Children still trapped in Mosul in dire need of protection – UNICEF

Civilians fleeing the fighting between the Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants © Alkis Konstantinidis / Reuters

The devastation in western Mosul is extreme, the people have been damaged, says Peter Hawkins of the UNICEF mission in Iraq. The psycho-social care of children of the Iraqi city has to be our paramount concern, he added.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over Islamic State on Thursday saying the army recaptured the Grand al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul where ISIS declared a caliphate three years ago. Months of fierce fighting between the terrorists and the US-led coalition have devastated not only the city but also the lives of hundreds of thousands of locals.

Iraq declares ‘fall’ of ISIS as military retakes landmark Mosul mosque

UNICEF mission representative in Iraq, Peter Hawkins says it’s difficult to say at the moment how many lives were lost.

“We still haven’t got full facts yet. Children are the innocent victims of any war. In this particular war, those children still trapped in western Mosul are in dire need of protection. And this is what we are calling for,” he told RT.

“We said the same thing about Ramadi and the western part of Mosul is no different; the whole way of life has been taken away from the people, but the resilience of those people and especially those children in Ramadi. Educational services, schools started to open very quickly and started to offer a ray of hope for the people returning. In eastern Mosul, over 350 schools are now open. They started to open within 100 days of the conflict restarting there. It is possible, but the devastation of West Mosul is extreme, the people have been damaged, the psycho-social care of these children has to be our paramount concern,” Hawkins said.

What is the price of retaking Mosul?

Middle East analyst Adbo Haddad said the announcement from Iraq about the recapture of Mosul from ISIS is “good news for humanity.” But what was the price of that victory, he adds.

“What was the way leading to this victory? It takes us back to the day Mosul was invaded by ISIS; it was taken so easily by ISIS. Contrary to the way it is now liberated, a big price was paid by the civilians being hit time after time [from] the air by the coalition forces, without any understanding or any consideration of human life which leads to a point where we think that it is a pattern,” he told RT.

“Since 2014 we have warned at the press conference in Moscow…of this pattern. That it is not so innocent. Let alone hitting several times by the coalition forces against the Iraqi National Army and Iraqi popular forces Hashd al Shaabi. It is not so innocent, the amounts of weaponry that were dropped always mistakenly into ISIS hands since 2015 until today. Three thousand civilians were killed between January and March 2017, and these numbers are acknowledged by the Congress, are acknowledged by the coalition forces committee that promised to do an investigation and to try to avoid such mistakes. Nothing has been done until today,” Haddad added.

Political commentator and historian, Adel Darwish says the story has several dimensions.

“They have recaptured Mosul, they have perhaps symbolically defeated ISIS as an entity, as a sort of colonialist movement that wanted to establish the caliphate. But there are more dimensions to the story – … the civilian casualties, which is totally unacceptable. The other dimension...has to do with the mishandling of the situation by the US and its allies and that Iraq now is in a civil war regardless of ISIS. ISIS is existing because of the civil war in Iraq,” he said.

According to Darwish, it was no secret for anyone that ISIS would “always hold civilians as human shields or as a bargaining chip,” and in his opinion, a strategy to minimize casualties among civilians had to be thought about in advance.

“This is a classic American double standard there. If someone else does it, they say they are responsible…they don’t give a damn about civilians, when they do it, it is just an oversight, sorry, it is collateral damage,” he said.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

(RT)

US threats and actions in Syria are those of a rogue state

John Wight has written for newspapers and websites across the world, including the Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and Foreign Policy Journal. He is also a regular commentator on RT and BBC Radio. John is currently working on a book exploring the role of the West in the Arab Spring. You can follow him on Twitter @JohnWight1

Syrian forces were preparing a chemical weapons attack. The claim and resulting threat revealed that the US continues to arrogate to itself the status of the world’s policeman, with the right to act as judge, jury, and – as the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya have learned to their disastrous cost in recent years – executioner. It describes arrogance beyond measure, conforming to the worldview of an empire whose guiding mantra is “Rome has spoken; the matter is finished."

