Inder Comar — Four Lessons From the Strike on Syria

The lessons from last weekend’s strike on Syria by the United States of America and two of its allies do not bode well for the future of democracy or the future of peace, says Inder Comar. 

More warnings than lessons. "It can't happen here."

Consortium News
Four Lessons From the Strike on Syria

Inder Comar

Related

Are most Americans "good Americans" like the "good Germans" that not only did not oppose Hitler but elected him and stood by him when he later made war illegally and aggressively for idealistic reasons?

The fact that this poll did not show close to 100% contempt by the American people regarding what the U.S. government and its two allies, UK and France, had just done, indicates not only that the American people are astoundingly ignorant that the U.S. and its allies are international outlaws and warmongers (which makes sense for a nation that invaded and destroyed Iraq 2003, Libya 2011 and has been trying to do it since 2011 in Syria), but that they are also astoundingly misinformed as to which side in this war is guilty, and which side is not.

Nothing new though. Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada, G. W. H. Bush invaded Panama, Bill Clinton bombed Serbia, G. W. Bush invaded Iraq, Barack Obama inserted ISIS into Syria and put US forces there, and now Donald Trump has doubled down. Hardly anything heard in protest from the people of the United States.

Washington's Blog
Poll Shows Americans Support the Invasion of Syria

Eric Zuese

AFP — US, France, Britain launch new UN bid for Syria chemical weapons probe

The UN is now finished as a result of the violation of the UN Charter by the US, and France without UN authorization or in self-defense.

The UN is now just of use for propaganda. Russia and China will vote everything that the US, UK and France propose in the UNSC, and vice versa.

Niki Haley is a prop in political theater. The US neocons and conservative nationalists have no use for the UN anyway and believe it is irrelevant, John Bolton in particular.

The ROW will watch this and shake their heads, although many countries will support the US in votes out of fear of reprisals. China and Russia are the only countries that have the chops to get in the face of the US. Together they are formidable.

But over time....

Middle East Eye
US, France, Britain launch new UN bid for Syria chemical weapons probe

AFP

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson — — I Helped Sell the False Choice of War Once. It’s Happening Again.

Crosspost of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson's op-ed in the New York Times.

Russia Insider
I Helped Sell the False Choice of War Once. It’s Happening Again.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, US Army (ret.)

Paul Robinson — War propaganda

Did you know that war propaganda is against international law?

Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was ratified by the United Nations General Assembly in 1966, obliges states to impose certain restrictions on freedom of speech. The article was the product of a long debate among UN members. Countries from the Soviet bloc and many non-aligned nations, notably Brazil, were keen to include a prohibition on propaganda for war, and also to make it as broadly defined as possible – that is to say to ban not just incitement of war, but propaganda on behalf of war more generally. Western states, by contrast, were rather more reluctant to include the provision, and in so far as they were willing to accept it, wanted to limit it just to incitement. In the end, the West lost the debate. The final wording of Article 20 states clearly: “Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.”

Irrussianality
War propaganda
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Ramanan — An Important Note By The United Nations On The IMF And The World Order

The IMF is one institutional which has been responsible for maintaining this world order. Since governments need exceptional financing, they are arm-twisted by the IMF.

A recent United Nations General Assemby note, Promotion Of A Democratic And Equitable International Order, has recognized this and criticizes the IMF strongly.…

The report is 18 pages long and critical of the IMF from the start to the end. Please read. You won’t find any discussion of the report in the mainstream media.

The Western dominated international organizations enforce the neoliberal interpretation of the Washington Consensus that is foundational to neoliberal globalization under Western-dominated financial capitalism.

The Case for Concerted Action
An Important Note By The United Nations On The IMF And The World Order
V. Ramanan

Alex Emmons — The U.S. Voted Against a U.N. Resolution Condemning Death Penalty for LGBTQ People

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S administration is facing strong backlash from civil rights groups after voting against a U.N. resolution that condemns using death penalty to punish “consensual same-sex relations.”

The U.N. Human Rights Council approved the measure on Friday with a 27-13 vote, with seven countries abstaining....

The Intercept
The U.S. Voted Against a U.N. Resolution Condemning Death Penalty for LGBTQ People
Alex Emmons

Robert Parry — Trump Falls in Line with Interventionism

In discussing President Trump, there is always the soft prejudice of low expectations – people praise him for reading from a Teleprompter even if his words make little sense – but there is no getting around the reality that his maiden address to the United Nations General Assembly must rank as one of the most embarrassing moments in America’s relations with the global community. 

