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Mattis just doesn’t understand how US operates around the world

By Nebojsa Malic | RT | January 25, 2018

US Defense Secretary James Mattis is a Marine’s Marine and a respected military scholar. Yet his recent remarks to reporters about US conduct around the world smack of either hypocrisy or woeful misinformation.

Mattis is visiting Indonesia and Vietnam this week, as part of a US effort to expand alliances in the Asia-Pacific region. On his way over to Jakarta on Monday, he held a “press gaggle” on board the plane and, according to transcripts provided by the Pentagon, said this:

I think that what we’re looking for is a world where we solve problems, and we don’t shred trust. We don’t militarize features in the middle of international waters. We don’t invade other countries, in Russia’s case ‒ Georgia, Ukraine. That we settle things by international rule of law, you know, this sort of thing.

Mattis was elaborating on the new US National Defense Strategy, which prioritized “inter-state strategic competition,” over terrorism and called out Russia and China as “revisionist powers” threatening the “free and open international order” created by the US and its allies after World War II.

If anything, Russia and China are actually “reactionary” powers. Both countries have repeatedly said that they seek only to apply the existing rules of international order equally to everyone – including the US, which has held itself exempt from them.

That belief in American exceptionalism is evident in Mattis’s own words, aimed at Beijing and Moscow.

“We don’t militarize features in the middle of international waters”

Here, Mattis is clearly referring to the islands in the South China Sea, claimed by China and a number of nearby nations. China has built military installations on a number of previously uninhabited islands and reefs, and sent naval forces into the area in response to repeated US overflights and maritime patrols.

However, while the People’s Liberation Army Navy operates in its home waters, the US Navy operates around the world – with bases in places like Japan, Bahrain, Spain and Italy, among others.

In pursuit of military bases around the globe, Washington has gone so far as to approve the forcible relocation of Chagos Islands residents so the US could build and maintain a massive base on Diego Garcia. A number of Marshall Islanders were also relocated from atolls in the Pacific because of nuclear tests (e.g. Bikini).

“We don’t invade other countries”

Where to even begin with this one? What was Libya in 2011, then? What happened in Iraq in 2003? Or the NATO attack on Yugoslavia in 1999, which violated both the UN Charter, the NATO Charter, and US law?

In Libya, the US and its NATO allies grossly abused a UN resolution allowing certain humanitarian actions to launch a full “regime change” operation against the government of Muammar Gaddafi. Nearly seven years later, Libya is a chaotic failed state, with open-air slave markets and terrorists staking claim on territory “liberated” by US-backed rebels.

Iraq was invaded without any legal justification whatsoever, with George W. Bush’s regime-changing “coalition of the willing” acting in stark contrast with his father’s multinational force, which invoked the UN Charter for the 1991 intervention to liberate Kuwait.

Yugoslavia was bombed by NATO for 78 days, until the UN found a fig leaf in the shape of Security Council Resolution 1244 to allow the alliance to occupy Serbia’s Kosovo province. Except that, too, was trampled in 2008, when the US backed an ethnic Albanian government that declared the occupied province an independent state.

Mattis holds up Georgia and Ukraine as examples of Russian “invasions.” Yet it was the US-backed government in Georgia that started the hostilities in August 2008, launching an attack on the breakaway republic of South Ossetia that killed Russian peacekeepers. It’s understandable the Pentagon might be sore that a Russian border army managed to dismantle the entire NATO-trained Georgian military in less than a week, but that doesn’t change the fact that Tbilisi started the war, as even the EU fact-finding mission admitted in 2009. The warmongering president, Mikhail Saakashvili, has since been stripped of citizenship and charged with corruption. He is now in Ukraine.

What of Ukraine, then? Washington has accused Russia of invading and occupying Crimea in 2014. The overwhelmingly ethnic Russian region, reassigned to Ukraine by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954, reunited with Russia in 2014, after a US-backed coup in Kiev brought into power a government that included neo-Nazis.

That government, “midwifed” by US diplomats and directed by Washington ever since, responded to popular discontent in several regions by sending tanks against its own civilians. In Odessa, neo-Nazi activists backing the government even set dissenters on fire. The US has sent weapons to neo-Nazi militias fighting the “Russian invaders” in the eastern regions of Lugansk and Donetsk, while Moscow sent humanitarian aid.

Kiev has claimed, and Washington echoed, that regular Russian troops were on the ground in Donetsk and Lugansk. As “evidence” of this, they offered photos of Russian tanks – taken in 2008 in Georgia.

Trying to argue against the Crimean referendum, US President Barack Obama claimed there had been an internationally recognized referendum in Kosovo. That was simply not true.

“…we respect these as sovereign nations”

Another thing Mattis argued was that the US respected national sovereignty and opposed “veto authority” over their decision-making:

One point I want to make is we respect these as sovereign nations with a sovereign voice and sovereign decisions, and we don’t think anyone else should have a veto authority over their economic, their diplomatic or their security decisions.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this sentiment in theory. In practice, however, the US routinely tramples the sovereignty of other countries, and exercises veto powers over their economic and security decisions.

Ukraine has already been mentioned as one example. The US is also pressuring the EU to find a way to stop Nord Stream 2, a pipeline that in a recent anti-Russian report, Senator Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) said would deprive Ukraine of transit fees. What he left out was that it would also remove Kiev’s ability to hold Europe hostage by controlling the flow of Russian gas. Also, does anyone actually believe that Bulgaria decided on its own to back out of the Russian-sponsored South Stream pipeline project?

More recently, in the supposedly “independent” state of Kosovo, the US and UK ambassadors threatened “harsh consequences” if the government there dared vote against an internationally imposed war crimes court. US ambassadors in places like Bosnia-Herzegovina or Serbia routinely dictate to local authorities what laws they need to adopt and when. Local leaders who refuse to obey are sanctioned.

‘Mad Dog’ or ‘Warrior Monk’?

It was the American media that dubbed Mattis “Mad Dog” during the operations in Iraq, when he commanded the Marines that fought insurgents in Fallujah and destroyed the city in order to save it, to paraphrase that one US officer from Vietnam.

Mattis himself reportedly resents the nickname, preferring to be known as a “Warrior Monk,” a scholar with no family who has dedicated his life to the US Marine Corps. What is one to make, then, of his quotes from the flight to Jakarta, which deny observable reality in favor of wishful thinking embraced by his predecessors?

When Mattis was up for confirmation, a number of media outlets published a story about how he took guard duty at Christmas one year in order to have the junior Marine officer spend time with his family. He is clearly someone who cares about the lives of his troops. Yet his misconceptions about US conduct around the world are more likely to get them killed than faulty weapons or the bloated Pentagon bureaucracy, both of which he has set out to fix.

January 25, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

‘Apartheid State’: UN Slams Israel For Human Rights Violation

Sputnik – 24.01.2018

On Tuesday, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) held a session aimed at assessing the progress Israel made during its third Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a UN-backed process designed to assess the human rights record of a state and make recommendations for improvement.

In the course of the struggle between the Israelis and Palestinians, the UN has repeatedly accused Israel of not respecting human rights as it continues to build settlements on the West Bank, however, the strongest condemnation comes from South Africa, a country which used to have one of the world’s worst human rights records itself.

