Syrian/Russian controlled territory in Syria (pink) ISIS/Extremists/Turkish territory in Syria (green) Kurdish territory in Syria (yellow)
This is not a Russian spin zone, this is just the truth. There is calm and peace holding its own around Idlib where ISIS and other radical elements remain but are in the processes of moving out with the protection of the Turkey military presence. This arrangement was accomplished with Russian and Syrian efforts in building a buffer zone to diffuse conflicts between forces that have been at war with each other for over 7 years.
The Moon of Alabama article makes it clear that finally the Arab nations in the region that had supported these extremists have now given up on their plan to overthrow Assad.
The Gulf Arabs, except Qatar which is allied with Turkey, have given up on removing President Assad and are making nice:
“In one of the more surprising developments amid a flurry of diplomatic meetings surrounding the U.N. General Assembly, Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmad al-Khalifa was seen greeting Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem with hugs and kisses at a pan-Arab meeting last week. Bahrain, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, has been a vocal critic of Assad and other regional allies of Iran, but the top diplomat said: “the Syrian government is the ruler in Syria and we work with countries even if we disagree with them.” Days later, Assad conducted his first interview with an Arabian Peninsula newspaper since 2011, telling Kuwait’s Al-Shahed that he had reached a “major understanding” with a number of Arab states and that “Western and Arab delegations have already begun to come to Syria to arrange their return, whether diplomatic, economic or industrial.”..”
Assad in Syria has been patient with the process and personally I think that the resignation of the US Empire’s UN Representative Haley is linked to to the closing of this front in the empire’s war on sovereign countries that desire to remain independent from the US. Eyes are now turning toward the Ukraine (which has been the plan B to bug the Russians) and the South China Sea.
Assad has certainly done his part to start the healing process in Syria:
The Syrian president Bashar al Assad just issued a decree that grants amnesty to those who deserted the army or ran away from serving their conscription time. If the deserters and draft dodgers turn themselves in within the next six month to fulfill their service they will escape all punishment.
I do hope that US/Israel/SaudiArabia/UK take the hint and know that they need to take their war making plans elsewhere. This region of the world has born the brunt of this criminal activity and need decades to recover.
The blowback to the US foreign policy I see is that now Russia has a trusted ally in the region and now has a Mediterranean Naval port to boot. The US can no longer do what it wants in Syria and get away with it.
It looks like Africa is now seeing an uptick in US armed forces and CIA/FBI activity as another place to “play” with people’s lives. It is sad that a majority of Americans who pay for all this global gallivanting are clueless to what its government is all about.
Dysfunctional empires will have sick agendas, this ain’t no exceptional nation no sir, no ma’am ..
From the American Revolution (and much before) through the War of 1812, the so-called “Civil War”, Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII all the way to the various wars the US Empire is supporting these days, what happens (fact) is usually spun by the world’s chess players for fiction, that helps the masses believe various narratives, so they keep their cool. As Bob Lee Swaggar was told in the movie “Shooter“:
In my previous post concerning the shooting of the Russian IL-20 with 15 Russian aviators lost, there is the story (as I told it) versus the story told by those who deep-dive into some real journalism / research.
From a Fort Russ article comes a play-by-play that deconstructs the events of 17SEP2018 (much like many researchers have done with 11SEP2001) and sorts out the facts to show what most likely happened and how the Russian leadership spun it towards their advantage, based on the following:
Using the same map I had posted the other day from the Russian MoD, guest author “FB” gets down into the rich details that standard media will never spend the time on, because there is less money in that:
It is IMPOSSIBLE for an S200 which flies at 2.5 kilometers per second and would cover 100 km in just 40 seconds… to have hit an airplane that continued flying for another ~5 minutes after that close call with the flight of Israeli F16s…
Math helps at this point, no Algebra or Calculus necessary. The sheer speed of a S200 missile does not allow for loitering around the skies like drones do. The missile is frickin’ fast compared to this turboprop recon aircraft:
As “FB” states:
The MoD map clearly shows that the Ilyushin flew north for 40 km after that ‘close encounter’ with the F16s, and then made another right 90 degree turn back toward the Syria coast on its final descent back into Hmeimim. Only after making that turn to final was the airplane hit.
