Stephen Lendman

At various times throughout years of US-launched aggression on Syria, using terrorists as proxy foot soldiers, Amnesty International (AI) pointed fingers the wrong way.

Last December, without justification, it turned truth on its head, claiming “Russian air strikes in Syria have killed hundreds of civilians and caused massive destruction in residential areas, striking homes, a mosque and a busy market, as well as medical facilities, in a pattern of attacks that show evidence of violations of international humanitarian law.”

It irresponsibly blamed Moscow for high crimes committed by imported death squads and US-led coalition warplanes.

Despite no corroborating evidence, it claimed “Russian authorities may have lied to cover up civilian damage to a mosque from one air strike and a field hospital in another.”

“It also documents evidence suggesting Russia’s use of internationally banned cluster munitions and of unguided bombs in populated residential areas.”

According to its Middle East/North Africa director Philip Luther, “(s)ome Russian air strikes appear to have directly attacked civilians or civilian objects by striking residential areas with no evident military target and even medical facilities, resulting in deaths and injuries to civilians. Such attacks may amount to war crimes.”

Russia uses precision weapons. It scrupulously avoids striking civilian targets. It has verifiable photographic proof of all its airstrikes.

AI claiming its warplanes bomb civilian targets amounts to malicious lying. US warplanes and terrorists it supports consistently attack residential communities, hospitals, schools and other nonmilitary sites.

AI blaming Russia and Syria for these high crimes falsifies reality on the ground, including saying they used “internationally banned deadly cluster munitions.”

In late February, AI falsely accused Russia of some of the most “egregious” war crimes in decades, its crisis response director, Tirana Hassan, saying “(w)e’ve documented (sic) strikes on schools, strikes on hospitals and civilian homes.”

“One of the most egregious parts of what Russia and the Syrian forces are doing is they’re bombing these civilian targets when it itself is a war crime.”

“But then they’ve been looping around - and this is a consistent report that there are second bombardments - which then have been injuring and killing humanitarian workers and just civilians who are going in to actually evacuate the wounded and the dead.”

Moscow categorically rejects these falsified accusations. In early May, AI was at it again, claiming “Russian and Syrian government forces systematically targeted hospitals in opposition-controlled areas around Aleppo as a strategy of war. As the ceasefire unravels, such blatant breaches of international law must not be allowed to continue.”

Throughout over five years of Obama’s war, civilians and nonmilitary sites were repeatedly targeted, including with chemical and other banned weapons.

Washington, its Western and regional rogue partners, as well as terrorists groups they support bear full responsibility. AI lacks credibility claiming otherwise.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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