From the ‘What was that sound’ thread so that we stay on thread I have posted my reply here’Paphitis:
When you bomb innocent civilians and try to destroy a Rebellion rather than seek a peace deal encompassing all Syrians, then yes, you are bound to be blamed!
I don’t for one minute accept that either Assad, Putin, Cameron, Hollande, Turnbull etc. kill civilians as a matter of policy. If you were talking about Daesh, all I can say is that I am relieved the US has not supplied them with F-16’s like they supplied the ‘
moderates’ (
and all the other Islamic groups by association) with TOW anti-tank weapons. Saudi, Turkey and the other Arab States .......... hmmmmm I wouldn’t bet on them not doing it, mainly through incompetence rather than deliberate., too many people watching them!!
I would find it credible that civilians have died in air raids, unfortunately that goes with urban war fare. This is why it is more probable that Assad/Putin would be likely to incur civilian casualties than the coalition! They are fighting a bunch of well armed, urban terrorists in towns, villages and cities where their enemy is well dug in and has had a long period of time consolidate their defences such as a network of underground tunnels. (
Notice how worried the Israeli’s get about the tunnels in Gaza? They don’t tread carefully; they drop 1000kg bombs into the centre of residential areas, irrespective of the civilian casualties, because they know the danger of chasing armed fighters through tunnels. Like the US they couldn’t give a sh*t about civilians either.)
As for a ’rebelion’ ? Again the wording is designed to make these ‘
moderates’ look as if they are defending themselves against an unjustified action by Assad. At the end of the day this ‘rebellion’ can only be seen in the light of International Law. It is an armed uprising against the State and, as I said previously, no State would take that lying down. For the US/NATO and the other coalition partners to supply weapons to a group of rebels to fight a government to invoke regime change, is against all the rules of civilised behaviour and compounds the crime.
I find it strange that you are so much in support of this sort of action by your ‘
coalition’ but can openly attack Russia for doing a very similar thing by supporting Ukraine rebels defending themselves from an illegal government, imposed on them by the US, that has made it very clear that they want to exterminate them as they just happen to be ethnic Russians? Where is your support for the will of the people to determine their own future and minorities having their say in this instance? Remember, these Eastern Ukrainians are not trying to overthrow a regime ........... they are truly defending themselves agains a tyrant with a bad history! They didn’t start it .......... the US did!
Your coalition has mainly been attacking infrastructure
OUTSIDE urban areas, which is why the coalition has achieved so little on the ground in the two years they have been bombing Syria and also Iraq. Even then the US still makes mistakes but these are treated in a very different light to the same error made buy Putin or Assad. So the reporting in the MSM is not a true representation of the facts.
Let me give you an example:
A few weeks ago the Russians were accused of bombing an MSF field hospital in Aleppo. The Russians denied it. I believe the story broke through AI on information received from MSF in Geneva. The casualties were quoted as 25 civilians plus some MSF staff. By the time the story reached the MSM they had added a word for that bit of extra impact ....... DELIBERATELY’! That paints the Russians as animals. The civilian casualty figures were provided by .... you’ve guessed ..... The Syrian Observatory for Human Right (
that one man band in Coventry who gets his intelligence from the Islamic ‘moderates’)
A couple of days later a few more facts immerged, although the MSM played it very quietly .......... I think it came between a ‘Zit Squeezing’ video and the latest information on the Kardashians latest life event. It turns out that the information initially posted by MSF had a crucial bit of the story missing!
It is standard procedure for MSF to give the coordinates of their operational field units to both the US coalition and the Syrian/Russian coalition, it helps to avoid accidents. But it appears that they broke with this normal protocol and didn’t give the Syrian/Russian forces the coordinates of this hospital and several others, but they did to the US coalition ........... because they believed it would make them safer! So, they believed all the bogey man stories people like you expound in your inherent hatred of Assad and Putin.
It also came out, again some days later that this hospital and the others were ALL well inside the territory held by the rebels/Daesh and all the 100 other terrorist groups.
What did the Russians see? A moving crowd of mainly armed people in military fatigues rushing into and out of a building and travelling in the 4WD pick-ups ...... those they mount heavy machine guns and rocket launchers on. They don’t have nice white ambulances like those in the Govt. controlled areas. Natural conclusion? ........ it was some sort of military command/control centre and they went for it ..... several times as they ‘
knew’ that if it was a hospital MSF would have told them. Everything said It was a legitimate military target and that is also why they went for what I believe they call ‘double-tap’ i.e. they repeat the raid ten/twenty minutes or so later to kill those going to help the wounded. This is a technique frequently used by the US in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia etc.
Your SOHR reports
‘civilian’ deaths even though almost certainly they were all rebel combatants. Why because in every report unless the victims are FSA they are called ‘
civilians'.! So they just add a bit more ‘
anti-Putin/Assad’ distortion to the story.
Now let’s be pragmatic? Did the Russians deliberately target this hospital ?..... YES. Did they ‘double tap’ ?..... YES. Was it an inhumane barbaric act deliberately directed at civilians ...... NO!
Protocol was broken by MSF which, rather than protecting them from the ‘
barbaric’ Russians .......... had exactly the reverse effect and made it very likely they would be targeted. That is why reading the various sources and putting together a far more complete picture is a lot more credible than scanning the headlines of your favourite on-line news paper and not reading sites that could give an alternate coverage and more detail of the events. This gives you a distorted view based primarily on a hatreds of both Assad and Putin. This applies to a lot of what you opine ..... it is just your opinion based on single sources and often way off what actually occurred at the time because you do not have all the facts. It comes down to using common sense. It is you that is being led up the garden path!
Were the Russians guilty of a deliberate and barbaric act against civilians ......
NO; it was an accident that would have been avoided had established protocols been followed. Russia was NOT GUILTY as charged!
