The Syria attack reveals the hypocrisy of the West – which fuels the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen despite documented abuses – but relies on unverified claims to punish Syria, journalist and broadcaster Neil Clark told RT.

As Riyadh's campaign in Yemen enters its fourth year, it has been repeatedly accused by rights groups of civilian casualties during the bombardment. However, in Syria's case, reports of a chemical weapon attack in Douma that are yet to be independently corroborated became the trigger for a coordinated military action, Clark pointed out.

"On the one hand, they are rolling out the red carpet for Saudi leaders and they are supporting, either directly or indirectly, the Saudi bombing of Yemen, which is causing a great humanitarian catastrophe – and how many children has that conflict killed?

"On the other hand, they pose as moral paragons, as moral crusaders when they claim children have died in Syria's chemical weapons attack without evidence," he said.

Clark argued that by continuing its weapons sales to Riyadh, the West "has been feeding and supporting that conflict." 

Between March 2015 (the start of the Saudi-led campaign) and February 2018, almost 6,000 civilians were killed and 9,500 wounded, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In its report in March, Amnesty International said it has documented at least 36 coalition airstrikes that appeared to be carried out in violation of international humanitarian law, many of which may constitute a war crime. At least 513 civilians perished in their raids, including 157 children, it said.

"So, on one hand we have got documented evidence of children dying in huge numbers in Yemen through cholera and through bombing. That's true, that's evidence, actually. And the same powers responsible for that are bombing Syria in response to unverified claims of attacks on children in Syria," Clark said. "The double standards are totally, totally off-the-scale."

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/424195-us-uk-yemen-saudi-syria-double-standards/

 

Russia has its own ‘red lines’ regarding a UN Security Council resolution on Syria, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said, adding that Moscow is going to study the draft by the US, UK, and France with a critical eye.

It is going to be “very difficult” for the Security Council member states to find a compromise on the Syrian resolution, Ryabkov warned. “I don’t want to make assumptions on how the work will go on, but one has to understand that we have obvious ‘red lines.’ Probably, there are some kind of important ‘red lines’ for the Western group as well.”

“We’re going to evaluate the proposal of the Western troika with a critical eye. We don’t decide anything for ourselves in advance – if there are reasonable elements there, we’re going to work on them,” he said.

The deputy foreign minister added that Moscow will use all possible means to pull relations with the West out of a dangerous “political nosedive.” The channels of communication between Moscow and Washington are still open, he said.

The US, UK, and France have prepared their own resolution after the Russian draft was rejected by the Security Council during an emergency session on Saturday.

The draft, which urged Washington and its allies to “immediately and without delay cease the aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic and refrain from further aggressive acts in violation of the international law and the UN Charter,” failed to receive enough votes to pass. It was rejected by eight countries, including the US, UK, and France.

Early Saturday morning, Washington and its allies unleashed scores of missiles on civilian and military facilities in Syria in response to an alleged gas attack in Douma on April 7, which the West blamed on Bashar Assad’s government. Damascus and Moscow previously rejected the chemical attack accusations, saying the whole thing may have been fabricated.

READ MORE: Russia’s UNSC resolution calling to stop aggression against Syria does not receive enough votes

Russia and Syria have also called on the international community for an independent investigation. The missile strikes occurred on the same day that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) arrived in Damascus to investigate the claims.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/424203-russia-west-red-line-syria/

I understand where John Passant is trying to come from, to salvage some furniture in his brain, but I cannot subscribe to his opinion nor his information. 

He says:
No journalistic analysis of the situation in Syria can capture its multilayered complexity.
CORRECT, except Thierry Meyssan, Chris Flyod, and a few others (John Wight, Finian Cunningham and Neil Clark) and of course John Pilger, are very close to understanding the full situation as created by 50 years of interference by the USA in the Middle East — the present Syrian situation being only part of this continuum…
John Passant then postulates:

Inspired by the Arab Spring, the civil war in Syria began with a democratic uprising against the dictator, Assad. He militarised the conflict, killing more than 400,000 thousand of his own citizens, internally displacing 6 million and driving 5 million from the country, to retain power.