Trump offered a crude patchwork of propaganda and bluster, partly delivered as a campaign speech praising his own leadership – boasting about the relatively strong U.S. economy that he mostly inherited from President Obama – and partly reflecting his continued subservience to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

However, perhaps most importantly, Trump’s speech may have extinguished any flickering hope that his presidency might achieve some valuable course corrections in how the United States deals with the world, i.e., shifting away from the disastrous war/interventionist policies of his two predecessors. 

Before the speech, there was at least some thinking that his visceral disdain for the neoconservatives, who mostly opposed his nomination and election, might lead him to a realization that their policies toward Iran, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere were at the core of America’s repeated and costly failures in recent decades. 

Instead, apparently after a bracing lecture from Netanyahu on Monday, Trump bared himself in a kind of neocon Full Monte:

 Parry: "there is no getting around the reality that his maiden address to the United Nations General Assembly must rank as one of the most embarrassing moments in America’s relations with the global community." 

Emabarassing to whom? It's been obvious for quite a while that America has no shame. The leadership of a country reflects its collective consciousness.

Then, with a seeming blindness to how much of the world sees the United States as a law onto itself, Trump added: “The scourge of our planet today is a small group of rogue regimes that violate every principle on which the United Nations is based.”

Of course, in the U.S. mainstream media’s commentary that followed, Trump’s hypocrisy went undetected. That’s because across the American political/media establishment, the U.S. right to act violently around the world is simply accepted as the way things are supposed to be. International law is for the other guy; not for the “indispensible nation,” not for the “sole remaining superpower.”

While this may seem to be hypocritical, many Americans do not see it that way. They believe that they are fighting evil and therefore the end justifies the means.

So, what Trump made clear in his U.N. address is that his “America First” and “pro-sovereignty” rhetoric is simply cover for a set of policies that are indistinguishable from those pushed by the neocons of the Bush administration or the liberal interventionists of the Obama administration. The rationalizations may change but the endless wars and “regime change” machinations continue.

Consortium News
Trump Falls in Line with Interventionism

Robert Parry

Moon of Alabama — "Sovereign Nations" Is Main Theme Of Trump's UN Speech

The aim of such language and threats is usually to goad the other party into some overt act that can than be used as justification for "retaliation". But none of the countries Trump mentioned is prone to such behavior. They will react calmly - if at all.

There was essentially nothing in Trump's threats than the claptrap the last two U.S. presidents also delivered. Trump may be crazy, but the speech today is not a sign of that.
The stressing of sovereignty and the nation state in part one was the point where Trump indeed differed from his interventionist predecessors.

But its still difficult to judge if that it is something he genuinely believes in.

I think Trump genuinely believes in sovereignty and the Westphalian order, as do China and Russia. But President Xi is in charge in China and President Putin is in charge in Russia. President Trump is not in charge in the US, and the people that are charge don't believe in it. US policy ahs been and is international interventionism, and Donald Trump is not a position to change that. So the good portion of the speech rings hollow. 

I doubt that anyone in power abroad thinks that the US ruling elite has any intention of backing away from longstanding US interventionist policy, President Trump's words notwithstanding. Previous US presidents mouthed similar "liberal" sentiments, while intervening to "preserve the liberal world order." President Trump's threat in the speech indicate that he is of the same mind, regardless of the hype he dispensed. And no, the US is not going to recognize spheres of influence other than its own, in spite of the danger of not doing so.

Moon of Alabama
"Sovereign Nations" Is Main Theme Of Trump's UN Speech

b

Russia Feed — Russia not willing to be a part of US-proposed UN reforms

Russia rejects US rejection of UN as chief guarantor of the international order.

The UN has long been in the sights of the American right, and Donald Trump is a true believer in that position.

Chairman of the State Duma Committee for International Affairs Leonid Slutksy … said that Russia views the UN Trump Reform as a major step in the “US coordinate system” towards a unipolar world order and toward a reduced role for the UN in the architecture of the 21st century.

Nyet!

Russia Feed
Russia not willing to be a part of US-proposed UN reforms

Tom Winter — Times we laughed at the US State Department, chapter 2 "If we have to use force it is because we are America"

Nikki Haley takes over from Samantha Power. All that changes is the color of the hair.

Fort Russ
Times we laughed at the US State Department, chapter 2 "If we have to use force it is because we are America"
Tom Winter

SouthFront — US Calls Itself ‘World’s Moral Conscience’

Yikes! The American elite as a combination of global pope, police, and judge.

SouthFront
US Calls Itself ‘World’s Moral Conscience’

VV2

Felicity Arbuthnot — The Betrayal of Syria - The US, France and Britain’s UN Ambassadors at the United Nations

The US is the current imperial power in the region while France and Britain are the former imperial powers there.

