Stephen Lendman

Anti-torture protestor aims her message at UC Berkeley
professor John Yoo. (Photo: B. Patterson/Berkeleyside)

Annually on June 26, The International Day in Support of Victims of Torture remembers and honors victims, survivors, and family members.

On June 26, 1987, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment took effect. The Convention defines 'torture' as:

"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain and suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity...."

Torture is prohibited at all times, under all conditions with no allowed exceptions.

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Joseph Kishore

A picture of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad (R) and his
father, the late president Hafez, is seen at the site of an ex-
plosion in a police building in Damascus. (Kh. al-Hariri)

Any military conflict with Syria could quickly involve its principle allies—Iran, Russia and China. American imperialism is creating the conditions for a global catastrophe.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad declared Tuesday that the country was in a state of war as intense fighting erupted in the capital Damascus between the government and opposition forces that are backed by the US. There were also reports of British special operations forces entering the country from neighboring Turkey.

The fighting came the same day as a belligerent speech by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan before the Turkish parliament, threatening a military response to any Syrian troop movements near the border of the two countries. This followed a meeting of NATO members, including Turkey and the US, to discuss a coordinated response to the downing of a Turkish jet by Syria late last week.

“We will not fall into the trap of warmongers,” Erdogan said, “but we will not stay silent in the face of an attack made against our plane in international airspace.” Turkey’s “wrath is fierce and intense when it needs to be,” he added.

Erdogan also said that Turkey would provide “all possible support to liberate the Syrians from dictatorship,” i.e., to assist opposition forces in overthrowing the Assad government.

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Finian Cunningham

The NATO furor over the downing of a Turkish warplane by Syria says more about the members of the Atlantic military alliance than it does about the Assad government in Damascus.

The facts concerning the incident in which a Turkish fighter jet was shot down by Syrian air defences last week have yet to be proven. However, what we can say is that the warplane was brought down in Syrian territorial waters. Its two pilots are believed to have ejected and are uninjured, although they have not yet been located since Friday’s crash.

Damascus claims that the military aircraft violated its airspace, thus giving it the right to shoot it down. Istanbul has admitted that the RF-4E Phantom jet did enter Syrian airspace “for a short time” but that it exited before being hit. The fact so far that the wreckage was subsequently located in the Mediterranean Sea within Syrian territorial waters tends to support the claim of legitimate defensive action by Syria. The precedent for such Syrian action is well established.

Last year, for example, Iran shot down an American spy drone that had violated the Islamic Republic’s airspace. No one then argued against Iran’s right to take defensive measures on that occasion. Even hawkish American politicians, who regularly condone the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, were muted on Iran’s downing of prized Pentagon technology - underscoring the legitimacy of defensive action by a nation whose territorial space is violated.

Moreover, one doesn’t have to imagine too hard how Washington, London or other NATO members would respond if an Iranian or Syrian military aircraft were to cross into their territories. Yet the American-led NATO alliance has leapt to condemn Syria over the downed Turkish warplane.

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