WRONG. The uprising had no trace of democracy in it. Extremism? Sure. The Arab spring was a furphy created (I believe by the "West") to support the Sunnis (Saudi Arabia) and destroy the Shias (Iran). Most of the flags flown by “protesters” during the 2011 demonstrations were those of DAESH. There again. It has been fully witnessed that quite a few armed protesters shot at the police and the Syrian army — and no, these were not “agents provocateurs”.
The US had militarised the conflict even before the first protests in 2011, by secretly supplying weapons and information fomenting the uprising. 
Assad did not kill 400,000 people by “himself”. The US armed “moderate” rebels that were aligned with Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and Daesh in disguise, did far more damage than Assad’s government resistance did. 
Daesh displaced, killed and enslaved people. Assad was the elected president of Syria. He had to retain power and protect all the sectarians ethnic groups, including Christians for that matter, that would have been wiped out had the “rebels” (Wahhabi/Sunni/Salafists) got their extremist way.
From the onset, the situation is complicated also because Assad is friendly with Russia and the USA hate Russia as well. All the “democratic" fantasy that John Passant talks about, is the narrative that the MSM (the main stream mediocre media) has been peddling to get rid of Assad, by painting him as a “butcher”, in the same manner as Gaddafi. Look where this has taken fucking Libya. It’s the same repeated mantra of "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction”. It was bullshit. NOTE: the “intelligence was not faulty." The intelligence had been designed to make the media and the general public swallow the war. Mr John Passant, if you do not know this yet, the US, the UK and Australia had to know in advance that Saddam did not have any WMDs, in order to attack Iraq.Assad runs a very tough “socialist” government, where a lot of stuff like education and health services are free. This irks the USA. As well Assad refused to let Saudi and Qatari gas pipelines through Syria when requested by Obama in 2009. This somewhat irked the USA that decided to teach Assad a lesson and start creating civil unrest. Here we have to “thank” the disinformation media run by Soros and the likes within Syria. 
These were the major undercurrents that distorted the situation in Syria. Imagine a foreign power supporting a “revolution” in Australia. This would not go down well. The rebellion would be called by its true name, terrorism — with many terrorists in Syria coming from other countries.
Soon the creation of ISIS became a bit much for the West, because it was ruthless, bloody, dangerous and “uncontrolled". That the West did not see ISIS coming is bullshit. The CIA and other “intelligence”agencies would have known what was about be unleashed, but the West let it happen because it suited their fight against Assad in Syria and in weakening the Shia in Iraq, which today (16/04/18) gave 100 per cent support to Assad.
John carries on:

While the situation is complex, with ISIS, the Kurds and Western and Russian imperialism and various local powers such as Iran, Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia all in play, the fact remains that the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people drove the rebellion.  
CRAP. It’s complicated to tell blow by blow what happened here but the simple truth is that the USA fomented the revolt. The Russians do not want to be "Imperial" but friends (with benefits). The USA does it day in day out, but they control the levers : you are with us or against us. Nothing of the sort with Russia. The rebellion in Syria was a set-up to destroy Assad. Syria had been a reasonably stable and happy country until then. The "Democratic" aspirations were fabricated by a Western media to destroy Syria, and financed by a ruthless Sunni outfit, the least democratic country in the world — Saudi Arabia — presently bombing Yemen , Yemen being in search of democracy. And the Saudis are bombing with “our” help. 
We should not be supporting Beijing or Washington in any battle between the two major imperialist powers. Similarly, we should not support Moscow against Washington in Syria. Our benchmark there should be the Syrian people and their demands for democracy. 
BULLSHIT. The Russian/Turkish/Syrian/Iranian peace deal with demilitarised zones is working better than hoped and cooling off the situation rapidly, except the West hate being excluded from the "non-profitable" deal.

