Although Russia signaled that it would veto the US/UK/France UN Security Council Resolution adding sanctions on the Syrian government over allegations that it used chemical weapons on its own people, the Resolution was brought to a vote anyway today. In the end, it was vetoed by Russia, China, and Bolivia, with three additional countries abstaining.
The Resolution and accompanying sanctions were a classic case of guilty until proven innocent, as the investigations into the alleged use of chlorine gas are ongoing and have established no definitive proof of Syrian government culpability.
That did not stop President Trump’s “Disaster Ambassador,” Nikki Haley, from once again displaying her astonishing ignorance in a blistering (but groundless) attack on Russia and China for not falling in line behind the US-led sanctions effort.
Ambassador Haley started out:
When you hear members of the Security Council speak about the use of chemical weapons, it’s pretty amazing because you have unity in the fact that we need to be concerned about chemical weapons use in Syria and elsewhere. That is why the blocking of this resolution is so troubling.
The Resolution was vetoed not because Russia and China are not concerned about chemical weapons, but rather, as the deputy Russian Ambassador to the UN said, because the investigation is flawed in its approach and politicized in its conclusions:
The problem is that the basis of expert work on Syria come from dubious information submitted by the armed opposition, international NGOs sympathetic to it, the media and so-called ‘Friends of Syria’…
This is the same approach to Syria that the Obama Administration has taken since 2013: taking the word of the rebels – all of which according to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who was in Syria, are radical extremists – as fact. That is how so much US weaponry sent to “moderates” in Syria ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Yet President Trump’s Ambassador to the UN is ready to take the word of the radicals and terrorists over the Syrian government, which is fighting radicals and terrorists.
Haley cluelessly went on:
Russia and China made an outrageous and indefensible choice today. They refused to hold Bashar al-Assad’s regime accountable for the use of chemical weapons.
But Assad has not been found guilty of the use of chemical weapons. It was a flawed investigation that used testimony of disreputable special interest groups to push a “regime change” agenda.
And like the Obama Administration before it, Trump’s Ambassador is going right along with the program. Including taking as gospel reports from the George Soros-funded Human Rights Watch, which has been firmly on the side of regime change in Syria.
Investigative journalist Robert Parry reported last year that UN investigators looking into the use of chlorine gas by the Syrian government were given evidence that jihadist groups were staging false flags to blame the Syrian government. They chose to ignore the reports.
Wrote Parry:
United Nations investigators encountered evidence that alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian military were staged by jihadist rebels and their supporters, but still decided to blame the government for two incidents in which chlorine was allegedly dispersed via improvised explosives dropped by helicopters.
In both cases, the Syrian government denied that it had any aircraft in the areas at the times of the purported attacks, but the U.N. team rejected that explanation with the curious argument that Syria failed to provide flight records to corroborate the absence of any flights. Yet, if there had been no flights, there would be no flight records.
The U.N. team also dismissed out of hand the possibility that jihadist rebels who had overrun some air bases and thus had operational helicopters at their disposal might have used them as part of a staged event designed to incriminate the Damascus regime and thus justify U.S. or other outside military intervention.
Another problem with the U.N. team’s findings is that the home-made chlorine bombs had minimal military value, inflicting relatively few casualties and only a handful of deaths.
Why the Syrian government, which was under intense international pressure regarding alleged chemical weapons use and was in the process of surrendering its stockpile of such weapons, would have jerry-rigged a handful of homemade bombs and dropped them for no discernible military effect makes little sense.
But that doesn’t faze Haley. Like her predecessor, Samantha Power, for Nikki Haley and her UN team any evidence contrary to the pre-determined conclusion is to be ignored.
Ambassador Haley said:
Now step back from the Security Council. The reason we all should care about this resolution is that we want to make sure no one ever thinks about using chemical weapons.
Here again we have Obama era hypocrisy on display. The US government has admitted it used deadly depleted uranium munitions in Syria thousands of times.
Unproven and illogical allegations that the Syrian government used chlorine gas on its own citizens must be punished, according to Ambassador Haley. But the self-admitted fact that the US has also used a horrible form of mass weapon – depleted uranium – in Syria is completely ignored.
And again, why would Assad use chlorine gas on his own people? The majority of the Syrian population support Assad, for one. Why would he want to gas them?
Also, when facing a fight for survival against al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other foreign-backed extremist groups, why waste time and risk the wrath of the international community to use such an inefficient weapon as chlorine gas?
According to the big Human Rights Watch report released earlier this month, up to nine people were killed in the attacks blamed on Assad. Nine people!
Might the desperate terrorist groups, who are losing territory every day, not have the incentive to frame the Assad government by either faking a chlorine attack or making an attack and blaming it on the Syrian government? After all, even Ambassador Haley has admitted that the rebels have also used chemical weapons.
The Great Nikki Haley Train Wreck continues. And with it goes any hope that President Trump will pursue a foreign policy in any way resembling the one he promised on the campaign trail.
