Russia Draws the Line on Phony Syria "Sarin Gas Attack" at the UN

by David Macilwain, Russia Insider:

As the whole Western world doubles down on the lie that Syria used chemical weapons in Khan Shaikoun, it is time for Russia’s leaders to tell them the raw truth – that the pretext for the US cruise missile strike was entirely fabricated by its proxy forces in Syria.

“Khan Shaikoun” will surely go down in history – at some time when the true history of the war on Syria is written – as the name of the defining moment in the whole six years of the war. Not because anything particularly different or irregular happened in this town, occupied by Al Qaeda-style militants, but because of America’s act of war against the Syrian state that followed it.

This is something that has somehow failed to register, in the minds of Western commentators and “opinion leaders” – that an unequivocal and unprovoked attack on Syrian government forces, so long threatened by NATO and begged for by the Western cheer squads of the “Syrian Opposition”, was finally launched - and at that moment everything changed.

But it’s not the only thing that has failed to register. Even Syria and her supporters were drawn into the war of words over claims and accusations of a Sarin attack, so that little attention was paid to what actually took place in Khan Shaikoun on the morning of April 4th 2017. Even less attention was given to the rationale for the US military’s (“Trump’s”) actions, or the legality of them.

As the “West” doubles down on its entirely fictitious and fabricated claims that the Syrian government intentionally killed dozens of civilians with a chemical weapon, dropped from the air during Syrian government operations against terrorist groups in Hama province, it is time to examine in detail both of these “unattended” matters, dealing with the US missile strike first.

We are all so inured to decades of US “responses” to events in foreign countries that mostly present no possible threat to US citizens at home, that we have forgotten such violent behaviour is contrary to the UN Charter, failing authorisation by the UN Security Council. And the UN Charter is quite categorical – military action against a sovereign state other than in self-defence is illegal.

Evidently this restriction on their freedom of action that has resulted from Russia’s UNSC veto, is against the interests of the “Imperial powers” – the US, UK, France principally – so much thought has gone into devising tortuous justifications for unauthorised actions, as “humanitarian intervention” or “responsibility to protect”. It is worth reading a paper prepared for the UK parliament in November 2013, following the rejection by that parliament of the UK government’s plan to attack Syria after the Ghouta “Sarin incident”.

Although this legitimisation of their own military action outside the UN Charter has been accepted by NATO countries and their populations, and thanks partly to their cultural exceptionalism is considered morally justified, it suffers a fatal weakness even on their terms – the need for conclusive and incontrovertible evidence of the alleged crime and of a state’s culpability for it. For action to be taken, contravening that state’s sovereign rights, the crime must also “constitute a threat to international peace and security.”

The briefest consideration of the Khan Shaikoun “attack” will show that none of these requirements is met, even if one believes that the footage and accounts of opposition activists and “White Helmets” members are genuine. It should be remembered that the use of lethal military force against citizens of a foreign state whether civilians or soldiers, is the “ultimate” crime if these most stringent conditions are not met. It is in fact no different from “international terrorism” except in scale, but the scale is far greater; millions die in the wars that begin with such criminal acts of aggression.

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