While Western officials have been uniformly blaming Russia for everything that goes wrong in Aleppo, the UN was a bit more even-handed today in comments about the lack of evacuations during last week’s Russian ceasefire, saying all sides shared responsibility for the failure.
Russia initially declared an eight hour ceasefire, and then made it 11 hours. They then extended it to several days of 11 hours per day, with the UN eyeing the second day for a medical evacuation. They didn’t get the authorization from the Aleppo rebels in time, however.
Or at all, Ultimately, the ceasefire expired and fighting resumed with only a handful of people choosing to evacuate. The rebels never authorized any UN operations to evacuate wounded people, nor to bring any humanitarian aid into the area.
Russian officials have insisted they don’t intend to implement any additional ceasefires without some assurance from the rebels within eastern Aleppo that they’ll allow people to flee, and will allow the UN to facilitate medical evacuations, noting that was the whole point of the plan
Al-Qaeda does not have to do anything. They will never be blamed by US or its sidekick, Europe. It is a curious situation. On one hand, I think Hillary in the height of the campaign, did not want to have a story of Al-Qaeda in the middle of it. After all, she had seen to it that Bin Laden was killed. But then Al-Qaeda in Iraq was supposed to have been conquered long time ago, so the idea that it is now holed up in Aleppo — is potentially damaging. It was I believe a hasty political decision — based on expedience rather then well thought through plan. Expedience necessitated to make it Syria’s and Russia’s fault in attacking Aleppo, while glossing over who is really holding people hostage. Expedience then also necessitated to continue glorification of “rebels” and the demonization of the bad Assad — and thus, “good” rebels are defending the barricades, with bad Russians and Syrians attacking. So, Al-Qaeda transformed into “good” guys. And third reason might be just plain politics, or better put, political immaturity. Instead of accepting the common cause in defeating Al-Qaeda, it looked like it was giving Russia some undeserved status — something that many policy makers mistakenly believed that Russia craved in this Syrian expedition. Now, it must be clear to such airheads that this is a far mor serious issue.
So, Hillary may be risking WWIII to defend Al-Qaeda in Aleppo. But then, East Aleppo is being undermined by slow military operations on the ground, both from the north and the south. So, while the focus is on the air strikes, more important gains are in moving slowly into the Al-Qaeda territory, and forcing them to stretch their defenses on all sides. Al-Qaeda has some forces in Idlib, so it is expected that they may try to help, but so far it did not happen.
It is amazing that the pride of our politicians is keeping them from just telling the terrorists to let people go. Instead, we are encouraging them to be inhuman — the message that the victims will understand very well.
One Armenian man, reacting once to an ISIS attack on his Christian village, wrote: “I watched young Moslem men in Syrian Army come to our defense, dying to save us from the savages that already killed and tortured many for being Christian. And having to listen to the Western politicians brag about arming the “rebels” and condemn Syrian government and army. The West is dead to me, forever.”
Oct 21, 2016 The West can “get stuffed” – Putin
Vladimir Putin takes journalists’ questions at the BRICS Summit, 2016. After schooling the audience on the fallacies of US foreign policy over the past 20 years, a journalist attempts to tell Putin that counter-sanctions to the West are a bad idea. The answer was a little less diplomatic than what we’re used to!
https://youtu.be/6eCYHHMON8I