McCain calls for US to lead on Syria airstrikes
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. John McCain on Monday became the first senator to call for airstrikes against Syria, saying President Barack Obama has taken too soft a stand against President Bashar Assad and his brutal crackdown on his own people.
The Arizona Republican said the Syrian government's slaughter of unarmed civilians has likely resulted in war crimes and that its neighbors in the region will intervene militarily, with or without the U.S. From the Senate floor on Monday, McCain said the United States has a moral and strategic obligation to force out Assad and his loyalists.
"The only realistic way to do so is with foreign airpower," McCain concluded. "The United States should lead an international effort to protect key population centers in Syria, especially in the north, through airstrikes on Assad's forces."
It was a marked change from McCain's remarks last month, when he told "CBS This Morning" that the U.S. should find ways to help the Syrian people without putting American "boots on the ground." Then, he said the options included medical care and technical assistance to safe havens for refugees of the violence.
But in his remarks Monday, McCain declared it was time to step up militarily and that the U.S. should lead the effort with direct military action. The senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain was one of the first to call for arming the rebels. That idea has divided members of Congress and drawn concern from the administration about the further militarization of Syria.
The latest McCain proposal is also expected to divide war-weary lawmakers who also opposed the operation in Libya last year.
"The president must state unequivocally that under no circumstances will Assad be allowed to finish what he started," McCain said on the Senate floor. The Obama administration, he added, should make it clear that "the United States is prepared to use the full weight of our air power to make it so."www.realty-dejavu.com
|
martes, 6 de marzo de 2012
McCain calls for US to lead on Syria airstrikes
Report: Syrian military hospitals torturing patients
Report: Syrian military hospitals torturing patients
Updated at 10:50 a.m. ET: Syrian doctors tortured patients brought into a military hospital in the battered city of Homs, according to a hospital employee who filmed the apparent evidence. The video was broadcast by Britain's Channel 4 News Monday.
Later on Tuesday, the United Nations said it had similar footage.
The very graphic video, which the news channel said was filmed covertly, showed severely wounded men blindfolded and chained to hospital beds. A rubber whip and an electrical cable sit on a table in one room.
"I have seen detainees being tortured by electrocution, whipping, beating with batons, and by breaking their legs," the employee told a French photojournalist who reportedly smuggled the video outside of Syria, according to Channel 4.
The authenticity of the film could not be independently verified.
McCain calls for US-led airstrikes on Assad forces
The hospital employee said he tried to stop "the shameful things" that were happening but was called a traitor.
He said the torture was carried out by civilian and military surgeons and other medical staff including nurses. It reportedly took place in the ambulance section, the prison ward, the X-ray department and the intensive care unit. The footage was filmed over the past three months, Channel 4 said.
U.S. and European governments have been pleading for Russia to rethink his anti-interventionist stance on Syria, in what appeared to be an increasingly desperate effort for consensus among world powers to stop a crackdown that has killed more than 7,500 people.
Saudi Arabia: Syrians right to fight Assad regime
Hundreds fled to neighboring Lebanon on Monday fearing they'd be massacred in their homes.
Calls for action to protect civilians have grown louder as the Alawite-led security apparatus cracked down on protests and an uprising that has its roots in the majority Sunni community and which has raised the prospect of civil war in Syria.
'Pictures are truly shocking'
A U.N. commission of inquiry last November documented cases of injured people taken to military hospitals where they were beaten and tortured during interrogation.
Video: Senor: US could be arming, training forces inside Syria
"The High Commissioner was sent this footage by Channel 4 yesterday. In fact we have some similar footage," U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said on Tuesday.
"It may even be the same footage which was sent to the commission of inquiry on Syria," Colville, a spokesman for U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, said at a news briefing. "The pictures are truly shocking."
A U.N. inquiry documented evidence that sections of Homs military hospital and Latakia state hospital were "transformed into torture centers actually within the hospitals," he said.
Syrian activist: 'You hear the sounds of torture all the time'
Torture has been documented in Syria for 40 years, "usually carried out under the cloak of permanent security legislation," Colville said, adding: "The brutality of the country's security forces is notorious."
"Methods of torture, most of which are known to have been used in Syria over many years, not just in the past year, include severe beatings, electric shocks, suspension for long periods by the limbs, psychological torture and routine humiliation," he added.www.realty-dejavu.com
Later on Tuesday, the United Nations said it had similar footage.
The very graphic video, which the news channel said was filmed covertly, showed severely wounded men blindfolded and chained to hospital beds. A rubber whip and an electrical cable sit on a table in one room.
"I have seen detainees being tortured by electrocution, whipping, beating with batons, and by breaking their legs," the employee told a French photojournalist who reportedly smuggled the video outside of Syria, according to Channel 4.
The authenticity of the film could not be independently verified.
McCain calls for US-led airstrikes on Assad forces
The hospital employee said he tried to stop "the shameful things" that were happening but was called a traitor.
He said the torture was carried out by civilian and military surgeons and other medical staff including nurses. It reportedly took place in the ambulance section, the prison ward, the X-ray department and the intensive care unit. The footage was filmed over the past three months, Channel 4 said.
U.S. and European governments have been pleading for Russia to rethink his anti-interventionist stance on Syria, in what appeared to be an increasingly desperate effort for consensus among world powers to stop a crackdown that has killed more than 7,500 people.
Saudi Arabia: Syrians right to fight Assad regime
Hussein Malla / AP
Hundreds of Syrians, like this child and her family, have fled besieged areas in and around Homs for Lebanon or the Lebanon-Syria border.
Calls for action to protect civilians have grown louder as the Alawite-led security apparatus cracked down on protests and an uprising that has its roots in the majority Sunni community and which has raised the prospect of civil war in Syria.
'Pictures are truly shocking'
A U.N. commission of inquiry last November documented cases of injured people taken to military hospitals where they were beaten and tortured during interrogation.
Video: Senor: US could be arming, training forces inside Syria
"The High Commissioner was sent this footage by Channel 4 yesterday. In fact we have some similar footage," U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said on Tuesday.
"It may even be the same footage which was sent to the commission of inquiry on Syria," Colville, a spokesman for U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, said at a news briefing. "The pictures are truly shocking."
A U.N. inquiry documented evidence that sections of Homs military hospital and Latakia state hospital were "transformed into torture centers actually within the hospitals," he said.
Syrian activist: 'You hear the sounds of torture all the time'
Torture has been documented in Syria for 40 years, "usually carried out under the cloak of permanent security legislation," Colville said, adding: "The brutality of the country's security forces is notorious."
"Methods of torture, most of which are known to have been used in Syria over many years, not just in the past year, include severe beatings, electric shocks, suspension for long periods by the limbs, psychological torture and routine humiliation," he added.www.realty-dejavu.com
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)