During the session a delegate from South Africa, a country where the system of discrimination based on supremacy of white people and suppression of the black population called apartheid originated from, characterized Israel as “the only state in the world that can be called an apartheid state,” since it denies the right of self-determination to the Palestinian people, “in the absence of which no other human right can be exercised or enjoyed.”

Other HRC members also expressed their deep concern over Israel’s violation of the UN resolution which rules that Israeli settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem are illegal, as the country continues to expand the existing settlements as well as building new areas.

Russia, Jordan, the UAE and Iran alongside other countries called on Israel to stop the annexation of Palestinian land and the construction of Israeli settlements there, whereas the Palestinian delegation during the session urged Israel to halt “its 50-year colonial occupation” and “compensate Palestinians for all of the losses incurred due to their presence.”

Israeli ambassador to the UN Aviva Raz Shechter said that Israel would submit to the review process though she pointed out the HRC’s bias and “the unfair treatment of Israel” in the council.

Territory in the West Bank was seized by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War in the course the long-lasting struggle between Israelis and Palestinians for the territory of what previously was the British Mandate of Palestine. The West Bank is mostly populated by Arabs and the United Nations considers this territory to be illegally occupied by Israel. Some sponsors of a peace process, among whom are Russia and the EU, have repeatedly warned that Israeli settlement activity undermines any chances for a two-state solution, which involves the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

January 24, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Son of b***h got fired’: Joe Biden forced Ukraine to sack prosecutor general ‘in six hours’

RT | January 24, 2018

Former US vice president Joe Biden boasted that he had a word to say in another state’s internal affairs, admitting to have pressured the Ukrainian government into sacking a prosecutor general in just a few hours.

“I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden said during a meeting of the US Council on Foreign Relations. He was referring to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and former Ukrainian prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk. Biden added that the prosecutor was then fired.

“Well, son of a b***h. (Laughter.) He got fired.”

The incident that Biden referred to dates back to late March 2016. At that time, the then-US vice president met Ukrainian government officials to discuss the situation in Ukraine as well as US financial assistance to Kiev. Biden apparently used US guarantees of a third loan worth $1 billion as a means of applying pressure on Kiev. “I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars,’” he said at the meeting on Tuesday, recalling on the incident.

The then-Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin was indeed removed from his post by the Ukrainian parliament on March 29, 2016. Two days later, Kiev announced that Biden had met with Poroshenko and “informed him about the US decision to provide [an] additional $335 million for reforms of the security sector of Ukraine.” It also said that “possibilities for providing the third loan guarantee of $1 billion” were “open.” Poroshenko officially dismissed Shokin on April 3, 2016.

Earlier, Biden also boasted of other cases of US interference in Ukrainian internal affairs. In a book titled ‘Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose,’ which was published in November, the former vice president said that he openly demanded that former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich resign back in 2014.

He also claimed that he had to direct almost every step of the Poroshenko administration after it came to power, following a chain of events that started with a coup that ousted ex-leader Viktor Yanukovich and gave rise to the Ukrainian crisis. Biden also admitted that he “had been on [the] phone with either Poroshenko or… Yatsenyuk, or both, almost every week” for months.

However, Ukraine was far from the only country pressured by Washington at that time. During the Tuesday meeting, Biden also revealed that the US administration “spent so much time on the phone making sure that everyone from… [former French president Francois] Hollande to [former Italian prime minister Matteo] Renzi wouldn’t walk away” from anti-Russian sanctions.

Europe initially sought to avoid the sanctions campaign against Moscow, the former US vice president said. He also added that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was almost the only major European leader who “was strong enough to… stand with” the US on this issue, even though she “did not like it” and supported Washington only “reluctantly.”

January 24, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Sowing war and chaos: US continues meddling in Syria through the Kurds

Doubling down on the fixation with ousting Assad produces another US foreign policy disaster

By Alexander Mercouris – The Duran – January 23, 2018

On October 6th 2017 I wrote a lengthy article for The Duran in which I said that the US’s two previous plans in Syria having failed – Plan A being regime change through US backing of violent Jihadi groups, Plan B being the attempt to set up an anti Assad ‘Sunnistan’ in eastern Syria – the US was resorting to Plan C, which was to establish a US backed Kurdish protectorate in northern Syria, so as to undermine the Syrian government from within.

In that article I outlined in detail how that was being done, with the massive supply of arms to the YPG, the Kurdish militia in northern Syria, and through the permanent deployment of US troops in the Kurdish controlled regions of northern Syria.

I also outlined what I thought the likely consequences of this Plan C would be,

Consequences of the US’s Kurdish policy

What are the consequences of the US’s Plan C/’Kurdish’ strategy, and what are its prospects?   In summary there are five:

(1) it will prolong the conflicts in Syria and Iraq;

(2) it is delaying the final defeat of Al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria and Iraq;

(3) it will make the Iraqi government align itself still more closely to Iran and Syria;

(4) it will strengthen hostility within Turkey to the US, and may make Turkey more inclined to seek regional alignments with the US’s Middle East rivals and enemies: Russia and Iran;

(5) it risks making the Kurds even more isolated in their region, whilst uniting the region against them.

I also said that though Plan C was rather more grounded in reality than Plan B since a Kurdish statelet in northern Syria had rather more coherence and reality than the eastern ‘Sunnistan’ proposed as Plan B, it was nonetheless in the long term unworkable, and the attempt to implement it would set the scene for the next US Middle East debacle.

Just two weeks later, with the Iraqi army’s successful offensive against the Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq, and following the Iraqi army’s recapture from the Kurds of the key Iraqi oil town of Kirkuk, it appeared that this Plan C was already failing and on 19th October 2017 I wrote a further article for The Duran in which I said as much.

In the event, with a persistence worthy of a better cause the US despite the failure in Iraq has persisted with its Plan C.

Firstly the US announced that it intended to keep 2,000 US troops stationed (illegally) in Syria indefinitely, supposedly to prevent a ‘vacuum’ emerging there.

In reality the true number of US troops in Syria is much greater, and it is the presence of these troops which by preventing the restoration of the Syrian government’s authority across the whole of Syria is threatening to create a ‘vacuum’ there. Most, though not all, these US troops appear to be based in northern Syria, in territory controlled by the YPG.

Then the US announced that it was building up a 30,000 strong ‘border force’ in northern Syria, which it was clear would be built up around the Kurdish militia, the YPG.

The results have been very much as I predicted in my article of 6th October 2017.

Firstly, the US game with the Kurds in Syria has outraged the major regional powers: Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Turkey’s President Erdogan has now launched his army and air force against the Syrian Kurds whom the US has been backing in their north Syrian enclave of Afrin.

In order to launch this attack Erdogan needed Moscow’s permission, the Russians having previously positioned military observers in Afrin.

A Turkish military delegation accordingly visited Moscow and obtained Moscow’s permission, resulting in the withdrawal of the Russian military observers from Afrin and the unimpeded operation of the Turkish air force there.

The Russians for their part attempted to persuade the Kurds to hand over Afrin to the Syrian government as a way of averting the Turkish attack. The Kurds, counting on US protection, however refused, with the result that they have quickly discovered that the US protection that they had counted on is nowhere to be seen, so that they now find themselves facing the Turkish army on their own.