John Passant makes one GOOD concession:

As the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists say:

The Anglo-American aggression against Syria is a new crime of American imperialism and its allies. 
From then on John Passant idealism gets him to forget than any “revolution”, socialist or not, is going to spill blood one way or the other. What follows is crap:
Today, the Syrian people suffer from the onslaught of Bashar al-Assad's barbaric regime, the Russian and Iranian allies on the side, and now it's suffering with air strike from America and the bodies of Syrians and their burned cities have become an open stadium for regional and international competition. Washington and Moscow, Riyadh and Tehran. Everyone participates in aggression against the Syrian people.
That means opposing both Trump and his bombs and Assad and his backers. It means supporting the fighters [armed or not armed, killers or terrorists???] for democracy and justice wherever they are. 

 As the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists conclude:

‘Neither Moscow nor Washington. Freedom for the Syrian people.’
Of course, the Egyptian Revolutionary is a Sunni outfit that will peddle this last bit.
Pity those who are not Sunnis in this environment of new "religious" (fanatical without god, but still "Muslim in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood) socialism…
John Passant needs to revise his skewed views, otherwise he’ll become irrelevant.

Following its missile strike on Syria, Paris suddenly realized that Bashar Assad is still holding the country’s most prestigious Legion of Honor decoration, received in 2001 from Jacques Chirac, local media has revealed.

France has initiated a procedure to revoke the Legion of Honor awarded to Syrian President Bashar Assad, an official of the French presidency told BFM TV broadcaster on Monday evening. “The Elysee [palace] confirms that a disciplinary procedure to withdraw the Legion of Honor of [President] Assad has been launched,” the official said.

Assad was made a knight of the Legion of Honor (Legion d'Honneur in French), the country's highest decoration, back in 2001, when he met former French president Jacques Chirac. At that time, he had just succeeded his father Hafez Assad, who had ruled Syria for several decades.

A resolution was adopted in 2010 to make it easier to strip foreign recipients of the award, if they had committed “acts inconsistent with the honor,” according to BFM TV. Under French laws, the prestigious decoration is automatically withdrawn if the recipient is sentenced to at least one year in prison.

Previously, France revoked the awards given to American cyclist Lance Armstrong, British designer John Galliano and also Harvey Weinstein, after allegations of sexual harassment by the Hollywood producer surfaced.

The news comes on the heels of the latest missile strikes on Syria, conducted by the United States, Britain and France. The US-led attack hit three targets in Syria, a research center and military bases the coalition said were linked to Damascus’ chemical stockpiles, and was launched in response to an alleged chemical attack in Douma on April 7.

French president Emmanuel Macron defended the strike against Syria, conducted without any UN resolution, claiming that Paris was not acting unilaterally and that it was “the international community” that legitimized the military action. “We have complete international legitimacy to act within this framework,” Macron asserted in the interview, broadcast by BFM TV, RMC radio and Mediapart. “Three members of the Security Council have intervened.”

In a follow-up interview, Macron said he urged his US counterpart Donald Trump to limit the size of the strikes, adding, however, that he persuaded him to keep American troops in Syria for the long-term. 

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/424430-france-revoke-assad-legion-honor/

 

And we thought that the representation of the "world community" was the United Nations. According to young idiot napoleon, it's not... His teacher wife did not teach him anything, did she... just had sex with him. 

 

• «La communauté internationale c'est l'Occident et ses alliés, elle n'a pas d'existence juridique»

The international community is the West and its allies. IT HAS NO JURISDICTION.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has accused Russia of "issuing contradictory official statements on the chemical attack in Douma." But is this really the case? Sputnik takes a look at the facts.

In an official statement published on Friday, Le Drian charged Moscow with vacillating in its official account of the alleged Douma chemical attack. "One day, it didn't take place; the next day, it was carried out by armed groups; the day after that, it was Western manipulation. There's no concern for consistency or truth, because it's all about sowing doubt and confusion," the minister said.

Le Drian went on to accuse Russia of "spreading videos featuring children, while the [April 7] attacks took the lives of more than 45 people and left a large number of others injured."

