Nobody is pushing” the conflict in Ukraine more than US State Department official Victoria Nuland, Twitter CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday. Nuland, who helped to orchestrate the pro-Western coup in Kiev in 2014, has backed military strikes on the Russian territory of Crimea.
Nuland’s declaration last Thursday that Russian military bases in Crimea are “legitimate targets” for Ukrainian forces was interpreted by the Kremlin as proof of “US involvement in the Ukraine conflict.”
In a post on Telegram, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that Moscow would respond to such attacks “using weapons of any kind.”
“Nobody is pushing this war more than Nuland,” wrote Musk, who has previously warned that nuclear war could break out unless Ukraine abandons its claims to Crimea and both sides agree to peace talks.
Nuland’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict predates Russia’s military operation, ordered one year ago by President Vladimir Putin.
As assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs in 2014, Nuland helped organize the coup that saw Ukraine’s democratically-elected president, Viktor Yanukovich, replaced with the pro-Western Pyotr Poroshenko, who then began a campaign of military repression against the people of Donetsk and Lugansk.
During the coup, Nuland handed out cookies to protesters in Kiev and promised pro-Western politicians military aid and a billion-dollar loan guarantee program.
In an infamous leaked call between Nuland and then-US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, the two discussed which person should replace Yanukovich from a list of oposition politicians.
After leaving the State Department during Donald Trump’s presidency, Nuland is now serving as President Joe Biden’s deputy secretary of state for political affairs.
In recent months, she has endorsed regime change in Russia, celebrated the US’ alleged destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, and called for the indefinite flow of arms into Ukraine.
Musk is not the only prominent American to condemn Nuland’s role in instigating the conflict in recent days.
In a campaign video released on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump called Nuland and “others like her” in the Biden administration “warmongers and ‘America Last’ globalists.”
Nuland was “obsessed with pushing Ukraine towards NATO,” he declared, claiming that the conflict would have “never happened if I was your president.”
Christians faced outward and joined hands in a circle to protect a Muslim group of protesters as they prayed in Egypt. Christians and Muslims in the M.E. are NOT the enemies the western media would have us believe.
Until very recently, the policies of a number of Western states have practically done nothing to put an end to the genocide of Christians in Syria.
It was clear from the onset of the conflict that the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad would have inevitably resulted in the complete extermination of Christian and Alawite communities, as disparate groups of the so-called “moderate opposition” were in no position to create a strong government to protect religious minorities.
Western leaders were fully aware of the fact that if their demand about Assad stepping down was fulfilled, this would trigger a new wave of genocide against Christians.
And they were quite willing to see it through and witness the carnage firsthand.
The fact that the problem of Christians was of little concern to Washington is evidenced by the reports published in the American media.
Those demonstrate the reluctance of the United States to let Christian refugees in.
Thus, according to the annual report of the US Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration that was issued in 2015, 97% of all Syrian refugees allowed to enter the US were Muslims, while only 53 Syrian refugees who professed Christianity were allowed to cross the border.
Mind you, by that year a third of the entire Syrian Christian population had already left the country.
The war in Syria has led to a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions.
According to UNHCR, nearly half a million people have perished, and more than a half of the entire population – some 12 million people was forcefully misplaced.
The better part of those people have taken refuge in neighboring countries-Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.
About a million people tried to reach Europe, starting the largest exodus since the Second World War! A whole generation of children was born in exile.
Therefore, it is not surprising that one of the principal goals of Russia’s military support to Syria was the liberation from radical Islamists of the territories that were traditionally occupied by Christian communities.
Due to the active steps undertaken by the Russian military attempts at perpetuating genocide against Christians were brought to a screeching halt.
Moreover, conditions were created for refugees to return home and considerable support was provided to enable restoration of peace that Christian communities used to enjoy in Syria.
It was Russia that played a key role in preventing new acts of genocide against the Christian population of northeastern Syria.
Since the very first day of the Syrian conflict, Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church have consistently called on the international community to consolidate its efforts in a bid to provide assistance to the people of Syria.
When it became obvious that one of the most important tasks on the way to peaceful life was the restoration of the destroyed infrastructure, the Russian Orthodox Church managed to rally both Christians and Muslims all across Russia to facilitate this goal.
Thus in August 2013, it sent 1,320,407 dollars to the Patriarch of Antioch that were collected with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill across the churches of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In 2017, on the basis of the Council for Cooperation with Religious Associations under the President of Russia, an Inter-religious working group was established to provide humanitarian assistance to the population of Syria, where both Christian and Muslim communities of Russia were represented.
With the assistance of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, the Russian center for reconciliation of the warring parties delivered humanitarian aid to Christian settlements in the Homs governorate, and at the request of the Antiochian Orthodox Church – to Christian villages in the governorates of Hama and Idlib.
With the participation of Russian specialists the monastery of Holy Thecla was brought back to peaceful life in the governorate of Damascus.
In a short period of time, the working group has successfully concluded a number of other humanitarian projects.
The significant role that Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church played in the protection of Christians in Syria is admitted by a number of prominent Western media sources, including The Washington Post.
Reverend Franklin Graham, an influential figure in the West and a son of the popular American preacher Billy Graham, would repeatedly stress the role that Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church played in saving Christians in Syria in his interviews.
However, Moscow would carry on taking consistent diplomatic steps to protect the interests of Christian communities in other parts of the world.
In particular, in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, that is controlled by Azerbaijan these days.
With the active participation of the Russian Orthodox Church, efforts are being made to draw the attention of the international community to the problems of Christian communities in Africa.
Today, it can be safely stated that the painstaking efforts that were undertaken to preserve Syria as one of the founding stones of the Muslim world were not in vain, although initially this country was, as you already know, the cradle of Christian civilization.
And Russia played a major role in saving this example of interreligious harmony from disintegration and subsequent self-destruction, which would trigger similar processes in a number of other states across the Middle East.
“When the ICC investigates Israel for fake war crimes, this is pure anti-Semitism.”
Well, as usual, there is good news and bad news.
The good news is that the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has finally received authorization to proceed with the investigation of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel-Palestine, to include both the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and also Hamas in Gaza.
On February 5th ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced that her office is now studying the decision made to confirm ICC’s jurisdiction and would be “guided strictly by its independent and impartial mandate” to investigate and prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The ICC has already ruled in December 2019 that “war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip” but was waiting for confirmation that it had jurisdiction to proceed.
Both the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and armed groups including Hamas were named as possible perpetrators.
The bad news is that Bensouda has been replaced as the United States is already intervening in support of its best friend and closest ally in the whole world and will inevitably do all sorts of stupid things that do not serve its own interests when the Israeli tail starts wagging the American dog. Count on it.
That has apparently already included pressure exerted both by Washington and Jerusalem behind closed doors to make Bensouda go.
She was replaced last Friday by British human rights lawyer Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, who is expected to be more accommodating to Israel and might even decide not to proceed with the investigation.
There has also been some speculation that the ICC was waiting for Donald Trump to be gone as Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had already more-or-less declared war on the ICC back in June 2020.
The Trump White House had sanctioned key members of the court and had also blocked the travel to the U.S. by investigators associated with it.
It threatened to arrest anyone who cooperated with the investigation. Washington also warned in the strongest terms that there would be “consequences” for any attempt by the court to investigate or punish Israel.
The Joe Biden White House clearly is on the same page on the issue, releasing the following State Department press statement on February 5th, immediately after the ICC decision became public: “Today, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a decision claiming jurisdiction in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, while expressly recognizing the serious legal and factual questions that surround its ability to do so.
As we made clear when the Palestinians purported to join the Rome Statute in 2015, we do not believe the Palestinians qualify as a sovereign state, and therefore are not qualified to obtain membership as a state, or participate as a state in international organizations, entities, or conferences, including the ICC.
