Six years ago, at the age of 95, the revolutionary, outspoken, anti-apartheid former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela passed away. During his lifetime Mandela was a fierce skeptic of American power, U.S. imperialism, policies and ideology.

When the United States was preparing to invade Iraq in 2002 Mandela said, “If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace.” Seventeen years later, multiple wars and “regime change” operations have proven that U.S. administrations have since continued to threaten world peace.

In 2003, just a few months before the Iraq war Mandela said,

“It is a tragedy, what is happening, what Bush is doing. But Bush is now undermining the United Nations. If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings. Who are they now to pretend that they are the policemen of the world, the ones that should decide for the people of Iraq what should be done with their government and their leadership?”

Mandela would agree that although U.S. administration may change, their desire to destroy countries in order to pillage their oil and natural resources is a constant characteristic deeply imbedded in American exceptionalism.

When the Obama administration set out to unseat Syria’s President, Bashar al Assad in 2011, destroying Syria for Israel’s sake was just one of the many intentions, others included installing a puppet leader who would allow the United States full access to Syria’s oil reserves and undermine pipeline plans.

When it became clear that their “regime change” mission had failed even with hundreds of thousands of NATO-US-Saudi-Israeli-Turkish backed terrorists being deployed to fight against the Syrian Arab Army and their allies, the Trump administration shifted their focus on illegally controlling and stealing Syrian oil, claiming they were “protecting” it from terrorists, how ironic.

Syria is now considering suing the United States for stealing Syrian oil. Last week political and media advisor to President Bashar al Assad, Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban mentioned how the United States has a long history of plundering other nation’s resources, although they do not admit it. She also said that President Trump has been transparent in his desire to pillage Iraqi and Syrian oil with a total lack of respect for their sovereignty and the fact that Syrian oil belongs to the Syrian people. She said that Syrian oil and land will be liberated from the Americans, Turks, and everyone else.

This has been a consistent message coming from Damascus for years now, that every inch of Syria will be liberated of terrorists, occupiers, and foreign invaders. Most of the country has already been liberated just as promised, it’s only a matter of time before the last terrorist stronghold Idlib will be liberated as well. Once this happens the US-backed Kurdish militias in the northeastern region will be dealt with in a diplomatic and political way or militarily. The United States has made it clear that they do not support their separatist ambitions, they are simply being used to control the oil fields and supposedly keep an eye on Daesh prisoners.

Dr. Shaaban also explicitly mentioned that the Syrian government is considering taking possible legal measures on an international level and file a suit against the United states for stealing Syrian oil and violating Syrian sovereignty. Syrian oil is important for funding reconstruction efforts in Syria and shouldn’t be sold by the Kurdish militias (with US consent) to Israel at a bargain.

In a just and fair world where Kangaroo courts didn’t reign supreme, not only would Syria be able to sue the United States and all the other nations that have tried to destroy it’s historical existence during this western-manufactured war, but culprits would be charged with war crimes for the over half of a million deaths that have ensued in Syria.

In 2017, the United States committed numerous documented war crimes in Syria. On March 21st a US airstrike on a school in Raqqa province killed at least thirty Syrian civilians. A week prior, US warplanes fired on al-Jinah, a village in western Aleppo province, killing forty-nine people in a mosque where people were having their weekly prayer. On April 4th, following the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack which was carried out by the Al Qaeda white helmets and pinned on the Syrian government, President Trump ordered an airstrike of 59 tomahawk cruise missiles to be fired at the Shayrat airbase. Starting in June of 2017 the US-backed coalition used white phosphorus on civilians in Raqqa.

In November 2019, Wikileaks published a leaked email from an OPCW whistleblower stating that the US fabricated evidence about the Syrian government using chemical weapons against its own citizens in Douma, to justify launching 100 joint airstrikes with the UK and France on April 14, 2018 that hit three targets in Syria.

This is just a glimpse into the war crimes committed by the United States in Syria and doesn’t take into consideration the massive amounts of financial support, weaponry, training, etc. that Free Syrian Army terrorists and their affiliated counterparts received from their American sponsors nor the support that the Kurdish militias who have worked with these terrorist militias in Syria continue to receive.

If the International Criminal Court (ICC) wasn’t plagued with corruption like all other United Nations related organizations, then the intergovernmental organization and international tribunal in The Hague, would prosecute individuals for their international crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocidal crimes, and crimes of aggression. Unfortunately, when the judge and jury are bought and paid for, justice is nothing more than an illusion.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Sarah Abed is an independent journalist and analyst.

Featured image is from Al Masdar News