Russian ship MV Alaed, alledgedly carrying helicopters to Syria, stopped by the UK off the coast of Scotland.

A ship bound for Syria from Russia, supposedly carrying refurbished attack helicopters, has been halted off the coast of Scotland because its insurance company has withdrawn cover.

The headline news that this is now making seems remarkably convenient, given that the US president Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart have just finished bilateral talks at the G20 summit in Mexico, where Putin refused to go along with US demands for regime change.

Given too that there is increased publicity about the use of Russian arms and equipment by the Assad government in Syria in what is now a developing civil war between him and the rebels there. Hillary Clinton recently attacked the Russians for supplying helicopters.

Could this incident be used to put pressure on the Russians and to increase calls for western intervention to support the opposition?

It seems hard to believe that this is just a small matter of insurance, or that shipping insurance companies have suddenly developed qualms about arms being traded around the world, often in dubious circumstances.

Imagine the outcry if Russia stopped a ship carrying arms to Saudi Arabia or Bahrein?

Calls for war are justified by humanitarianism, that ‘we’ cannot allow death and injury to continue. This is not the first time that human suffering has been used to justify war. The same arguments were put in Afghanistan in 2001, in Iraq in 2003 and in Libya in 2011. In every case the killing and destruction wrought by the intervention was greater than the loss of life which it was supposedly going to prevent.

In every case the west achieved its goal -- regime change -- but had little regard for the lives of ordinary citizens. That is exactly what they want to do in Syria.

It is especially hypocritical considering that even more deadly weapons are being deployed by the western governments themselves. Airstrikes on civilians now barely receive media coverage. And Human Rights Watch has highlighted the dramatic rise in unmanned drone attacks in Afghanistan.

In fact, the same helicopters are to be used by the Afghan army, paid for by the US, according to an article in Forbes magazine. The US department of Defense is to buy attack helicopters from a Russian state-owned firm which has sent arms to Syria, to equip the Afghan military. A Pentagon spokesman said “I don’t think we’re linking the two.”

By the end of May, UK forces’ drones had flown 34,750 hours and fired 281 missiles and bombs. The Ministry of Defence has made the ludicrous claim that only 4 civilians have been killed as a result, but most observers believe the figure is much higher.

British pilots will soon be guiding these weapons from Britain, from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. In the name of humanity, of course.