We have serious concerns about the ICC’s attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel.
The United States has always taken the position that the court’s jurisdiction should be reserved for countries that consent to it, or that are referred by the UN Security Council.”
State Department Spokesman Ned Price provided additional commentary on the press release, saying “We will continue to uphold President Biden’s strong commitment to Israel and its security, including opposing actions that seek to target Israel unfairly.”
Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a signatory to the Rome Statute that created the ICC.
The argument Washington is using is essentially a legal one, at least at this point, that Palestine is not a “sovereign state” and that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over any county that is not a signatory.
Both are, of course, debatable. Israel has also taken steps to prevent any investigation by the court on its soil, to include the occupied territories and it is not clear if Egypt will allow ICC investigators to enter Gaza from Sinai.
The initial issue that turned Washington against the court in 2018 was the concern that it would begin inquiries into possible U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan since 2003, where both avoidable deaths and torture have been well documented.
The U.S. used at the time the argument that it was not a signatory to the ICC but, as Prosecutor Bensouda observed, one does not have to be a signatory to be investigated as the court was specifically set up by the Rome Statute in 2002 to inquire into atrocities where there had been no accountability, either because the local government had no ability to do so or chose not to investigate itself.
So, it is all a bit of a non-starter since Israel and friends are non-signatories and will not cooperate while the United States will be using all its resources to stop the process stillborn.
But that is not exactly the way it might play out.
If the court holds the Israeli government accountable for war and human rights crimes those countries in Europe and elsewhere that are signatories to the ICC might consider themselves obliged to honor arrest warrants naming senior Israeli government officials whenever they are traveling.
Israel is predictably reported to be already seeking to make arrangements whereby it will be warned by “friends” in foreign chanceries whenever such warrants are issued.
And then there is the matter of Israel’s approval rating vis-à-vis the rest of the world, which is already low, hovering down at the bottom of the list together with the United States.
To be sure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands all that and has reacted sharply to the ICC decision to proceed.
He said: “When the ICC investigates Israel for fake war crimes, this is pure anti-Semitism.
The court established to prevent atrocities like the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish people is now targeting the one state of the Jewish people.
First, it outrageously claims that when Jews live in our homeland, this is a war crime.
Second, it claims that when democratic Israel defend itself against terrorists who murder our children, rocket our cities, we’re committing another war crime.
Yet the ICC refuses to investigate brutal dictatorships like Iran and Syria who commit horrific atrocities almost daily.
As Prime Minister of Israel, I assure you, we will fight this perversion of justice with all our might.”
Israel’s security cabinet subsequently endorsed Netanyahu’s criticisms, describing the “outrageous” decision as one that “exposes the court as a political body, standing in one line with international organizations driven by antisemitic principles.”
The Netanyahu government’s response is, of course, typical boilerplate that seeks to cast the Jewish state as a perpetual victim surrounded by a sea of anti-Semites.
The only thing Netanyahu’s statement left out is the claim that Iran will have a nuclear weapon in weeks, but the Biden Administration’s Secretary of State Tony Blinken has already said that for him.
The drum roll includes “fake war crimes,” “Nazi Holocaust,” “pure anti-Semitism,” “defend itself against terrorists who murder our children,” and “brutal dictatorships like Iran and Syria who commit horrific atrocities almost daily.”
The reality is quite the reverse with the Israelis committing real war crimes by attacking its neighbors almost daily to include frequently killing Palestinian children.
The horrific atrocities are being committed by the Israeli Army and the armed monstrous settlers against helpless Palestinians on both the West Bank and in Gaza.
One might add the theft of Arab land, the destruction of their houses and livelihoods, and the lack of any due process for those who live and die under the brutal occupation.
The numbers tell the tale. According to United Nations records, 3,601 Palestinians have been killed and over 100,000 injured by Israel between 2010 and 2019, versus 203 Israelis killed and 4,700 injured in the same time period.
And now, when there at last might be some real accountability for Israel’s crimes, the United States, under Netanyahu’s thumb, is yet again on the wrong side of the argument.
“We don’t care a jot if Syrian people are suffering greatly, that’s part of the plan. We are happy to prolong the suffering indefinitely as long as the Russians, Iranians and Assad can’t claim victory.”
The Rambo of the State Department is leaving. James Jeffreys, the outgoing Syria envoy, boasts about his achievements in a recent candid interview with Al Monitor which with no sense of shame opens up to public gaze the the cynicism, callousness and sheer power-crazedness of US policy on Syria, conducted as though it were a video game or a game of Monopoly.
In a long-ranging interview with Al-Monitor, James Jeffrey looks back on his efforts to incorporate fragments of Obama-era initiatives into a cohesive Middle East policy.Al Monitor
Jeffreys makes no bones about it. It’s not about ending the Syrian conflict, it’s about prolonging it:
Basically, first and foremost is denial of the [Assad regime] getting military victory….And of course, we’ve ratcheted up the isolation and sanctions pressure on Assad, we’ve held the line on no reconstruction assistance, and the country’s desperate for it. You see what’s happened to the Syrian pound, you see what’s happened to the entire economy. So, it’s been a very effective strategy..
The point is, this [preserving the SDF] is our plan B. We have a plan A. Plan A doesn’t answer ‘how does this all end?’ Plan A’s whole purpose [is] to ensure that the Russians and Assad and the Iranians don’t have a happy answer to how this all ends, and maybe that will someday get them to accept Plan B. Meanwhile, they’re tied up in knots. They don’t see Syria as a victory.
So, we don’t care a jot if Syrian people are suffering greatly, that’s part of the plan. We are happy to prolong the suffering indefinitely as long as the Russians, Iranians and Assad can’t claim victory.
Plan B, by the way, requires implementation on US terms of UN resolution 2254, which would amount effectively to a suicide note for Assad as under those terms it would allow millions of Syrians outside Syria to vote and thus decide the fate of those still inside.
At no point in this lengthy interview does Jeffreys even mention the Syrian people. The only Syrians (condescendingly) mentioned are the Kurdish militia SDF:
The SDF, they’re clean kids. I’ve gotten to know them and their leadership very, very well. They really are phenomenal, by Middle Eastern standards. They’re a highly disciplined Marxist offshoot of the PKK.
So, let’s get this straight: the US is supporting a bunch of Marxists in North East Syria to stop Assad getting the much needed oil for the Syrian people and is indifferent to the fact that Idlib is controlled by a bunch of Islamist fanatics?
Jeffreys in fact does not say a single word about the character of the opposition to acknowledge their Islamist extremism, or about the likely consequences if Plan B were to succeed and deliver the keys of Damascus to Islamist radicals.
In this game – and a game is clearly how callous power-crazed Washington policy makers see it – only preventing victory by the other side matters.
Trump emerges as relatively sensible, which is saying a lot.
The president was uncomfortable with our presence in Syria. He was very uncomfortable with what he saw as endless wars. … Trump kept asking, “Why do we have troops there?”
The reason that Trump pulled the troops out was I think because he was just tired of us having come up with all these explanations for why we’re in there.
We at the State Department never provided any troop numbers to the president. That’s not our job. We didn’t try to deceive him.
He kept on publicly saying numbers that were way below what the actual numbers were, so in talking to the media and talking to Congress, we had to be very careful and dodge around. .
But the Syria mission is the gift that keeps on giving. We and the SDF are still the dominant force in [northeast] Syria.
‘Not our job?’ The deviousness of this is breathtaking. The US State Department deliberately withheld crucial information from the President in order to get their way on keeping their counters on the Monopoly board which for them is Syria.