You might think, so what? Well, the S200 operators would have to have launched the missile minutes AFTER the “radar” confusion directly targeting the Russian plane, and no Syrian unit under President Assad would do that, ever!
Much like the OFFICIAL story of 9/11 .. this one as well is IMPOSSIBLE. Basic physics does not discriminate.
So what IS in the realm of possibility?:
… The Russian MoD stated clearly two additional piece of information.
1…the French frigate Auvergne was nearby the Ilyushin flight, as depicted on the map, and was in fact recorded firing missiles…
2…British jets were also in the air, with their transponders turned on…making it possible to track them even with civilian ATC radar.
… At the same time, we also know that the US is flying the high altitude U2 spy plane out of Akrotiri.
French frigate Auvergne (D654)
The West has it resources in the area of the eastern Mediterranean and the Russians have their resources …:
.. we also know that a number of Russian ships were in that area at the time, and still are, and are in fact this entire week conducting live fire drills, more on that in a moment. Those ships also have sophisticated radar and also infrared sensors which picked up the missile firing from the French ship.
Besides that we have the Beriev A50U AWACS aircraft in Syria..and it is safe to assume that they would have been in the air at the time of the Ilyushin flight…
.. as well as the ill-fated IL-20, whose flight path flew a circuit over Idlib and then cruises for about 40 km off the coast of Syria, well outside the Syrian territorial airspace. With all the activity in the eastern Mediterranean it is expected that this plane would have been gathering Intel over Idlib as well as over the Med.
Back to the options at hand:
The French ship firing missiles [what kind of missiles surface to air…?…the frigate is equipped with very capable Aster SAMs.
And also the British aircraft in the air at the time and flying out of Akrotiri, there are 9 Eurofighter Typhoons there, equipped with long range air to air AIM120 radar guided missiles, and also 10 Tornados equipped with shorter range heat seeking AIM9x…
..[The Israeli jets could not have fired at the Ilyushin, since they were flying in the opposite direction at the time the airplane was hit…and it is impossible to aim a missile at a target behind your airplane.]
Physics point to the French or British, but with all the facts in hand (except for the black box from the IL-20) why would Putin suggest it was the Israeli military that is to blame for this incident? Well, “FB” lays out the obvious options that would be detrimental politically to Russia:
Now let us consider the question of why Putin is not saying anything about possible British or French involvement in the shooting down of the valuable Ilyushin electronic warfare aircraft.
First, what purpose would it serve to now come out and accuse two NATO countries of an act of war? Is not this kind of escalation exactly what NATO is looking to provoke in Syria? Is Putin supposed to now declare war on NATO?
The last thing Putin wants to do is fulfill the dreams of the Neo-Cons in Washington DC or in Tel Aviv .. or in Paris or London for that matter!
Or does it make more sense to blame Israel because Israel is the only party that can be proved to have been doing something illegal at the time, i.e bombing a sovereign country [an illegal act of aggression], and at the same time trampling all the protocol and agreements in place between Russia and Israel on the matter of Israeli operations against ‘Iranian’ forces in Syria?
I am not sure the West could have foreseen this play, OR it could be that the West “allowed” an out, as this is geo-politics on a global scale. “FB” goes on:
As things stand now, no one can defend Israel’s actions on that night. Israel realizes that Russia is very angry and Israel must now alter its behavior as to bombing Syria. Russia will also take steps to increase the security of all Russian assets in Syria. There will not be a repeat performance of this carefully planned ambush of the Ilyushin.
For Russia and Syria both, this is a win-win in the midst of a HUGE tragedy for the 15 man crew and their families. The Russian people are not happy as it seems that the West can launch missiles into Syria and render damage to Russian military as well as their resources WITHOUT retribution, but the wisdom of Sun Tze is worth repeating:
Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical.
No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.
If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are.
