The latest report on Syria for the United Nations Human Rights Council says all sides are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Government forces massacred civilians, shelled hospitals and used cluster bombs extensively between May and July, a commission of inquiry found.

Rebel fighters were increasingly guilty of summary executions, the report says.

The perpetrators of the crimes did not fear accountability and referral to justice was imperative, it adds.

The report comes a day before US Secretary of State John Kerry is due to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva to discuss a response to the use of chemical weapons on the outskirts of Damascus last month.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24045680

A Timeline: How the Syrian Conflict Really Unfolded

Western media networks have ensured that a singular narrative of “pro-democracy” uprisings turning violent in the face of brutal oppression by the Syrian government after the so-called “Arab Spring” is disseminated across the public. In reality, “pro-democracy” protesters served as a tenuous smokescreen behind which armed foreign-backed extremists took to the streets and countrysides of Syria to execute a sectarian bloodbath years in the making. Here is a timeline that illuminates the true cause of Syria’s current conflict and the foreign interests, not the Syrian government, responsible for the tens of thousands dead and millions displaced during the conflict.

1991: Paul Wolfowitz, then Undersecretary of Defense, tells US Army General Wesley Clark that the US has 5-10 years to “clean up those old Soviet client regimes, Syria, Iran, Iraq, before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.” Fora.TV: Wesley Clark at the Commonwealth Club of California, October 3, 2007.

2001: A classified plot is revealed to US Army General Wesley Clark that the US plans to attack and destroy the governments of 7 nations: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. Fora.TV: Wesley Clark at the Commonwealth Club of California, October 3, 2007.

2002: US Under Secretary of State John Bolton declares Syria a member of the “Axis of Evil” and warned that “the US would take action.” BBC: “US Expands ‘Axis of Evil’” May 6, 2002.

2005: US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy organizes and implements the “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon directly aimed at undermining Syrian-Iranian influence in Lebanon in favor of Western-backed proxies, most notably Saad Hariri’s political faction. Counterpunch: “Faking the Case Against Syria,” by Trish Schuh November 19-20, 2005.

2005: Ziad Abdel Nour, an associate of Bush Administration advisers, policy makers, and media including Neo-Conservatives Paula Dobriansky, James Woolsey, Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Joseph Farah (World Net Daily), Clifford May, and Daniel Nassif of US State Department-funded Al Hurra and Radio Sawa, admits: “Both the Syrian and Lebanese regimes will be changed- whether they like it or not- whether it’s going to be a military coup or something else… and we are working on it. We know already exactly who’s going to be the replacements. We’re working on it with the Bush administration.” Counterpunch: “Faking the Case Against Syria,” by Trish Schuh November 19-20, 2005.

2006: Israel attempts, and fails, to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon after a prolonged aerial bombard that resulted in thousands of civilian deaths. CNN: “UN: Hezbollah and Israel agree on Monday cease-fire,” August 13, 2006.

- See more at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/timeline-of-military-intelligence-operation-u-s-had-planned-syrian-civilian-catastrophe-since-2007/5348052#sthash.cYwBQrib.dpuf

What should the US do?

First thing, stop this false dichotomy of it's either military force or nothing. The use of chemical weapons is a war crime, it is indeed what Secretary Kerry called a "moral obscenity". Whoever used such a weapon should be held accountable. So what do we do about it?

• First, do no harm. Don't kill more people in the name of enforcing an international norm.
• Recognise that international law requires international enforcement; no one country, not even the most powerful, has the right to act as unilateral cop. Move to support international jurisdiction and enforcement, including calling for a second UN investigation to follow-up the current weapons inspection team, this one to determine who was responsible for the attack.
• Recommend that whoever is found responsible be brought to justice in The Hague at the International Criminal Court, understanding that timing of such indictments might require adjustment to take into account ceasefire negotiations in Syria.
• President Obama can distinguish himself powerfully from his unilateralist predecessor by announcing an immediate campaign not only to get the Senate to ratify the International Criminal Court, but to strengthen the Court and provide it with serious global enforcement capacity.
• Move urgently towards a ceasefire and arms embargo in Syria. Russia must stop, and must push Iran to stop arming and funding the Syrian regime. The US must stop, and must push Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan and others to stop arming and funding the opposition, including the extremist elements. That won't be easy - for Washington it may require telling the Saudis and Qataris that if they don't stop, we will cancel all existing weapons contracts with those countries. (As my colleague David Wildman has said, why don't we demand that the Pentagon deal with arms producers the way the Department of Agriculture deals with farmers - pay them not to produce weapons? And then the money can be used to retool their factories to produce solar panels instead of Tomahawk missiles, and the workers stay on the job….)
• Stand against further escalation of the Syrian civil war by voting no on any authorisation for US military strikes.

Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. Her books include Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the UN Defy US Power, on the legacy of the February 15 protests.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/09/201391142319670421.html

Gus: the CIA having sent weapons to the rebels while all the negotiations were going on, won't help towards this worthy goal. Considering the history of the Syrian conflict as stated in the comment above, the US has no intention of a peaceful solution there...

Why Vladimir Putin Thinks We’re Out to Get Him

The regime Putin fears we'll change isn't Assads. It's his own.

Why is Vladimir Putin so hostile towards the United States? His Thursday New York Times op-ed struck a superficially friendly tone, but it had the overall effect of undermining Barack Obama and chastising America’s sense of itself. But that was no shock, coming from the man who enraged Washington by granting asylum to Edward Snowden and who recently barred American adoptions of Russian children, among other affronts.

So is Putin just a jerk? Maybe, although there are numerous reasons that might explain his antagonism: the lingering Cold War mentality of a former KGB agent; insecurity about Russia’s post-Soviet global status; his sometimes comical machismo.

To understand why, start with the Russian president’s belief that America has a general habit of meddling in the affairs of other countries and trying to change their governments. Iraq is just the most obvious example, but Putin sees many others. He was furious that a United Nations military mission in Libya sold by Washington as a limited humanitarian mission became an extended bombing campaign to topple Moammar Gaddafi. Putin fumed that Russia’s then-president, Dmitry Medvedev, had supported the resolution: “It allows anyone to do anything they want—to take any actions against a sovereign state,” Putin said in March 2011.

Putin has also argued that America’s confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program is the pretext for a grander plan. ”Under the guise of trying to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction,” Putin said early last year, “they are attempting something else entirely and setting different goals—regime change.”

BEIRUT — The U.S. government announced on Wednesday that it has suspended deliveries of non-lethal aid to Syria’s rebels following the seizure by an Islamist group of warehouses where the aid was stored, a takeover that exposed the rapidly diminishing authority of the moderate rebel factions backed by America and its Western allies.

The suspension also illustrates the erosion of U.S. influence over the rebels battling to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Disillusionment with the low level of Western support has prompted a growing number of factions to switch allegiance to Islamist groups that receive more generous funding from Gulf Arab states.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/us-suspends-aid-to-syrian-rebels-after-islamists-seize-warehouses/2013/12/11/2b28c088-626c-11e3-af0d-4bb80d704888_story.html?hpid=z3