In a bizarre twist, showing the extent of their confusion and possibly highlighting the internal criticism their leaders are coming under for putting so much trust in the US, the YPG is now blaming the Russians for the debacle.

We know that, without the permission of global forces and mainly Russia, whose troops located in Afrin, Turkey cannot attack civilians using Afrin air space. Therefore we hold Russia as responsible as Turkey and stress that Russia is the crime partner of Turkey in massacring the civilians in the region.

In the meantime, where a few weeks ago it appeared that ISIS in its fastnesses in eastern Syria was close to total collapse after coming under simultaneous attack by the Syrian army and the US backed Kurds, it is now back on the attack and has actually been able to recover some territory at the expense of the Kurds, who are having to transfer fighters to face the threat from the Turkish army in the north.

Meanwhile the Syrian army has been able to capitalise on Turkey’s focus on the Kurds to carry out major advances against the remaining Jihadi enclaves in western Syria near Damascus and in Idlib province, where the key Abu Duhur air base has now been recaptured from the Jihadis, and where large numbers of Jihadi fighters have been surrounded by the Syrian troops.

Latest reports from the normally reliable Al-Masdar news agency speak of continuing Syrian military advances deeper into Idlib province, with plans apparently being prepared for an offensive which will bring the Syrian army all the way up to the outskirts of Idlib city.

An article in the Guardian has now confirmed the critical role of the British government in egging the US on with Plan C as well as the extent of US and British dismay with the latest developments:

The problem for the west is that, as an endgame possibly approaches in Syria, it cannot afford to lose Turkish diplomatic support since Ankara has been the vital countervailing force to a Russian-imposed peace.

The Turkish preoccupation with the Syrian Kurds on its borders could lead to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, reaching a deal with Damascus and Moscow.

The speech – in which the UK Foreign Office had a big hand – was something of a watershed and was under-appreciated in Europe. Previously, Trump’s policy on Syria was simply the destruction of Isis and an aversion to talk of nation-building. But the Tillerson speech has been widely criticised because it was long on aspiration but short on detailing the credible levers the US and the west have to pressure Moscow to abandon Assad.

Western diplomats say they have some stakes in the ground: the threat to withhold EU and US reconstruction funds, the promise to keep 2,000 US troops inside Syria indefinitely and a slightly confused commitment to help the Kurds form a border force inside northern Syria. British ministers also repeatedly warn that a Russian-imposed peace that simply leaves Assad in charge would not only be morally reprehensible but unstable…..

There is so much wrong with the thinking in this article that it is difficult to know where to start.

Firstly, it is grotesque to say that “a Russian-imposed peace that simply leaves Assad in charge would not only be morally reprehensible but unstable” when it is Western policy to use the Kurds to prolong the war in Syria in order to increase pressure on the Russians so as to get them to agree to having President Assad ousted which is the true and obvious cause of the continuing instability there.

Secondly, to suppose that Turkey would stand idly by whilst the US armed the Kurds to fight President Assad’s government when Turkey is already fighting a Kurdish insurgency on its own territory was beyond farfetched. It should have been obvious that any policy of this kind that relied upon both Turkey and the Kurds in order to succeed was bound to fail.

Thirdly, the idea that the Western powers can ‘pressure’ Russia into ‘abandoning’ President Assad now that President Assad is in secure control of Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Deir Ezzor, all of Syria’s main cities, and in fact every part of what constitutes ‘useful Syria’, when Russia previously refused to abandon him when the territory under his control was reduced to a small coastal strip and he was about to lose control of Deir Ezzor and Aleppo, is beyond delusional.

Now that the Turkish army is pressing deep into Afrin, with the US and the Western powers as the Guardian article says unable to stop it, the Guardian article refers to what is rapidly becoming the default Western position in northern Syria: abandon the Kurds and hand over to Turkey and its Jihadi allies a strip of northern Syria as a ‘security zone’ at the Kurds’ expense:

The US can argue it tolerated Kurdish territorial expansions across northern Syria, and specifically west of the Euphrates river, only so long as the Kurdish militias inside the Syrian Democratic Forces were needed to defeat Isis, but now that battle has been won the US priority is to stop the freefall in its relations with Turkey. If that means a temporary Turkish foothold in the patchwork that is Syria, so be it.

One might even call it Plan D.

That this is indeed the emerging policy – though some US officials still seem to be unaware of the fact – has now been confirmed by Rex Tillerson, the US’s hapless Secretary of State, who speaking of Turkey is reported to have said the following:

Let us see if we can work with you to create the kind of security zone you might need.

What this ignores is that this policy is every bit unworkable as the Plans A, B and C which preceded it.

Firstly, the duplicity towards the Kurds is nothing short of staggering. Having armed the Kurds and encouraged them to create their own statelet in northern Syria in order to fight ISIS and destabilise the government in Damascus, the US is now preparing to abandon them to Turkey as soon as the going gets difficult.

Needless to say duplicity of this order is going to shatter trust in the US both amongst the Kurds and even in Turkey, which is not likely to forget any time soon the game the US attempted to play with the Kurds in Syria at its expense.

Secondly, Turkey’s Jihadi allies have repeatedly shown their lack of military effectiveness. It is all but inconceivable that they can control territory in northern Syria in the face of opposition from both the Kurds and the local Arab people without the protection on the ground of the Turkish army.

However whether the Turkish army would be prepared to remain entrenched forever in northern Syria facing what is likely to become before long a guerrilla war waged against it by both the Kurds and the local Arab population backed by the Syrian government in Damascus is problematic to say the least.

My opinion is that that is all but inconceivable, in which case Plan D is as unworkable as Plans A, B and C.

Thirdly, despite the Kurdish complaints about ‘betrayal’ by Russia, the likely consequence of the latest events is that over time it will oblige the Kurds to rein in their regional aspirations and seek to come to terms with the government in Damascus, just as the Russians have been urging them to do.

By any objective measure the Kurds in both Syria and Iraq have in recent years grossly overplayed their hand.

They used the US induced internal crises in Syria and Iraq to forge all but independent areas within those countries. They then expanded these zones far beyond their natural limits, bringing under their control large areas with predominantly Arab populations.

Then as the internal crises within Syria and Iraq abated, instead of leveraging the strong position they had achieved to come to terms with the governments of those countries so as to hold on to their gains, the Kurds went for broke, and gambling on US promises of support, they pitched for what amounted to outright independence, in Syria de facto, in Iraq de jure.

As a result they antagonised all the regional powers and Russia, bringing down upon themselves the wrath of Iraq and Turkey, and finding themselves isolated, when they discovered in Iraq in October and in Syria now that the promise of US support had no reality behind it.

The result is that when they were attacked by the Iraqi army in October and by the Turkish army now they found that they had no one to look to but themselves.

Pressure of events if nothing else will now probably force the Kurds in Syria to come to terms, however grudgingly, with the Russians and with the Syrian government in Damascus.

That would obviously mean accepting the overall authority of the government in Damascus in return for whatever form of autonomy the Russians can negotiate for them.