17SEP2018 Russian MOD Map – Syrian coastline (Red) Russian IL-20 AWACS Surveillance Plane Route (Blue) Israeli F-16 and French naval ship actions
To understand the chess match (yes, leaders of the “free” world are sociopaths who love this “game” that involves other people’s lives) that is being played out on the world’s stage I will be drawing from various sources for this post:
Robert Bridge article from Strategic Culture share on Lew Rockwell
[NOTE: A good researcher pulls from various sources and also thinks critically about the situation at hand before sharing their own thoughts]
From a high level view a few days later it becomes clear that Putin took a lot of heat from those in Syria as well in his own country in not retaliating against the actions of the west in the Mediterranean Sea near Syria this past week. I think of the mechanical operation of a ratchet, using rather small moves one can over time place a lot of torque on a situation IF one is patient and in the end have the upper hand.
Moon of Alabama, who follows the events in the Middle East so very well (I highly recommend a site visit there and IF you feel inclined, please do considering supporting that site) has a great overview of the political milestones that led up to this moment where a Russian propeller plane is accidentally shot down by a Syrian S-200 missile site that was focused on an Israeli F-16 that was shadowing the Russian IL-20 AWACS-like plane. Less than 24 hours prior to this setup:
Turkey and Russia agreed on a further de-escalation in Idelb province in Syria (see the update here). This agreement takes away the chance of an imminent wider war in which the U.S. and some of its allies would use a fake ‘chemical attack’ as a pretext to launch missiles against a large number of Syrian government targets and military positions.
.. peace was about to break out in Syria. However:
A peaceful solution of the Idleb situation is unsatisfying for Israel. The successful Syrian defeat of the Jihadi enemy inside the country would allow Syria and its allies to concentrate their forces against Israel. Israel wants the Syrian government destroyed and the country in chaos.
On Sunday September 16 Israel tried to hit an Iranian Boeing 747 freight plane at Damascus airport. The plane allegedly carried an Iranian copy of the Russian S-300 long range air defense System for the Syrian army.
Imagine any country in this world that can get away with attacking INSIDE another sovereign country and getting away with it. I can only think of two countries, Israel and the United States of America.
On Monday around 10:00pm local time 4 F-16 jets of the Israeli airforce, coming from the sea, launched missiles against at least three targets on Syria’s coast. The strike came only hours after Israel released satellite images of what it called “strategic targets” in Syria. The integrated Syrian and Russian air-defenses responded.
The Israeli air force had warned the Russian forces in Syria only one minute before the strike. A Russian IL-20 electronic warfare airplane (red line) was preparing to land at the Russian airport near Latakia just as the Israeli attack (blue) happened.
Israel chose to give a 60 second warning that could never be enough time for the IL-20 propeller plane to clear out of an area to a safer zone. Israel knew this but wanted to provoke the “Bear” so as not to loose even more strategic ground in the Middle East for their “defense”. Israel has chosen this path, and there will be blowback.
The IL-20 was hit 35 kilometers off the coast by a S-200 air-defense missile fired by the Syrian military towards the Israeli attack. There were 15 Russian soldiers on board of the plane which were likely all killed.
The Israeli attack came out of the same direction as the Russian IL-20. The large 4 propeller plane creates a much bigger radar reflection than the small F-16s fighter jets. The S-200 missiles have a semi-active radar homing seeker. These are passive detectors of a radar signal which is provided by an external source, in this case the Syrian and Russian radars on the ground. While the missile was aimed at the F-16 its seeker likely mistook the larger radar reflection of IL-20 for the intended target.
At the same time as the Israeli air force attacked, a Russian frigate (red) near the coast detected missile launches from the French Frigate Auvergne (blue) nearby. The French frigate carries air, ship and land attack missiles.
With so many Russian ships in the area plus Russian and Syrian radar sites on the mainland in Syria, there is plenty of evidence untainted by spin by Western powers to twist. Similar to Lincoln’s provocation at Ft. Sumter and FDR’s provocation of the Japanese before Pearl Harbor and even Bush I’s green light to Saddam in Kuwait at the start of Gulf War I, this was a blatant attempt at provoking conflict in the midst of the last two years of Russian accusations (election meddling) and US sanctions.