Daniel McAdams is director of the The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity. Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
Chicks don’t belong in serious positions.
Missionary is a serious position.
Tulsi Gabbard.
‘Nuff said….
Sexist prick.
Pretty sure Tulsi is a goddess, not a chick.
Sounds like the rantings of a conspiratorial, vituperative crackpot. No surprise considering the source…
The US used uranium-deppled ammunition in Syria and Iraq, why do they point on other states … terrible this politic.
White phosphorus also seems to get a pass, depending on who uses it.
As with everything else: only the good guys and only in humanitarian situations.
Statement answers self. Why does this sound like 2001, when U.S. led U.N. inspection tours restarted, and it heated up and then some more heat and a little bit more… They were giving pilots, while not meth but definitely amphetamines to keep up the No Fly Zone AND bomb the seriously poorest country into rubble, 5 planes in the whole damn country and they were obliterated in the first bombing runs..
But you know, benzoamphetamines are just as stupid an idea as meth would have been. You don’t have to worry about the chemical reactions of the dope so much as sleep deprivation. There’s a medical term “anoneiric” or “oneirophobic”, disruptions of the dream cycles.
It was the U.S. actually using a Chemical Weapon on their own soldiers/airmen. And AFIK they’re still doing it.
The lies collapse under their own weight, but they sometimes do it too late to stop the damage they cause. There are still those who believe the crap from Desert Storm about the incubator babies. There are those who believe the Iraq WMDs are in a secret chamber under the Tigris. Do they have a complete lack of understanding about hydrodynamics?
Here’s to the notion that maybe, perhaps for the first time ever, the War Machine doesn’t repeat past mistakes. I should put that in quotes, because the ones perpetrating the lies had full knowledge then and full knowledge now.
This statement clearly didn’t go well. No matter what the truth is, these Chemical weapons are going to kill the innocent ones first. A war to control the power will kill everything that comes in between. Disgrace
Thanks to Russia, the WMD are supposed to be gone from Syria now.
And you’re right, innocents die regardless who’s behind it. War is horrible.
And they are gone. It is just easy for the groups that are in the business of setting up the scenarios to blame Assad — to get the materials for a home-made device, to raise international crisis. Since UK military contractor was able to create a group of White Helmets, and we had “reporters” reporting from terrorist areas — and we have Syrian Observatory of Human Rights in a two bedroom apartment in Coventry, England — there are ways and ways to continue the drama. Since Aleppo is gone, new drama was needed. Do we really need this NATO circus, the three of them are like old spinsters that in the absence of a new juicy story, rehash old ones.
Can we get someone more respectable in UN — ever? It does not matter what the policies are — but it is ridiculous to indulge in such fake dramas. Trump must know that he is not the only one concerned about fake news. We are as well. Out with her, and get anyone from the streets of NY, and will surely, do a better job.
She’s serving her master’s purpose Bianca. For anyone to pretend otherwise is just stalling the antiwar effort. It’s now time to start using Trump’s name in the same way that Obama’s name was used.
It’s not everybody but there’s little doubt this site has a bad smell rising off it because of domestic political differences.
How can we change that before the Republicans gleefullly support Trump’s war with Iran?
great story posted in the Intercept: TRUMP’S “MODERATE” DEFENSE SECRETARY HAS ALREADY BROUGHT US TO THE BRINK OF WAR
Notice that the headlines will read Russia vetoes. Not the three countries. And only the countries in thrall to the USA voted yes.
Mr. President You have in Nikki Haley a McCain stooge as Ambassador to the UN.
He wanted Haley out of SC. We have a new governor :)
This woman betrayed the history and people of South Carolina, by asking us to believe that the meaning of the Confederate Flag is racism. This is not and never has been true, although some have used for that purpose, but their theft of property does not
change the never ending value of its true meaning to American
Constitutional legitimacy.
My bet is that it’s important to most people because it’s a racist statement. I’ll prove that in time too.
It’s frightening Assad could just be declared guilty despite little proof.
How can we trust historical claims if truth is plastic like this?
It would not be the first time they are accusing him of chemical attacks. Even when it is proven that army did not do it, the story lives on. They are still talking of “barrel bombs”, as if they know what this means. Our press still talks of Aleppo as a place where a glorious revolution against the regime has been peddled till today. Along with the Oscar for White Helmets, another fake product of a British military contractor.
Trump is going to change all that Bianca. Didn’t you know?
I am so disgusted with Niki Haley. She should learn some basic history instead of being so pleased with herself and how cute she is and what a great job she has.
Haley’s smart enough to know she sounds stupid.
But not smart enough to shut her yap!
SOS different day for these MIC.asswipes
The fact is US nonsense in Syria will continue until a US group in this country begins using bombs as government once again becomes the great teacher for ill. McVeigh learned to be exactly like government and wrote about his collateral damage vs the US government’s attacks on civilians. All Americans ought to read his interview with Gore Vidal and his essay on McVeigh. After reading it you will truly understand government.
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