The US is trying to ethnically cleanse Syria in order to kill off Syrian nationalism and create an obedient state, journalist Vanessa Beeley told RT following a damning report on the US coalition’s military activities in Raqqa.

Beeley, an independent journalist who has covered the war in Syria extensively, told RT that the US, UK and French coalition is using proxy forces to cleanse certain areas of land in the war-torn country in an effort “to replace them with a proxy that will essentially create a US controlled state.”

She was responding to a new Amnesty International report that strongly criticizes the actions of the US-led coalition in its campaign to liberate the previously Islamic State (IS, ISIS/ISIL)-controlled city of Raqqa.

The Amnesty report accused the coalition and its Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Force (SDF) proxies of creating “a level of destruction comparable to anything we’ve seen in decades of covering the impact of wars,” and it says that the coalition’s claims that the bombings were “precise” and caused few civilian casualties do not stand up to scrutiny.

Beeley said that the Amnesty report put “meat on the bones” of previous analysis from on-the-ground journalists and some Russian analysts and commentators. She said that despite the US-led campaign ostensibly being about ridding the area of IS terrorists, it was the terrorists “who were evacuated as priority over the civilians.”

“Civilian property and infrastructure, essential infrastructure like water taps, like water supply units that were keeping civilians alive during the campaign were also being targeted,” she said, adding that it was the SDF forces designating the targets for the US coalition.

“So there’s a degree of collusion here between the US coalition and its proxies forces on the ground,” she said.

Beeley also criticized the reluctance of the British government, in particular, to admit to causing civilian deaths during its military campaign. The UK Ministry of Defense, she said, “did not even admit one civilian death as a result of their “precision” bombing — and then they only reluctantly admitted that they believe one civilian was killed by one of their drone strikes.”

Comparing the American-led military campaign in Raqqa to the Russian and Syrian-led military campaign to liberate east Aleppo, Beeley said that there were different standards set and attempts were made to protect Aleppo civilians.

“What we saw there were the provision of humanitarian corridors for civilians to be able to leave under the cover of the Syrian Arab Army and with the help of the Russian reconciliation teams negotiating with the terrorist and militant extremist factions to allow civilians to leave,” Beeley said. “What we’ve seen in Raqqa is civilians paying smugglers to try and leave during the military campaign, having to cross minefields, being unable to afford the cost of those smuggling groups.”

Beeley also said that Syrian civilians were being forced to return to buildings and areas of Raqqa that had not yet been cleared of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), booby traps and mines left by IS militants.

In contrast, the journalist said that Russian forces “cleared thousands of hectares of those IEDs and booby traps” following their campaigns to liberate Aleppo and Ghouta from IS.

“What we’re seeing here is a disgusting despicable disregard for human life both during the military campaign and even more importantly after the military campaign by the US coalition,” Beeley said.

https://www.rt.com/news/428951-amnesty-report-raqqa-vanessa-beeley/

UK, US, and French bombs inflicted mass loss of civilian life in ISIS-held Raqqa, according Amnesty International. A new report has also accused coalition forces of bombing areas where they knew civilians were trapped.

During the four-month operation to eradicate the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the US-led coalition – which includes British forces – killed hundreds of civilians and injured many more, says Amnesty International.

According to its damning report into the coalition forces, residents were trapped as fighting raged in the streets between IS militants and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who were supported by coalition airstrikes. Escape routes for civilians were riddled with IEDs, put there by Islamic State, which also positioned snipers to shoot those trying to flee.

The Hashish family lost 18 members, mostly women and children, over a two-week period in August. A coalition airstrike killed nine, while seven died as they tried to flee via a road that was laid with IS mines, and two others were killed by a mortar launched by the SDF.

“Those who stayed, died; and those who tried to run away, died,” said Munira Hashish. “We couldn’t afford to pay the smugglers; we were trapped.” Hashish said that she and her children eventually managed to escape through a minefield “by walking over the blood of those who were blown up as they tried to flee ahead of us.”

Senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International Donatella Rovera is calling on the coalition forces to launch an investigation into the bombing campaign that left Raqqa devastated.

“When so many civilians are killed in attack after attack, something is clearly wrong, and to make this tragedy worse, so many months later the incidents have not been investigated,” she said. “The victims deserve justice.

“The coalition’s claims that its precision air campaign allowed it to bomb IS out of Raqqa while causing very few civilian casualties do not stand up to scrutiny. On the ground in Raqqa, we witnessed a level of destruction comparable to anything we’ve seen in decades of covering the impact of wars,” she continued.

“IS’s brutal four-year rule in Raqqa was rife with war crimes. But the violations of IS, including the use of civilians as human shields, do not relieve the coalition of their obligations to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians.

“What levelled the city and killed and injured so many civilians was the US-led coalition’s repeated use of explosive weapons in populated areas where they knew civilians were trapped. Even precision weapons are only as precise as their choice of targets.”

Rovera added that the level of devastation and destruction in Raqqa is worse than anything they have seen in decades, quoting a senior US military officer as saying that “more artillery shells were launched into Raqqa than anywhere since the end of the Vietnam war.”

The Amnesty International report, based on 112 interviews and visits to 42 strike locations, has already been slammed by a coalition spokesman – even before it was published.

US forces fired 100 percent of the artillery rounds used against Raqqa and over 90 percent of airstrikes. British and French aircraft were also involved, with the UK’s Ministry of Defense admitting that Britain carried out 275 airstrikes. The UK claims that no civilians were killed as a result of their bombs.

The human rights group claim that there is strong evidence that coalition air and artillery strikes killed and injured thousands of civilians, including in disproportionate or indiscriminate attacks that violated international humanitarian law. Despite pledges that civilian loss of life would be thoroughly investigated by coalition forces, Amnesty says there is no sign of this happening.

Middle East Researcher at Amnesty International Benjamin Walsby has questioned why the coalition felt the need to bomb the city in ruins if “the coalition and their SDF allies were ultimately going to grant IS fighters safe passage and impunity.” He added: “What possible military advantage was there in destroying practically an entire city and killing so many civilians?

“Raqqa’s civilians are returning home to ruins, pulling loved ones out of rubble, and facing death or injury from mines, IEDs and unexploded ordnance,” Walsby said. “The coalition’s refusal to acknowledge its role in creating this catastrophic situation adds insult to injury.”

An MoD spokesman said: “Keeping Britain safe from the threat of terrorism is the objective of this campaign and throughout we have been open and transparent, detailing each of our nearly 1,700 strikes, facilitating operational briefings and confirming when a civilian casualty had taken place.

“We do everything we can to minimize the risk to civilian life through our rigorous targeting processes and the professionalism of the RAF crews but, given the ruthless and inhuman behavior of Daesh, and the congested, complex urban environment in which we operate, we must accept that the risk of inadvertent civilian casualties is ever present.”

US Army Colonel Sean Ryan has denied accusations made by Amnesty International of disproportionate bombing and unlawful killing.

“I think we served the people of Raqqa to the best of our ability and against an enemy that has used tactics that no one even suspected they would use,” Ryan said. “We’re the ones who liberated Raqqa and did it come at a price? Sure – but it's a time of war, and that's what happens sometimes. We go to extreme levels to avoid innocent civilians.”

https://www.rt.com/uk/428743-isis-syria-bomb-death-amnesty/

Like a geographical virus the spread of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has broken all natural boundaries. It is immune to any antibiotic of logic and poses a deadly threat to the health, peace and stability of the world.

For decades in the West, NATO was believed to have been a defensive response to the creation of the Warsaw Pact - despite the fact that it was formed long before the treaty, which has in turn been nearly 30 years dead. Nonetheless, like death and taxes, membership of NATO has been assumed to be one of life's few certainties with an increasing share of national wealth going to pay for it.

This might have gone on unquestioned but for the multiple East-West crises of the last few years and the bizarre inclusion of, brothers-in-arms and non-North Atlantic states, Colombia and Israel in recent NATO activity.