That is the only realistic way that the Kurds in Syria – who ultimately account for no more than 8% of Syria’s population – can secure protection for themselves provided by Russia, which as recent events have shown is the only secure form of protection that can be relied upon in this region.

As for the US and its Western allies, the time has come – in fact it is long overdue – for them to commit themselves to some serious rethinking.

The strategy of regime change in Syria which was launched in 2011 has decisively failed.

There is no realistic possibility of the US persuading Russia to abandon President Assad and agreeing to regime change in Syria, and no realistic way the US can bring about regime change in Syria without Russia’s agreement.

That means that regime change in Syria is impossible and is not going to happen.

With the Syrian government in Damascus now secure and gaining daily in power and confidence, it is now only a matter of time before it regains full control of all Syrian territory.

All the various plans to keep Syria weak and divided by playing Sunnis against Alawites, Kurds against Arabs, and Turks against Kurds and Syrians, can only delay this outcome, not prevent it, and can only do so only at horrific cost, whilst setting up the US for further humiliation

This is because the only practical effect of these plans is to increase the Syrian government’s dependence on Moscow and Tehran, thereby strengthening Syria’s alliances with Russia and Iran and weakening the regional geopolitical position of the US.

In reality if the US’s objective really were to limit or even extinguish Russian and Iranian influence in Syria – as it claims – then the only way it could do this would be by coming to terms with the Syrian government in Damascus, which is the legitimate government of Syria recognised as such by the overwhelming majority of Syria’s people, so as to persuade it to limit or cut its ties to Russia and Iran so as to reduce or extinguish the influence of these countries in Syria.

That would involve giving the Syrian government security guarantees that it could trust and economic aid to rebuild Syria, in return for its agreement to limit or close the Russian and Iranian bases which are now starting to appear on Syria’s territory.

Whether such a thing is now possible is another matter. However the modern history of the Middle East is such an appalling catalogue of duplicity that I for one would not say it was impossible if it were ever seriously attempted.

Already there are rumours that some officials within the Syrian government in Damascus are uneasy about the over close relations (as they see it) which Syria now has with Iran, and the problems which they think these are causing Syria.

However if the US is going to embark upon this genuinely realistic foreign policy then it must end its maniacal fixation with the person of Bashar Al-Assad, and it must tell its allies in Britain, Saudi Arabia and Israel that they must do the same.

Putting aside the disaster this fixation has caused to the people of Syria, who have had to endure seven years of war because of it, its only result has been to strengthen Syria’s alliances with Iran, Russia and more recently Iraq, thereby weakening the geopolitical position in the Middle East of the US.

As ought to be obvious, doubling down on this fixation can only spell more disaster further down the line, and the latest debacle in northern Syria which has resulted in fighting between the US backed Kurds and the US’s NATO ally Turkey ought to underline this fact.

However because this obvious truth is one which continues to be passionately resisted in Washington – not to mention in London, Jerusalem and Riyadh – it looks to be rejected, opening the way for still more disasters to come.

January 23, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Destroying Syria

Why does Washington hate Bashar al-Assad?

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • January 23, 2018

The Donald Trump administration is planning to install a 30,000 strong armed “security force” in northern Syria along the borders with Turkey and Iraq. This presumably will tie together and support the remaining rag-tags of allegedly pro-democracy rebels and will fit in with existing and proposed U.S. bases. The maneuver is part of a broader plan to restructure Syria to suit the usual crop of neocon geniuses in Washington that have slithered their way back into the White House and National Security Council, to include renewed demands that the country’s President Bashar al-Assad “must go,” reiterated by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last Wednesday. He said “But let us be clear: The United States will maintain a military presence in Syria, focused on ensuring ISIS cannot re-emerge.” Tillerson also claimed that remaining in Syria would prevent Iran from “reinforcing” its position inside Syria and would enable the eventual ouster of al-Assad, but he has also denied that Washington was creating a border force at all, yet another indication of the dysfunction in the White House.

A plan pulled together in Washington by people who should know better but seemingly don’t is hardly a blueprint for success, particularly as there is no path to anything approximating “victory” and no exit strategy. The Syrians have not been asked if they approve of an arrangement that will be put in place in their sovereign territory and the Turks have already bombed targets and sent troops and allied militias into the Afrin region, also a U.S. supported Kurdish enclave on the border. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has indicated clearly that Ankara will disrupt any U.S. devised border arrangement. From the Turkish point of view the border security force, which reportedly will largely consist of Kurdish militiamen, will inevitably work in cooperation with the Kurdish terrorist group PKK which is active on the Turkish side of the border, in seeking to create an autonomous Kurdish state, which Turkey reasonably enough regards as an existential threat.

And then there is one other little complication, which is that the United States presence in Syria is completely illegal both under international law and under the U.S. government’s War Powers Act. Syria is a sovereign state with a recognized government and there is no U.N. or Congressional mandate that permits Washington to station its soldiers, Marines and airmen within the country’s borders. The argument that the recent Authorizations to Use Military Force (AUMF) permitted the activity because groups linked to al-Qaeda were active there and the local government was unable to expel them is only thinly credible as the U.S. has also attacked Syrian Army forces and the militiamen linked to Syria’s ally Iran. That constitutes a war crime.

Trump can under the War Powers Act take military action to counter an imminent threat, which was never the case from Syria in any event, but after 60 days he has to cease or desist or go to Congress for authorization up to and possibly including a declaration of war. The military offensive against Syria began under President Barack Obama and it is far beyond that two-month window already, so egregiously in violation that some Congressmen are actually beginning to take notice. Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia has demanded that no military initiatives in Syria be undertaken without a Senate vote. He said on Thursday that“I am deeply alarmed that yet again, the Trump administration continues to raise the risk of unnecessary war, disconnected from any firm policy objectives and core national security interests. To be clear, neither the 2001 or 2002 AUMFs provide authority to target Assad or Iranian proxies in Syria, and it is unacceptable for this action to be taken absent a vote and approval of Congress.”

The animus against Syria runs deep, to include questionable claims from generally hostile sources that al-Assad has deliberately massacred hundreds of thousands of his own people as well as dubious assertations about the use of chemical weapons that led to a U.S. cruise missile attack on a Syrian airbase in Shayrat. A perfect example of how brain dead the western media is over the issue was provided by last week’s article by David Brunnstrom of Reuters on the Tillerson speech, where he wrote “U.S. forces in Syria have already faced direct threats from Syrian and Iranian-backed forces, leading to the shoot-down of Iranian drones and a Syrian jet last year, as well as to tensions with Russia.” The uninformed reader would assume that Americans were the victims of an attack and aggression by Moscow whereas the reality is quite different. Iran and Russia are allies of the legitimate Syrian government that are in the country by invitation to help in its fight against groups that everyone acknowledges to be terrorists. The United States is there illegally and is as often as not using its proxies to fight the Syrian Army.

Syria-phobia goes back to the George W. Bush Administration in December 2003, when Congress passed the Syria Accountability Act, House Resolution 1828. Syria at that time was already in the cross-hairs of two principal American so-called allies in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Both were actively working to destabilize the regime, though for different reasons. The Saudis were fearful of Iranian influence over Damascus but also had a religious agenda in that the secular Syrian regime was protective of religious minorities and was itself an offshoot of Shi’a Islam referred to as Alawites. The Saudis considered them to be heretics.

