Last Tuesday, Reuters would report the deaths of at least 58 people in the Syrian Governorate of Idlib as a result of the alleged attacks of Syrian and Russian air forces.
The international community was immediately informed by the Syrian authorities that this mournful incident did only occur as a result of the destruction of weapons stockpiles accumulated by ISIS in this area, which, among other things, contained a massive volume of prohibited chemical substances produced by the radical militants.
Nevertheless, the absolute majority of European and American politicians were quick to jump the anti-Damascus bandwagon in a bid to promote hysteria aimed at bringing down the legitimate Syrian officials. Washington has ever tried to bring this topic to be attention of the UN Security Council as a case of the so-called use criminal substances against civilians, while not having anything as remotely as serious as Powell’s test tube, even though the latter was utterly pathetic in its own rights back in the days.
There can be little doubt that this recent propaganda campaign has been in the making for a while now, devised in a desperate bid to divert the public attention from the mounting anti-Western criticism voiced by the international community triggered by the ever widening list of atrocities that the so-called US coalition has been committing recently both in Iraq in Syria.
Meanwhile, according to various EU and US media sources, the civilian death toll continues to mount rapidly at the result of most blatant Western air strikes we’ve witnessed in recent decades. As it’s been noted by Reuters, just one instance of such attacks has recently resulted in at least 240 civilians being killed!
If one is to take into the consideration that the US coalition has been pounding Mosul with air strikes on the daily basis, he would understand why certain analysts claim that Washington is responsible for tens of thousands of civilian deaths in this sole operation. At the same time, as we’ve already witnessed in Syria, NATO forces are reluctant to concentrate their efforts on the destruction of ISIS militants, since they seem determined to pursue their ultimate goal – to inflict as much critical damage to the civilian infrastructure of Iraq to postpone the upcoming reconstruction of the country as difficult as possible.
The civil administration of Mosul has repeatedly pointed out that target confusion has become so commonplace among US pilots that civilian deaths accompanied by the destruction of the entire infrastructure of this Iraqi city is now a day-today reality for those who found themselves trapped in this conflict. In particular, it’s been noted that the recent air strikes of the US coalition forces in western Mosul have left up to 70% of residential buildings destroyed, with the situation in the eastern part being marginally better with 30% of building being obliterated. As for the roads, it’s been announced that 90% of them are now gone.
But Iraq and Syria are not the only ones to suffer from this disaster, as it’s been officially recognized that by the head of the US Africa Command General Thomas D. Waldhauser, the Libyan city of Sirte has literally been wiped off the face of the earth by the US coalition air strikes.
Additionally, as it’s been recognized by General Stephen Townsend who is currently in command of the US counter-terrorist operation against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the US Air Force is responsible of numerous attacks against civilian targets in western Mosul. At the same, Townsend doesn’t seem to be concerned about the extreme civilian casualties numbers, since, if his statements are to be trusted, they were “expected” in Washington even before the entire operation began.
It curious that the above mentioned statements of US official representative were not followed by the massive hysteria in the mainstream media or immediate appeals to the UN Security Council with demands to “punish the guilty”, in sharp contrast to the reaction we’ve seen following the tragic events in Idlib.
Undoubtedly, unjustified civilian deaths, whether they occur in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan or any other country is a tragedy and it must be thoroughly investigated in order to prevent such events in the future!
But all the provocative propaganda campaigns carried out by Western special services and media sources in cooperation with various NGO like the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in London, and the so-called White Helmets should also be the subject of no less thorough investigation.