Almost overnight, interest in my long-quiescent No2NATO campaign has picked up as public opinion has switched on like a light to the fact that there is little that is defensive about NATO and even less that is North Atlantic.

When the Colombian President announced a Co-operation Agreement with NATO in 2013 and expressed hope that his country would eventually join the US-led alliance, it was met with opposition in his own country and embarrassed chortles at NATO HQ. Jungle fighting against the FARC guerrillas or a confrontation with the Chavez revolution in neighboring Venezuela were clearly "out of area" - even for the mission-creepers in Brussels.

But with the sharpening of US hostilities towards Venezuela, holder of the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and now officially an enemy of Washington subject to the usual spectrum of regime-change bombardment, NATO-Colombian relations have suddenly been cranked up dramatically.

It is likely that the US will soon turn to a Contra-style physical confrontation with the tenacious Chavistas in Venezuela, in which case a maritime and even ground force presence for the US will be necessary. When the Venezuelans fight back, this could be deemed to be an attack on a "NATO-partner and candidate member". Vietnam 2 could then be fought by, not only the US, but Britain, France, Belgium and Uncle Tom Cobley.

Although not European, Israel has long participated in such cultural highlights as the Eurovision Song Contest - and has often won it! They ply their less-successful football trade in the UEFA Champions League too. The ever advancing NATO encroachment towards the border with Russia has, until now, kept Israel out of NATO. It had to make do with being a "Mediterranean Partner" alongside the likes of Egypt and Morocco.

Israel's complex relations with Russia pose a dilemma for Benjamin Netanyahu. After all, it is only weeks ago that the Israeli premier shouldered his way to President Vladimir Putin's side on the Victory day parade in Moscow. Huge numbers of Russian Jews are also citizens of Israel - including, virtually overnight last week, Roman Abramovich. There is visa-free travel between the countries and significant economic relations.

Being on opposing sides in the long-war in Syria has tested relations between Moscow and Tel Aviv but it has not broken them. So when 18,000 NATO soldiers just invaded the Baltic States and Poland for the eighth Saber Strike military maneuvers aimed at Russia, nobody expected the Israeli Parachute Regiment to turn up. But they did.

The "exercises" are designed to cast a shadow over the World Cup in Russia, and to act tough - as a bolster to the spectrum of sanctions on Russia at a time when they are beginning to fray as Putin's visit to Austria just demonstrated.

The message is, our soft power might be tissue-thin but our guns still pack a punch. And now we've got the Israelis on the front-line too. Together with the recent reckless bombing in Syria, which came uncomfortably close to vital Russian interests, and the increasingly bellicose threats of war by Israel against Iran, sabers may begin to be sharpened on both sides after the World Cup is won.

NATO’s value to its US overlord is that it can bypass individual nuances on policy in member states. So, while Germany, Italy and France are chafing somewhat against endless economic sanctions on Russia, and where virtually everyone is against Trump on Iran, NATO’s independent institutional power and its elaborate trip-wire system can plummet everyone into a crisis - irrespective of member-state nuances never mind hostile public opinion.

It may be hoped that NATO membership assumes consent to US orders as a kind of default position. That when a trip wire is allegedly crossed, the alliance itself will move into action before European public opinion can even begin to get its boots on.

A couple of years ago I shared a platform at an important festival of ideas in Hay-on-Wye, on the Welsh-English borders, with a freshly retired English general who had just been serving with NATO High Command.

The general bluntly stated that "British mothers have to realize that their sons may have to give their life's blood on the streets of Vilnius" in defense of NATO's positions there.

My own protestations, that Russia posed no threat whatsoever to the Baltic States and that, in any case, British mothers had never heard of Vilnius and would never agree to spend their children's blood there, were met with a contemptuous wave of the hand. It signaled that no anti-war agitation from the likes of me would be allowed to be of any consequence whatsoever.