The Israelis for their part were enamored of the Yinon Plan of 1982 and the Clean Break proposals made in 1996 by a team of Jewish American neocons. Their intention was to transform most of Israel’s neighboring Arab states into warring tribes and ethnicities so they would no longer be a threat. Israeli leaders have stated openly that they would prefer continued chaos in Syria, which remains a prime target. Israel is, in fact, currently bombing Syrian Army positions, most recently near Damascus, while also supporting the ISIS and al-Nusra Front remnants.

The Syrian Accountability Act does indeed read at times like the completely bogus indictment of Saddam Hussein that had led to the invasion of Iraq earlier in 2003. It cites development of weapons of mass destruction and missiles, but its main focus is related to the alleged support of terrorist groups by Damascus. It “Declares the sense of Congress that the Government of Syria should immediately and unconditionally halt support for terrorism, permanently and openly declare its total renunciation of all forms of terrorism, and close all terrorist offices and facilities in Syria, including the offices of Hamas, Hizballah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.”

One might note that the groups cited by name are not identified as being a threat to the United States. Rather, they are organizations hostile to Israel, which suggests that the motivation for the bill was the usual dominant pro-Israeli sentiment in Congress. The bill’s sponsor was Eliot Engel of New York, a passionately pro-Israeli legislator.

Be that as it may, the drive to “get” Syria has remained a constant in American Foreign Policy to this day. When the U.S. still had an Embassy in Damascus, in December 2010 President Barack Obama maladroitly sent as Ambassador Robert Ford. Ford actively supported the large demonstrations by anti-regime Syrians inspired by the Arab Spring who were opposed to the al-Assad government and he might even have openly advocated an armed uprising, a bizarre interpretation of what Ambassadors are supposed to do in a foreign country. He once stated absurdly that if the U.S. had armed opponents of the regime, al-Qaeda groups would have been “unable to compete.” Ford was recalled a year later, after being pelted by tomatoes and eggs, over concerns that his remaining in country might not be safe, but the damage had been done and normal diplomatic relations between Damascus and Washington have never been restored.

The desire to bring about regime change in Damascus gathered considerable steam in 2011. Harsh government efforts to repress the demonstrations that did take place inevitably led to violence in both directions and the United States, Saudis and the Gulf States subsequently began to arm the rebels and support the formation of the Free Syrian Army, which Washington assured the American public consisted of only good people who wanted democracy and fundamental rights. To no one’s surprise many of the fledgling democrats accepted U.S. training and weapons before defecting to the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front or to ISIS.

Currently, the reconstruction of Syria is proceeding. The Syrian Arab Army is wiping out the last few enclaves controlled by ISIS in Idlib Province and the so-called Syrian Civil War will soon be over but for the mopping up. Many internal refugees have returned to their homes after the government reasserted control and also thousands who fled overseas have reportedly come back. Note that they are returning to areas where the al-Assad government is firmly in charge, perhaps suggesting that, while there were legitimate grievances among the Syrian people, the propaganda insisting that most Syrians were opposed to the regime was grossly overstated. There is considerable evidence that Bashar al-Assad is actually supported by a large majority of the Syrian people, even among those who would welcome more democracy, because they know the alternative to him is chaos.

One would like to think that Syria might again be Syria but Washington is baying for blood and clearly would like to see a solution that involves a fragmentation of the state enabling containment and rollback of Iranian influence there while also satisfying both its clients Israel and the Saudis as well as creating a possible mini-state for the Kurds. The destruction of Syria and the Syrian people will just be regarded as collateral damage while building a new Middle East. Hopefully the Syrians, backed by Iran, Russia and China will prevent that from happening and as the U.S. did not directly engage in much of the hard fighting that destroyed ISIS, it thankfully has little leverage over what comes next.

Whether it is Riyadh or Tel Aviv leading Washington by the nose is somehow irrelevant as the blame for what is taking place is squarely on the White House. The United States has no coherent policy, nor any actual national interest in remaining in Syria, but the strange political alignments that appear to be playing out in and around the Oval Office have generated a desire to destroy a country and people that in no way threaten the U.S. Someone should remind the president that similar scenarios did not turn out very well in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. No one should expect that Syria will be any different.

January 23, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US invited leaders of Jewish only settlement group to Vice President’s speech

US Vice President Mike Pence (L) meets with Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu (R) during his visit in Jerusalem on 22 January 2018 [Haim Zach/GPO/Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | January 22, 2018

The US embassy extended its invitation to a speech today by Vice President Mike Pence at the Israeli Knesset to leaders of Israeli settlers belonging to messianic and religious extremist groups.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that a spokesman for the organization that lobbies on behalf of settlements, which are illegal under international law, confirmed that the leaders of the settler’s movement received personal invitations from the US embassy in Tel Aviv.

The spokesperson for the Yesh Council -successor to Gush Emunim (“Bloc of the Faithful”)-confirmed that the chair of the umbrella organization for Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the director of its foreign desk received invitations to the Knesset event from the US embassy.

Founded in the 1970s, the Yesh Council was formed to promote exclusively-Jewish settlements in the West Bank. They espouse a similar ideology to the Gush Emunim, whose leaders are widely portrayed as messianic, fundamentalist, theocratic, and right-wing.

Gush Emunim believed that the coming of the messiah can be hastened through Jewish settlement on land they believe God has allotted to the Jewish people as set forth in the Hebrew Bible.

The Yesha Council also serves as the political arm of the settler movement. They have been given a green light by David Friedman, who was appointed as US ambassador to Israel by President Trump last year. Friedman is a staunch supporter of the settler movement. The former bankruptcy lawyer is well-known for making incendiary remarks and holding contentious views that are at odds with longstanding US policy on Israeli and Palestine. He has previously served as president of an organization that fundraises in the US for the settlement of Beit El. Trump himself is said to have donated to Beit El.

Describing the sympathetic attitude of the current US administration to the activities of the illegal settlers, leaders of the Jewish-only settlements said that “in general, there is a much better atmosphere these days.”

Read also: 

PLO calls for Arab countries to boycott US over Jerusalem decision

January 22, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US caught in a cleft stick in northern Syria

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | January 20, 2018

The Syrian war is taking a momentous turn with a full-fledged Turkish military operation on the northern Syrian town of Afrin having begun on Saturday. President Recep Erdogan announced today that a ground operation has also been launched alongside artillery bombardment and air strikes. He said an operation against the town of Manbij, some 140 miles to the east, will follow later. (See the Google map here.)

Afrin and Manbij are presently controlled by the Syrian Kurdish forces aligned with the US. The US, which has 5 bases in northern Syria in the territories controlled by the Kurdish militia, has directly helped the occupation of Manbij by the Kurdish militia in 2016. Thus, the Turkish operation signifies a strategic defiance of the US. Washington had repeatedly urged Ankara against making any military moves against the Kurdish militia.

But what finally proved decisive seems to be the US plan to create a 30,000-strong Kurdish force in northern Syria with the intention to use it as a proxy. Erdogan senses that the US is going ahead with the project to create a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria along the Turkish border as a strategic hub for its future interventions in Syria and Iraq. Of course, such a Kurdistan enclave will pose a long-term national security threat to Turkey by giving fillip to Kurdish separatists in Turkey. Erdogan kept pleading with Washington not to align with the Kurds but to no avail and has now decided to take matters into his own hands.

Today’s development may well lead to a confrontation between the US and Turkey. The White House spokesperson had explicitly called on Turkey on Thursday not to undertake any military operations. State Secretary Rex Tillerson telephoned his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu on Saturday no sooner than it appeared that operations were imminent.

The stance of Iran and Russia is going to be crucial. Iran shares Turkey’s concerns about the US’ alliance with Kurds (who also have links with Israel) and regarding any Kurdistan in the region. Therefore, while Iran may express reservations about the Turkish operation (which is a violation of Syria’s sovereignty notionally), it is unlikely to act against Turkey.

Iran’s focus is on the ongoing Syrian government operations in the northwestern province of Idlib, which is hugely strategic, given its coastline along the Eastern Mediterranean. Russia too is currently focusing on the operations in Idlib, which is adjacent to Latakia province (also along the Eastern Mediterranean) where the Russian naval base at Tartus and the air base at Hmeimim are situated.

Conceivably, there is a tacit understanding that Turkey may not object (except, of course, verbally) to the Syrian operations (supported by the Iran-backed militia and Russia) to crush the al-Qaeda affiliates present in Idlib and secure the big province. The Iranian media reported today that Syrian government forces have captured the strategic Abu al-Dhohour airbase in southeastern Idlib from the al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda affiliate) on Saturday afternoon.

As for the Russian stance, significantly, Erdogan deputed the Turkish Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar and the head of the National Intelligence Organization Hakan Fidan to fly to Moscow on Wednesday to meet the Russian Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov and the Russian intelligence. Clearly, a high degree of coordination between Moscow and Ankara went into Erdogan’s decision to order the Turkish military operation. Moscow has expressed concern about the Turkish operations and called for restraint but simultaneously also pulled back the Russian personnel in the vicinity of Afrin out of harm’s way.

There is no conceivable reason why Moscow should help the Americans — against the backdrop of the New Cold War. Interestingly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hit hard at the US on Friday alleging that the US is balkanizing Syria. He said this at a press conference at the UN Headquarters in New York. To quote Lavrov, “US has been actually setting up alternative government bodies in large parts of Syria, which is contrary to the obligations in relation to Syria’s territorial integrity they have reaffirmed, committed to, particularly at the Security Council’s meetings. We are concerned about that.”

On January 15 at a news conference in Moscow, Lavrov did some plain-speaking:

We can see the aspirations not for settling the (Syrian) conflict as soon as possible, but for assisting those who would want to launch practical steps to change the regime… The actions, we can see now, demonstrate that the United States does not want to keep territorially integrated Syria. It was only yesterday that we heard a new initiative that the US wants to help the so called forces of democratic Syria to organize some border security zones. In fact, that means separation of a huge territory along the borders with Turkey and Iraq.

How does all this add up? To my mind, both Russia and Iran will simply sit back and watch as Erdogan goes about crushing the US’ main proxy (Kurdish militia) in northern Syria. Indeed, they have nothing to lose if a nasty showdown ensues between the US and Turkey, two big NATO powers. On the other hand, if Turkey succeeds in vanquishing the Kurdish militia, the US will have no option but to vacate northern Syria, which will also work to the advantage of Russia and Iran. Succinctly put, the Trump administration has bitten more than it could chew by its unwise decision to keep the US military presence in Syria indefinitely “to counter Assad, Iran.” Tehran knows fully well that if the US is forced to vacate Syria, the US-Israeli project against Iran will become a joke in the Middle East bazaar.

The coming weeks are going to be crucial. If the US appears helpless while Turkey crushes its allies in Syria, it will be a huge loss of face for the Trump administration regionally. Meanwhile, Turkey is actively cooperating with Russia in preparations for holding a Syrian National Dialogue (of government and opposition representatives) in Sochi on January 29-30. Russia now gets another opportunity to speed up the Syrian settlement.

January 20, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

A US-Turkish Clash in Syria?

By Pat Buchanan • Unz Review • January 19, 2018

The war for dominance in the Middle East, following the crushing of ISIS, appears about to commence in Syria — with NATO allies America and Turkey on opposing sides.

Turkey is moving armor and troops south to Syria’s border enclave of Afrin, occupied by Kurds, to drive them out, and then drive the Syrian Kurds out of Manbij further south as well.

Says President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “We will destroy all terror nests, one by one, in Syria, starting from Afrin and Manbij.”

For Erdogan, the Kurdish YPG, the major U.S. ally in Syria, is an arm of the Kurdish PKK in Turkey, which we and the Turks have designated as a terrorist organization.

While the Kurds were our most effective allies against ISIS in Syria, Turkey views them as a mortal peril and intends to deal with that threat.

If Erdogan is serious, a clash with the U.S. is coming, as our Kurdish allies occupy most of Syria’s border with Turkey.

Moreover, the U.S. has announced plans to create a 30,000-man Border Security Force of Kurds and Arabs to keep ISIS out of Syria.

Erdogan has branded this BSF a “terror army,” and President Bashar Assad of Syria has called BSF members “traitors.”

This U.S. plan to create a BSF inside Syria, Damascus declared, “represents a blatant attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity and unity of Syria, and a flagrant violation of international law.”

Does not the Syrian government have a point?

Now that ISIS has been driven out of Raqqa and Syria, by what authority do U.S. forces remain to arm troops to keep the Damascus government from reimposing its authority on its own territory?

Secretary of State Tillerson gave Syria the news Wednesday.

The U.S. troop commitment to Syria, he said, is now open-ended.

Our goals: Guarantee al-Qaida and ISIS do not return and set up sanctuary; cope with rising Iranian influence in Damascus; and pursue the removal of Bashar Assad’s ruthless regime.

But who authorized this strategic commitment, of indefinite duration, in Syria, when near two decades in Afghanistan have failed to secure that nation against the return of al-Qaida and ISIS?

Again and again, the American people have said they do not want to be dragged into Syria’s civil war. Donald Trump won the presidency on a promise of no more unnecessary wars.

Have the American people been had again?

Will they support a clash with NATO ally Turkey, to keep armed Kurds on Turkey’s border, when the Turks regard them as terrorists?

Are we prepared for a shooting war with a Syrian army, backed by Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Shiite militias from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to hold onto a fourth of Syria’s territory in alliance with Kurds?

The U.S. coalition in Syria said this week the BSF will be built up “over the next several years” and “be stationed along the borders … to include portions of the Euphrates river valley and international borders to the east and north.”

Remarkable: A U.S.-created border army is going to occupy and control long stretches of Syria’s borders with Turkey and Iraq, over Syria’s objections. And the U.S. military will stand behind the BSF.

Are the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria really up to that task, should the Turks decide to cleanse the Syrian border of Kurds, or should the Syrian regime decide to take back territory occupied by the Kurds?

Who sanctioned this commitment to a new army, which, if Syria and its Russian and Iranian allies, and the Turks, do not all back down, risks a major U.S. war with no allies but the Kurds?