Katehon
Felicity Arbuthnot: The Betrayal of Syria - The US, France and Britain’s UN Ambassadors at the United Nations

Dimitri Konstantakopoulos — Nuland in Nicosia – towards “regime change” in Cyprus?

Many readers may think that what is happening in Cyprus, a small member-state of EU in Eastern Mediterranean, is of rather marginal importance. This is what mainstream media are implying by their (non) reporting on the real parameters of the Cyprus question. But, in reality the opposite is true. Cyprus, in spite of its magnitude, is too important to speak much of it!

What what will happen in Cyprus during the coming months may have huge consequences for the direction both the European and the Middle Eastern crises will take in the near future. It may determine EU-Turkey relations and it will also deeply affect Greek politics and Russian interests in the Mediterranean.

Why all this? First because the “solution”, now prepared, of the Cyprus conflict is tantamount to no more, no less than the … abolition of the state in Cyprus, something which will set an example for all nation-states in Europe. To make a long story short, the Annan plan – along the same lines will be the next proposal for Cyprus - was giving ultimate power in the island to three foreign judges and to dozens of other “international officials”, appointed by the General Secretary of the UN personally (without even the consent of members of the Security Council). Those judges and other “international officials” would be able even to appoint their successors!

Katehon
Dimitris Konstantakopoulos: Nuland in Nicosia – towards “regime change” in Cyprus?

Dimitri Konstantakopoulos | Journalist and writer, former Secretary of the Independent Citizens Movement, former member SYRIZA’s Central Committee, current editorial board member of the international magazine Utopia Review, ex-chief of the Greek Press Agency office in Moscow, formerly served as Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou’s adviser in East-West relations and arms control.

Moon of Alabama — U.S. Ignores Own UNSC Resolution - Tells Russia "Stop Bombing Al-Qaeda!"

The US pokes Russia in the eye again.

Moon of Alabama
U.S. Ignores Own UNSC Resolution - Tells Russia "Stop Bombing Al-Qaeda!"

See also

The US gets an ultimatum from Turkey.

"We expect that our allies will stand in our defense, if Turkey is to be threatened. We will not make this a topic for discussion. From USA we are waiting — for solidarity with us without any "but's" or "if's". We don't want to hear any more phrases starting with "but", — TASS quoted Davutoglu.

Fort Russ
Davutoglu: Ankara Is Waiting for U.S Solidarity Without Any "If's" Or "But's"
RT (Russian)

Translated by Ollie Richardson for Fort Russ

UPDATE: Here it is in English
‘No ifs and buts’: Turkey demands US support against ‘Kurdish terrorists’

There be crazies!

Voltaire Network — First UN report on ISIL

For the record.

Voltaire Network
First UN report on ISIL

RT — Syria crisis plan: Cessation of hostilities, humanitarian airdrops, peace talks laid out in Munich

Preliminary agreement with US, Russia and UN on board with a ceasefire agreement that provides for continuing to fight UN designated terrorist groups.

RT
Syria crisis plan: Cessation of hostilities, humanitarian airdrops, peace talks laid out in Munich

RT — Breaking international law in Syria

The war drums are getting louder in the aftermath of ISIS attacks in Paris, as Western countries gear up to launch further airstrikes in Syria. But obscured in the fine print of countless resolutions and media headlines is this: the West has no legal basis for military intervention. Their strikes are illegal.

“It is always preferable in these circumstances to have the full backing of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) but I have to say what matters most of all is that any actions we would take would… be legal,” explained UK Prime Minister David Cameron to the House of Commons last Wednesday.

Legal? No, there’s not a scrap of evidence that UK airstrikes would be lawful in their current incarnation.

Then just two days later, on Friday, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2249, aimed at rallying the world behind the fairly obvious notion that ISIS is an “unprecedented threat to international peace and security.”

"It's a call to action to member states that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures against (ISIS) and other terrorist groups," British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told reporters.

The phrase “all necessary measures” was broadly interpreted – if not explicitly sanctioning the “use of force” in Syria, then as a wink to it.

Let’s examine the pertinent language of UNSCR 2249:

The resolution “calls upon Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law, in particular with the United Nations Charter…on the territory under the control of ISIL also known as Da’esh, in Syria and Iraq.”

Note that the resolution demands “compliance with international law, in particular with the UN Charter.” This is probably the most significant explainer to the “all necessary measures” phrase. Use of force is one of the most difficult things for the UNSC to sanction – it is a last resort measure, and a rare one. The lack of Chapter 7 language in the resolution pretty much means that ‘use of force’ is not on the menu unless states have other means to wrangle “compliance with international law.”….