I believe that NATO and its partner organizations, far from being a defensive shield, are an aggressive, ever wider broadsword. Far from keeping the peace they represent a clear and present danger of war. Far from representing ‘the democracies’, NATO poses a real threat to democratic control of foreign and defense policy in member countries. It is for these reasons I will shortly relaunch my No2NATO campaign. Before it is too late to do so.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/428911-nato-virus-europe-russia/

>>1655981

>>1655986

'sigle' in Other Languages. British English: acronym /ˈækrənɪm/ NOUN. An acronym is a word made of the initial letters of the words in a phrase, especially when this is the name of an organization such as NATO.

>>1655996

Mhmmm….not that is a very interesting thought. Things that make you go mhmmm.

>>1655964

Syria is getting it from all sides. Their resolve is staggering.

>>1655996

You really smacked me upside the head with that one. I understand what you are talking about, just didn't put that together. Tell me more. :D please.

If anyone needed proof as to the power of mainstream media they need look no further than Eastern Europe, where cash-strapped nations are militarizing over the phantom threat of ‘Russian aggression.’

The Western media’s ongoing campaign to demonize Russia appears to be paying dividends as Poland this week invited the US military into its house. And not for some overnight slumber party, mind you, but forever.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the invitation, entitled ‘Proposal for a U.S. Permanent Presence in Poland,’ sounds as if it were written by a group of defense sector lobbyists on Capitol Hill.

Echoing the Western media's delusional talking points on Russia – complete with “hybrid warfare through its annexation of Crimea, cyberattacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and…aggressive actions in Georgia” – the Polish Ministry of Defense said it would pay $2 billion for the pleasure of hosting US soldiers on its territory.

In the past, nations spent billions to defend themselves from foreign occupation; today they happily write out checks to make sure it happens. Poland, in line with NATO dictate, already dishes out 2 percent of its annual GDP on defense spending.

Are we now supposed to believe Warsaw must outsource to defend its borders, especially when the threat of invasion is a figment of its media-influenced imagination?

The attentive reader, meanwhile, would have caught the most telling line in Poland’s invitation as to why the NATO vassal states are trembling with fear in their over-sized boots: “Russia is seeking to strengthen its political and economic relations with key European countries at the expense of U.S. national interests.” GASP!

Why, how dare those wily Russians employ the subtle, age-old art of diplomacy and capitalism, depriving NATO of its excuse for hanging around for half a century after its expiration date, while at the same time competing directly against US corporations in Europe?  Why, it’s so un-American!

Perhaps some readers, and especially those born in the late 19 century or thereabouts, might be tempted to believe that at least one prudent Western journalist would advise caution, reminding Warsaw that Russia – a country that is certainly no stranger to invading armies - may actually respond to the threat of a potential adversary setting up camp smack on its border.

Those readers would be advised not to hold their breath.

In an opinion piece for Bloomberg discussing Poland’s invitation - which, oddly enough, was reportedly sent by the Polish Ministry of Defense without the express approval of the Polish President – Leonid Bershivsky argues that Poland should move ahead with its grand plan because “there’s nothing…Russia could do in response.”

Huh?  Since Bershidsky did not miss Vladimir Putin’s state of the nation address on March 1 when he offered a peek at some of Russia’s latest military developments, it would seem that Bershidsky was being deliberately disingenuous with his readers about Russia’s apparent lack of options. After all, Russia could deploy on a permanent basis nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region, which would certainly not give the Polish people much cause for comfort.

Before continuing, it needs to be emphasized that Russia has been building advanced weapon systems not because Russians are an inherently aggressive race hell-bent on invading its neighbors. Absolutely not. The reason for the rapid research and development of those systems was because, as Putin himself explained, the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. That regrettable decision was followed up by Washington’s refusal to cooperate with Moscow on America’s European-based missile defense shield, a system which presents a direct threat to the strategic balance.

“In the end, if we did nothing, this would render the Russian nuclear potential worthless,” the Russian leader said. “They could simply intercept all of it.”

