Kerry calls for war crimes investigation against Russia.

originally posted by: midicon
...a nation that lauds it's own values of democracy and freedom...is also the biggest arms supplier and weapons dealer in the world.

Only by value. Syria is awash with Russian weapons, as it the rest of the Middle East. How many people in Syria have died from Russian cluster bombs delivered by Russian made jets, or Russian AK47s and rocket launchers and armour and so on.

The OP is about Russian war crimes in Syria. Compare Grozny to Aleppo. Grozny was the last major city flattened by Russia with countless deaths, and Aleppo seems to the current one.

Two wrongs don't make a right, so let's concentrate on the current barbarity being dished out by Assad and Putin. Cluster bombs in a city, FFS, and hospitals targeted.

originally posted by: paraphi
hospitals targeted

So you subscribe to that sort BS ...

a reply to: paraphi

The OP is about Russian war crimes in Syria. Compare Grozny to Aleppo. Grozny was the last major city flattened by Russia with countless deaths, and Aleppo seems to the current one.

I will not be blindsided by my own government's propaganda, nor indeed by the blatant hypocrisy from the likes of Kerry. Two wrongs don't make a right, right enough. Better we deal with our own wrong doing before pointing the finger at anyone.
The OP is about the likes of Kerry and the US war machine having the cheek to call for an investigation into anything.

a reply to: theultimatebelgianjoke

No, but I do read the reports of the atrocities going on. You may think it's irrelevant, and trivial and good enough for a joke, but it is not.

a reply to: HickoryStick

Russia will just VETO the action like they did back in 2014.

a reply to: paraphi

It's a real war with real casualties.
Given that the besieged warriors didn't accept De Mitsura's proposal for leaving the city, US backed terrorists will have to be annihilated.

The propaganda machine avoids the following question : why does the U.S. want to stop the Syrian government forces in their attempt to free the parts of the city which are undoubtedly held by al-Qaeda?

And personally, I wonder if the US is not desperate enough to stage yet-another-false-flag-to-blame-on-russia given that they started painting F-18 with the strangly russian-looking paint scheme :


Picture source

a reply to: theultimatebelgianjoke

Someone else tried using the same pictures with the same suggestion and we debunked it also. What you are seeing is the US opfor squadron. They take up the side of the aggressor in US air combat training. If the US were going to try and fake a Russian aircraft we sure as hell would not use a US aircraft with a Russian paint job. We would just use a Russian aircraft that we have in our aggressor squadrons or we would use the Russian aircraft in the German and Polish airforces.

The images in question are taken from the opfor squadrons websites.

Your insinuation is without merit.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Putting your head in the sand and claiming you debunked something are two different things IMO.
You skipped that one : "why does the U.S. want to stop the Syrian government forces in their attempt to free the parts of the city which are undoubtedly held by al-Qaeda? "

The U.S. voted "Yes" on several UN Security Council resolutions that demand to fight al-Qaeda and "to eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Syria."

Following the UNSC demand, Syria and its allies have surrounded the al-Qaeda held parts of east-Aleppo. They currently bomb targets of opportunity, take starting positions all around it and prepare to eventually storm and capture it. Measures have been taken to allow civilians to escape from the area.

This whole operation is primarily in defense of west-Aleppo where 1.5 million civilians live under the protection of the government. Daily artillery strikes from al-Qaeda held east-Aleppo have killed and wounded many people in the government help parts.

But some U.S. officials believe that defeating al-Qaeda in east-Aleppo will be useful for al-Qaeda:

A U.S. official says Jabhat al-Nusra has been the “main beneficiary” (other than the Assad regime) of Russia’s onslaught. “Until Moscow stops bombing hospitals and aid workers, Nusra will continue to exploit the situation . . . and portray itself as the defender of the Syrian people,” the official explained.

"Hospitals and aid workers," are often unfortunate collateral damage in urban fighting. That will not surprise the U.S. military, especially after its bombing of several hospitals in Afghanistan and after it recently practically destroyed Kobani in Syria and Fallujah in Iraq to eradicate the Islamic State from those cities.

The claim that fighting al-Qaeda in Aleppo strengthens al-Qaeda seems dubious to me. But even if that is the case what is the alternative to fighting it in the city areas it holds?

Source

Remember Palmyra ? The US would rather have ISIS than Assad in place :

Why doesn't he call for war crimes investigations against HIMSELF, Hillary and Obama in Libya and Syria?

What a joke.

originally posted by: Ohanka
Why doesn't he call for war crimes investigations against HIMSELF, Hillary and Obama in Libya and Syria?

What a joke.

John Kerry was a decent guy at one time. Don't know what happened to him. Must be something in the air at the Secretary of State's office. It got to Hillary too...and people DIED.

Isn't John Kerry the own who wants everybody to get rid of the air conditioners, so the world will start cooling down? DUH!

a reply to: theultimatebelgianjoke

Yeah referring to your insinuation about US jets in Russian camouflage. Its not difficult to debunk the insinuation when your provided with the facts and why they are painted that way.

They are US opfor training squadrons. The US military has been doing that for a long time now (going back to the USSR and the cold war).

They have nothing to do with the ridiculous false flag mh17 bs. They have nothing to do with Syria / Russia.

a reply to: theultimatebelgianjoke

Well your source is lying and those are the SU 34 Fullbacks and they even used a picture from this site...

www.ausairpower.net...

Consider it debunked.

Actually they used a pic from 2012 that was an actual Russian plane in their lie...and you fell for it.