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Haley: 'Our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out,' http://on.rt.com/8gdm

2:30 PM - 28 Jun 2017

US envoy Nikki Haley: No place for Assad in post-ISIS Syria — RT America

Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, has told Congress that the US should decide on its role in Syria for the time when ISIS is driven out, “because a healthy Syria is not with...

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The “matter” so far as Syria is concerned is regime change, which it becomes increasingly clear is Washington’s primary objective going forward, using its military campaign against ISIS as a stalking horse to justify the build-up of its military presence in the country with this in mind. Seen in this light, the recent spate of US attacks on Syrian forces on the ground and in the air takes on an entirely different connotation – i.e. less to do with protecting US-backed ground troops, as claimed, and more to do with testing Russia’s response and resolve when it comes to supporting its Syrian ally.

In the immediate and short term, the partition of Syria between east and west appears underway – at least if Washington has its way – evidenced by the recent visit to Syria by Brett McGurk of the US State Department. The stated purpose of his visit was to meet the “council planning to run Raqqa” after it is taken from ISIS. Thus here we have a US official visiting a sovereign state without the prior permission of said sovereign state’s legitimate government to discuss the administration of a part of its territory. This is imperialism by any other name, consonant with the actions of a country that is inebriated with that most potent of cocktails, unipolarity and might is right.

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Spy planes & aircraft carrier: US boosts presence off Syria amid WMD accusations

It is also no accident that the uptick in US military aggression in Syria, a country which, again, it is worth pointing out it has zero right to be in, has ensued in the wake of President Trump’s visit to the region in May, during which he enjoyed extensive talks with key US allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel. As everybody knows, King Salman and Benjamin Netanyahu are leaders who go to bed at night and wake up in the morning dreaming of destroying Iran as a regional power. With Trump likewise leaving no doubt of his administration’s enmity toward Iran, it doesn’t take a genius to discern the trajectory of events. It is a trajectory which confirms Riyadh’s recent and on-going aggression against Qatar was undertaken with Tehran rather than terrorism in mind, given the positive relations Qatar has long enjoyed with Iran, while Israel’s continued air and missile strikes against targets in Syria only confirm that rather than ISIS or Nusra, for Tel Aviv the enemy is Assad and Hezbollah, both of whom are fighting ISIS and Nusra.

With the conflict in Syria entering its post-ISIS stage, the smoke has cleared to reveal that where Washington and its regional allies are concerned the road to Tehran runs through Damascus and southern Lebanon. What we have in the region, as a result, is the formation of two countervailing blocs - an axis of resistance and non-sectarianism comprising Syria, Hezbollah and Iran, which is supported by Russia, and an axis of regime change and sectarianism comprising Saudi Arabia and Israel, supported by the US. States such as Turkey and Egypt, meanwhile, have been oscillating between both, though their ability to continue doing so as tensions deepen further is doubtful.

What should be borne in mind when surveying these events is the fact that Washington’s determination to destabilize Syria and overthrow its government has not arrived out of nowhere. As far back as 2006 the US Embassy in Damascus was preparing and distributing a memo outlining ways to “exploit” the supposed weaknesses of the Syrian government. Then, too, we have Washington’s part in funding, training, and arming rebel groups that have been fighting Syrian government forces at various points throughout the conflict. In so doing it has only succeeded in prolonging the suffering of the Syrian people and providing succor to ISIS, Nusra, and various other Salafi-jihadi groups.

An important factor arising from these developments is the need to abandon any hope in the prospect of a resetting of relations between Russia and the US with Trump at the helm. Rather than any departure from the status quo, the current president is on course to achieving the onerous status of the status quo times ten where the assertion of US unipolarity is concerned. He is a man whose irrationality and caprice is only matched by his vanity and atrocious judgment. Whether the unleashing of illegal missile strikes based on unfounded allegations of chemical weapons attacks, or whether his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the world finds itself dealing with an administration whose every decision is worse than the one preceding it.