Meanwhile, at the very same time the US was bolting down its missile shield, the NATO franchise was encroaching on Russia’s borders, exactly as Washington promised it would never do. The Americans, while being responsible for triggering an actual arms race with Russia, attempted to conceal their muddy tracks by conjuring up the bogeyman of ‘Russian aggression’ to explain everything.

So obviously, Bershidsky, a Russian-born journalist based in Germany, is very mistaken. There is quite a lot that Russia can do in the event that Poland gives the US military permanent residency on its territory. And since the obvious Russian response would be to beef up its side of the border, and develop evermore fearsome weapons to check NATO’s inexorable slide eastward, Bershidsky’s argument comes off worse than foolish; it’s outrageously dangerous.

Like the propaganda leaflets dropped on enemy territory from the sky, the Western media is bombarding the citizens of Eastern Europe with the myth of ‘Russian aggression,’ which, as the fairytale goes, is on the verge of staging an attack on European territory.

Yet even Bershidsky begrudgingly admits that Russia would gain nothing by invading its neighbors, like the Baltic states or Poland.

“Any conceivable benefits of trying to take over resource-poor nations with a mostly hostile population pale before the risk of a full-blown conflict with NATO, even if the alliance’s engagement is not 100 percent assured,” he argued.

However, as is the maddening tendency for so many Western commentators these days, Bershidsky views the world primarily through the lens of US interests and thus offers a misguided remedy to a nonexistent problem.

“The U.S. doesn’t stand to lose anything by accepting Poland’s generous proposal and gradually relocating troops there from Germany,” he states, oblivious to what Poland stands to lose by ratcheting up tensions with Moscow.

He then contradicts his above argument, showing a kneejerk commitment to the ‘Russian aggression’ narrative: “A move of this kind would be consistent with stated U.S. goals, such as deterring Russia… The American military presence should be aligned with its allies’ sense of being threatened. This anxiety gets stronger the closer a country is to Russia’s borders.”

In reality, the “sense of being threatened” gets stronger the more a country accepts the Western mainstream narrative at face value. In fact, it is NATO that could be gearing up for some sort of military misadventure, particularly in Ukraine, which Poland – not Germany – shares a border with. After all, why else would the US agree to sell Ukraine its Javelin anti-tank missiles? And while we’re at it, why were high-ranking US officials on the ground in Kiev just as that country was beginning to crack up, going so far as to decide behind the scenes who would assume the reins of power? Is that not the very definition of ‘meddling in the affairs’ of a foreign state?

But I digress.

Bershidsky argues that the US military should take up Poland’s offer of permanent deployment because “[T]he front line with Russia has moved east.” What he fails to mention, however, is that the front line has moved east due specifically to NATO sprawl. That peculiar line of reasoning brings to mind a popular internet meme that was making the rounds not long ago. It showed dozens of little US flags dotting the periphery of Russia with the comment: ‘How dare Russia move its country so close to our military bases!’

Indeed, Poland my share a border with Russia, but it shares a far greater and more influential border with US-led NATO, whose very existence depends upon its members accepting the illusion that Russia is a clear and present danger. The duty of journalists is to point out the obvious fallacies of such beliefs, which are totally disconnected from the reality, instead of uncritically and unequivocally embracing them.

>>1656130

I'm familiar with happenings in Venezuela and SA. I would say I could learn alot more. Thanks. I'll look at that.

>>1656130

I was thinking more the G.I Joe solider.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2456852/Iron-Man-army-US-military-developing-armor-allows-special-ops-commandos-walk-stream-bullets-dark-heal-wounds-monitor-vital-signs.html

>>1656373

Hybrids

>>1656373

So they rolled out the soliders before the pets.

>>1656441

They drug them do they aren't heard and yes some die in the conditions.

>>1656595

Anything look familiar?

>>1656593

The world could always use more angels. Perhaps teach human men a thing or five. Just saying.

>>1656659

They need to hide the skies more.

>>1656686

Can barely find my way out of the bathroom.