Way to go...push that propaganda.

a reply to: Xcathdra

They actually used a real pic of an SU34 Fullback in the pics he supplied so part of them are US planes but the only real one was taken from here to be used with the lie...it was from 2012.

www.ausairpower.net...

SO now we see how credible the site moon of alabama really is...so I would be wary of anything coming from them.

a reply to: tsurfer2000h
a reply to: Xcathdra

originally posted by: theultimatebelgianjoke
You skipped that one : "why does the U.S. want to stop the Syrian government forces in their attempt to free the parts of the city which are undoubtedly held by al-Qaeda? "

Remember Palmyra ? The US would rather have ISIS than Assad in place :

a reply to: theultimatebelgianjoke

If thats all you have you should stop now.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Don't you consider that the Russians deserve to express their point of view on a topic where they are directly concerned ?
What do you dislike or disagree with in the 'content' of the last Russian statement ? You probabaly hate the statement itself given that it is Russian ...

originally posted by: HickoryStick
www.washingtonexaminer.com... alls-for-war-crimes-probe-against-russia-syria/article/2603897

Replace Russia with either USA or NATO and it's the same thing. It is beyond laughable, the hypocrisy of Kerry is stunning. Perhaps Russia should be charged with war crimes, this would perhaps set a precedent and a tit for tat. USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Ukraine etc should all be charged for war crimes.

We live in a world where the UN has become corrupt and irrelevant. William Lyon Mackenzie King Helped found the UN, later he became pessimistic about the Organizations future possibilities. How right he was.

Sorry can't figure out how to get the URL to work.


Here is what it says:

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday called for a war crimes investigation of the bombing campaign by Russia and the Assad government in the Syrian civil war, charging that they were continuing to attack hospitals as part of a deliberate strategy to terrorize civilians.

“Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they keep hitting hospitals, and medical facilities, and children and women,” Mr. Kerry said before meeting at the State Department with his French counterpart.

“These are acts that beg for an appropriate investigation of war crimes, and those who commit these would and should be held accountable for these actions,” Mr. Kerry added. “This is a targeted strategy to terrorize civilians.”

Mr. Kerry’s remarks came one day before the United Nations Security Council was expected to vote on a French-drafted resolution that calls for a cease-fire in Aleppo and the grounding of Russian and Syrian warplanes that have been pummeling the besieged city.

Russia has asserted that it is targeting terrorist groups, and Moscow’s envoy to the United Nations, Vitaly I. Churkin, threatened to veto the measure. “I cannot possibly see how we can let this resolution pass,” he said on Friday.

Still, the United States and its Western partners appear to be hoping they can build pressure on Russia and the Syrian government to ease their offensive by highlighting attacks on civilians.

Russian fighter jets have been bombing eastern Aleppo for the last two weeks, joined by their allies in the Syrian Air Force. Russia says the targets are the Nusra Front, a banned terrorist organization. The United Nations envoy, Staffan de Mistura, this week offered to personally escort Nusra fighters out of the city, saying pointedly that their presence was being used as an “alibi” to destroy the city; for that to happen of course, Russian and Syrian airstrikes would have to stop.

At least 376 civilians have been killed by Russian and Syrian strikes in eastern Aleppo since Sept. 23, Mr. de Mistura said.

His humanitarian adviser, Jan Egeland, said by email that “the civilian population is now in a free-fall.” He predicted that food would run out “in weeks, water is extremely scarce and there is little or no electricity.”

In his comments on Friday, Mr. Kerry said that 20 people had been killed and 100 wounded in a recent attack on a hospital. A State Department spokesman said later that Mr. Kerry was referring to a recent spate of attacks against hospitals near Damascus, which have been documented by the humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders.

It is not clear how Mr. Kerry thinks a war crimes investigation might be carried out in the face of Russian opposition. In 2014, Russia and China used their vetoes to block a Security Council resolution that would have authorized the International Criminal Court to investigate the perpetrators of war crimes in Syria.

“The secretary’s not getting ahead of a process here,” said John Kirby, the State Department spokesman. “But he does think this is a conversation worth having inside the international community.”

The suspension of American-Russian talks on the reduction of violence in Syria has led the White House to take a fresh look at options, including the possibility of military force, to head off the fall of Aleppo and deter the government of President Bashar al-Assad from continuing its offensive.

But there is no indication that President Obama has dropped his strong reservations about deepening American involvement in the conflict, which currently consists of a modest covert program to train and arm the Syrian opposition to the Assad government.

While American intervention appears highly unlikely, the Russian Ministry of Defense has sought to discourage any consideration of a military strike against Syrian forces. The ministry’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, warned this week that American warplanes could become targets of Russian antiaircraft missiles if they strike Syrian government positions.

Russia has already deployed a formidable air defense system in Syria: the S-400, which has the range to reach approaches to the Turkish air base at Incirlik, which American warplanes have used to carry out many of their airstrikes against the Islamic State.

This week, the Russians said they had also deployed an S-300 air defense system to its naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus. Russian officials have suggested that the system could be used to defend against cruise missile attacks.

“Last time I checked, the Russians said that their primary goal was to fight extremism, ISIL and Nusra, in Syria,” Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, said on Tuesday, using a different name for the Islamic State. “Neither one has an air force. So I would question just what the purpose of this system is.”

On Saturday, the focus will be on the diplomatic arena — namely, the Security Council meeting, which the French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, is planning to attend despite the Russian threat to veto his nation’s resolution.

The French resolution calls for the United Nations to return to the short-lived cease-fire, which the United Nations would monitor. “There is no time to waste,” said François Delattre, the French ambassador to the United Nations.