Stephen Lendman -- Operation Mosul: A Medieval Massacre

Operation Mosul: A Medieval Massacre By Stephen Lendman March 27, 2017 "Information Clearing House" -  Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described it this way weeks after US-led terror-bombing and Iraqi ground operations began last October – long before the worst horrors ongoing now. US-orchestrated operations are being conducted under “conditions of absolute information blockade,” Zakharova explained. Nothing was done to protect, evacuate or otherwise help civilians. They’ve been on their own in harm’s way without humanitarian or any other type aid or consideration for their welfare and safety since last October. Hundreds of thousands remain trapped in the city. Others getting out risk their lives to do it – as endangered by US terror-bombing as ISIS fighters. In the battle for Aleppo, Russia and Syria established humanitarian corridors – without aid from the UN or other countries. Great care was taken to avoid civilian casualties, why liberating the city entirely took so long. Moscow ceased aerial operations in October 2016 to protect civilians, long before the battle for Aleppo was won in late December. The West and supportive media disgracefully portrayed a heroic Leningrad-type liberation as naked aggression. They’re largely silent on the rape and destruction of Mosul. What’s reported falsely portrays liberation. Nothing about US terror-bombing mass murder. An orchestrated coverup of reality continues. No help was provided for desperate city civilians, tapped in harm’s way. In months of fighting, likely thousands were massacred, countless others injured, hundreds of thousands displaced – by indiscriminate US terror-bombing and ground artillery fire. Western media are complicit by silence with rare exceptions. On March 23, London’s Independent cited local media sources, saying Thursday airstrikes on Mosul caused “230” civilian deaths. “A correspondent for Rudaw, a Kurdish news agency operating in northern Iraq, said that 137 people – most believed to be civilians – died when a bomb hit a single building in al-Jadida, in the western side of the city on Thursday.” “Another 100 were killed nearby.  Some of the dead were taking shelter inside the homes,” according to Kurdish journalist Hevidar Ahmed, reporting from the scene of the massacre. According to a local eyewitness,RT reported over 130 civilians massacred overnight in Mosul from US terror-bombing. The death toll could be much higher. Bodies are being pulled from rubble, a slow, arduous task. “(t)he entire neighborhood was fleeing because of missiles that hit, so people had taken refuge here.” “I didn’t know if it was a shelter. I didn’t know we couldn’t go there. My entire family is inside, 27 people. We pulled only one of them out and don’t know about the rest. Yes, he was dead.” Civilians suffer most in all wars. Contempt for their agony and trauma in Mosul and other US war theaters compounds their desperation. Surviving is a daily struggle. Many don’t make it. Others are scarred for life. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html - Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.