"There were no conclusions reached." This is how the outgoing president of the United Nations Security Council described the Security Council's response on September 29th to the latest horrors against civilians being inflicted daily upon innocent civilians, including little children, in eastern Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria. At its September 29^th open meeting preceding closed consultations, the Security Council had heard a grim report from Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O'Brien. After a couple of hours of closed-door deliberations, the members of the Security Council could not even agree to temporary 48 hour humanitarian pauses in the violence that Mr. O'Brien had suggested as a bare minimum step. France is in the process of trying to get consensus around its more ambitious draft resolution text, but Russia will no doubt veto it unless it is so watered down as to be meaningless. The Assad regime and Russia are carrying out intense lethal bombings over the rebel-held eastern Aleppo, where about 250,000 people are effectively trapped under siege by Syrian military forces. They claim they are targeting terrorists, not civilians. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power firmly rejected this attempt to rationalize the massive bombing campaign, telling reporters last Thursday, "Assad and Russia are unleashing a savagery against people they call terrorists. Children are not terrorists. Breadlines--and the individuals within breadlines--are not terrorists. Rescue workers are not terrorists. Hospital workers are not terrorists."

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