As for Syria’s Kurds casting their lot with the Americans, one wonders: Did they not observe what happened when their Iraqi cousins, after helping us drive ISIS out of Mosul, were themselves driven out of Kirkuk by the Iraqi army, as their U.S. allies watched?

In the six-year Syrian civil war, which may be about to enter a new phase, America faces a familiar situation.

While our “allies” and adversaries have vital interests there, we do not. The Assads have been in power for the lifetime of most Americans. And we Americans have never shown a desire to fight there.

Assad has a vital interest: preservation of his family regime and the reunification of his country. The Turks have a vital interest in keeping armed Kurds out of their border regions adjacent to their own Kurdish minority, which seeks greater independence.

The Israelis and Saudi royals want the U.S. to keep Iran from securing a land bridge from Tehran to Damascus to Lebanon.

The U.S. War Party wants us to smash Iran and remain in the Middle East forever to assure the hegemony of its favorites.

Have the generals taking us into Syria told the president how and when, if ever, they plan to get us out?

Copyright 2018 Creators.com.

January 19, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tillerson Unveils ‘New’ US Syria Plan: ‘Assad Must Go!’

By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | January 17, 2018

Confirming that the US military presence inside Syria had little to do with fighting ISIS, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson unveiled in detail today the real US strategy for Syria: overthrow of the Assad government.

In a speech at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and introduced by President George W. Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Secretary Tillerson vowed that the United States military would continue to occupy Syrian territory until three conditions are met:

First: ISIS must be destroyed.

This condition is made all the more problematic by the well-reported fact that it is the United States government that at every turn seems to pull ISIS chestnuts out of the fire. From handing them weapons to allowing them to escape when they are trapped in places like Raqqa, it almost seems like the US does not want to really see the end of ISIS.

Second: Assad must go. 

Tillerson’s admission that this is a sine qua non for any US military departure from Syria confirms that the Trump foreign policy is no different from that of Hillary Clinton or her former boss, President Obama. Recall that as part of his “thank you” tour, President-elect Trump reiterated promises made by candidate Trump to break with the past:

We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past. We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments. …In our dealings with other countries we will seek shared interests wherever possible…”

It is clear that he lied, as it is reported that he signed off on this new Syria strategy last month at a meeting of his National Security Council.

Secretary Tillerson said today that new elections should be held in Syria and that President Assad should lose:

The United States believes that free and transparent elections … will result in the permanent departure of Assad and his family from power… Assad’s regime is corrupt, and his methods of governance and economic development have increasingly excluded certain ethnic and religious groups… Such oppression cannot persist forever.

Tillerson’s speech reveals that the old myth about the Syrian people “rising up” to overthrow Assad is still very much viewed as Gospel truth in Washington:

…our expectation is that the desire for a return to normal life … will help rally the Syrian people and individuals within the regime to compel Assad to step down.

Translation: we are going to continue to make life miserable for you until you overthrow Assad. Then it will return to “normal.” Presumably the people of Syria understand what “normal” life after a US “liberation” looks like from examples like Libya, Iraq, and Ukraine.

Tillerson also made the bizarre assertion that US troops will remain in Syria to prevent the Syrian government from re-establishing control over the parts of Syria abandoned by a defeated ISIS. So the legitimate government of Syria will be prevented by an illegal United States military occupation from reclaiming its own territory? This is supposed to be a coherent policy?

Third: Refugees must be returned to Syria.

Secretary Tillerson said today at Stanford University:

America has an opportunity to help people who have suffered greatly. The safe and voluntary return of  refugees serves the security interests of the U.S. and our allies and partners. We must give Syrians a chance to return home and rebuild their lives.

But the one event that led to the biggest return of refugees back to Syria was violently opposed by the US government: the Syrian government’s liberation of east Aleppo from al-Qaeda control!

For additional consideration:

The US military is busy creating a 30,000-strong Kurdish militia to reportedly guard Syria’s borders with Turkey and Iraq. NATO-ally Turkey is violently opposing US moves to further arm Kurd groups that it considers terrorist.

The discredited “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) is back in Washington begging the Trump Administration to re-open the CIA weapons pipeline. The FSA is perhaps best known for immediately handing any weapons it gets from Washington directly to al-Qaeda in Syria. Will Trump’s neocon-filled ecosphere convince him to once again put some wind in al-Qaeda’s sails?

Will Congress awake from its slumber and finally dust off the part of the Constitution directing the Legislative Branch to decide on matters of war and peace? It’s probably an ill-advised bet, however there are a few whispers on Capitol Hill that a shift in US military focus from anti-ISIS to anti-Assad and anti-Iran might be slightly problematic.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has just unveiled a 100 percent neocon approved “new” US policy for Syria: No more pussyfooting around. We won’t abandon our project in Syria like Obama “abandoned” Libya (presumably, as the neocon myth goes, on the verge of becoming a new Switzerland after its “liberation” only to be thrust back into the mire by Obama’s premature withdrawal).

President Trump is set to out-neocon the neocons with this foolish and destructive policy. The showman is shown to be nothing but a fraud.

Copyright © 2018 by RonPaul Institute.

January 19, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation | , | Leave a comment

Turkish Army Shells Syrian YPG Positions

Press TV – January 19, 2018

Turkish Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli says no troops have gone into Syria’s Kurdish-controlled Afrin region but the operation has started “de facto” with cross-border shelling.

Canikli said in an interview with broadcaster AHaber Friday that Turkey was developing weapons systems against anti-tank missiles used by US-backed YPG militants.

He said the planned military operations in the northwestern Syrian region should be carried out with no delay to purge the territories of what he called terrorist elements.

Amid its rising tensions with the US, Turkey said Thursday it would seek Russia’s approval for the operation as the country’s Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar traveled to Moscow for negotiations.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Akar’s trip was part of boarder efforts by Ankara to coordinate the campaign with Russia.

He said the presence of Russian observers in Afrin was an issue that has to be discussed ahead of the operation.

“When we carry out an intervention, we need to coordinate on this, it should not impact the Russian observers,” said Cavusoglu, adding that the coordination will also cover the situation in Idlib, a militant-controlled region northwest of Syria where Turkey backs an array of anti-Damascus groups.

“We are meeting the Russians and Iran on the use of air space,” the top Turkish diplomat added.

Cavusoglu had earlier said the planned Syria operation may expand beyond Afrin to the nearby city of Manbij.

Washington angered Ankara earlier this week when it announced a plan to work with US-backed militants of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to set up a new 30,000-strong “border security” force near the Turkish border.

The force would operate along the Turkish border with Iraq and within Syria along the Euphrates River.

Cavusoglu further reiterated Turkish concerns over Kurdish militant activities near its borders and said, “Our response to this is our legitimate right to retaliate. We told the United States this.”

The White House later denied the plan, with Secretary of State Tillerson saying that the issue, which has incensed its NATO ally Ankara, had been “misportrayed, misdescribed. Some people misspoke.”

Turkey said the denial was “important,” but that it “cannot remain silent in the face of any formation which will threaten its borders.”

Ankara views the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), an offshoot of SDF, a terrorist organization linked to the homegrown Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group, which has been fighting for independence inside Turkey.

Wary of the YPG’s activities at its doorstep, Turkey has repeatedly called on the US to stop supporting the Kurdish militants and take back the arms it has supplied to them under the pretext of fighting the Daesh terror group.

However, Syria has censured both the American and Turkish plans for a fresh wave of unilateral military operations on its soil. Damascus views such measures as an assault on the country’s sovereignty.

The Syrian government has also indicated that it would shoot down any Turkish planes entering its skies.

Turkey, Iran and Russia are the guarantors of a countrywide ceasefire in Syria. The three have been mediating a peace process since January 2016 among Syria’s warring sides in Astana, Kazakhstan.

As part of the Astana format, four de-escalation zones have been established across Syria amid ongoing political efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict gripping the Arab country since 2011.

The zones have helped reduce fighting significantly, while giving Turkey a breath to beef up security along its southern borders.

January 19, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

Syria slams US military presence as ‘act of aggression’

Press TV – January 18, 2018

Syria has strongly condemned a US plan to maintain its military presence in the Arab country as interference in its internal affairs and a blatant violation of international law.

“The internal affairs in any country in the world is an exclusive right of the people of this country, thus nobody has the right to only give his opinion in that because this violates the international law and contradicts the most important theories of the constitutional law,” Syria’s state news agency, SANA, quoted a Foreign Ministry official as saying in a statement on Thursday.

The statement comes after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said US troops would stay in Syria for the foreseeable future to defeat terrorists, and added that the US would not fund the reconstruction of any part of Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is in power.

According to figures the Pentagon released in December, there are at least 2,000 troops in Syria as well as a diplomatic presence in cities such as Kobani.

The Syrian statement further said US presence and all of Washington’s actions in the Arab country are aimed at protecting the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, which was created by the former American administration.

The Damascus government “does not need a single dollar from the United States for reconstruction because this dollar is stained with the blood of the Syrians,” the statement added.

Turkey reacts to Tillerson denial

Meanwhile, Turkey said on Thursday that Washington’s denial that it intended to build a border force in Syria was “important,” but added that Ankara would not remain silent in the face of any force that threatened its borders.

Tillerson on Wednesday denied that the United States had any intention to build a Syria-Turkey border force, saying the issue, which has incensed Ankara, had been “misportrayed, misdescribed. Some people misspoke.”

“This statement is important but Turkey cannot remain silent in the face of any formation which will threaten its borders,” Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul told broadcaster NTV.

On Sunday, the US announced that it will work, along with a coalition of its allies purportedly fighting Daesh, with US-backed militants of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to set up a new 30,000-strong “border security” force that includes the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

Turkey views the YPG as a terror organization and the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).

The force would operate along the Turkish border with Iraq and within Syria along the Euphrates River.

Washington’s plan has drawn angry reactions from Syria, Turkey and Russia. Syria views the formation of such a border force as an assault on its sovereignty.

The US and its allies back militants fighting to topple the Syrian government. American warplanes have also been bombing Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

The airstrikes have on many occasions resulted in civilian casualties, seriously damaged Syria’s infrastructure and failed to fulfill their declared aim of countering terror.

Turkey reacted angrily to Washington’s plan and warned it would not hesitate to take action in Afrin district and other regions across the border in Syria unless the United States withdrew support for YPG.

In August 2016, Turkey began a unilateral military intervention in northern Syria, code-named Operation Euphrates Shield. Ankara said the campaign was aimed at pushing Daesh terrorists from Turkey’s border with Syria and stopping the advance of Kurdish forces.

Turkey ended its Syria offensive in March 2017, but has kept its military presence there.

Syria has voiced strong opposition to both Turkish and American military actions on its soil, repeatedly calling on the two NATO allies to pull their forces out.

January 18, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

On the Israeli government banning people from going to Israel

Israel’s wall, on confiscated Palestinian land, has blocked travel to and from Palestinian cities, towns and villages in the West Bank for over 15 years.
Another barrier, similarly manned by Israeli soldiers, has blocked travel to and from Gaza for almost a quarter of a century.
If Americans Knew | January 17, 2018

The Israeli government recently publicly added 20 groups to those it bans from traveling to Israel. Following a previous Israeli ban in 2017, Alison Weir wrote the following:

Dear Israeli Government:

You’ve recently banned foreigners who support boycotts against Israel or Israeli settlements from being allowed to enter Israel – even Jewish foreigners, a first for the self-proclaimed Jewish state After all, your “Law of Return” has allowed (and encouraged) Jewish foreigners to freely immigrate to Israel, even as multitudes of Palestinians have been banned from returning to their homes.

People throughout the Western world have objected in outrage to your new law, particularly Jewish Westerners who have family and connections in Israel from whom they’ll be cut off in retaliation for their political positions.

Critics, even some who oppose boycotting Israel and who have had no problem with excluding Palestinians, have called out the law for diverse reasons: its quashing of free debate and political expression, its anti-democratic nature, how it will affect them and others personally.

I support these objections.

But I’m not trying to visit Israel.

I want to go to Bethlehem and Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron, Jenin and Tulkarem. I hope to return to Khan Yunis, Rafah, Gaza City, and numerous other towns and villages in the West Bank and Gaza.

In other words, I want to go to Palestine – a country recognized by 136 countries around the world. But your law, astoundingly, prevents me from visiting that country. You control entry and exit to the places I want to visit, even though they’re not part of your territory, or included in your exclusive democracy.

When I was born, Palestine referred to the whole of the land that your founders then ethnically cleansed and renamed. Now, it officially refers to a few segments of land, surrounded and trapped.

Unlike the residents of every other country on earth, Palestinians are not free to travel to and from their own country unless a foreign country gives them permission – a normally universal right that you routinely deny: to young and old, Muslims and Christians, professors and paupers, men and women.

Visitors are similarly obstructed. You decide whether they can get in, and whether they can get out.

When I try to visit Bethlehem, for example, I must face your armed soldiers manning the Kafkaesque, towering concrete wall you have erected on Palestinian land. These gun-toting youngsters will decree whether or not I and others – including Palestinian descendants of Bethlehem’s ancient shepherds – can pass through.

In other words, Israel is essentially imprisoning over 4 million men, women, and children (with some help from Egypt, its proxy to the south). Israeli jailers, euphemistically “border guards,” determine who may even visit this incarcerated population, and what supplies may reach them.

Over the years I’ve seen you prevent numerous individuals and groups, many bringing medicines and life-saving supplies, from visiting this captive population. You’ve blocked sons from visiting dying mothers, suffering children from receiving critical medical care, malnourished toddlers from receiving help.

It is a profound shame upon the world that this cruel and unconscionable condition has been permitted to persist year after year. There should have been massive and irresistible objections long before your recent legislation.

I remember when the United States opposed the Iron Curtain. Today, the U.S. gives the perpetrator of this current captivity $10 million per day.

Israel already denied me entry once 15 years ago, locking me up for 28 hours in a detention cell in Ben Gurion Airport before expelling me. I remember Israeli officials telling me I was not “allowed into Israel.” They didn’t even supply a reason.

Next time, they may say it’s because I endorse BDS, which I wholeheartedly do.

But I’m not trying to go to Israel. I want to go to Palestine.

– Alison Weir  

January 17, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

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