Russia Blasts US Rape of Raqqa
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
The citizen journalist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS) provides reliable firsthand reports on high crimes of war and against humanity against defenseless city residents, victims of US imperial viciousness.
RBSS spokesman Abdalaziz Alhamza commented about media reports claiming the city’s liberation, saying it’s only “in the media, not in Raqqa,” the city in ruins, raped and destroyed by US-led terror-bombing.
Before the war, “life in Raqqa…was as normal as any city in the world. We had schools, universities, parks, bars, and cafes,” he explained.
The US-led campaign destroyed everything. There’s rubble everywhere. Many thousands of civilians were slaughtered.
Raqqa bears testimony to US viciousness, using ISIS to terrorize city residents, shifting most of its fighters to Deir Ezzor to serve there as imperial foot soldiers.
Months of Pentagon-led terror-bombing transformed the city into a wasteland. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman General Igor Konashenkov compared its aerial campaign to the fire-bombing of Dresden during WW II.
Strategic bombing involves destroying an adversary’s economic and military ability to wage war - targeting its warmaking capacity and related infrastructure.
Terror-bombing is entirely different, its aim to cause mass casualties and destruction.
Geneva and other international laws forbid the targeting of civilians. The Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907 Hague IV Convention) states:
-- Article 25: “The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.”
-- Article 26: “The officer in command of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombardment, except in cases of assault, do all in his power to warn the authorities.”
Article 27: “In sieges and bombardments, all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.”
Fourth Geneva protects civilians in time of war. It prohibits violence of any type against them, treatment for the sick and wounded required.
In September 1938, a League of Nations unanimous resolution prohibited the:
“bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings not in the immediate neighborhood of the operations of land forces.”
“In cases where (legitimate targets) are so situated, (warplanes) must abstain from bombardment” if this action harms civilians.
The Nuremberg Principles prohibit “crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
They include “inhumane acts committed against any civilian populations, before or during the war.”
Indiscriminate killing, along with “wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity” is absolutely prohibited.
All Pentagon military campaigns breach fundamental international, constitutional and US statute laws with impunity - high crimes unpunished every time committed.
Author Kurt Vonnegut witnessed the allied fire-bombing of Dresden as a German POW, saying:
“You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.” Vonnegut exaggerated to make a point.
Dresden’s incineration took less than 14 hours. It was a hospital city for wounded soldiers, of no military importance.
The February 1945 attack occurred when war in Europe was nearly over, officially ended three months later in mid-May.
Washington and its allies want “to hide evidence of the barbarian bombing by the combat aircraft of the US and ‘coalition,’ which buried in Raqqa’s ruins thousands of civilians,” Konashenkov explained - a high crime of war and against humanity.
Each time Russia asked US and European officials “to send humanitarian assistance to the Syrians suffering from the war…the answer was the same. We cannot and we shall not.”
“The bravura statements, made by representatives of the US administration about the ‘outstanding victory’ in defeating IS in Raqqa (is) cause (for) bewilderment.”
Terror-bombing continued from early June to late October, giving the campaign time to obliterate the city, thousands of civilians killed, most others now refugees.
Syrian and allied forces, greatly aided by Russian airpower, liberated Deir Ezzor city in 10 days, great care taken to minimize civilian casualties.
Thousands of city residents can now return home and begin restoring their lives, free from the scourge of US-supported ISIS.
Raqqa is in ruins, nothing there for its refugee population to return home to. The US-led campaign willfully and maliciously terrorized its residents.
Konashenkov explained Russian warplanes “do not targets residential areas.” America’s “victory” in Raqqa was achieved “by simply obliterating it,” he explained.”
No structures in the city were left unscathed, its population decimated by mass slaughter, destruction, or displacement under deplorable conditions.
The rape and destruction of Raqqa is one chapter in US aggression on Syria, a high crime against its entire population.
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