It’s no surprise that someone of Jeffreys’ calibre boasts about helping Israel to pulverise Syria:
We then also had the Israeli air campaign. The US only began supporting that when I came on board. I went out there and we saw Prime Minister Netanyahu and others, and they thought that they were not being supported enough by the US military, and not by intelligence.
And there was a big battle within the US government, and we won the battle.
The argument [against supporting Israel’s campaign] was, again, this obsession with the counterterrorism mission.
People didn’t want to screw with it, either by worrying about Turkey or diverting resources to allow the Israelis to muck around in Syria, as maybe that will lead to some blowback to our forces. It hasn’t.
All that matters is ‘stabilizing the situation’ to US advantage:
So that was how we put together an integrated Syria policy that nestled under the overall Iran policy.
The result has been relative success because we — with a lot of help from the Turks in particular — have managed to stabilize the situation.
The only change on the ground to the benefit of Assad has been southern Idlib in two and a half years of attacks.
They are highly unlikely to continue, given the strength of the Turkish army there and the magnitude of the defeat of the Syrian army by the Turks back in March.
It would be hard to disagree with that pessimistic analysis.
As long as the US puts stymieing its adversaries ahead of any genuine concern for the suffering and prospects of the Syrian people, including the millions of refugees condemned by this policy to indefinite exile, no end is in sight.
It’s worth bearing in mind that Jeffreys worked with Obama long before he worked with Trump.
Anybody who expects the Biden administration to follow a different path on Syria must be seriously deluded, unless by ‘different’ is meant an even more reckless, activist, interventionist policy that goes beyond ‘stabilising’. And there is no Trump there now to apply the brakes.
One official said the incident happened deep inside the eastern Syria deconfliction zone, where Russian troops generally should not be present. [As determined by Americans who are in Syria illegally to begin with.]
In the most violent skirmish in months between U.S. and Russian forces in Syria, a vehicle collision in the eastern part of the war-torn country left American troops with concussions, two U.S. officials said Wednesday.
One official said Russian vehicles sideswiped a light-armored U.S. military vehicle, injuring four Americans. The official said two Russian helicopters flew above the Americans, and one of the aircraft was within about 70 feet the vehicle.
While there have been several other recent incidents between the American and Russian troops who all patrol in eastern Syria, officials described this one as the most serious. U.S. troops are usually accompanied by members of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of the incident that were not yet made public. One official said the incident happened deep inside the eastern Syria deconfliction zone, where Russian troops generally should not be present. [As determined by Americans who are in Syria illegally to begin with.]
The officials said the incident is being discussed by senior officials from both countries who routinely work to prevent conflicts between troops in that area. U.S. and Russian commanders have frequent conversations to try and avoid contact between their troops there.
It has already become a common practice for the Israeli air force to use civil aircraft to shield their own fighter jets from the Syrian air defense systems.
A civil Airbus-320 was trying to land at Damascus airport when Israeli F-16 fighter jets struck Damascus’ suburbs early Thursday, putting 172 passengers on board in danger.
The Syrian military said earlier they had thwarted hostile targets above Damascus, adding that the attack had been launched by Israeli forces from the Golan Heights.
The Russian Ministry of Defense says Israeli F-16 fighter jets carried out strikes with eight air-to-surface missiles on Damascus’ suburbs early Thursday, without entering Syrian airspace, Sputnik reported.
According to the Russian military, a civil Airbus-320 with 172 passengers on board was trying to land at Damascus airport during the Israeli airstrikes that night, but landed instead at the Russian airbase in Hmeymim.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman, it has already become a common practice for the Israeli air force to use civil aircraft to shield their own fighter jets from the Syrian air defense systems.
Eight troops were injured and some material damage was caused as a result of Thursday morning’s airstrikes on Damascus and other Syrian cities, a Syrian military source said earlier.
The military source confirmed the attack was launched from the Golan Heights, part of which has been occupied by ‘Israel’ since 1967, and from southern Lebanon’s airspace. ‘Israel’ has remained silent about who was responsible for the strikes.
According to media reports, the strikes targeted Damascus’s Mezzah district, where the Al-Mezzah Military Airport is located, the dislocation point of the 75th Brigade of the Syrian Army in the vicinity of the village of al-Maquilbiya, and the Center for Scientific Research in Jamaria.
Syria’s oil sector is decimated. Syrians do not even take seriously its revival as a foundation of post-conflict reconstruction! No wonder Assad, Russia and Iran aren’t having a hissyfit!
The Trump administration’s decision to move US forces out of the way of the Turkish military’s intervention against the Syrian Democratic Forces was met with bipartisan condemnation, with many decrying the “betrayal” of the US’s Syrian Kurdish allies. It appears that the administration sought to mute this criticism through a show of force to secure Syria’s oil fields.
If Syria’s oil production is insignificant, then why would the US military be directed towards controlling the oil fields? There is no apparent reason, other than a bad case of Oilcraft, coupled with a desire by this administration to save face in the aftermath of a perceived retreat from Syria.
That this would be either contemplated or welcomed as an affirmation of the US commitment to maintaining a military presence in Syria is testament to the power of the myth that whoever controls the oil has power. Syria’s oil sector is decimated. Syrians do not even take seriously its revival as a foundation of post-conflict reconstruction.
As Syria’s oil production is insignificant, the US move reflects a desire by this administration to save face in the aftermath of its perceived retreat from the country
Since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis, many analysts have suggested that the conflict was “about oil” and a Western desire to control Syrian oil production.
This understanding not only denied the agency of the protesters while diminishing their calls for political change, but it also misunderstood the realities of Syria’s oil sector. Syria has never been a significant oil producer by regional standards, reaching a production peak of around 380,000 barrels a day before the civil war erupted.
In 2016, an International Monetary Fund working paper estimated that production had declined to just 40,000 barrels per day.
The global insignificance of Syrian oil production, the declining rates and revenues of the industry, and the absence of any new reserves was never enough evidence to convince naysayers that Syria’s tragedy wasn’t brought about by the geopolitics of oil.
Delusional worldview
With US President Donald Trump’s recent declaration that US strategy was to “keep the oil” and that US forces had “secured the oil”, the theory that oil interests have driven Western intervention in Syria has resurfaced.
The Trumpian logic that Syrian oil fields need to be secured for US interests – and that US interests can only be secured through access to oil fields – is a delusional worldview grounded in a misunderstanding of how oil production and markets actually work. Author Robert Vitalis calls this Oilcraft: a way of thinking about oil-as-power that does not correspond to how oil markets shape production and prices.
Syria’s oil sector is decimated. Syrians do not even take seriously its revival as a foundation of post-conflict reconstruction
Access and price fluctuations in oil markets are not determined by who controls what at any given time. We simply do not live in a world in which all oil produced in the world is controlled by the military or commercial interests of the US and its allies.
Markets do not function according to who has “secured” access to oil. Producers produce, and consumers consume. These patterns exist independent of what oil fields the US military occupies.
Syria’s feeble oil production has little impact on global oil markets. Prior to the conflict, the majority of Syrian oil production that was not consumed domestically was exported to Europe. In 2011, the EU placed sanctions on Syrian oil imports. European companies involved in the Syrian market, including Total and Shell, ceased operations in the country and withdrew personnel.
The threat of sanctions from the US or EU discouraged new commercial investments and partnerships in the Syrian oil sector. The Syrian Petroleum Company (SPC), Syria’s public sector enterprise responsible for oil production, was also under sanctions and unable to conduct simple commercial transactions with external partners.
Biting sanctions
With the conflict becoming increasingly violent and sanctions taking a toll on everyday economic life, domestic oil production was geared towards the internal market. Sanctions not only blocked the principal Syrian export market, but they also squeezed the SPC’s ability to produce and sell oil to international buyers.
By 2013, many of Syria’s oil fields had been under threat or taken over by armed groups that did not have the capacity to produce oil. Some oil fields remained dormant and, in some areas, rudimentary techniques were used to extract oil.
The difficulties of transport and refinement meant that much of the oil trading and consumption was heavily localized, and there was a lot of evidence that various armed groups, including the Syrian army, used oil in barter deals with other groups.
Oil became a minor, but not insignificant, prize in Syria’s war economy. Most of the armed groups were content not to contest for control of the oil fields, and instead focused their efforts on other forms of wealth extraction through taxation, kidnappings and the like. Control of oil fields was simply not worth it.
Unlike in other conflict zones, where resources are fought over by different armed groups – such as the case with coltan extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo – there was no comparable situation in Syria; war economies did not emerge in relation to oil extraction.
The combination of dwindling reserves, infrastructural neglect, and sanctions that have been exacerbated by the conflict means that not even Syrian government planners are looking to the oil trade to finance reconstruction. The debates within Syria today about reconstruction do not revolve on how to restart oil production, or how oil revenues can finance post-conflict spending.
Devastating impacts
Since the early 2000s, Syrian government planners have understood the need to move away from any reliance on oil revenues and the oil sector as a whole. The devastating impacts of the conflict and sanctions on the oil sector have only confirmed what many Syrians already knew – mainly, that the oil sector cannot save the economy.
If Syria’s oil production is insignificant, then why would the US military be directed towards controlling the oil fields? There is no apparent reason, other than a bad case of Oilcraft, coupled with a desire by this administration to save face in the aftermath of a perceived retreat from Syria.
The Trump administration’s decision to move US forces out of the way of the Turkish military’s intervention against the Syrian Democratic Forces was met with bipartisan condemnation, with many decrying the “betrayal” of the US’s Syrian Kurdish allies. It appears that the administration sought to mute this criticism through a show of force to secure Syria’s oil fields.
That this would be either contemplated or welcomed as an affirmation of the US commitment to maintaining a military presence in Syria is testament to the power of the myth that whoever controls the oil has power. Syria’s oil sector is decimated. Syrians do not even take seriously its revival as a foundation of post-conflict reconstruction.
Contrary to what Trump assumes through his public declarations about securing oil, we won’t be experiencing reduced prices at the pumps anytime soon. And if we do, it certainly won’t be because US troops are occupying Syrian land.
clip: Trump calls ABC out for broadcasting fake Syria video and same journalists drills Trump on his fake troop withdrawal
“Members of Congress from both parties remain united in their shameful abdication of their constitutional authority over America’s illegal wars.” Trump’s latest promises to “bring the troops home” were immediately exposed as empty rhetoric by a Pentagon press release on October 11, announcing that the Trump administration has actually increased its deployments of troops to the greater Middle East by 14,000 since May.
Kurdish Syrian civilians flee the town of Kobane on the Turkish border on October 16, 2019 as Turkey and its allies continue their assault on Kurdish-held border towns in northeastern Syria. – Turkey rebuffed international pressure to curb its military offensive against Kurdish militants in Syria today as US President Donald Trump dispatched his deputy Mike Pence to Ankara to demand a ceasefire.
On Monday, October 7th, the U.S. withdrew 50 to 100 troops from positions near Syria’s border with Turkey, and two days later Turkey invaded Rojava, the de facto autonomous Kurdish region of northeast Syria. Trump is now taking credit for a temporary, tenuous ceasefire.
In a blizzard of tweets and statements, Donald Trump has portrayed his chaotic tactical relocation of U.S. troops in Syria as a down-payment on his endless promises to withdraw U.S. forces from endless wars in the greater Middle East.
On October 16, the U.S. Congress snatched the low-hanging political fruit of Trump’s muddled policy with a rare bipartisan vote of 354-60 to condemn the U.S. redeployment as a betrayal of the Kurds, a weakening of America’s credibility, a lifeline to ISIS, and a political gift to Russia, China and Iran.
But this is the same Congress that never mustered the integrity to debate or vote on the fateful decision to send U.S. troops into harm’s way in Syria in the first place. This vote still fails to fulfill Congress’s constitutional duty to decide whether U.S. troops should be risking their lives in illegal military operations in Syria, what they are supposed to be doing there or for how long.
Members of Congress from both parties remain united in their shameful abdication of their constitutional authority over America’s illegal wars.
“Members of Congress from both parties remain united in their shameful abdication of their constitutional authority over America’s illegal wars.” Trump’s latest promises to “bring the troops home” were immediately exposed as empty rhetoric by a Pentagon press release on October 11, announcing that the Trump administration has actually increased its deployments of troops to the greater Middle East by 14,000 since May.
In other words, Trump doesn’t have any power.
There were already 60,000 troops stationed or deployed in the region, which the Congressional Research Service described in September as a long-term “baseline,” so the new deployments appear to have raised the total number of U.S. troops in the region to about 74,000.
Precise numbers of U.S. troops in each country are hard to pin down, especially since the Pentagon stopped publishing its troop strength in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria in 2017. Based mainly on reports by the Congressional Research Service, these are the most accurate and up-to-date numbers we have found:
14,000-15,000 (plus 8,000 from other NATO countries) in Afghanistan; about 7,000, mostly U.S. Navy, in Bahrain; 280 in Egypt; 5,000-10,000 in Iraq, mostly at Al-Asad air base in Anbar province; 2,800 in Jordan (some may now have been relocated to Iraq); 13,000 in Kuwait, the fourth largest permanent U.S. base nation after Germany, Japan and South Korea; a “few hundred” in Oman; at least 13,000 in Qatar, where the Pentagon just approved a $1.8 billion expansion of Al Udeid Air Base, U.S. Central Command’s regional occupation headquarters; about 3,500 in Saudi Arabia, including 500 sent in July and 2,500 more since September; 1,000-2,000 in Syria, who may or may not really be leaving; 1,750 at Incirlik and Izmir Air Bases in Turkey; and more than 5,000 in the UAE, mostly at Al Dhafra Air Base.
As for actually ending the wars that all these forces are waging or supporting, Trump escalated the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria in 2017, and these bombing campaigns rumble on regardless of peace talks with the Taliban and declarations of victory over the Islamic State. U.S. air wars are often more devastating than ground warfare, especially to civilians.
Between 2001 and October 2018, the U.S. and its allies dropped more than 290,000 bombs and missiles on other countries. This reign—or rain—of terror from above has not stopped. According to U.S. airpower statistics, from November 2018 to September 2019 the U.S. has now dropped another 6,811 bombs on Afghanistan and 7,889 on Iraq and Syria.
“It is up to the rest of us to grasp the horror, futility and criminality of the wars that three successive U.S. administrations have inflicted on the world and to organize effective political action to end them and prevent new ones.”
In Donald Trump’s first 32 months in office, he is responsible for dropping 17,100 bombs and missiles on Afghanistan and 48,941 on Iraq and Syria, an average of a bomb or missile every 20 minutes. Despite his endless promises to end these wars, Trump has instead been dropping more bombs and missiles on other countries than Bush II and Obama put together.
When Congress finally invoked the War Powers Act to extricate U.S. forces from the Saudi-led war on Yemen, Trump vetoed the bill. The House has now attached that provision to the FY2020 NDAA military spending bill, but the Senate has not yet agreed to it and Trump may find another way to exclude it.
Even as Donald Trump rails against the military-industrial complex that “likes war” and sometimes sounds sincere in his desire to end these wars, he keeps hiring arms industry executives to run his foreign and military policy.
His first defense secretary was General Dynamics board member and retired General James Mattis. Then he brought in Boeing’s Senior Vice President Patrick Shanahan as acting secretary of defense, and now Raytheon lobbyist Mike Esper as Secretary of Defense.
Secretary of State Pompeo made his fortune as the co-founder of Thayer Aerospace. Trump boasts about being the best weapons salesman of all, touting his multi-billion dollar deals to provide the repressive Saudi regime with the weapons to commit crimes against humanity in Yemen.
And yet withdrawal from endless wars is one Trump campaign promise that Americans across the political spectrum hoped he would really fulfill. Tragically, like “drain the swamp” and other applause lines, Trump’s promises to end the “crazy, endless wars” have proven to be just another cynical ploy by this supremely cynical politician and con man.
The banal truism that ultimately defines Trump’s foreign policy is that actions speak louder than words. Behind the smokescreen of Trump’s alternating professions of faith to both sides on every issue, he always ends up rewarding the wealthy and powerful. His cronies in the arms industry are no exception.
“Trump’s promises to end the ‘crazy, endless wars’ have proven to be just another cynical ploy by this supremely cynical politician and con man.”
Sober reflection leads us to conclude that Trump’s endless promises will not end the endless wars he has been waging and escalating, nor prevent the new ones he has threatened against North Korea, Venezuela and Iran.
So it is up to the rest of us to grasp the horror, futility and criminality of the wars that three successive U.S. administrations have inflicted on the world and to organize effective political action to end them and prevent new ones.
We also need help from legitimate mediators from the UN and mutually trusted third parties to negotiate political and diplomatic solutions that U.S. leaders who are blinded by deeply ingrained militarism and persistent illusions of global military dominance cannot achieve by themselves.
In the real world, which does still exist beyond the fantasy world of Trump’s contradictory promises, that is how we will bring the troops home.
Syria and Vietnam wars in a nutshell. Be more knowledgeable than most of your friends!
No one need be ill informed about Syria and the Kurds with Syrian Girl amongst us! Just a brief clip discussing Israel’s role in Syria. The entire interview is worthy, discussing Kurdish history to currant events. My focus is always Israel.
James DiEugenio is interviewed about Vietnam war and diabolical Allen Dulles’s role is discussed. Vietnam war in a nutshell.
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Evilangelical leaders this week have sharply criticized Trump’s decision to stand down US forces in northern Syria
[Message to the Kurds. Look at where you have led Syria to. Look at where you led yourselves by siding with the US and Israel. They’ve deserted you while Syria backed you & yet you betrayed it. Get back in the right direction & do the right thing, you still have time. حسين_مرتضى#]
Christian Kurds are of the evilangelical Christian stripe, They’re on the wrong side of everything.
Evangelical Christian voters have been among Donald Trump’s most enthusiastic and reliable supporters. Trump’s recent rejection of asylum seekers and cuts to domestic food assistance programs have not stopped followers of Christ from flocking to the president.
A great schism, however, may finally be at hand. In drips that have become a gush, evangelical leaders this week have sharply criticized Trump’s decision to stand down US forces in northern Syria, warning that Turkey’s invasion of the region threatens America’s longstanding Kurdish allies and vulnerable Christian communities.
“It is very possible that the American withdrawal from the region will lead to the extinction of [Zionist] Christianity from the region,” Ashty Bahro, former director of the Evangelical Alliance of Kurdistan, told the Christianity Today news outlet.
“The president has got to do what’s best for the country, whether it helps him with this phony impeachment inquiry or not,” Falwell told the Associated Press.
But other extremely loyal Trump allies have split with him, warning that Roman Catholic, Armenian and Syrian Orthodox churches in northern Syrian border cities such as Ras al-Ayn, which is in the crosshairs of the Turkish invasion, are under threat. Thousands of civilians have fled Turkish shelling in the area.
[“Erdogan’s regime systematically violates human rights, brutally persecutes the Kurds and supports the terrorists of Hamas,” Katz tweeted. “He is the last person who should be preaching morals to Israel.”
The Turkish Minister responded, “Those who feel uncomfortable about our statement today, brutally & indiscriminately massacre our Palestinian brothers and sisters, viciously use state terrorism before the eyes of the world and even attempt to shamelessly attack our President. [We] Will defend this just cause till the end!”]
“Today I ask that you join me in praying for the lives affected by the White House decision to pull US troops out of northern Syria,” tweeted one evangelical pastor, Franklin Graham. “Both Democrat & Republican leaders are deeply concerned bc this would be, in essence, abandoning our closest allies there – the Kurdish people.”
“Hey @SpeakerPelosi,” tweeted the evangelical radio host Erick Erickson, “maybe do a vote to initiate impeachment STAT, have the committee get out articles by tonight and over to the Senate, and perhaps we’ll still have time to save some of the Kurds.”
John McCain and Lindsey Graham
“Pray for our Kurdish allies who have been shamelessly abandoned by the Trump Administration,” tweeted the Republican senator Lindsey Graham. “This move ensures the reemergence of ISIS.”
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanuyahu, a deeply popular figure in the American evangelical community, joined the chorus.
“Israel strongly condemns the Turkish invasion of the Kurdish areas in Syria and warns against the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds by Turkey and its proxies,” Netanyahu said. “Israel is prepared to extend humanitarian assistance to the gallant Kurdish people.”
But evangelical Christians are not ready to cast Trump out entirely. Earlier this week CBN News, America’s top Christian-themed media outlet, reported that Trump would be the keynote speaker this weekend at the Value Voters Summit, a huge political convention for evangelical Christians.
“Typically, when President Trump speaks to evangelical audiences, he receives multiple standing ovations,” the report said. “This Saturday will probably be more of the same because, even with the swirl of impeachment surrounding him, evangelicals have stood solidly behind the president so far.”
“So far.” The report went on to note evangelical “concern” about the Syria situation and concluded:
“President Trump will have an opportunity to explain his reasoning in front of this all-important voting block.”
By design, CIJA has a strong relationship with U.S. law enforcement. Nations committed to the overthrow of the Syrian government fund and support the CIJA’s work in Syria – casting doubt on both their integrity and their motivations.
While the article claims it now has “memos sent to Syria’s head of military intelligence” to back up previous claims, it admits “some information was blacked out to protect the integrity of evidence for possible prosecutions.”
Yet in order to accuse a government publicly of maintaining “secret torture prisons,” evidence must be provided.
Instead, the NYT presented recycled accounts from “activists” and opposition figures as well as Western-funded fronts including the “Syrian Network for Human Rights” and the “Commission for International Justice and Accountability” CIJA
The CIJA in particular is claimed by NYT to have collected the alleged memos. Nothing about the CIJA’s background is provided by the NYT, nor can any website with background information be found.
[Chris Engels:] We have had a number of donors over the years. Our current donors include the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Demark, the Netherlands, and Norway.
Engels also openly admits that the CIJA works directly with the US government. In the interview he admits:
By design, CIJA has a strong relationship with U.S. law enforcement.
When asked if members of the US Congress have supported the work of CIJA, Engels would enthusiastically confirm so – citing proposed laws pertaining specifically to Syria.
In other words – nations committed to the overthrow of the Syrian government fund and support the CIJA’s work in Syria – casting doubt on both their integrity and their motivations.
Just as the NYT would be remiss to write an entire article based on claims made by the Syrian government itself – it is remiss in uncritically reporting the claims made by its opponents.
The fact that the CIJA’s “evidence” is so heavily redacted that the NYT merely mentions it before building the rest of its article around older hearsay-accounts from its regular circle of “activists” and opposition figures, including the now notoriously discredited informant – “Caesar” – casts even further doubt.
The NYT appears to instead be contributing merely to the latest chapter of US-driven war propaganda aimed at undermining the Syrian government, protracting the Syrian conflict, and further dividing and destroying the nation.
Idlib is Al Qaeda Central
A renewed barrage of war propaganda has been launched by the West in tandem with Syrian government efforts to move in on Idlib – the last bastion of Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist organizations west of the Euphrates River.
But it was the Western media – not the Syrian government or its Russian and Iranian allies – who have definitively exposed the overwhelming presence of terrorists in Idlib.
After a two-year siege, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria and other insurgents on Wednesday captured the one remaining Syrian army air base in Idlib, a development that activists said effectively expelled the last of President Bashar al-Assad’s military from the northwestern province.
Since 2015, Al Qaeda and its various affiliates have expanded and consolidated their control in the region.
The Islamic State group may have lost all its territory in Syria but a rival jihadist group has been making gains in the last remaining opposition stronghold in the north of the country – and it has got residents nervous.
In a dramatic takeover last month, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) swept through towns and villages in Idlib province, as well as adjoining parts of Aleppo and Hama.
The group – which was known as al-Nusra Front before it broke off formal ties with al-Qaeda three years ago – expelled some rebel factions and forced others to surrender and recognize a “civil administration” it backs.
In reality – US State Department-designated foreign terrorist organizations like al-Nusra – have dominated fighting against the Syrian government since the conflict began in 2011 with the notion of “moderate rebels” a propaganda ploy to obfuscate the true nature of US-backed militants.
And while the BBC attempts to disassociate al-Nusra from Al Qaeda in its article by claiming it “broke off formal ties” three years ago – the US State Department itself in a 2018 amendment to its terrorist designation of al-Nusra would explicitly state (emphasis added):
In January 2017, al-Nusrah Front launched the creation of HTS as a vehicle to advance its position in the Syrian uprising and to further its own goals as an al-Qa’ida affiliate. Since January 2017, the group has continued to operate through HTS in pursuit of these objectives.
The Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Ambassador Nathan A. Sales, noted that “today’s designation serves notice that the United States is not fooled by this al-Qa’ida affiliate’s attempt to rebrand itself. Whatever name Nusrah chooses, we will continue to deny it the resources it seeks to further its violent cause.”
The candor of the US State Department’s amendment – however – is demonstratively contradicted by current, ongoing US support for the terrorists themselves as well as the current Western propaganda campaign aimed at protecting Al Qaeda under its various aliases from efforts by the Syrian government to remove them from Idlib and restore order there.
Idlib Propaganda Blitz: Barrel Bombs, Secret Torture Prisons, and Chemical Weapons
If Idlib is admittedly overrun by terrorists – according to the West itself – then Syrian government efforts to remove them is justified.
Yet familiar themes from similar efforts aimed at preventing Syrian forces from liberating other cities and regions from terrorists are being dusted off and reused. This includes the rehabilitation of the so-called “White Helmets,” a war propaganda troupe working side-by-side Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations – often aiding and abetting war crimes including summary executions.
The “White Helmets” are also key in promoting claims of “chemical weapon attacks.” The “White Helmets” played a key role in staging the chemical weapons attack on Douma, Syria in 2018 which served as a pretext to a US-led military strike on Syrian forces.
There is also the constant din of Western propagandists citing “barrel bombs,” a term invented to describe unguided munitions – unguided munitions being neither against international conventions nor considered controversial by any standing military force, East or West – now or at any other time in the history of warfare.
They are simply ordinary bombs given an ominous title in the service of otherwise dishonest Western-driven war propaganda.
The NYT’s recent article recycling stories of “secret torture prisons” seeks to lump itself in with this propaganda blitz and more should be expected to follow.
Among the propaganda there is nothing new – no new information, no new accusations, no new or inventive ways to repackage or resell it.
Redacted pages of what is supposed to be “evidence” of the Syrian government’s crimes looks instead like the NYT and its Western-government funded source – the CIJA – have something to hide – not something to expose.
However – war propaganda alone cannot win a war. It can only enhance the strengths of a government or coalition who must already possess the means of winning any given war.
The United States and its collaborators in its proxy war on Syria have already long-since lost.
Ongoing propaganda campaigns only further undermine Washington’s credibility and the credibility of media organizations serving its agenda.
The NYT posting pictures of illegible, nearly fully redacted pages and claiming it is “evidence” comes across as self-inflicted satire.
US government and corporate foundation-funded fronts like “Human Rights Watch” repeating these dubious accusations and outright lies also indefinitely cripple their own credibility.
However dubious – ongoing propaganda still seeks to at the very least hamper and slow down Syrian security operations.
The retaking of Idlib and the destruction of Al Qaeda’s last significant base of operations in the country is key to stabilizing the region.
As the US continues positioning itself for war with nearby Iran – a festering terrorist foothold like Idlib would serve as a serious liability for Iranian efforts to defend itself at home while dealing with a serious, sudden offensive launched out of Idlib against its Syrian allies.
Thus it is key to expose and confront Western war propaganda at every juncture – no matter how ineffective it appears – to minimize its impact in this war – and every other Western war of aggression to come.
A legal representative of the “Israeli” government audaciously claiming that “Israel” can “legislate anywhere in the world,” that it is “entitled to violate the sovereignty of foreign countries,” and that it “is allowed to ignore the directives of international law in any field it desires”.
The UN has been adopting resolutions condemning the “Israeli” occupation of the Golan Heights for decades; however Tel Aviv hasn’t changed its policies and is continuing to exercise sovereignty over the disputed territory, including holding municipal elections.
Secretary-General of the UN Antonio Guterres has presented a report to the UN Human Rights Council based on Syrian accusations against “Israel’s” action in the Golan Heights, saying that Israel has been burying “nuclear waste with radioactive content in 20 different areas populated by Syrian citizens” in the occupied territory. Most of the waste has allegedly been dumped in the area near Al-Sheikh Mountain.
In the modern world, an occupying power cannot, under any circumstances, acquire the right to conquer, annex or gain sovereign title over any part of the territory under its occupation. This is one of the most well-established principles of modern international law and enjoys universal endorsement. Belligerent occupation does not yield so much as an atom of sovereignty in the authority of the occupant (A. Gross: The Writing on the Wall (2017), at 8.)
According to the report, this puts “the lives and health of Syrians in the occupied Syrian Golan in jeopardy” and violates the 4th Geneva Convention.
“Israel” is suspected of possessing nuclear weapons, but no evidence proving or disproving the suspicion has been presented so far. Tel Aviv has neither confirmed, nor denied possessing nuclear weapons.
The Golan Heights was seized by “Israel” from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967. In 1981, Tel Aviv decided to extend its laws to the occupied territory and established a civil administration in a move that drew condemnation from the UN Security Council and was labelled illegal in terms of international law. “Israel” justified the decision by saying that it was aimed at safeguarding its borders from aggressive military acts by its neighbours.
In 2018, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution urging “Israel” to immediately withdraw its forces from the Golan Heights after Tel Aviv organised local elections in the Golan Heights on 30 October.
“Russia has become the major power broker in the Middle East”
Propping up Assad was a message to the West that leaders cannot be deposed by outside force — an attempt that Putin is believed to fear the West is trying to orchestrate in Russia. The military campaign was also a way for Russia to reestablish influence in the Middle East, show off its reconstituted military might and help brand itself a resurgent great power.
The losers are scurrying around to different places, different battles, battles they can win, perhaps.
Little by little, the partisans of the Cebrowski doctrine are advancing their pawns. If they must cease creating wars in the Greater Middle East for Israel, they’ll just turn around and inflame the Caribbean Basin. Above all, the Pentagon is planning to assassinate an elected head of state, ruin his country, and undermine the unity of Latin-America. Not cool.
“If they withdraw from Afghanistan it will not have a security impact because in the last 4 1/2 years the Afghans have been in full control,” Ghani’s spokesman, Haroon Chakhansuri, said via social media… Haha, US hasn’t won anything there…
The US Air Force is condemned to defeat if it confronts the Syrian Arab Army, which now has in its possession Russian anti-air materials, the best in the world. The US’s only viable option is to leave, sparing itself any humiliation. History is repeating itself.
Once before, in Iraq, the United States had used Kurdish combatants, promising them a State before letting them be massacred by Saddam Hussein. Today the US lets other Kurds to whom it has also promised a State, face up to Turkey alone. _ In a few months the war will be over. After eight years of fighting and tens of thousands of Islamist mercenaries being sacrificed, ZIO-Nato’s dream of destroying Syria’s state structures will have failed.
States addressed in the Report as the instigators of war crimes are the imperialist states and their
collaborationists which we are used to see where there is war in the World.
A week ago, two S-300 rocket missiles were deployed in Deir Ez-zor, in East Syria. Immediately after, the intensity of the US-led coalition flights decreased by 80% in North East Syria. Since 18 September 2018, the Israeli Air Force has not carried out any more raids in Syria’s airspace.
A delegation from the Israeli army, led by General Major Aharon Haliva (Head of Operations), went to Moscow for talks with Major General Vasily Trushin (Joint Chief of Operations of the Russian Army). Relations between the two armies have deteriorated after the destruction of the Russian airplane IL-20 during the attack on Syrian targets near the Russian air base of Hmeymim by the Israeli F-16.
The Israeli delegation went to Moscow because it had not succeeded in finding the gaps in the no fly zone, imposed by the new system of Syrian Defense delivered by Russia. The Israelis thought they could coax the Russians to obtain the security codes for Syrian missiles. Russia, quite clearly, refused to give these codes to them.
What are the elements of the automatized management of the Syrian air space that prevent the Israelis and Americans from acting? Syria has received 6 to 8 S-300/PMU2 missiles, with an action range of 250 km. The missiles guarantee the security of planes and Syrian military land targets. However, they are not the most important element.
Management is assured by the automatized management system, Polyana D4M1. The role of the automatized management system is a necessary interface for the Syrian air units and anti-Air Defense apparatus to work at the same time. Polyana D4M1 can cover an area of 800 km2, following 500 air targets and ballistic missiles and establishing 250 of them. It is thanks to the Polyana D4M1 that command centres of the army of the Syrian Air Force also receive external information from the Russian airplane A-50U (AWACS) and Russian satellites of surveillance.
The memory of the Polyana D4M1 computer servers stock the radar imprint of all the air targets including the cruise missiles and the allegedly “invisible” F-35 plane.
When an air target is detected by a radar in Syria, the automatized system Polyana D4M1 posts information for all the detection radars and systems for guiding planes and Syrian and Russian anti-air artillery. Once identified, the air targets are automatically assigned to be struck down. This automatized system ensures that the oldest Syrian missiles of the Soviet era (S-200, S-75, S-125, etc.) become almost as precise as the S-300 missile.
The Polyana D4M1 network also includes the following: • the Krasukha-4 for jamming the radars on the ground • AWACS aircrafts • reconnaissance planes with or without pilots.
The network also uses the Zhitel R-330ZH systems for interfering with NAVSTAR (GPS), the apparatus of navigation. This equips the means of attack (planes, helicopters, cruise missiles, guided bombs, etc.).
What is the consequence of Russia implementing the automatized management of the Syrian air space?
The US military air bases in Syria consist essentially of troops for special operations. By this we mean a light infantry, without any armour or support. They could not therefore ward off any land attack carried out by the Syrian army supported by the Air Force. Having understood that the US Air Force will not be able to pass the Syrian anti-air barrage without unacceptable losses, any US intervention becomes inappropriate.
This is why the US has just announced that it will start to withdraw 2,000 soldiers from Syria [1]. At the same time, Turkey, supported by Russia, is getting ready to launch a new offensive against the YPG in Northern Syria. These new circumstances ensure the Syrian Army will fight on the side of Turkey. The YPG, trained and supported by the United States, is quickly losing all the territories that it had taken from the Islamic State which itself had taken from Syria.
Mankind has been manipulated to become “unconscious” through the use of programming by media and politics. ~ Vladimir Putin
“The president made an enormous commitment to take down the caliphate, and that has been achieved,” he told NPR’s Morning Edition. “We now have the …. counterterrorism battle — not only against ISIS but against al-Qaida and others.”
The caliphate hahaha! A caliphate represents the entire Muslim peoples in the world. Like the Pose represents Catholics. The “Islamic state” is a western band of hired mercenaries! Whether ISIS-al-Qaida comes or goes, and where they come and go depends on whether or not Trump is going to fund them. If Trump drops it’s funding after troop withdrawal then terrorists are out all except Israel. And if Israel was in any way unhappy with Trump’s moves they would assassinate him unabashedly. There is a Zionist dastardly plan afoot.
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that “we give Israel $4.5 billion” security every year, and so “Israel will be very good” even after the US withdrawal from Syria.
The comments, quoted by Haaretz, were made by Trump in reply to a question by reporters on how the US withdrawal from Syria will impact Israel.
“I spoke with Bibi. I told Bibi, you know we give Israel 4.5 billion dollars a year. And they are doing very well at defending themselves,” the President said as he spoke to reporters on the way back from his surprise trip to American troops stationed in Iraq.
Trump took this withdrawal step just as the Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdogan was intensifying his threats of annihilation against the Kurds in Rojava, announcing another invasion of Northern Syria. A few hours earlier we learned that Washington had agreed to sell Patriot missiles worth 3.5 billion Dollars to Ankara – a transaction that had been a topic of debate for a long time. Thus, it looked as if a comprehensive Syria deal had been forged between Trump’s and Erdogan’s governments.
He added that “I’m the one that moved the embassy to Jerusalem. I was the one who was willing to do that. So that’s the way it is – we are going to take great care of Israel. Israel is going to be good. We give Israel 4.5 billion a year. And we give frankly a lot more than that if you look at the books. They’ve been doing a good job.”
During his trip to Iraq, Trump defended his decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, saying he had told his advisers “let’s get out of Syria,” but was persuaded to stay, before deciding last week to bring the 2,000 troops home.
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the horror inflicted on the people of the Gaza Strip when Israeli war planes launched massive airstrikes on the besieged strip. Nothing has changed! To add insult to injury, and because the so-called “International Community” did absolutely nothing to put an end to Israel’s war crimes, the latter repeated the attacks in 2012 and in 2014 killing more than 4,000 civilians and injuring tens of thousands.
“I think a lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking. It’s time for us to start using our head,” the president said.
Trump said the United States would remain in Iraq, adding, “In fact, we could use this as the base if we wanted to do something in Syria.”
Earlier this week, at the weekly Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made clear that the US decision to withdraw 2,000 troops from Syria “will not change our consistent policy: We will continue to act against Iran’s attempts to entrench itself militarily in Syria, and to the extent necessary, we will even expand our actions there.”
Mattis’ resignation comes amid news that President Donald Trump has directed the drawdown of 2,000 U.S. forces in Syria, and 7,000 U.S. forces from Afghanistan, a U.S. official confirmed to Military Times, a story first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
This month, in the January/February print issue of the gun and hunting magazine “Recoil,” the former contractor security firm Blackwater USA published a full-page ad, in all black with a simple message: “We are coming.”
Is the war in Afghanistan — and possibly elsewhere ― about to be privatized?
If Blackwater returns, it would be the return of a private security contractor that was banned from Iraq, but re-branded and never really went away.
