More than 500 men, women and children have been killed since last week in the eastern enclave, where activists over the weekend reported a suspected poison gas attack.

According to 60 Minutes this past Sunday night, the Assad regime has usedinternationally banned chemical agents nearly 200 times throughout the civil war. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the world’s leading chemical weapons watchdog, opened an investigation on Sunday into attacks in Ghouta to determine whether banned munitions had been used.

The unspeakable suffering we are witnessing in Ghouta is the result of a conscious strategy of besiegement, systematic blocking of humanitarian aid, and the illegal destruction of civilian infrastructure – hospitals, schools and kindergartens have all been bombed into the ground.

If this story sounds familiar, that is because we have heard it all before. We have seen it in the ruins of Aleppo, on the killing fields of Cambodia, the poisoned ghost towns in Iraqi Kurdistan, the sieges of Sarajevo and Srebrenica, and the desert death camps of Darfur.

“Never again,” the shell-shocked international community pledged — again, and again – and again — in the wake of these atrocities. And yet the same horrors are now being inflicted on the people of Ghouta and we are reacting with much the same impotence.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC), corrupted by the malign agendas of Russia and China with no regard for human suffering, has long been reduced to issuing empty mantras ranging from being “concerned” to “very concerned” and, lately, “gravely concerned.”

But their condemnation of crimes committed against innocent civilians does not feed the children on the streets of Ghouta. It does not keep warm the families that must now sleep in the rubble of their homes, or help pull the injured from under the ruins of the city.

Look closely, if you spent the last decade pontificating about US imperialism in the Middle East, sharing uncritically the absurd spectacle of conspiracy theories brought to you by Russia Today, Iranian Press TV and other state controlled outlets with hostile agendas.

Syria is a place where more people died than in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya combined – it’s a lawless Wild Wild West of international affairs where the Assads, Khameneins, Putins and Erdogans of this world kill at their pleasure.

The UNSC called for the 30-day truce in all of Syria on Saturday to allow aid deliveries and medical evacuations in the war-torn regions. But Iran and the Syrian regime continued attacks on Damascus suburbs held by “terrorists” the Iranian military chief of staff said on Sunday.

Everyone is now a terrorist. Every hospital bombed a secret weapons storage. Every school destroyed a recruitment center. Every use of poisonous gas a false flag operation by the rebels.

The industrial-scale killing machinery in Syria is the unhappy consequence of American isolationism and non-intervention, with the result that, eight years down the line, the murderous dictator is neither dead nor imprisoned, but still gassing his own people.

The Assad regime has recaptured large swathes of Syrian territory. The mullahs have turned the country into a permanent Iranian military base. And Russia is dictating the way things are going.

America isn’t perfect. Far from it. But it’s still an unrivaled beacon of light in the darkness of international relations that do not offer a more just and moral superpower to fill its place.

Eight years into the civil war, Syria has turned into the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of our time. It is too late for the people of Ghouta. They will follow the restless souls of Rwanda, Bosnia, and Kurdistan in a long line of victims abandoned by the international community. All red lines have been crossed.

Source: http://www.thetower.org/5992-the-tragedy-of-syria-all-red-lines-have-been-crossed/

The post The Tragedy of Syria: All Red Lines Have Been Crossed first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

© Damir Sagolj / Reuters

North Korea has declared a political and military victory over the US as it accused Washington of trying to deflect attention from its Pyongyang failures by peddling “non-existent” human rights abuses at the UN.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) discussed the human rights situation in the reclusive country Monday at the request of the US, UK and France along with six other non-permanent member states. The session was convened despite objections from Russia and China. Beijing argued that the timing of the meeting will further inflame tensions in the region.

The meeting came days after after Pyongyang fired a Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile late November, allegedly able to strike the large parts of the US mainland, following a more than two months respite.
Russia, which condemned the launch, blamed Washington for provoking North Korea to act recklessly with its saber-rattling and large-scale military maneuvers.

S. Korea allocates budget for ‘decapitation unit’ targeting Kim Jong-un’s government

Despite the warning by China’s UN deputy ambassador, Wu Haitao, that the meeting would be “counterproductive” at this time, it went ahead, after ten UNSC members voted “yes” in the procedural vote, with nine required.

Russia, which along with China calls for a de-escalation of the situation as outlined in its so-called double-freeze initiative, opposed the session as well. The double-freeze plan, if implemented, would see the US and South Korea pausing their large-scale military drills, with Pyongyang suspending its nuclear and missile program. The idea, however, has firmly been rejected by Washington.

North Korea’s permanent mission to the UN was furious, arguing in a statement that the West uses the issue of human rights as a pretext to ease its military and political defeats. “It’s a desperate act of the hostile forces which lost the political and military confrontation with the DPRK that has openly risen to the position of nuclear weapon state,” the mission said, adding, that North Korea would not cave in to pressure.

Pyongyang seeks direct dialogue with Washington, Moscow ready to help – Lavrov

“If the U.S. and other hostile forces think of browbeating the DPRK by the discussion of ‘human rights issues’ in the Security Council, it is nothing else than a daydream that will not be realized ever,“ it said, referring to the “human rights issues” as “non-existent.”

Speaking at the meeting, UN human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, urged the UNSC to take into account the adverse effect that international sanctions have had on ordinary North Koreans. Al-Hussein pointed out that the financial sanctions imposed by the UN, ironically impede its own [UN] aid deliveries. He called on the Council to assess and minimize its impact.

He said the sharp spike in tensions “seem to have deepened the extremely serious human rights violations endured by the DPRK’s 25 million people,” noting that humanitarian aid provided by UN and other agencies is “literally a lifeline for some 13 million” people in the country. Al-Hussein also touched on alleged human rights abuse in detention facilities, labor camps and reported clandestine prison facilities.

North Korea has long endured a raft of economic sanctions. After a series of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests this summer, that were answered with fresh UNSC sanctions, Pyongyang said the measures were a “heinous US plot to isolate and stifle.”

In September, Pyongyang said the punitive measures have inflicted a “colossal amount of damage” to the people and the country’s development which is “beyond calculation.”

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Source: https://www.rt.com/news/412801-north-korea-wins-military-politically-us/

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The post N. Korea declares political & military victory over US while UN targets its human rights record first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.