Sure the bully (Israel) “apologized” but said “it was not our missile”. Whatever. There is ZERO honor in that and there was no US response that indicated any kind of remorse at all.
The honor (again) came from “Cool Hand” Putin. As Robert Bridge points out:
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, took admirable efforts to prevent the blame game from reaching the boiling point, telling reporters that the downing of the Russian aircraft was the result of “a chain of tragic circumstances, because the Israeli plane didn’t shoot down our jet.”
Nevertheless, following this extremely tempered and reserved remark, Putin vowed that Russia would take extra precautions to protect its troops in Syria, saying these will be “the steps that everyone will notice.”
Now there is much consternation in Israel that the IDF will soon find its freedom to conduct operations against targets in Syria greatly impaired. That’s because Russia, having just suffered a ‘friendly-fire’ incident from its own antiquated S-200 system, may now be more open to the idea of providing Syria with the more advanced S-300 air-defense system.
.. or even the highly advanced S-400 systems:
The Israeli gamble did NOT pay off. Their reputation as a greedy neighbor who steals and maims others in the ‘hood all the while not adhering to international law that it demands others to follow. (While having 200+ nukes in their back pocket) The Russians know this and are being very patient in protecting a friend that asked for assistance back in 2015.
In summary, Pat Buchanan does a masterful job at giving a grand overview that spans decades of political ebb and flow on a global scale when he states:
By the end of his second term, President Ronald Reagan, who had called the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” was strolling through Red Square with Russians slapping him on the back.
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. And how have we husbanded the fruits of our Cold War triumph?
This month, China’s leader-for-life Xi Jinping stood beside Vladimir Putin as 3,000 Chinese troops maneuvered with 300,000 Russians, 1,000 planes and 900 tanks in Moscow’s largest military exercise in 40 years.
An uncoded message to the West from the East. Richard Nixon’s great achievement in bringing Peking in from the cold, and Reagan’s great achievement of ending the Cold War, are history.
Squandered. The “shining city on a hill” and “American Exceptionalism” are but a myth. The real DNA of our government along with that of Israel and NATO aligned countries are bent on war. Pat continues:
.. Bolshevism may be dead, but Russian nationalism, awakened by NATO’s quick march to Russia’s ancient frontiers, is alive and well. Russia appears to have given up on the West and accepted that its hopes for better times with President Donald Trump are not to be.
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is berating Russia for secretly trading with North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions, saying, “Lying, cheating, and rogue behavior have become the new norm of the Russian culture.” Cold wars don’t get much colder than defaming another country’s culture as morally debased.
The U.S. has also signaled that it may start supplying naval and anti-aircraft weaponry to Ukraine, as Russia is being warned to cease its inspections of ships passing from the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait into the Sea of Azov. The three-mile-wide strait lies between Crimea and Kerch Peninsula. In Russia’s eyes, both banks of the strait are Russian national territory.
With U.S. backing, Ukraine has decided to build a naval base on the Sea of Azov to “create conditions for rebuffing the aggressive actions of the Russian Federation in this region.”
Kiev has several patrol boats in the Sea of Azov, with a few more to be transferred there in coming months. Russia’s navy could sink those boats and wipe out that base in minutes. Are we going to send our Navy across the Black Sea to protect Ukraine’s naval rights inside a sea that has been as historically Russian as the Chesapeake Bay is historically American? ..
This is the height of American Empire stupidity. It is what Thomas Jefferson feared centuries ago that the United States arrogance may lead to:
Trade is honorable. Political solutions that promote peace is honorable.
The American Empire is not (nor has it been since the end of WWII) honorable. You can’t fix this, you can’t drain the swamp enough BUT you can research for yourself the reality of today’s political world and it does impact you, indirectly maybe, but it will eventually touch you or your kid’s lives. Not unlike the Roman Empire, this empire is entering its last days and only God knows the months or years this will take.
Things just don’t add up. I do believe that this is a pivot point for the narrative of the American Empire .. and as Ian56 @Ian56789 at Twitter says:
So you think PTSD levels among combat Vets & the drug sales as a result of these PTSD levels are off the scale?
Just imagine what will happen when these latest War Crimes & Treason sink in
Prozac, Oxycontin & Heroin dealers licking their lips at extra profit
We have been told many lies since 9/11, and IF you apply simple logic, you can see where this may lead. Maybe the US is protecting the civilians, but why didn’t they in Aleppo last year? Maybe the US is protecting al Qaeda. If so, what does that say about saving the very clan that according to the US government DID 9/11?
However, this would make MANY (a vast majority) people uncomfortable, because it upsets the worldview they have come to accept from one god ( the state) or the other god (their religion).
In my last post about Pearl Harbor, and the lies told in the run up to that “Day that will live in infamy” December 7th, 1941, it took several generations to really unpack and research documents that have shown us the truth of that day, two generations later? What will our kids and grand-kids find in declassified documents in 2070 in regards to 9/11? On the other hand, will we have to wait that long for truth to be unveiled?
So here we are in 2018 seeing the final push by Syria/Russia/Iran and the Hezbollah troops on the ISIS/alQaeda forces, an effort that tests the US foreign policy in the extreme:
.. and the United States (and possibly France, UK and even Germany) are coming on on the side of … al Qaeda!!!
So you might be thinking that al Qaeda is the United States’ main asset to protect in the Middle East.
Not so fast.
Today in 2018 we have seen the Taliban make some impressive gains in Afghanistan .. and the US seems fine with the stalemate, a weak Afghanistan is a well behaved Afghanistan:
So the 17 year war in Afghanistan AGAINST the Taliban is NOT BEING WON!
What about the 14 year war in Iraq (2004 invasion / Gulf War II)? Iraq as a nation is very week and basically divided and impotent in this region and is not a threat to anyone.
[Originally the rationale for was was for Saddam’s WMDs (Weapons of Mass Desctruction), something the US knew something about since the US gave Saddam Hussein them in 1988 during the Iraq-Iran War]
ISIS (these are NOT religious zealots, they generally don’t read the Koran, they are 90% PLUS mercenaries only 5% are hard core fundamentalists) is seen below expanding to cover much of Iraq and eventually spilling over into Syria:
… were given safe passage of over 500 miles across open desert to Syria:
From 2011-2015 the US was “fighting” ISIS in Syria, they claimed, but it was also noted that the US assisted in training ISIS and other moderate rebels in Jordan to get ready for phase 2 of the ISIS tour in the Middle East. All told, more than 250,000 combatants arrived from overseas to fight against the Syrian Arab Republic:
Not until 2015, when the Russians were invited by Syria’s President Assad to assist in battling ISIS/al Qaeda and other “moderate” rebel groups, did the US hand start to be seen clearly. The US (along with UK/Qatar/SaudiArabia and even Israel) were secret supporters of ISIS/al Qaeda.
Since 2015 is is interesting as much as ISIS/al Qaeda has been pressed, they do not enter Israel (although Israel has been observed aiding ISIS units across the borders in the Middle East).
The US apparently has not been in the Middle East since 1990 and then in Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2004), and Syria (2011) with a mission to “fight” al Qaeda (50 – 100 members at the time in 2001 when accused of 9/11) , or the Taliban, or ISIS.
Who is there left to PROTECT in the Middle East?
To see who you are protecting, look at the checkbook!
Who else can it be?
Why else would the US even get involved in 1990 with Gulf War I but to keep Iraq from encroaching on Israel (with US military hardware)?
Why else would the US in 2006 birth ISIS in Iraq but to keep Iran from encroaching on Israel?
Why else would the US in 2011 allow safe passage of ISIS into Syria but to keep Iran from encroaching on Israel?
Remember the conditions Trump’s administration was stating not more than a week ago about WHO has to leave Syria first?
The Trump administration won’t consider withdrawing US forces until Iran leaves the country.
Come on now! Russia was invited. Iran was invited. Hezbollah was invited.
The United States was NOT invited. ISIS/alQaeda was NOT invited.
WHO is complaining in the neighborhood?
There is no other way to look at this except that the Zionist nation of Israel needs the US Empire to accomplish the long-distance “defense” of their “homeland”.
The US seems to be uneasy about the loss of human life in the Idlib region of Syrian that is under mainly al-Queda control along with elements of the Free Syrian Army. It is not enough that elements of the US’s deep state lit the fuse on this conflict back in 2011 that has to date claimed the lives of over 500,000 civilians and caused millions of people to become refugees by destroying their means to live peacefully in their communities.
Moon of Alabama (MOA) has noted in this article that the US is determined to create a quagmire that Syria/Russia/Iran will have trouble with, while today’s article from MOA gets real specific as to the agenda the US wants here:
U.S. President Trump added another warning against the Idelb operation:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump – 22:20 utc – 3 Sep 2018
“President Bashar al-Assad of Syria must not recklessly attack Idlib Province. The Russians and Iranians would be making a grave humanitarian mistake to take part in this potential human tragedy. Hundreds of thousands of people could be killed. Don’t let that happen!”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dunford, also chipped in:
“We don’t see any way that significant military operations are going to be beneficial to the people of Syria,” Dunford told reporters during a trip to Athens. “If major military operations take place we can expect humanitarian catastrophe and I think we would all want to see that be avoided,” …
…
Pressed about the best course, Dunford said: “More of a discussion between the Turks, the Syrians and the Russians at more precise counterterrorism operations — as opposed to large scale conventional operations — would be the right approach.”
The U.S. is not a friend of the people of Syria…
So the last line is the key line of logic that MOA offers and rightly so. Why would anyone listen to an entity that has spent seven years trespassing on Syrian soil, supplying any rebel group hostile to the legitimate Assad government with support both direct and indirect (thanks McCain, Clinton, Obama and Trump) is THE question one must ask!
The “advice” offered by the US administration is NOT helpful to the Syrian people, BUT to the US’s agenda as stated by MOA just a few days ago:
The U.S. is not only spoiling the military operations against the terrorists in Syria. It is trying to hamper any reconstruction and the return of refugees. Reconstruction is made more difficult by the devious sanction regime of the U.S. and EU.
So let us talk about all the lies being thrown at this. OK, we don’t have time for ALL the lies, so let’s just nail down a few:
First, the US asking what the heck is Iran doing in Syria?
The semi-permanent U.S. occupation of north-east Syria will be used in a new (and futile) attempt to achieve the long held U.S. aim of regime change. Secretary of Defense Mattis declared as much in a recent press conference. Asked about Iran in Syria he said:
“What are they doing in Syria in the first place, other than propping up someone who has committed mayhem and murder on his own people?
They have no business there. And our goal is to move the Syria civil war into the Geneva process so the Syrian people can establish a new government that is not led by Assad and give them a chance for a future that Assad has denied them, with — with overt Russian and Iranian support.”
If Iran, a treaty ally invited by the legitimate Syrian government, has ‘no business’ in Syria what business does the uninvited U.S. invasion force have?
Exactly, typical of a people group that believe American Exceptionalism allows them multiple levels of hypocrisy, it is laughable that US leaders could even think like this. The US has been the uninvited “guest” for seven years in another country .. what the HELL is the US there for?
Second, when US military leadership starts talking about ISIS again:
Asked about the prospect of U.S. troops in Syria Mattis said:
“[L]et me give three points here. One, we have to destroy ISIS. The president’s been very clear that — that ISIS is to be taken out, so that’s got to happen. We also have to have trained local troops who can take over. We’re doing that training as we speak. As we uncover ground, the chairman’s got people assigned there specifically to train the locals. And third, we need the Geneva process, the U.N.-recognized process to start making traction towards solving this war.
Now, if the locals are able to keep the security, obviously during this time we might be reducing our troops commensurate with their ability to meet — deny ISIS a return, but it really comes down to finding a way to solve this problem of Assad’s making.”
The claim that the U.S. is there to fight ISIS is a lie. ISIS is still active in two places in Syria. Both are under U.S. control.
