Both US, Russia are suspects for war crimes in Syria
Re: “What the Western press ignores on Syria”, Letters, October 1.
Mr Turk raises good points in his letter, though the truth about Syria can only emerge after careful investigative journalism and a probe by a neutral commission. History shows that both the US and Russia are capable of perpetrating war crimes. See the US record of causing civilian casualties in its wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan – all well catalogued for decades in the world press. The latest example came on Saturday in this paper under the headline “UN condemns death of 15 Afghan civilians in US airstrikes”.
On the other hand, there is Russia’s notoriously brutal action in Afghanistan, unveiled by Svetlana Alexievitch with the book “Zinky Boys”, and also in Chechnya, as revealed by investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in “A Small Corner of Hell, Dispatches from Chechnya”. Politkovskaya was later assassinated. The events in Syria would fit equally well as a sequel to the war histories of either country.
Danthong Breen