France, he said, has "numerous authenticated witness accounts," evidence from "medical NGOs," as well as "photos and videos" authenticated by French experts. Furthermore, he added, French labs have "confirmed" that a chemical attack took place.

#1: "Videos Featuring Children"

The children mentioned by Le Drian include 11-year-old Hassan Diab, whose explosive testimony earlier this week revealed that the viral video spread by the White Helmets as 'evidence' of a chemical attack was bogus. The boy, who appears in the White Helmets' video, told the Rossiya 24 TV channel that he and his mother were urged to go to the hospital, where he was grabbed and had water poured on him while being filmed. His father added that there were no signs of chemical weapons use outside in the street and that the filmmakers gave the participants food after the shoot was wrapped up.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201804211063782181-le-drian-russian-fli...

French President Emmanuel Macron in an interview with Fox News said that the US, France and allies must remain in Syria after defeating the Daesh* terror group to build a "new Syria" and counter Iran's influence in the region.

"We will have to build a new Syria after war and that is why I think the US role is very important… The day we will finish this war against Daesh, if we leave definitely and totally even from the political point of view, we will leave the floor to the Iranian regime, Bashar Assad and these guys. And they will prepare the new war. They will fuel the new terrorists," Macron said.

The French President went on saying that "even after the end of the war against Daesh, the US, France and our allies, all countries in the region, even Russia and Turkey, will play an important role in creating a new Syria." "But to determine the future, of course, will be the Syrian people," he added.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201804221063800226-macron-daesh-us-fr...

 

And so the little napoleon spoketh... His hypocrisy is reaching to the stars as he soils his nappies.

Please remind me again who were the sponsors of Daesh? Assad or Saudi Arabia? Who are the foreign armies not invited to come and stay in Syria? Russia's or the USA's? Who is the often so-called "the Syrian people"? Daesh and the Wahhabi/Sunni extremists supported by the Saudis/USA or the Alawites, the Christians and the Shia who support Assad? Is it a question of "democracy" where the "majority" supported by Riyadh will massacre the others?

Time to call it quits, little man Macron, you're not an Astérix, not even an astérisque in history's aberration... Sure, The Donald  has delegated to you the hubris spokesperson on the Syrian situation, because he has other cats to kill, but come on, stop grandstanding like a spoiled child, a brat, un "couillon" dressed in a suit.

 

Read from top.

Why would I always insult Macron, the USA and the English "Royals"? Because, guys, these guys talk of "democracy", but exclude themselves with their "exceptionalism" — which means exactly what it means. Piss on them.

America’s allies: so willing to urge Washington on, so unwilling to pull their own weight. It’s enough to make you wonder why they’re called “allies” in the first place.

The United States bombed Syria earlier this month after President Trump said he was outraged by a supposed chemical weapons assault that killed a maximum of 70 people, while ignoring hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by bullets and bombs. He said he wanted to deter a future chemical weapons attack, yet his second one-off imposed no penalty on Damascus other than apparently destroying weapons that would have been of no value if not used.

He blamed Russia for aiding the Syrian government’s war on its own people, while backing Saudi Arabia’s brutal air assault on Yemeni civilians. He said he still wanted to bring U.S. forces home from Syria, but his strike on the Assad regime ultimately drew America deeper into the Syrian civil war.

Joining the president’s ill-considered assault were the United Kingdom and France, whose leaders spoke grandly of the minuscule mission upon which they embarked. While presented by Washington as partners, their contribution was an afterthought. They would not have bombed Syria absent the Trump administration leading the way.

Washington policymakers have long maintained that support from governing elites elsewhere legitimizes their wars, no matter how foolish or disastrous. President George W. Bush preened before the cameras when announcing that the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau backed the invasion of Iraq. Other amazing supporters of America’s disastrous misadventure there were Albania, Eritrea, Honduras, Tonga, Uganda, and Uzbekistan.

 

Read more:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/when-allies-should-just-...