So you keep saying. In other news.
(in part)
Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Turkish President Erdogan has defended his decision to send ground troops into Syria claiming that his incursion had helped establish "peace, balance and stability in a region taken over by hopelessness"; however political analyst Mehmet Yuva has warned Ankara against crossing "Russia's red line" in the country.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used the UN General Assembly platform to defend his invasion into Syria claiming it has helped restore "peace, balance and stability in a region taken over by hopelessness".
Turkish officials have vowed to continue military operations in the border region with Syria "until all threats to its national security are removed." Sputnik Turkiye discussed the issue with Mehmet Yuva, Syrian political analyst of Turkish origin and international security expert at Damascus University. "It is only too clear that Turkey is striving to play a more substantial role in defining Syria's political future. Or, at least to ensure that the groups it supports take part in this process," Mehmet Yuva told Sputnik.
Read more:
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160923/1045623189/turkey-syria-military-operation.html
Who says Russians don't have a sense of humor?
(in part)
US Proxies in Syria Violated Ceasefire 'to Prolong War Until Clinton Presidency'
Recent attacks on the Syrian army have led to the end of a ceasefire with rebel groups, which was never accepted by war hawks in the US government and their allies in the region, Kevork Almassian, an analyst specializing in Middle East affairs told Radio Sputnik.
On September 19 a UN humanitarian aid convoy in south-western Aleppo came under fire. The attack left 20 civilians and a senior official of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent dead, and destroyed 18 out of 31 aid trucks which were intended to deliver food, winter clothes and medical supplies to 78 thousand people in besieged areas.
The incident took place in an area controlled by armed rebel groups, who have in the past repeatedly obstructed the passage of aid convoys.
It happened two days after the US-led anti-Daesh coalition bombed Syrian army positions in the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor, killing 62 Syrian soldiers are injuring over 100, an incident which Washington said was a mistake.
Read more:
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160921/1045546014/syria-ceasefire-clinton-presidency.html
Western Media Blames Russia, Syria For Attack On UN Convoy; Video and Photos Tell Different Story
Throughout the entirety of the Syrian crisis, Western media outlets have misrepresented facts and presented outright lies to their audiences regarding virtually every aspect of the war. Particularly when it comes to specific occurrences used to gin up support for greater Western intervention in Syria, these outlets kick it up a notch, launching flurries of disinformation and misinformation designed to leave imprints of false narratives in the minds of half attentive audiences. Incidents such as the
Ghouta chemical weapons attack,
little Omran, and, now the
alleged attack on a U.N. convoy are now parts of a larger narrative. No matter how much they are debunked, confusion and distortion leave behind traces of the narrative embedded in the mind of the consumer.
Still, it is important to point out the false narratives where they do exist in order to deconstruct them as much as possible.
For instance, the recent hysteria over an alleged attack on a U.N. convoy by “either Syrian or Russian jets” (because it couldn’t have been the U.S. of course) has been used as an attempt to paint Russia and Syria as violators of a ceasefire and states so evil that they would dare attack the sacred U.N. who only ever provides food to hungry people and candy to children. Yet the entire incident, which the West is attempting to use as a political hammer, exists only through the channels and pages of Western media. In reality, however, not so much.
The story being peddled to the American people is that, even as the ceasefire was still in effect (from the point of view of the United States despite the fact that its terrorists never abided by one principle or obligation of the ceasefire from the very beginning), either Russia or Syria bombed a U.N. aid convoy on its way to deliver supplies to civilians.
However, further investigation reveals that the aid convoy that was destroyed and the U.N. aid convoy being presented to the American public as being the victim of the attack are two different convoys and two different incidents.
The convoy that was actually attacked, a Syrian Red Crescent aid operation, was attacked outside a warehouse in Urm al-Kubra just west of Aleppo. Twenty to thirty trucks were said to be destroyed in this attack which took place shortly after the ceasefire officially ended on September, 19. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the attackers were the Syrian or Russian militaries. Instead, it is most likely America’s rebels who attacked the convoy.
Still, the United States claims that, although it doesn’t know which military, it is confident that the UN aid convoy was bombed by either Syria or Russia.
As the Washington Post reports,
“We know it was an airstrike and not one from the coalition. We don’t know if it was Russia or the regime,” the only others flying over Syria, a senior administration official said. “In either case, the Russians have a responsibility certainly to avoid doing it themselves, but also to keep restraint on the regime.”
But, per the usual method of accusation, the United States never explained exactly how they knew this. Where is the intelligence coming from? Are there satellite images? Anything?
Russia, however, denied that its planes, or Syrian jets for that matter, were involved in the attack. In addition, the Russian defense ministry pointed out some anomalies suggesting that the convoy was not bombed from the air at all.
“We have studied video footage from the scene from so-called ‘activists’ in detail and did not find any evidence that the convoy had been struck by ordnance,” said Igor Konashenkov of the Russian Defense Ministry. “There are no craters and the exterior of the vehicles do not have the kind of damage consistent with blasts caused by bombs dropped from the air.”
Indeed, photographs of the convoy do not line up with the damage that one would expect to see if the trucks had been attacked from the air.
As Tom Miles and Angus McDowall reported for the Asia Times,
He [Igor Konashenkov] said the damage to the convoy visible in footage was caused by its cargo catching fire. It had occurred at the same time as militants from the group formerly called the Nusra Front had started a big offensive in nearby Aleppo, he said, appearing to point the finger at rescue workers from a group called the “White Helmets” who filmed the aftermath.
“Only representatives of the ‘White Helmets’ organization close to the Nusra Front who, as always, found themselves at the right time in the right place by chance with their video cameras can answer who did this and why.”
Hussein Badawi, head of the White Helmets in the town, said he was 100 meters (yards) from the aid depot when the attack took place and was injured by shrapnel in the hand.
“There were fires, martyrs, wounded people. We were able to pull out four survivors and five dead bodies at first,” Badawi said. “The bombardment was continuous. The rescue teams weren’t even able to work. Those who arrived in ambulances couldn’t come in.”
Man... the Russians will need a lot of Rubles to pay the Syria tab.
Next to nothing compared to what the US has spent over the last 5 years, and not a dime returned on that 'investment'. There is just no good news for the US is there.