On the east side of the Euphrates, near Al-Bukamal, ISIS holds several villages and the city of Hajin with originally some 40,000 inhabitants. The U.S. and its Kurdish controlled proxy force SDF stopped attacking those ISIS position in November 2017.
How is it that the US military and political leadership just make statements about stuff and they BECOME truth? That is truly exceptional! Epic BS.
On June 6 Mattis announced that the attack on ISIS in Hajin had re-commenced but there was zero news of any fighting. Instead ISIS forces from Hajin crossed the Euphrates and attacked Syrian government positions. Further imminent attacks on ISIS in Hajin were announced by the U.S. proxy forces on July 13 and on August 14. None happened.
Again, the US announces something they want the world to believe, 90% of the American people believe it .. but nothing happens. The people on the ground know the reality, but this is fake news all over again.
For ten month now ISIS sits unmolested in Hajin and the nearby areas. According to (pdf) the UN Sanctions Monitoring Team it is again extracting and selling oil and “earning millions of dollars per month”. ISIS attacks from Hajin on Syrian government forces west of the Euphrates continue.
The other ISIS concentration in Syria is around the al-Tanf border crossing between Syria and Iraq which is also under illegal U.S. control. The nearby Rukban refugee camp, with allegedly 50,000 inhabitants, is housing many ISIS families. Last week the Syrian army prevented an attack from the U.S. controlled area towards Palmyra ..
.. The U.S. is not fighting ISIS in Syria. It is building semi-permanent bases, trains a large proxy force, and controls Syria’s oilfields. Its aim is still regime change, the same aim it had when it launched the war on Syria seven and a half years ago.
Do you doubt that? Try on this quote:
As CIA and Pentagon mouthpiece David Ignatius wrote this week:
“[T]he administration has stopped the dithering and indecision of the past 18 months and signaled that the United States has enduring interests in Syria, beyond killing Islamic State terrorists — and that it isn’t planning to withdraw its Special Operations forces from northeastern Syria anytime soon.
“Right now, our job is to help create quagmires [for Russia and the Syrian regime] until we get what we want,” says one administration official, explaining the effort to resist an Idlib onslaught. This approach involves reassuring the three key U.S. allies on Syria’s border — Israel, Turkey and Jordan — of continued American involvement. …”
It is not nor has it ever been about the Syrian people, “democracy” or about innocent civilians being killed. It is ONLY about the US’s agenda of regime change to continue to destabilize the Middle East until it “gets what it wants” = ROI (a return on the US investment into all the rebel groups in Syria!)
Delaying the Syrian/Russian/Iranian operation in Idlib only continues to expose the civilian population trapped there to this:
[The Idlib] province is ruled by al-Qaeda:
“H.T.S. has controlled much of Idlib since 2015, acting as de facto governmental authority, facilitating trade across the long border with Turkey and organizing aid deliveries.”
The “de-facto governmental authority” HTS is known to publicly execute women accused of adultery. It “facilitates trade” by taxing it to finance its terrorist activities. It “organizing aid deliveries” by talking half of any aid that is brought in. That is the reason why the Inspector General of USAID recently shut down its aid program in Idleb.
What a bully state to say that civilians must endure this MONTHS longer because the US wants something out of this. How can anyone salute that flag (US) or say the pledge after hearing this? The flag is indeed a symbol of the state, not the people. It has been made “holy” by decree of the state as has its military that gets paid to spread the PR before every major sporting event in this country JUST to remind you of its place in your life .. to be your god.
In the meantime:
The U.S. is massively expanding its positions in north-east Syria. More than 1,600 trucks with new equipment arrived over the last month. The U.S. now has 18 bases in north-east Syria, 6 of which have their own landing strips. The media continue to claim the the U.S. has 2,000 soldiers in the north-east. The real number is more than double or triple of that. It is quite obvious that the U.S. is settling in with the intent to split the north-east from the rest of Syria, similar to what it did with the creation of a Kurdish entity in northern Iraq.
Do you feel like you have to puke yet? I do, this is not honorable, none of this is honorable. What happened to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? (Golden Rule) Or how about this?:
