Global Research

Over the past few days, the Western corporate press has kicked into overdrive with reports of hospital bombings, dead civilians, and war crimes all blamed predictably on the secular government of Bashar al-Assad. According to Western governments and their media mouthpieces, Assad’s forces have targeted civilian hospitals in order to . . . well . . . no one knows why Assad’s forces would logically target civilian hospitals. Still, the Western harpies – both media and “human rights NGOs” – continue to hammer the unsubstantiated claims and misinformation at the tops of their lungs that the SAA is dropping bombs on civilian medical facilities.

The First “Hospital”: al-Quds

The bombing being attributed to the Syrian military is the destruction of the “al-Quds” hospital, an alleged Médecins Sans Frontières hospital located in Aleppo. Even officially, however, it is important to note that the alleged “hospital” was not an MSF facility but one which was “supported” by MSF. This might seem like a small technicality but it is actually an important difference since MSF (aka Doctors Without Borders) is well known to be anything but an impartial observer in the Syrian crisis. As Tony Cartalucci wrote in his article, “’Doctors’ Behind Syrian Chemical Weapons Claim Are Aiding Terrorists,” in 2013,

While it is often described by the Western media as “independent,” nothing could be further from the truth.

To begin with, Doctors Without Borders is fully funded by the very same corporate financier interests behind Wall Street and London’s collective foreign policy, including regime change in Syria and neighboring Iran. Doctors Without Borders’ own annual report (2010 report can be accessed here), includes as financial donors, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Google, Microsoft, Bloomberg, Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, and a myriad of other corporate-financier interests. Doctors Without Borders also features bankers upon its Board of Advisers including Elizabeth Beshel Robinson of Goldman Sachs.

Complicating further Doctors Without Borders so-called “independent” and “aid” claims is the fact that their medical facilities are set up in terrorist held regions of Syria, especially along Syria’s northern border with NATO-member Turkey. In an interview with NPR, Doctors Without Borders’ Stephen Cornish revealed the nature of his organization’s involvement in the Syrian conflict, where he explains that aid is being sent to regions outside of the Syrian government’s control, and that his organization is in fact setting up facilities in these areas. Cornish admits [emphasis added]:

Over the past months, we’ve had a surgery that was opened inside a cave. We’ve had another that was opened in a chicken farm, a third one in a house. And these structures, we’ve tried to outfit them as best as we can with enough modern technology and with full medical teams. They originally were dealing mainly with combatant injuries and people who were – civilians who were directly affected by the conflict.

In other words, the Wall Street-funded organization is providing support for militants armed and funded by the West and its regional allies, most of whom are revealed to be foreign fighters, affiliated with or directly belonging to Al Qaeda and its defacto political wing, the Muslim Brotherhood. This so-called “international aid” organization is in actuality yet another cog in the covert military machine being turned against Syria and serves the role as a medical battalion.

In a telling interview with NPR, which Cartalucci partially quotes in his own article, the Executive Director of DWB, Stephen Cornish, admitted the fact that the organization largely has provided medical aid to the death squads not just as a matter of unbiased Hippocratic Oath-based treatment, but what appears to be a “rebel”-based program.

Again, Cornish revealed,

Over the past months, we’ve had a surgery that was opened inside a cave. We’ve had another that was opened in a chicken farm, a third one in a house. And these structures, we’ve tried to outfit them as best as we can with enough modern technology and with full medical teams. They originally were dealing mainly with combatant injuries and people who were – civilians who were directly affected by the conflict. [emphasis added]

Even assuming that the “civilians” Cornish mentions are truly civilians, Cornish’s team has also been focused largely on “combatant injuries” which is an interesting focus considering that the teams are mainly located within death squad controlled territory.

Indeed, Cornish removes all doubt about whether or not the death squads are receiving priority care as the interview continues. Cornish states,

So it is very difficult for civilians to find care. And one of the difficulties also is that a number ofsmaller surgeries that have been set up are either overwhelmed with combatants or primarily taking care of combatants. And what we would certainly urge is that all surgeries and all health posts also are accommodating the civilian population.

BLOCK: You mean, in other words, that the fighters are getting priority for medical care and the civilians are suffering for that.

CORNISH: Unfortunately, that is sometimes the reality on the ground. Some of the surgeries we visited, you could tell that because not only there were no civilians on the wards, but there were also no beds or toilet facilities for women. So it’s kind of a dead giveaway. [emphasis added]

Returning to the question of the al-Quds hospital, however, it should be noted that the facility has been reported to be nothing more than a “field hospital” for terrorists trapped in Aleppo in the past, the bombing of which allegedly killed over 50 death squad fighters, at least according to reports byZiad Fadel of Syrian Perspective. After all, the hospital was being run in the “rebel”-held area of Sukkari.

Some, however, dispute whether or not the hospital was ever actually bombed. Both the Syrian and Russian governments denied bombing the hospital to begin with. The Russians suggested that the “anti-ISIL coalition” was operating fighter jets in the area around the time of the bombing, implying that the bombing may have been conducted by the American forces, but the U.S. denies the Russian claim.

In addition to the question of whether or not the bombed “hospital” was a civilian operation or a combatant one, there is even question as to whether or not the field hospital that was bombed was actually al-Quds and, strangely enough, whether or not al-Quds ever actually existed.

For instance, Dr. Nabil Antaki, a doctor based in western Aleppo called into question the existence of al-Quds. After viewing the Channel 4 video showing the hospital moment before the attack, he responded that “This hospital [Al Quds] did not exist before the war started. It must have been installed in a building after the war began. I don’t know anyone in the East of Aleppo who could confirm this hospital is Al Quds.”

Credit: RT, https://twitter.com/MuradoRT

The Second Hospital: al-Dhabeet

Yet if the pinnacle of war crimes and brutality is the bombing of hospitals, the United States was forced to eat its own words when, after only a few days of propagandizing the Western public with reports of SAA hospital bombing, its very own terrorist pets would begin openly firing missiles at another hospital in Aleppo.

Obviously, the United States made no mention of its own bombing of a MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan earlier this year.

Still, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was forced to condemn the rocket attacks aimed at the Syrian hospital by Western-backed terrorists, albeit in a manner which would not directly attribute blame to the U.S. proxy forces.

Indeed, on May 3, SANA news agency reported that,

terrorists fired 65 rocket shells on the neighborhoods of al-Neel Street, al-Siryian, al-Khalidyia, al-Mocambo, al-Sabeel and the surroundings of al-Rahman mosque leaving 11 civilians killed and 37 injured. A source at Aleppo Health Directorate said that most of the wounded civilians are children and women and their injuries are severe as the number of the killed civilians might increase.

Eva Bartlett chronicles the report in her own article “Hospitals Bombed: Aleppo Burning Under ‘Moderate’ Terrorist Bombs,” by writing,

Later, SANA’s correspondent in Aleppo reported that three women were killed, 17 other women and children were wounded and extensive material damage was caused by terrorist organizations’ attack with a rocket shell on al-Dhabeet Hospital in al-Mouhafaza neighborhood.”

SANA listed the attacked districts as: al-Midan, al-Furqan, Nile Street, al-Mukambo, al-Khalidiye, Jami’et al-Zahra’a, al-Ameriye, al-Ramousa, al-Masharqa, al-Muhafaza, al-Meridian, al-Serian, al-Sabeel, and al-Jamiliye in Aleppo city.

SANA’s Facebook update included numerous photos of the bombed al-Dhabeet Hospital, noting the number of dead had risen to at least 14, a number which will no doubt rise in the coming hours.

According to SAMA tv, the number of murdered has risen to 28.

Ruptly TV raw footage shows the disastrous impacts of the bombings, and–uncensored–some of the mutilated victims.

A tale of two hospitals indeed, at least from the point of the view of the West and the Anglo-Americans. In the Western media, one hospital bombing (if it actually took place) equals a war crime that warrants the condemnation of the world while the other warrants merely a forced, hesitant, and tepid complaint. Even the painful admission that bombing civilians and civilian hospitals is wrong was barely uttered out of Kerry’s mouth before it was accompanied by the requisite condemnation of the Syrian government and the elected President Bashar al-Assad.Yet the recent bombing of al-Dhabeet is nothing new in Syria. Western-backed terrorists have been launching assaults on hospitals since the beginning of the crisis. As Prof. Tim Anderson pointed out,

Over the past five years the al Qaeda groups have attacked 2/3 of all Syria’s hospitals and clinics, plus pharmaceutical factories, many of which were in Aleppo. [Most recent one should read ‘al Dabit’] Al Razi General Hospital (state) was also hit by the al Nusra coalition, just days ago.”

Anderson also pointed out a number of other attacks on hospitals such as those listed below.

–“al Watani hospital in Qusayr bombed by Farouq FSA, back in 2012.” (Video)

-“al Nusra-FSA suicide bomb al Kindi hospital Aleppo, December 2013.” (Video)

-“al Qaeda groups bombed Ibn Rushd hospital also in Aleppo, on 26 April.” (Video)

-“al Razi general hospital was also hit, just days ago.” (Link)

“Unsurprisingly,” Eva Bartlett writes, “instead of reporting on these documented instances of terrorists (filming themselves) attacking Syrian hospitals, corporate media and propagandizing“human rights” groups are instead filling front pages and tv screens with screaming accusations of the Syrian army and/or Russia having bombed a so-called MSF hospital in Aleppo.”

Conclusion

Obviously, the Western indignation over the alleged bombing of the al-Quds non-hospital was never anything more than propaganda aimed at drumming up support for greater U.S. military involvement in Syria and the increased attempt at destroying the secular Syrian government. At best, the information repeated to Western audiences was misconstrued. At worst, it was entirely made up.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 650 articles on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.