Martin Berger -- Aleppo: a New Provocation or Just Another War Crime?

20.10.2016 Author: Martin Berger

Aleppo: a New Provocation or Just Another War Crime?

Column: Politics

Region: Middle East

Country: Syria

One Russia deployed its advanced air defense missile systems S-400 in Syria, as it was reported by the Daily Mail, Washington started feeling pretty uneasy about launching new provocations against Russia, like the one that was carried out by the US Air Force on September 17, when Syria’s government forces came under heavy fire.

For this reason, the United States started demanding its allies both from the ranks of Jabhat al-Nusra militants and the so-called Western coalition member to do the dirty job instead of them.

It seems that the Obama administration has no illusions about the future of America’s primacy in the world, once Russian Air Forces along with the Syrian army troops finish their assault of Aleppo, leaving no chance for the White House that it was in any way victorious in the Syrian conflict. For his reason Washington has unleashed its propaganda hounds on Russia and Syria, in a bid to present both Moscow and Damascus as the two evil “regimes”, that are allegedly killing Syria’s civilian population en masse just for the pure joy of it.

As a part of the ongoing propaganda effort, the EU Foreign Affairs Council condemned Syria its airstrikes in Aleppo, accusing Damascus of “deliberately targeting” schools and hospitals along with Russian pilots. It’s been announced that since the beginning of the offense on Allepo of the “regime” and its allies, in particular Russia, have subjected the Eastern Allepo of disproportional aerial bombardments. The EU Foreign Affairs Council believes that it is time to bring the war crimes Damascus allegedly committed to the attention of the International Criminal Court.

And now we have a perfect pretext for such a proceeding, since on the night of October 18, the Syrian village Hassager was subjected to unannounced airstrikes that resulted in six people dead and four more injured. It was announced in the aftermath of the attack that the aircraft of the US-led coalition were operating in the area, while Russian and Syrian warplanes were operating in Aleppo. In particular, radar stations on the ground have spotted two Belgium F-16, which resulted in Moscow demanding explanations from both Brussels and Washington, along with the condemnation of the attack.

It must be pointed out that there’s a total of six Belgian Air Force F-16 operating in Syria within the framework of the so-called US-led coalition, which, as it reported earlier by the Ministry of Defence of the Kingdom, “are fulfilling a wide range of missions.”

In response to Russia’s demands Washington decided to take a pause and do not comment the situation in any way.

Click on the screenshot to enlarge

As for Brussels, it has been vigorously trying to distance itself from its involvement in the attack, going as far as adressing NEO on Twitter. The Belgian Defence Minister Stephen Vandeputa has claimed that Belgium is not involved in Aleppo strike and that it’s Russian dissinformation. However, despite such statements, the Belgian parliament demanded its Defency Ministry to allow a lot of transparency in the military operations Belguim has been conducting over the Middle East.

Since it’s clear that Syria’s airspace is being closely monitored 24/7 by a number of major international players, and that there’s been F-16 spotted in the area prior to the attack, bearing the paintscheme of the Belgian Air Force, one might consider one more option: those were American F-16 that got repainted to resemble those that are being used by Brussels in Syria. Only now the White House has decided to re-paint its planes in the paintscheme of the Belgian Air Force, since it has already been caught repainting its warplanes to resemble Russian jets. Maybe that’s why the White House remains silent since it needs time to repaint the aircraft used in the attack back in order to “cover the tracks”.

The fact that the US – is an empire of lies is well-known by pretty much everyone at this point. And now international analysts must be aware of its passion for painting stuff!

But it is doubtful that such “tricks” would allow Washington and its allies to escape the responsibility for unleashing the war against Syria, for countless civilian deaths and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of former Syrian, Iraqi, Afghani, and Libyan citizens to Europe in a bid to escape the US bombs raining on their heads.

Martin Berger is a freelance journalist and geopolitical analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”  

http://journal-neo.org/2016/10/20/aleppo-a-new-provocation-or-just-another-war-crime/