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Moscow warns Washington against ‘incendiary, provocative action’ in Syria

As the conflict in Syria continues, two of its participants find themselves with a serious decision to make. Firstly the Kurds of the YPG, who make up the bulk of the US-backed SDF ground forces currently engaged in an operation to take Raqqa, need to decide if they are willing to be used as a proxy in service to Washington’s wider strategic objectives vis-à-vis direct confrontation with the Syrian government and Iran in the months ahead. In this respect, history confronts the Kurds and their supporters with the treachery that resides in Washington. In 1991 Bush Sr. and his administration encouraged them to rise against Saddam Hussein in Iraq at the end of the First Gulf War, only to abandon them to their fate in the event.

Secondly, and more crucially, Russia is being placed in an increasingly intolerable position by Washington and Israel with their increasing violation of Syrian sovereignty and attacks on pro-government forces. Up to this point, Moscow has been a model of restraint in the face of what are repeated provocations. How long it can afford to exercise such control is questionable, however. The harm to Russia’s security and national interests if the Assad government is forced from power by the aforementioned axis of regime change is unthinkable. It is why Putin and Trump’s anticipated bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Germany next month carries with it even more importance than a meeting between the heads of the world’s two leading nuclear powers normally would.

It bears emphasizing that the biggest danger the world faces today is not Salafi-jihadism or Islamist extremism. The biggest danger the world faces is the entity that gave birth to them - US imperialism.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.


(RT)

Written by Carey Wedler

(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) The Drug Enforcement Agency just admitted that cannabis has never killed anyone. Ever. They also acknowledged that the little green plant, which has been used acrosscivilizations for thousands of years, causes “merriment” and “happiness.” But they still want to keep it illegal.

The new 94-page report released this week is entitled “Drugs of Abuse” and is intended to foster a better understanding of the dangers of drug consumption. “Education plays a critical role in preventing substance abuse,” the document opens. “Drugs of Abuse, A DEA Resource Guide, is designed to be a reliable resource on the most commonly abused and misused drugs in the United States.”

While the report correctly includes seriously dangerous drugs like heroin, fentanyl, and pharmaceutical opioids, it also includes substances increasingly proven to be far less harmful than the government would like its citizens to believe — “drugs” that actually have medicinal properties. The report fails to acknowledge these benefits throughout its in-depth explanations.

Nevertheless, when it comes to cannabis, the DEA is surprisingly honest, at least in part. Describing the plant for what it is — a “dry, shredded green/brown mix of flowers, stems, seeds, and leaves” — they note that “[n]o deaths from overdose of marijuana have been reported.”

They even acknowledge that cannabis use can cause “[m]erriment, happiness, and even exhilaration at high doses,” as well as “[d]isinhibition, relaxation, increased sociability, and talkativeness.” The illegal, allegedly dangerous substance even causes — gasp — “[e]nhanced sensory perception, giving rise to increased appreciation of music, art, and touch.”

Of course, the report focuses far more on the “dangerous” effects of the plant, including bronchitis, emphysema, paranoia, anxiety, panic attacks, and a litany of other alleged dangers. Despite the fact that research has found marijuana use has few significant effects on lung health — far less thanlegal tobacco use — and the fact that mounting evidence shows varieties of cannabis like CBD (cannabidiol) can help treat anxiety and other mental health ailments, the DEA displays no such nuance in their explanations, instead appearing to base their assessment of safety on the legality of the drug.

For example, though they claim cannabis can cause nausea, they go on to explain in the very same section that “Marinol, a synthetic version of THC, the active ingredient found in the marijuana plant, can be prescribed for the control of nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapeutic agents used in the treatment of cancer and to stimulate appetite in AIDS patients.”

Wait, what?

Indeed, though cannabis is indisputably a form of medicine, whether for nausea, anxiety, Parkinson’s disease, Crohn’s disease, chronic pain, or countless other disorders, the DEA insists that because it is a Schedule I drug, it has no medicinal value.

