official in Yemen says the civilian death toll in the nearly two-year conflict has reached 10,000, with 40,000 others wounded.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Jamie McGoldrick told reporters Monday the figure is based on lists of victims gathered by health facilities and the actual number might be higher.

This announcement marks the first time a U.N. official has confirmed such a high death toll in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation. Earlier, the U.N. reported 4,200 civilians were killed in the war.

The Yemen conflict pits Shiite Houthi rebels and allied forces against the Saudi-led coalition. The coalition waged an air campaign in March 2015 to restore the internationally recognized government that fled the country after Houthis seized the capital.

Obama’s Legacy: Human Cost Of Eight Years Of War

Shadowproof

President Barack Obama declared during his second inauguration speech, “We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.” However, one of the main legacies of Obama’s presidency may be that his administration further institutionalized a framework for a global “war on terrorism” with no end in sight.

In a report released on December 5 on the “legal and policy frameworks” for pursuing war, Obama suggests the frameworks show the U.S. is capable of defending its interests at home and around the world in a manner consistent with the “laws, values, and traditions” that are a “source” of America’s “greatest strength.”

There are six “theaters” of war, which the report highlights: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen. It omits Pakistan, where the CIA has launched drone strikes, as well as countries in Africa, like Mali.

How many civilians have died as a result of these wars? How many civilians have been displaced and turned into refugees, as a result of U.S. warfare in these countries?

The report does not address the human cost of the global “war on terrorism.” It does not suggest whether any goals or objectives in this endless war have been achieved over the past 15 years. Instead, with the ominous election of Donald Trump looming over the country, the report serves as a document capable of insulating the Obama administration from criticism that officials may have gone too far in expanding the presidential power to wage war and carry out “national security operations.”

The track record of the U.S. in “theaters” of war is to pursue war policies, which aid in destabilization and spur the rise of extremist groups that become enemies of the U.S. These enemies provide the U.S. justification for expanded war efforts and touch off a deadly cycle that guarantees countries transform into failed states that may never be hospitable for humanity ever again.

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Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'

The Independent

 

Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.

Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.

Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and one of the authors of the survey of 4,800 individuals in Fallujah, said it is difficult to pin down the exact cause of the cancers and birth defects. He added that "to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened".

US Marines first besieged and bombarded Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, in April 2004 after four employees of the American security company Blackwater were killed and their bodies burned. After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions.

In the assault US commanders largely treated Fallujah as a free-fire zone to try to reduce casualties among their own troops. British officers were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties. "During preparatory operations in the November 2004 Fallujah clearance operation, on one night over 40 155mm artillery rounds were fired into a small sector of the city," recalled Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, a British commander serving with the American forces in Baghdad.

He added that the US commander who ordered this devastating use of firepower did not consider it significant enough to mention it in his daily report to the US general in command. Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form. He said: "My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside."

The survey was carried out by a team of 11 researchers in January and February this year who visited 711 houses in Fallujah. A questionnaire was filled in by householders giving details of cancers, birth outcomes and infant mortality. Hitherto the Iraqi government has been loath to respond to complaints from civilians about damage to their health during military operations.

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See also: Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre