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Trump unchained: How the ‘God-Emperor’ is ending American Empire with Syria gambit

By Nebojsa Malic | RT | October 16, 2019

US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria is drawing fire from Democrats, media and some in his own party as well. He doesn’t seem to care, insisting on his 2016 campaign promise to end the endless wars.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Trump batted away every attempt at criticism – calling out the media for faking footage from Syria; describing the Kurdish militias that worked with US troops against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) as “no angels”; and demanding one good reason why the US should be involved in a centuries-long dispute between Syrians, Kurds and Turks when they could work that out themselves. None was forthcoming.

He even chided the US military-industrial complex that wants to “fight forever,” while making sure to note that he authorized a $2 trillion spending spree to rebuild the “depleted” US military. When reporters brought up the outspoken opposition by some Senate Republicans, Trump shot back that they ought to do their jobs, and he would do his. This was not a president worried about getting impeached, but someone confident in his position after 1,000 days in office.

While 2016 may seem like a long time ago, Candidate Trump did run on the platform of ending endless wars and entangling alliances. His daring to question the sacred cow of NATO, or the US presence in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq caused apoplexies across Washington.

After becoming president – and facing a coordinated effort from every quarter to block, sabotage and “resist” his agenda – he chose to go along with the military and political establishment. So the US did not withdraw from Afghanistan, and sent more troops to Iraq and Syria to fight IS. Trump even launched strikes against the Syrian government on two occasions – both prompted by alleged “chemical attacks” – in 2017 and 2018. Having hired neocon warmongers, he embraced their agenda for regime change in Cuba and Venezuela.

If this was done to appease his domestic critics, it obviously did not work. Neocons and establishment Republicans continued to denounce him and ally with the Democrats seeking Trump’s impeachment. So at some point recently – perhaps when he fired the hawkish adviser John Bolton? – Trump appears to have decided he might as well do what he wanted all along.

Declaring IS defeated, he ordered the pullout of US troops from northern Syria, setting in motion a chain of events that have transformed the situation in the region practically overnight, while his critics could only wail and gnash their teeth in impotent rage.

Trump has always had the uncanny ability to force his foes to defend the indefensible – see the curious case of Democrats and open borders, to name just one example. Now that talent has been leveraged in the area where US presidents have the most influence, and where his critics appear the weakest: foreign policy.

Turns out that getting the US out of Syria was easy, so long as Trump let others do all the hard work. Mainstream media said Trump gave Turkey the “green light” to invade Syria, when he clearly didn’t. They gleefully took up the cause of the “betrayed Kurds” until they got caught faking footage of the Turkish invasion. When it emerged that the “Turkish” troops involved were the very same “moderate rebels” they cheered on, back during the Obama administration – now denounced as “thugs and pirates” – the contortions they had to put themselves through were a sight to behold.

What if Barack Obama had called out the military-industrial complex, told off politicians who wanted to fight “endless wars,” or declared that American soldiers should not be injured or killed in centuries-old sectarian conflicts? It is no stretch to say that he would have been applauded by the same people that now vilify Trump.

Yet Obama didn’t do any of those things, even though he had the “hope and change” mandate. Instead, he allowed himself to be seduced by the promises of glory coming from his ambitious advisers. The result was the rise of IS, as Washington sponsored jihadists in Syria; the destruction of Libya and its transformation into a slave-market anarchy; the coup in Ukraine and the war in Donbass. The “geniuses” behind these fiascos are now shrieking that Trump’s cleanup of their mess is somehow hurting America!

During the 2016 campaign, some of his supporters jokingly referred to Trump as their “God-Emperor,” a science fiction reference that spawned a thousand memes. Yet here he is, single-handedly dismantling the American Empire because he believes it runs counter to the notion of the American Republic its founders had envisioned over two centuries ago.

Meanwhile, his critics are once again forced to defend the indefensible, and the only “argument” they have left is that all of this is somehow “helping Russia.” Trump is either lucky beyond all probability, or truly a “stable genius,” as he once put it himself. In the end, it doesn’t matter.

October 17, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

House of Representatives votes 354-60 against Trump’s withdrawal of US troops from Syria

RT | October 16, 2019

Democrats and 129 of the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to pass a non-binding resolution disapproving of President Donald Trump’s pullout of US troops from Syria – never authorized by Congress to be there.

The House Joint Resolution 77 describes the presence of US troops in northeastern Syria as “certain… efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces,” and formally voices opposition to their withdrawal, but does not offer an alternative. Instead, it demands the White House present a “clear and specific plan for the enduring defeat” of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).

The IS “capital” of Raqqa was liberated by US-allied Kurdish militias in October 2017, and the last IS enclave was declared secured in December 2018, but traces of the presence of the self-declared “caliphate” remain in both Syria and Iraq, weakened by years of war and sanctions.

The House resolution asks the White House to continue providing “humanitarian support” to the Kurds and ensure that Turkey “acts with restraint,” while also demanding of Ankara to stop its “unilateral military action” in Syria.

Trump has maintained he never gave the “green light” to Turkey to invade Syria, and defended the withdrawal as protecting the lives of American soldiers in a region where they had no business being anymore. He has also threatened to “destroy” Turkey’s economy with sanctions and tariffs over the invasion.

Congress has never voted to authorize the US troop presence in Syria, which is not sanctioned under international law and is based only tenuously on old resolutions allowing military action against Al-Qaeda terrorists following the 9/11 attacks. Damascus considers the US presence a violation of its sovereignty, unlike the Russian force that was invited back in 2015.

While the resolution does little to change the situation in Syria, the fact that so many Republicans chose to back Democrats against the sitting president from their party is being held up as a possible barometer for the Democrat-led impeachment process, even though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly refused to hold an actual floor vote on the matter.

October 16, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Media and politicians didn’t care about chaos the US caused in Syria for years, but now that Trump can be blamed, they’re outraged

By Danielle Ryan | RT | October 16, 2019

Mainstream US media has been the biggest cheerleader for Washington’s chaos production in Syria for years, but now, as Donald Trump pulls troops out of the northeast, they’re suddenly outraged. Spare us the crocodile tears.

“Plenty of reason here for the US possibly to become involved,” pleaded a horrified MSNBC correspondent this week, chastising Trump for ignoring “war crimes” and “human rights abuses” by Turkish forces.

Yet, while he and others cloak their demands for continued US military action in humanitarian concern for the Kurds in the face of Ankara’s onslaught, there is a more selfish reason for the media outrage. They are profoundly addicted to the bogus narrative of the US as the world’s savior, and worse, they crave the kind of dramatic TV footage and tales of military heroism that US forever wars offer. If that sounds a bit too cynical, recall MSNBC anchor Brian Williams close to weeping as he shared the “beautiful pictures” of American missiles raining down on Syria two years ago.

The pleas for fresh US intervention also reveal a hyper-focus on Washington’s “image” in the eyes of the world. The media has been bleating for days about how Trump’s actions will be perceived by its allies and enemies, but who is going to break it to them that their “image” is not quite what they think it is?

Successive US administrations have pursued policies of chaos and disarray in Syria for years; first covertly attempting to sow social discontent to spur and exploit a popular uprising, then by funding, training, and backing jihadist militias (Al Qaeda, included) against Bashar Assad’s army, and prioritizing the fall of his secular government over peace for the better part of a decade.

Couple that with Washington’s continued facilitation of slaughter in Yemen, its penchant for economically choking uncooperative nations with punitive and deadly sanctions and its psychological warfare of constant threats of violence against Iran, and one wonders exactly what kind of benevolent do-gooder image there is left to salvage.

This uniquely American obsession with image on the world stage was on display during CNN’s Tuesday night Democratic presidential debate, too. The perpetually grandstanding Cory Booker claimed Trump had turned America’s “moral leadership” into a “dumpster fire,” while Pete Buttigieg lamented the president’s betrayal of American “values” that left the country’s reputation and credibility “in tatters.”

Joe Biden, who as Obama’s former VP, shares plenty of the blame for the state of Syria today, called Trump’s pullout from northern Syria “the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history” in terms of foreign policy. Iraqis might disagree with that statement, but remember, all pre-Trump foreign policy disasters have been conveniently flushed down the memory hole and their perpetrators rehabilitated for the purposes of comparison with the evil Orange Man.

The hand-wringing over America’s image betrays a deeply delusional but long-ingrained belief that the world at large sees the US military as a force for good. In reality, worldwide polls have shown that the US is actually regarded as the greatest threat to world peace, not — as news anchors and Washington politicians would have you believe — a facilitator of world peace.

Tulsi Gabbard was the only candidate on the Ohio debate stage willing to call a spade a spade, describing the chaos in northeast Syria as “another negative consequence” of US involvement in the region.

“Donald Trump has the blood of the Kurds on his hands, but so do many of the politicians in our country, from both parties, who have supported this ongoing regime change war in Syria, along with many in the mainstream media, who have been championing and cheerleading” it, she continued.

She slammed the US’s “draconian sanctions” on Syria, describing them as “a modern-day siege the likes of which we are seeing Saudi Arabia wage against Yemen” and promised that if she was the president, she would end support for Al Qaeda in Syria, which she said had been the US’s “groundforce” in the war.

Cue the gasps all around.

Gabbard’s insistence on forcing a reckoning with the reality of US policy in Syria makes her presence on the debate stage so necessary, but predictably her input, while entirely truthful, was met with spineless attacks in the same vein as those she has been subjected to from mainstream media for months, culminating recently with a McCarthyist hit-piece published by the New York Times implying that she is a Russian asset.

Reaction to Gabbard from journalists watching on social media was just as fierce. MSNBC’s Clint Watts called the notion of US support for Al Qaeda a “falsehood” that needed challenging. Watts, it turns out, part-authored a 2014 piece for Foreign Affairs about Ahrar al-Sham, an Al Qaeda-linked group “worth befriending.” Another reporter called Gabbard’s claims about the US arming Al Qaeda a “Russian talking point.” Investigative journalist Max Blumenthal quickly responded with a photograph of Al Qaeda firing a US-supplied TOW missile in Aleppo.

But to the regime change fanatics and war cheerleaders, these facts don’t seem to carry much weight. Narrative has always been more important.

Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance writer based in Dublin. Her work has appeared in Salon, The Nation, Rethinking Russia, teleSUR, RBTH, The Calvert Journal and others. Follow her on Twitter @DanielleRyanJ

October 16, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | | Leave a comment

And now, a message from our wannabe masters about Syria

The Saker | October 16, 2019

this just came to my inbox:

Dear The Saker,

The American Jewish Congress opposes the U.S. decision to withdraw troops from Syria and strongly condemns Turkey’s actions in Syria against the Kurds. In addition to endangering a U.S. ally, the Kurds, it also poses a great threat to Israel and to the region’s stability overall. Israel shares a border with Syria and is affected by what happens within Syria.

Syria has become a hotbed of Hezbollah and Iranian activity, which poses a direct threat to Israel; as a result of this decision, Turkey, Iran and Hezbollah win while Israel loses. Ultimately, the impact of this decision may come to outweigh President Trump’s historic actions in support of Israel. Regional stability and the security of our allies must be paramount for U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Jack Rosen
President
American Jewish Congress

American Jewish Congress
745 5th Ave., 30th Floor
New York NY 10151 United States

October 16, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia, Damascus Ensure Safe Pullout of Foreign Troops From Syria’s North-East

Sputnik -October 15, 2019

The Russian military and the Syrian authorities have taken the necessary measures to ensure the safe withdrawal of foreign troops from northeastern Syria as the evacuation of US servicemen continues, the Russian centre for Syrian reconciliation said Tuesday.

“The evacuation of US forces from the northeastern parts of the Syrian Arab Republic is continuing. US troops have left bases in Dadat and Umm-Mial locations in the Manbij district of Aleppo province and have departed towards the Syrian-Iraqi border,” Maj. Gen. Alexey Bakin, the head of the centre, said at a daily briefing.

“The Syrian authorities  and the Russian command are taking all necessary measures to ensure the safe withdrawal of foreign military personnel,” the general stressed.

Earlier, a senior US state department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that US troops had completely pulled out from the northern Syrian city of Manbij. However, he added that the US still retains control over the airspace in north-eastern Syria.

On October 9, Turkey launched an offensive in northern Syria in a bid to create a safe zone along the border that would be free of Kurdish militias. Soon after US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from their bases in Syria.

Turkey considers the Kurdish forces to be an extension of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which it has classified as a terrorist organization.

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

It’s curtains for US in Syria. Russia, Iran owe big thanks to Erdogan

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | October 15, 2019

The scenario agreed on behind the curtains through months of confidential exchanges, often one-on-one, between the Russian and Turkish leaders regarding north-eastern Syria is entering a critical phase with the agreement between the Kurds and the Assad regime.

We have a complex scenario where on the one hand the Turkish army and the Syrian opposition units loyal to Ankara are relentlessly continuing their southward offensive expanding control over Syria’s border regions populated by the Kurds. According to Turkish President Recep Erdogan 1000 sq.kms. of territory previously under Kurdish control have been “liberated”.

On the other hand, following up on the agreement with the Kurds, the first columns of Syrian government forces have moved into the north of the country toward the Turkish border.

Prima facie, Damascus is challenging the Turkish offensive — as it should — and, in principle, a confrontation can ensue. But things are never really quite what they appear on the surface in Syria.

A clash between the Turkish and Syrian forces is simply out of the question. That is not how the game is being played. A Turkish Defence Ministry statement on Monday disclosed that the military chief Gen. Yasar Guler and his Russian counterpart Gen. Valery Gerasimov were in contact on the phone and discussed the “security situation in Syria and recent developments.”

No further details have been divulged but the picture that emerges is that Russia proposed and Turkey agreed that Russian units will be patrolling between Turkish and Syrian forces in northern Syria after the withdrawal of the US troops from the area.

Accordingly, Moscow’s Defense Ministry has revealed that its military police in the Kurdish town of Manbij have begun patrolling along the Syria-Turkey border and interacting with Turkish authorities. Russian troops entered Manbij town with the Syrian government forces on Monday.

More importantly, through Russian mediation, Ankara and Damascus will prefer to agree on dividing the zones of control in northern Syria. That is to say, things are broadly moving in the direction of what the Adana Agreement of 1998 (over the Kurdish question) between Turkey and Syria had envisaged, namely, that the security of the Syrian-Turkish border will be a bilateral affair between Ankara and Damascus.

In the given situation, Turkey’s imperative need is to prevent a contiguous “Kurdistan” emerging on its borders. The so-called “safe zone” aimed at frustrating the US plans to create a Kurdistan in Syria akin to what it succeeded in Iraq in the Saddam Hussein era.

Arguably, there could be a congruence of interests between Ankara and Damascus on this score. (Tehran too has common interests with its two neighbours in this regard.)

Indeed, for Damascus all this is a bonanza insofar as the “deliberate withdrawal” (as Pentagon put it) or the eviction of the US troops in the northern regions of Syria, triggered by the Turkish incursion, enables it to reoccupy parts of the northeast regions, especially those parts that are well-endowed with water resources and hydrocarbon reserves, which the American military had designated as its exclusive zone.

For President Bashar al-Assad, this is a great leap forward in the fulfilment of his pledge to reclaim control of entire Syria. (See the Euronews commentary Damascus is looking stronger than ever’: What next for Syria as Kurds join forces with Assad?)

As for the Kurds, they have nowhere to go but to settle with Damascus. They are simply no match for the highly professional Turkish army.

Clearly, the Turkish incursion and impending offensive against Kurds has made continued American military presence in northern Syria untenable and Russia has leveraged the situation to bring about the agreement between Kurds and Damascus.

Having succeeded in this endeavour, Russians have taken Turks into confidence. Unsurprisingly, President Recep Erdogan is nonchalant about the agreement between the Kurds and Damascus and has shrugged off the Syrian troop movements close to Turkey’s borders. He evasively referred to Vladimir Putin’s assurances.

In the final analysis, the Americans are paying a heavy price for being clever by half — stringing Turkey along in the recent years while methodically consolidating the ground for the creation of an autonomous Kurdistan on its borders, apart from arming and training the Kurdish militia to shape up a regular army.

Erdogan gave a long rope to the Americans to hang themselves literally. When he struck, the contradictions in the US policy got exposed overnight — the game plan to balkanise Syria and overthrow Assad; the Faustian deal with a terrorist group that has been bleeding a NATO ally; and the geopolitical agenda to sever Iran’s axis with Syria and the Levant.

Suffice to say, the eviction of the US forces from northern Syria, the Turks have achieved something that Russia and Iran (and Damascus) all along wished for but couldn’t realise. From this point, Russia and Iran will prevail upon Ankara to reconcile with Damascus.

The West has belatedly understood that Turkey has summarily terminated its 8-year old intervention in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime. The vitriolic reaction by Trump and US defence Secretary Mark Esper (here and here) is self-evident.

But the threat of US sanctions will not deter Erdogan, as the spectre of Kurdistan on its borders threatened Turkey’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and there is no scope for compromise when national security is under threat. By the way, the domestic opinion is overwhelmingly supportive of Erdogan.

Turkey was uncharacteristically patient with the US, hoping that the latter would give up the nexus with YPG (Kurdish militia) now that the fight against ISIS is over. It is not Trump so much as the Pentagon who is responsible for the breakdown in trust between Turkey and the US. Like on most foreign policy issues, Washington had two policies on Syria — Trump’s and the US security and defence establishment’s.

The US has no locus standii under international law to keep a permanent military presence in Syria and when Trump first announced the troop withdrawal, it should have been implemented. But, instead, the Pentagon undercut Trump’s decision, whittled it down and finally ignored it altogether.    

Erdogan knows that the US will huff and puff but will get used to the “new normal” in Syria. The West won’t have an alibi, either, as Russians will never allow the ISIS to surge in Syria. Trump is reportedly deputing V-P Mike Pence to travel to Turkey seeking a “negotiated settlement” — whatever that may mean in tackling the fait accompli that Erdogan has created.

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Trump imposes sanctions on Turkey in response to Ankara’s “Operation Peace Spring” in Syria

By Sarah Abed | October 15, 2019

On Monday, after a weekend of bloody chaos in northeastern Syrian brought on by Turkey’s cross border military incursion “Operation Peace Spring” which included airstrikes, ISIS prison breaks, and a continuation of the exodus we’ve seen over the past few days of over a hundred thousand civilians fleeing their homes, President Trump signed an Executive Order authorizing sanctions against current and former Turkish government officials and anyone who is contributing to Turkey’s actions in destabilizing northeast Syria.

In a formal statement, published by the White House, President Trump went on to say that steel tariffs will be increased back to 50%, which is the level they were at prior to a reduction in May of this year. President Trump also said negotiations led by the Department of Commerce which include a $100 billion trade deal with Turkey, would cease immediately.

The Order goes beyond sanctions and would also authorize consequences including blocking of property and barring entry into the United States on anyone Washington deems to be involved in serious human rights abuses including obstructing ceasefires, preventing displaced people from returning to their homes, and forcing the repatriation of refugees etc.

President Trump mentioned a few times during the past few days that the United States and their partners are the ones that brought Daesh to their knees and are responsible for eliminating 100% of their territorial caliphate.

Each time I hear this claim, I justify its inaccuracy by saying even though this is categorically false, and the United States has protected and helped Daesh on more than one occasion and the previous administration supported extremist groups which bore Daesh, that if taking credit and feeding his enormous ego means that US troops will withdraw from Syria, then by all means give President Trump all the credit, perhaps even an award, or a trophy, heck add on a Nobel Peace Prize, just as long as he withdraws US troops, which will help end this monstrous western-manufactured war.

President Trump also cautioned Turkey against indiscriminate targeting of civilians, destruction of civilian infrastructure and targeting ethnic or religious minorities. He also mentioned that refugees must be returned in a safe, voluntary and dignified manner. President Trump announced again that he would be withdrawing remaining US service members from northeast Syria and that they will be redeployed while remaining in the region to monitor the situation to prevent a resurgence. Trump stated that a small number of troops will remain in southern Syria at Al Tanf Garrrison to disrupt remnants of ISIS.

Repeating his threat to destroy Turkey’s economy if they continue down this “dangerous and destructive path” could just be more posturing by President Trump and distancing Washington from Ankara’s war crimes.

Vice President Mike Pence on Monday announced he would be leading a delegation to Ankara where they will be discussing with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the US’s demands which include an immediate ceasefire and negotiating with the Kurds in Syria.

Just the notion of asking President Erdogan to negotiate with Kurdish militias is preposterous considering their history. Turkey will most likely say that they do not negotiate with terrorists, considering they see the Kurdish militias in Syria as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey who they have been at war with for over three decades.

Secondly, the Kurdish militias are now in talks with the Syrian government. It’s a little too late for the US to try to win them back. I would hope that after seeing how many times the United States has left them out in the cold that the YPG/SDF/PYD would know by now not to put their trust in them again.

It’s worth mentioning that corporate media and war hungry politicians have intentionally focused on the “plight of the Kurds” and highlighted their cause above and beyond any other ethnicity in Syria. This begs the question, why is 7-10% of the population given an unequal amount of attention when “the Kurds” are not even a homogenous group of people.

There’s no mention of how Kurds migrated to Syria in waves and sought refuge and stayed for decades. Rather than telling you how they bought property, studied in Syrian schools, received benefits that are awarded to all Syrian citizens regardless of ethnicity and religion, propagandists will try to convince you that they were systematically oppressed.

There’s also little to no mention of the war crimes committed by the Kurdish YPG and the SDF in Syria against the indigenous populations including closing the vast majority of schools, enforcing a non-authorized Kurdish curriculum, forced conscription, theft of property and businesses, kidnapping of children to turn them into soldiers, etc, much like the PKK in Turkey.

Reporting has been very one-sided and has portrayed them as the leading fighters against terrorist groups in Syria and although they did play a part the Syrian Arab Army and their allies are the ones that did the heavy lifting and made the most progress, but they get trashed in the media.

And, many are surprised to learn that there are Syrian Kurds that are in the Syrian Army that categorically reject the notion of establishing a US/Israeli sponsored Kurdistan on sovereign Syrian land. They oppose the wrongdoing of the Kurdish militias and stand with the Syrian government and army.

Celebrations erupted once news was received that the SAA was on their way to northern towns. Even tribal leaders came out in support of the SAA, saying the SAA were the only true protectors of the land.

On Monday the SAA entered Manbij, Tal Tamr and towns in Raqqa’s countryside. Videos showed US armored vehicles exiting the area while Syrian troops were entering, in a peaceful almost poetic re-alignment of power. The American-Israeli backed “Kurdistan” dream was destined for failure from the beginning.

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

One out, another one in: Retreating US military meets advancing Syrian Army

RT | October 14, 2019

An unlikely road meeting of US and Syrian troops was captured in northern Syria as the American vehicles were retreating from the Kurdish-held town of Kobani, while the Syrians rushed to protect it from the Turkish-led offensive.

Getting American and Syrian government forces into a single image is quite a difficult task despite the protracted – and illegal – US military presence in the war-torn country. Nonetheless, RT’s video agency Ruptly managed to snap a rare shot at a highway between northern Syrian towns of Tabaqqa and Kobani.

The short clip from the scene shows a US military convoy of several armored vehicles leaving the border town of Kobani. A Syrian military unit, transported on apparently less fancy vehicles, is seen heading towards the town.

It was not immediately clear if the servicemen somehow reacted to seeing one another, as both parties seemed to be in a rush.

The US military has been withdrawing from northeast Syria following the orders by President Donald Trump, issued last Monday. The withdrawal has been sped up by the Turkish-led military operation against the Kurdish militia, one-time ally of the US, that incidentally heads the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) controlling around one-third of Syria’s territory. Washington used the SDF as a ground force in the fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).

Ankara regards Kurdish militia groups as terrorists over links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging insurgency in Turkey’s southeast for decades, ultimately seeking secession from the country. However, the Turkish incursion into Syria, which aims to establish a 30-km wide “safe zone” and plant previously displaced refugees and Ankara-backed Islamist rebel groups there, was not met with open arms by Damascus.