The same pattern emerges with psychedelic drugs, which the federal government also claims have no medicinal value despite increasing evidence that MDMA can help treat PTSD (the FDA itself has authorized research into the drug’s potential for helping those who suffer with it) and that psychedelic mushrooms and LSD can help treat depression.

None of this is acknowledged in the report. Instead, myths that they are addictive and dangerous abound.

Further, conspicuously absent from “Drugs of Abuse” is one of the most dangerous, addictive, and harmful drugs in the history of mankind: alcohol. According to the government, itself, alcohol isresponsible for 88,000 deaths per year in the United States, and 15.1 million Americans suffer from “Alcohol Use Disorder.” But the substance remains legal. Interestingly, the alcohol industry remains one of the largest anti-marijuana legalization lobbies.

The agency’s dogmatic adherence to arbitrary law is the reason why alcohol is excluded from this comprehensive attempt to educate Americans on the dangers of substance abuse. As the report explains in the introduction, “There are also a number of substances that are abused but not regulated under the CSA [Controlled Substance Act]. Alcohol and tobacco, for example, are specifically exempt from control by the CSA,” and are therefore not included in “Drugs of Abuse.”

Other hypocrisies abound. For example, the report lists benzodiazepines like Xanax as potentially addictive drugs, noting that those who use “benzodiazepines to treat anxiety are likely to be physically dependent on that medication.” But according to the CSA, on which they base their entire drug enforcement agenda, drugs like Xanax have “low potential for abuse and low risk of dependence.” This is patently false, as 13.5 million Americans are dependent on drugs like Xanax, overdoses are on the rise, and side effects of quitting the drug include heart palpitations, panic attacks, and seizures in extreme cases. Yet the DEA, which enforces the CSA, admits in its own report that Xanax causes physical dependency.

Ultimately, while the DEA admits cannabis has never caused deaths and can make for a good deal of “merriment” and “exhilaration,” the most telling aspect of the report is the futility of banning drugs in the first place. The exclusion of alcohol from this report — except the countless instances where it acknowledges that the drug can intensify other drug experiences — shows the federal government’s tirades against “drugs” have nothing to do with keeping people safe. Prohibition in the 1920s proved this, and the ongoing failure that is the “War on Drugs” continues to prove it today.

Even abusing the dangers of cannabis, MDMA, and other drugs the DEA lists in its report are accurate, the fact remains that other legal drugs pose just as many, if not more dangers, and individuals should be free to take risks with their own health, just as they are with alcohol and tobacco.

Legal or not, people will find ways to use drugs, and while the authors of “Drugs of Abuse” likely have good intentions, their efforts are futile in their lack of honesty about many of the substances listed and their continued belief that more government and throwing non-violent people in cages will solve the deeply-rooted problem of addiction.

Opinion / Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

Written by Darius Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA) — Earlier this week, the White House released a fresh warning that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was planning a chemical weapons attack and that he would pay a “heavy price” for doing so. The warning appeared to confuse a number of U.S. officials who had not been consulted before the warning was released.

As CBS reported, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said U.S. intelligence had seen activity at a specific aircraft shelter at the Shayrat airfield – the same airfield Donald Trump bombed in April of this year over unproven allegations that it was the base from which a chemical weapons attack had been launched approximately two days prior.

And what was that specific activity that the U.S. had picked up on? According to CBS:

“He [Pentagon spokesman Davis] said increased activity had been seen at Shayrat over several days, including increased aircraft activity. Davis said the evidence of preparations for a possible new chemical attack ‘became more compelling’ within [the] last 24 hours, and that it was ‘strongly suggestive of intent’ to conduct such an attack.” [emphasis added]

Well – f*#k me. The Pentagon saw increased aircraft activity at an airbase? What are the odds of that?

Not long after, the White House claimed their warning that Assad would pay a “heavy price” was successful in deterring the attack even though we now know Assad was more than likely not responsible for the most recent chemical weapons debacle in April, as recently reported by Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh. Assad was also likely not responsible for the other major attacks pinned on his military, either.