There are a lot of laws that seek to govern and prevent wars, but the Western nations looking to launch airstrikes in Syria have made things easy for us – they have cited the law that they believe justifies their military intervention: specifically, Article 51 of the UN Charter. It reads, in part:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”

So doesn’t France, for instance, enjoy the inherent right to bomb ISIS targets in Syria as an act of self-defense - in order to prevent further attacks? 

And don’t members of the US-led coalition, who cite the “collective self-defense” of Iraq (the Iraqi government has formally made this request), have the right to prevent further ISIS attacks from Syrian territory into Iraqi areas?

Well, no. Article 51, as conceived in the UN Charter, refers to attacks between territorial states, not with non-state actors like ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Syria, after all, did not attack France or Iraq – or Turkey, Australia, Jordan or Saudi Arabia.
And here’s where it gets interesting.

Western leaders are employing two distinct strategies to obfuscate the lack of legal justification for intervention in Syria. The first is the use of propaganda to build narratives about Syria that support their legal argumentation. The second is a shrewd effort to cite legal “theory” as a means to ‘stretch’ existing law into a shape that supports their objectives.…

If there was any lingering doubt about the illegality of coalition activities in Syria, the Syrian government put these to rest in September, in two letters to the UNSC that denounced foreign airstrikes as unlawful:

“If any State invokes the excuse of counter-terrorism in order to be present on Syrian territory without the consent of the Syrian Government whether on the country’s land or in its airspace or territorial waters, its action shall be considered a violation of Syrian sovereignty.”

Yet still, upon the adoption of UNSC Resolution 2249 last Friday, US Deputy Representative to the United Nations Michele Sison insisted that “in accordance with the UN Charter and its recognition of the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense,” the US would use “necessary and proportionate military action” in Syria.

The website for the European Journal of International Law (EJIL) promptly pointed out the obvious:

“The resolution is worded so as to suggest there is Security Council support for the use of force against IS. However, though the resolution, and the unanimity with which it was adopted, might confer a degree of legitimacy on actions against IS, the resolution does not actually authorize any actions against IS, nor does it provide a legal basis for the use of force against IS either in Syria or in Iraq.”

These are some high points that are not intended as a summary because the details that have been omitted are important. Read the whole piece. It contains a lot of information that debunks Western propaganda to justify breaking international law — which one of Vladimir Putin's chief indictments of the West.

If the ‘international community’ wants to return ‘peace and stability’ to the Syrian state, it seems prudent to point out that its very first course of action should be to stop breaking international law in Syria.

Smackdown.

RT

Breaking international law in Syria

Sharmine Narwani | a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics, and former senior associate at St. Antony's College, Oxford University

RT — UN calls on world to fight ISIS as Security Council unanimously adopts French-drafted resolution

The United Nations has called the states to fight “a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security” which is Islamic State (IS, ISIS/ISIL, Da’esh). All 15 members of the UN Security Council voted to adopt the French-proposed resolution.

The resolution “calls upon member states that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures ... on the territory under the control of ISIL ... in Syria and Iraq.”
IS “constitutes a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security,” the resolution says.

Russia has repeatedly called for action to cut the terrorists’ financial lifelines, with President Vladimir Putin revealing on Monday that IS is receiving funding from 40 countries.

Syria’s UN Ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, hinted prior to Friday’s vote that this resolution was long overdue. “Welcome to everybody who finally woke up and joined the club of combating terrorists.”

RT
UN calls on world to fight ISIS as Security Council unanimously adopts French-drafted resolution

TASS — Canada, US, Ukraine vote against UN resolution condemning glorification of Nazism

UNITED NATIONS, November 20. /TASS/. Third Committee of the UN General Assembly on Thursday adopted a resolution on measures against the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that facilitate the escalation of modern forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance related to them.

A total of 126 member-states of the UN voted for the document and four countries - Canada, Palau, the U.S., and Ukraine - voted against it. Another 53 countries, including member-nations of the European Union abstained from voting.

As many as 115 countries voted for a similar resolution last year but three countries - Canada, Ukraine, and the U.S. - voted against it.

The resolution condemns unconditionally any denial of Holocaust and expresses concern over any forms of glorification of the Nazi movement, former members of the Waffen SS organization, including the installation of memorials to them, and the ‘unending attempts to desecrate or destroy the monuments to those who fought with Nazism during World War II.…

TASS
Canada, US, Ukraine vote against UN resolution condemning glorification of Nazism

The Guardian — G20: Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin agree to Syrian-led transition

Presidents of US and Russia meet at leaders’ conference and agree to have the UN negotiate a peace deal between the opposition and the Assad regime.

The Guardian
G20: Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin agree to Syrian-led transition