After apparently striking a deal with the Kurds, the Syrian Army said it was moving in to secure the strategic border area and entered the towns of Qamishli and Manbij. Kobani, once famously besieged by ISIS, is likely to become a hotspot of conflict again due to its position right on the Syrian-Turkish border.

Moscow on Monday said it never approved of the occupation of Kobani in security discussions with Ankara, with the Defense Ministry dismissing reports that such a question was ever brought up.

October 14, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , | Leave a comment

Washington’s Sum of All Fears: Kurdish Militants Cut a Deal with Damascus

By Patrick Henningsen | 21st Century Wire | October 14, 2019

Last night, Kurdish officials in northeastern Syria issued a statement that an agreement has been reached with the government in Damascus allowing the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) to takeover key strategic positions along the Syria’s northern border with Turkey.

Not surprisingly, cheers can he heard from Damascus to Moscow, and Tehran too, while leaving Washington’s foreign policy blob visibly moaning in agony.

The reality of the situation is that Turkey sprung a trap set by Damascus and its allies. In doing so, Turkey helped to clean up what was previously a near impossible situation for Damascus.

While much of the western mainstream media has laboured over ‘Trump’s decision‘ to pull-out US troops from Syria, there are other factors which have been driving the current situation. If you’ve been monitoring the Turkish press over the last few years, you would know that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been eager to fire-up his AKP base at home and project Neo-Ottoman power regionally, so this latest Turkish foray into Syria can be seen as a resumption of the ‘New Turkey‘ – the AKP’s gradual transformation of Turkey from a secular Kemalist state, to an Islamic one. This gradual revolution is not confined within Turkey’s own borders though, as it hopes to extend its micro-colonial project of Sunnification to include areas in question located inside and along Syria’s northern border with Turkey. Hence, Ankara has moved its forces into Syrian territory for the third time in as many years, this time dubbed “Operation Peace Spring,” and with Erdogan justifying the move under the auspices of ‘fighting terrorism,’ vowing once again to secure the country’s national security by stamping-out the Kurdish YPG-PKK ‘terrorist threat’ embedded in northern Syria. He may have achieved some marginal success in this department, but not in the way most mainstream pundits think.

Unknowingly perhaps (or not), Turkey helped towards resolving at least three separate problems which had been grating at Damascus and Moscow for at least the last three years. Firstly, the Turkish incursion has finally displaced uninvited US military forces that had begun illegally occupying northeastern Syria since late 2016, effectively propping-up their SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) Kurdish-led proxy militants, many of whom share membership with Kurdish YPG/PKK militant groups. This weekend has shown the world that without its US protection, Kurdish-led forces are not as viable as they have been depicted in the western media, now exposed to the painful reality that their ‘autonomous’ status in northeastern Syria is on borrowed time, evidenced by the fact that they failed to protect Kurdish residents from the Turkish military and their jihadi vanguard ground forces, formerly known as Free Syrian Army (FSA), who’ve rather cynically rebranded themselves now to the ‘Syrian National Army’. With Syrian Kurdish forces now on their back heels, they were left with no other option than to approach Damascus to negotiate an alliance. That agreement was inked this weekend, with the SAA now heading towards key towns and cities in the northeast of Syria including one of the centers of fighting – the hotly contested Syrian border town of Kobani. This new reality also means that Turkish military will not willingly fire upon SAA forces inside of Syrian sovereign territory, although Turkey’s jihadist FSA/SNA militias might engage with its old nemesis. Those side skirmishes could prolong instability, but they are not nearly as insurmountable as entrenched US forces in the area.

Reports show the SAA’s arrival in these areas as being met with cheers from crowds – which is a public relations disaster for Washington and its Kurdish ‘Rojava’ nation-building project in northern Syria.

Lastly, aside from securing its key northern border crossings, Damascus in now one step closer to reclaiming its oil and gas fields situated north of the Euphrates river near the city of Deir Ezor, and which have been continuously occupied by ISIS and SDF forces respectively since 2014. Liberating its own domestic energy supply will go a long way towards helping Damascus mitigate some of the economic suffering felt as a result of the imposition of joint EU-US  sanctions, a punitive embargo designed by western powers to strangle the country and foment more domestic unrest.

A New Middle East

The Kurdish request for Damascus protection also flies in the face of years of western propaganda which tried to justify Washington’s policy of military occupation and nation-building by convince the world that the Syrian government was unwelcome in the northeastern region of its own country, and that “Kurdish independence” was a fait accompli. Moreover, Damascus is a step closer to securing previously vulnerable stretches of is eastern border with Iraq which the US was previously ‘managing’ and which allowed ISIS the move through and use as a staging ground for attacks further afield in areas like Sweida and Al Tanf. If a mutual security arrangement can be reached between Syria and Iraq to secure its shared border, then this would potentially revolutionise political and economic affairs in the region, and even globally.

If these events do come to pass, it would be a complete defeat for decades of Washington-led efforts in the region. Together with its allies, the US has worked long and hard to keep this part of the Middle East unstable and divided. It was in this US-led and Saudi and Israeli-engineered environment of destablisation that both al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists were able to emerge and thrive for so long. Its adversaries should remain vigilant though, as history demonstrates, both Washington and Israel are not above provoking instability in order to achieve their shared short-term and long-range goals for the region.

Regardless, the board has been flipped in Syria. Unable to either hold territory or keep thousands of ISIS prisoners in custody, US-backed SDF militias have been exposed as the latest in a long lineage of hapless pawns of Washington in the Great Game. Once new ground locations are secured by SAA forces, then Damascus could invite Russian air support to secure this airspace – an outcome which can only mean that terrorists’ days will be numbered going forward. Any remaining ISIS or Al Qaeda terrorists brigades active in north of the Euphrates will have few remaining escape routes, other than north to seek refuge in the various AKP-sanctioned terrorist enclaves located across the border in southern Turkey.

As this author said back in early 2018, the US-Kurdish dance in northeastern Syria was always a game of musical chairs, and sooner or later, someone had to leave. And that someone is the USA, and immediately followed by ISIS.

As President Bashar al-Assad said already, Syria is determined to reclaim “every inch” of its territory. So it might behoove western powers not to underestimate the will and determination of a country and army which has withstood eight years of a fully internationalised regime change war waged against it.

***

Author Patrick Henningsen is an American writer and global affairs analyst and founder of independent news and analysis site 21st Century Wire, and is host of the SUNDAY WIRE weekly radio show broadcast globally over the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR). He has written for a number of international publications and has done extensive on-the-ground reporting in the Middle East including work in Syria and Iraq.

October 14, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

US poised to withdraw remaining troops from northeastern Syria: Pentagon

Press TV – October 13, 2019

The Pentagon has announced that the United States is set to withdraw the rest of its troops from northeastern Syria amid an ongoing Turkish offensive in the region.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in an interview with the CBS News on Sunday that the US would be pulling out around 1,000 troops from Syria’s northeast as part of a “deliberate withdrawal” directed by US President Donald Trump.

Describing the situation for American troops in the region as “untenable,” Esper said the measure was taken to ensure that US forces were not “put in harm’s way.”

During the interview, the Pentagon chief claimed that Kurdish militants of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were planning to negotiate a deal with the government in Damascus and Russia to withstand the Turkish attacks.

“In the last 24 hours, we learned that [the Turks] likely intend to extend their attack further south than originally planned, and to the west,” Esper told the CBS News.

“We also have learned in the last 24 hours that the SDF are looking to cut a deal with the Syrians and the Russians to counterattack against the Turks. And so we find ourselves, we have American forces likely caught between two opposing advancing armies, and it’s a very untenable situation,” he added.

Turkish military forces and Turkish-backed militants of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) on Wednesday launched a long-threatened cross-border invasion of northeast Syria in a declared attempt to eliminate Kurdish militants from the so-called People’s Protection Units (YPG) to push them away from border areas.

The YPG, which itself is the military wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), constitutes the backbone of the SDF, an anti-Damascus alliance of predominantly Kurdish militants.

Ankara views the US-backed YPG as a terrorist organization tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group, which has been involved in armed separatism in Turkey since 1984.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Ankara will not stop its military operation against Kurdish militants in northeastern Syria “no matter what anyone says.”

The Turkish Defense Ministry announced on Sunday that a total of 480 YPG militants had been “neutralized” since the operation began.

The Turkish military generally uses the term neutralize to signify that the militants surrendered or were killed or captured.

The self-proclaimed Kurdish-led authority in northeastern Syria says more than 191,000 people have been displaced as a result of the Turkish invasion.

The US has long been providing the YPG and SDF militants with arms, calling them a key partner in the purported fight against the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group in Syria. Many observers, however, see the support as part of Washington’s plans to carve out a foothold in the Arab country.

The Turkish military, with support from allied militants of the so-called Free Syrian Army, launched two cross-border operations in northern Syria, namely “Euphrates Shield” in August 2016 and “Olive Branch” in January 2018 with the declared aim of eradicating the presence of Kurdish militants and Daesh terrorists near Turkey’s borders.

October 13, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

Three Arab-language media interview Russia’s President Putin

RT | October 13, 2019

Excerpts:

Moscow is supporting Damascus to ensure that extremists never reach Russia’s borders

Damascus has to take responsibility for the country’s political and social problems, but these internal issues would not be resolved by allowing Syria to be overrun by extremists, Putin told RT Arabic, explaining Russia’s rationale for entering the conflict there in September 2015.

“We came to Syria to support the legitimate government… It does not mean that they do not have internal problems… It does not mean that the current leadership is not responsible for what is going on there. They are, but it does not mean that we were to allow terrorist organisations to capture Syria and to establish a terrorist pseudo-state there.”

“We still remember what happened in Russia’s North Caucasus region not that long ago,” Putin said, referring to the bloody conflicts in Chechnya and making the case for protecting Russian borders from terrorism spill-over.

“We could not allow militants to move to former Soviet republics. We do not have hard borders or a visa regime with them. We could not allow militants to infiltrate Russia from there.”

Supporting “rebels” in the Middle East and North Africa, like Washington and its Gulf and European allies has routinely done, has had disastrous effects for global security, Putin pointed out. The invasion of Iraq led to an insurgency that later created Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS), he said, and NATO’s “humanitarian intervention” in Libya created a “chaos and confusion” that is still seen today.

‘Syria must be free of foreign military presence’

Russia will be least affected if US exit from INF treaty brings back arms race, Putin says

A renewed arms race between the US and Russia would be bad for the world but Moscow won’t be dragged into excessive military spending, as it has already developed next gen weapons of “unmatched” capabilities, Vladimir Putin said.

The Russian president discussed Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty at a joint interview with RT Arabic, UAE-based Sky News Arabia and Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya broadcasters.

“I do understand the US concerns. While other countries are free to enhance their defenses, Russia and the US have tied their own hands with this treaty.”

However, Putin pointed out that “it was not worth ruining the deal,” which helped the US and Russia by precluding the fielding in Europe of ground-based missiles with a range of between 500km and 5,500km, and which remained the cornerstone of security on that continent since 1987. “I believe there were other ways out of the situation,” he added.
Also on rt.com Russia offers NATO a moratorium on missile deployment, but won’t sacrifice its own security to prove its goodwill

The New START Treaty, which came into effect in 1994 and limits the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers possessed by the two countries, is the final element that could “prevent us from falling back into a full-scale arms race,” Putin warned.

That deal expires in 2021 and, “to make sure it is extended, we need to be working on it right now,” he said.

But if an arms race couldn’t ultimately be avoided, the President assured interviewers that “Russia will be the least affected party because… we already have the next generation of weapons, and these are unprecedented, with unmatched capabilities. We have done our homework. We do not need to rush now and can calmly think of what can be done next.”

An arms race is a bad thing, and it will not be good for the world. However, we will not be dragged into exorbitant budget-spending games.

The reason for Russia obtaining those state-of-the-art weapons, despite being only sixth globally in terms of military spending – behind the US, China, Saudi Arabia, UK, France and Japan, is “focused research on priority areas,” he explained.

Read/watch the full interview here.

October 13, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Ironic’: Congress Seeks to Punish Turkey’s Incursion, Even as US Troops Remain in Syria

Sputnik – October 11, 2019

Turkey’s “Operation Peace Spring” has kicked off in Syria and caused a divide in the US muddied by what US President Donald Trump has deemed a misunderstanding. With Turkish troops already clashing with Kurds, hundreds dead, and US politicians calling for sanctions on Turkey, the so-called confusion may trigger a larger conflict.

In response to Turkey’s offensive, GOP members of the US Congress have called for sanctions to be placed on NATO ally Ankara, and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) issued a Thursday statement that said: “President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and his regime must face serious consequences for mercilessly attacking our Kurdish allies in northern Syria.”

This came hours after Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) introduced their own proposal for sanctions.

While Turkey claims Operation Peace Spring is necessary for its security, Spain, another NATO ally, has also threatened to take action against Ankara and remove its Patriot missile defense systems from the country.

Peter Ford, the former UK ambassador to Syria, joined Radio Sputnik’s Loud and Clear on Thursday to explain the main point of confusion concerning Trump’s troop pullout and highlight the hypocrisy from US officials.

“There was never any serious talk of Kurdish region breakaway. Never. Not until the US presence,” Ford told hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou. “It’s actually been the US presence and guarantee which has been the real cause of destabilization.”

The former ambassador said that while the Kurds did have some grievances in the region, such as calls to have “more teaching of the Kurdish language in their schools,” Syrian Kurds have historically “been well integrated into the state.”

Trump’s statements on pulling out of Syria and bringing US troops home have been the subject of bipartisan ire, but the US president explained earlier this week that only approximately 50 soldiers were removed from the area.

Ford echoed the president’s claim and asserted that “all the hyperventilating” was over “the removal 50 guys.”

“The remaining hundreds of US forces are still there controlling about 20 to 25% of Syrian territory rich with oil and grain, preventing the reabsorption of those areas into the state of Syria. They still stand ready to act as a tripwire against the forces of Damascus,” he said. “Trump, for all his bluster about bringing the troops back, has taken only a very small step towards that goal.”

He went on to say that he believes that once the dust settles on this issue, those in the US currently outraged by Trump’s actions will realize how minimal the withdrawal is in reality. That is, unless there are Turkish “atrocities” in the area.

Ford concluded that in any case, he finds it quite “ironic that all these people who see no objection to the US occupying Syria are hyperventilating about another NATO power occupying Syria. The situation is very rich in irony.”

October 11, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

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