The White House’s claim of successful deterrence against Assad came moments after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that Russia would respond proportionately should the U.S. strike their close ally in Syria.

And people think I’m crazy when I warn them about the impending global conflict between Russia and the United States.

Even if it is all just a mere sabre-rattling chess game to see who can emerge with the most black and white pieces of the Syrian chessboard after ISIS falls, the potential for something to go wrong is far too high for my liking.

Not to mention the lives of ordinary Syrians, who continue to be blown right off the chessboard into a statistic – a statistic nobody seems to care about. This devastating reality applies to the Syrian and Russian governments, too, for we have been told time and time again that these two parties are responsible for the majority of the casualties in Syria.

That being said, the Syrian government is defending itself from a foreign-backed insurgency and requested Russian assistance to ostensibly protect itself. The United States (and the so-called coalition it represents), on the other hand, is the only party to the Syrian conflict consistently claiming to be concerned with human rights and the mounting civilian death toll. They also claim to be fighting ISIS and continue to reiterate that they do not seek a war with the Syrian government, even as they repeatedly bomb government assets.

And yet the U.S. government reportedly killed 500 civilians in the last month of fighting in Syria – a country they have no legal justification to bomb in the first place. According to Airwars researcher Alex Hopkins, the coalition killed at least 57 women in May, alone. Some 137 children died in the last month of fighting, as well.

In the first week of fighting in Raqqa in June of this year, the U.N. warned that American airstrikes had already killed 300 civilians that same week.

These statistics reveal that the coalition’s violence is not targeted at all, as they claim; it is heavily indiscriminate (and sounds almost like a war crime). The coalition has also been using white phosphorus in densely populated areas of Syria, as well as depleted uranium.

By using the term “coalition,” it appears the blame is shared equally across the so-called parties to the U.S.-led military adventure in these war-torn Middle Eastern countries. However, the U.S. bears the brunt of these casualties. It is responsible for approximately 95 percent of all strikes in Syria. Even if their aircraft weren’t specifically involved in a particular strike, can you imagine such a strike going ahead without approval from the American military first?

It’s unlikely the majority of Americans are even aware that until June 13, the United States only had two people investigating Syrian and Iraqi casualties full time. Now, there are seven.

That’s some commitment to human rights and international law.

Since Trump took office, the U.S. has killed thousands of Iraqi and Syrian civilians.

Last month, the Washington D.C.-based Physicians for Social Responsibility (PRS) released a study in which they determined that the death toll from America’s post 9/11 “war on terror” could be as high as two million to date. Nafeez Ahmed, a journalist who was axed from the Guardian after criticizing Israel, found that Western-led wars have killed approximately four million civilians in Muslim-majority populations since 1990.

Remember these statistics the next time Trump warns you about a Muslim invasion of Europe and America.

Despite all of this information, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., had the confidence to tweet the following this week:

“Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Assad, but also on Russia & Iran who support him killing his own people.”

Apparently, the right to kill Syrian civilians is reserved only for the United States and its allies, who have been bombing Syrian territory since 2014, as well as arming, funding and training radical jihadists to wreak havoc across the country since the conflict began.

If the United States were actually concerned with the sheer horror of the Syrian conflict and wanted to protect civilians, it surely wouldn’t advocate more violence as it continues to do. This is reminiscent of the same violent strategies that have plagued Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Vietnam, and Korea – to name but a few of the episodes of the never-ending American-led war cycle.

Let’s not wait until Donald Trump’s next pre-emptive strike or empty allegations against the Assad government. Washington’s threats of war towards Assad alone are already serious breaches of international law in and of themselves.

If it takes body-bags of loved ones returning to the homes of America and beyond before people start to wake up and pay attention to these catastrophic developments, then so be it.

The alternative is that people wake up now and demand an end to this perpetual cycle of death and destruction, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be on the immediate horizon.

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo