The Omani al-Watan newspaper has asserted that the forces of evil, which have been involved in the plot of destroying Syria, are trying to stop the victory being achieved by Syrian Arab army and its allies in Aleppo city.

It clarified that these forces of evil draft UN resolutions under humanitarian pretexts or other fabrications in order to stop Aleppo's progress towards the great victory over the plot of destroying Syria.

Dr Bouthaina Shaaban Reporting from Moscow

By Vanessa Beeley, November 6, 2016

In a world where lies and rumors replace facts, and become central to the corporate media narrative; in such a world you only feel absolute comfort when you sit down with friends, allies, and partners who share your principles, values, and ethical standards, and do not dispute the fundamentals of your principles and objectives.

As you go smoothly through the meeting’s agenda, simply because everyone means what he says and does what he promises, you start thinking about the difficulties you face with the other side, and you remember that the reasons behind the pointless discussion with their officials are lack of honesty and the contradictions between their true motives and what they express in public. Right there, you sense what is wrong with our world today, and what is the main source for the troubles we face, ranging from wasting time in pointless discussion all the way to the loss of innocent lives, the destruction of countries, and denying entire generations the right to education and a free and dignified life.

The foreign ministers of the Russian Federation, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Islamic Republic of Iran met in Moscow, and it was clear that all of them are departing from a deep belief in the sovereignty of states, a rejection of foreign intervention, the right of people to decide their fate away from foreign dictates, a rejection of land grab by force, and absolute solidarity with peoples suffering injustice and the loss of their rights. And when the discussion is based on such principles, and on the unity of ideas, values, and ethics, it is not too difficult for such a discussion to reach important strategic conclusion, which would shape the future.

In such a meeting, hegemonic, colonial, and superior attitudes are completely absent; and you start to remember how hateful the racist approach present in meetings with Westerners, which demands you to prove your innocence at every juncture, thus robbing you of your humanity and your right to be treated equal, which should have been a nonissue in the first place.

In the Moscow meeting, I saw the coming world in which our children and grandchildren would live, a world devoid of racism; a world in which politicians, the media, and all people are honest and respectful of all human beings regardless of race, gender or creed. A world, all the inhabitants of which, wherever they may be, feel a sense of belonging and share a stake in its preservation and progress. A world in which everyone accepts and cherishes the different cultures and languages, and sees them as a gift from God rather than a pretext for national and racial supremacist claims. For despite all what Westerners and their media claim, the truth is that Western treatment of all other countries is a racist and supremacist treatment that seeks to advance the interests of the West at the expense of the rest of the world.

Looking at this coming world, I feel that the sacrifices of our martyrs and wounded were not only for us, but also for all mankind, for a better world and a better future. Looking at this future world, I am certain that we are living in a difficult phase of history resulting from the difference between what the West says and what it does, because it is fighting to preserve its colonial ways and its preferred methods of humiliating, destroying, and looting other peoples for its own benefit.

Looking at the future of our children and grandchildren, I feel that the battle we are fighting today was inevitable, and that it is for the greater good and for a better future for the coming generations. In this rich and constructive meeting in Moscow, I felt that the entire world is uniting to reject once and for all the concept of hegemony, and to reconstruct international relations on the basis parity, of respect, and shared interests.

Wherever I go, and whenever I write, I never forget to pay homage to the souls of our martyrs, and wish a speedy recovery to our wounded brave soldiers, because their blood and suffering are the torch that lights the path to freedom and dignity. I also do not forget to salute everyone who believed in the inevitability of victory, despite all the difficulties, and worked hard to achieve this victory, offering his life, money, effort, and prayers. As for the traitors, culprits, war profiteers, and those who call on the enemy to invade their country, they will be forgotten and they will never appear in the pages of history ever again.

http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/11/06/the-hateful-racism-present-in-meetings-with-westerners-dr-bouthaina-shaaban-reporting-from-moscow/

 Dr. Mohammad Abdo Al-Ibrahim

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 Results of trilateral talks

 Negotiations and The Battlefield

 The Rise of ISIS and Other Extremist Groups

Assad in Person: Confident, Friendly, No Regrets

By ANNE BARNARD NOV. 1, 4,  2016

 DAMASCUS, Syria — The guns were silent atop Mount Qasioun and the lights on its slopes twinkled over Damascus as President Bashar al-Assad of Syria welcomed a group of Western visitors into his French-Ottoman palace on Monday night, presenting himself as a man firmly in control of his country.

He radiated confidence and friendliness as he ushered a group of British and American journalists and policy analysts into an elegant wood-paneled sitting room where he claimed that the social fabric of Syria was stitched together “much better than before” a chaotic civil war began more than five years ago. It was as if half his citizens had not been driven from their homes and nearly half a million had not been killed in the bloody fighting for which he rejected any personal responsibility, blaming instead- as a matter of fact- the United States and Islamist militants.

“I’m just a headline — the bad president, the bad guy, who is killing the good guys,” Mr. Assad said. “You know this narrative. The real reason is toppling the government. This government doesn’t fit the criteria of the United States.”

Two days ago, the only female taxi driver in Aleppo city told RT's reporter that the city was like Paris before the crisis, hoping that Syria will be rebuilt to its former glory.

Emenour, 52, who is a mother and grandmother, said: " “Five years ago before the war, Aleppo was like Paris, even more beautiful. Now look at this destruction. It was so majestic and now it’s all ruined. But we will rebuild it all. And most importantly, soldiers will go back to their families and their mothers."

She has lost her eldest son and husband in the war on Syria and her house has been destroyed in shelling. Now, she is living with several cats in an apartment given to her by the Syrian government.

Precisely a year ago Moscow joined the campaign in Syria at the request of Damascus. While killing thousands of terrorists, Russia suffered military losses, but became one of the driving forces behind attempts at the national reconciliation process, a report by RT said.

On September 30, 2015 Russian jets conducted their first strikes against terrorist targets in Syria, hitting so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS/ISIL) positions near the cities of Homs and Hama.

By that time the US-led coalition had been already active in Syria for over a year. Yet Russia became the only state which received an official request from Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to conduct air strikes in the country. The Russian jets operated from the Hmeimim air base located in Syria’s Latakia Governorate.

Washington’s media presstitutes are using the image of the child to bring pressure on Russia to stop the Syrian army from retaking Aleppo.

Washington wants its so-called "moderate rebels" to retain Aleppo so that Washington can split Syria in two, thereby keeping a permanent pressure against President Assad.

As for the little boy in the propaganda picture, he does not seem to be badly injured. Let us not forget the tens of thousands of children that Washington’s wars and bombings of 7 Muslim countries have killed without any tears shed by CNN anchors, and let us not forget the 500,000 Iraqi children that the United Nations concluded died as a result of US sanctions against Iraq, children’s deaths that Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said were worth it.

United States Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow Thursday evening for discussions over a US-Russian military pact in relation to Syria. The pact had been proposed by the Obama administration in early July.

The Obama administration is, in words at least, holding out the offer of a common front against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate. The White House proposal includes the establishment of a joint US-Russian command center, located in the US-allied Kingdom of Jordan, which would run “integrated operations,” supposedly coordinating military and intelligence operations in Syria.

Since Russia launched its bombing campaign in Syria in September 2015, Washington has accused it of focusing on the so-called moderate opposition, elements armed and funded by the CIA and US regional allies, who are in most cases in alliance with the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate and encamped directly alongside it. Moscow’s repeated requests for the Pentagon to provide coordinates for the so-called moderates so that it could avoid striking them have until now invariably been rejectedIn exchange for the proposed American collaboration, Russia would scale back its bombing campaign, insist that Assad end most operations by the Syrian Air Force and accept a military cooperation agreement that would give Washington some degree of control over the targeting of Russian strikes.

In comments to media, the two, Kerry and the Russian president, issued dubious assurances that an agreement, in some form, is at hand. Putin expressed “hope” that “progress” and “possible headway” would emerge from the talks.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to make some genuine progress that is measurable and implementable and that can make a difference in the course of events in Syria,” Secretary Kerry said.

Whatever promises are made by the White House, it is impossible to believe that the US will engage in a serious joint bombardment with Russia against Al Nusra. Such a campaign would devastate the leading anti-Assad formation, closing the book on the insurgency fomented against Damascus by Washington.

According to Faisal Itani of the Atlantic Council, “combined attacks against Nusra would effectively end the Syrian opposition, cementing Mr. Assad’s grip on power.”

The Nusra group has functioned as an instrument of the US war plan since the beginning of the imperialist-orchestrated insurgency in 2011. Al Nusra has emerged as “one of the most effective anti-Assad forces,” and the proposed deal would “bring American firepower to bear against the strongest anti-Assad military force and a sometime partner of Washington’s allies,” the New York Times reported on Friday.

The White House proposals represent a tactical maneuver, aimed at salvaging the remnants of the anti-Assad forces, the backbone of which is composed of ISIS and the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra fighters.

Nonetheless, the fact that the Obama administration has offered such a deal is significant in itself, powerfully underscoring the disastrous position of the American-backed forces on the ground. The Russian-backed Syrian military is tightening the noose around the American-backed opposition forces, and Syrian Army units are encircling opposition militias inside the key city of Aleppo, trapping hundreds of thousands of civilians in the process.

A US-Russian coordination pact would enable Washington to manage and constrain the Russian air campaign, in a last-ditch effort to preserve some portion of the opposition until after the upcoming 2016 US elections. Once the political hurdle of the election has passed, a newly installed presidential administration will have a free hand to escalate the war, renewing the push against Damascus through fresh deployments of US ground troops and an intensified air campaign.

Whatever the twists and turns in its short-term policy, the American ruling class will never willingly accept the re-stabilization of the Assad government or indeed the consolidation of any Russian-aligned regime in Damascus, which Washington views as an obstacle to US hegemony in the Middle East.

Factions of the US elite clearly remain committed to the violent overthrow of Assad, and deeply hostile to any compromise with the Putin government. As the Times noted Friday, the Obama plan “has generated deep unease at the Pentagon and in some quarters of the State Department.”

By Thomas Gaist

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/07/16/ussy-j16.html

M.A.