By 2016 Blackwater had been re-named and restructured several times, and was known at the time as Constellis Group, when it was purchased by the Apollo Holdings Group. Reuters reported earlier this year that Apollo had put Constellis up for sale, but in June the sale was put on hold.
Prince has courted President Donald Trump’s administration since he took office with the idea that the now 17-year Afghan War will never be won by a traditional military campaign. Prince has also argued that the logistical footprint required to support that now multi-trillion dollar endeavor has become too burdensome.
Over the summer and into this fall Prince has engaged heavily with the media to promote the privatization; particularly as the Trump administration’s new South Asia Strategy, which was crafted with Mattis, passed the one-year mark.
Constellis, which had maintained a footprint at Camp Integrity by the Kabul Airport through its previous iteration as “Academi.” The firm no longer trains there, the Constellis spokesman said.
The U.S. has spent $1 trillion in Afghanistan. The Blackwater founder asks, is it time to try something new?
The news of a leaning on a smaller number of privatized forces, instead of a larger U.S. military footprint — and contracted support for U.S. forces that knew few bounds and at times included coffee shops, base exchanges, restaurants, a hockey rink and local vendor shops — may be welcomed by current U.S. military leadership on the ground.
That includes former Joint Special Operations Command chief Army Lt. Gen. Scott Miller, a source familiar with Miller’s approach told Military Times. Miller replaced Gen. John Nicholson as the head of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan in September.
In an previous exclusive interview with Military Times, Prince said he would scrap the NATO mission there and replace the estimated 23,000 forces in country with a force of 6,000 contracted personnel and 2,000 active-duty special forces.
The potential privatization of the Afghan War was previously dismissed by the White House, and roundly criticized by Mattis, who saw it as a risk to emplace the nation’s national security goals in the hands of contractors.
“When Americans put their nation’s credibility on the line, privatizing it is probably not a wise idea,” Mattis told reporters in August.
But Mattis is out now, one in a series of moves that has surprised most of the Pentagon.
Drastic change would “be more likely” now, one DOD official said.
The General Assembly of the United Nations voted overwhelmingly in favor on Friday of recognizing the Golan Heights region as Syrian territory.
A total of 151 votes were cast in favor of the draft resolution, while both the United States and Israel voted against it.
Another 14 states abstained from the vote, resulting in the adoption of this latest draft that calls for the condemnation of Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights.
During the meeting of the General Assembly’s Fourth Committee, Syria’s Permanent Representative at the UN Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari said that the vast majority of nations favored the resolution, adding that it sends a clear message to Israel about its ongoing occupation of the Golan Heights.
Furthermore, Al-Jaafari said that this vote shows that the majority of members states are against the continuation of the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan, and also affirms that Israel’s attempts to annex the Golan are null and void and without any legal effect.
Syria’s Representative said that the United States’ vote against the resolution isn’t surprising, since Washington is Israel’s partner in its wars and aggression in the region.
He accused the U.S. of allowing businesses like Genie Energy, Afek, and AES Corporation of conducting the illegal exploration of the Golan Heights’ oil.
The advanced defense and surveillance systems which Russia intends to send to Syria will be able to monitor flight movements in Israel, Saudi Arabia and Europe, media reports said.
“We will know not only that someone has entered the airspace in this region, but also that somewhere a plane is only operating on the runway, be it in Israel or Saudi Arabia or even in Europe,” Vladimir Mikheyev, first deputy director of government-owned Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies, told Russia’s Tass news agency
“Systems capable of combating precision weapons-guided bombs and missiles … will be added to the conventional radar protection systems,” he added.
Mikheyev pointed out that Moscow is planning to strengthen its own defense systems which could include the installment of aerosol smokescreens which make airplanes invisible to missiles.
Russia is to send its S-300 defense system to Syria after President Bashar Al-Assad’s air force accidentally downed a Russian plane killing all 15 personnel aboard during an Israeli attack on the Syrian territories.
“Leave our children in peace. Let our children play, stop ‘playing’ with our children.” These are the words of a mother whose child was stolen and is being imprisoned in Idlib by US Coalition-sponsored terrorist groups and the White Helmets.
The US Coalition-sponsored White Helmets had kidnapped 44 children in order to use them as ‘props’ in the staging of a chemical weapon attack in Idlib. The White Helmets have a history of providing the scenarios required to precipitate aggression against Syria.
Their most recent chemical attack hoax attempt in Douma in April 2018 was proven unreliable by the OPCW interim report. Sensationalist suggestions of sarin use by the Syrian government during the last moments of the liberation of Douma from the murderous Jaysh al-Islam fanatics was dismissed by the findings in the report.
The chlorinated elements detected in the samples taken by the OPCW could come from any manner of household items and no conclusions of chlorine use by the Syrian government have been drawn. Western media and their governments have ignored the findings of the OPCW and are once more preparing the ground for a “chemical attack” in Idlib to enable further unlawful aggression against Syria during the Arab Army’s campaign to cleanse Idlib of the terrorist infestation.
Wafaa’s greatest fear is that Ahmed will be used alongside other children as actors in such a staged chemical attack.
“I stopped working when Ahmed was taken from us. About six months ago, a friend came from Turkey to Idlib. As they were crossing the border between Syria and Turkey, they stopped to rest. Their son knows Ahmed very well. Ahmed has a particular way of communicating by making a sound that is very recognizable by those who know him. Their son heard Ahmed making this sound. He told his parents that Ahmed was close by,” she said.
Wafaa’s voice trembled as she described this identification of her son. At least he was alive. Shortly after the family were given this information, an alleged chlorine gas attack was carried out in Saraqib to the east of Idlib city. A recent OPCW report on this alleged incident concludes that:
“Chlorine, released from cylinders through mechanical impact, was likely used as a chemical weapon on 4 February 2018 in the Al Talil neighborhood of Saraqib.”
However, the FFM (Fact-Finding Mission) was unable to enter Saraqib due to the risk of being executed or kidnapped by the “moderate” fanatics occupying the area. They instead relied entirely on “open-source” testimonies and evidence provided by compromised sources such as the White Helmets.
“Shortly after the Saraqib reports of a chemical attack, we received a phone call from the groups who were holding Ahmed. The man told me that the
I asked her if they knew who was holding Ahmed captive.
“Shortly after Saraqib happened, some women who managed to leave Idlib came to me. They told me that Al-Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda in Syria) were in charge of the children and the White Helmets were helping them with this. When I reported it, the White Helmets accused me of being ‘Shabiha.’ This is a death sentence if you are caught by the armed groups.”
Wafaa still has a sister in Idlib who is able to pass some information on to her directly or to people leaving Idlib via the Russian/Syrian established humanitarian corridors, which evacuate civilians to safety ahead of the ground campaign to liberate Idlib commences.
“Abu al-Duhur corridor is going to reopen, but we know that the terrorist groups are charging civilians 300,000 Syrian Pounds ($600) to leave by these corridors. People are leaving with nothing except the clothes on their back and yet we are told these monsters bring us ‘freedom and democracy.’”
Wafaa described the foreign fighters occupying Idlib: “Most people in Idlib avoid the foreign fighters, they are very extreme and dangerous. My sister told me that a few days ago she walked past some Uyghur children in her district. They started taunting her because the hem of her skirt was too high. People see the White Helmets in the same way. They are foreign, and they are well paid. They are wealthy like the foreign extremists. Most people in Idlib don’t allow their children to go to school because they fear that the White Helmets will kidnap them.”
Wafaa explained that the White Helmets don’t ask for money for the safe return of the children, which was the practice of the armed groups earlier in the conflict, according to her family.
“Why don’t they ask for money? This means they want to use the children for something else. They call anyone who questions them “shabiha” because they need to keep their image clean in the West. They are not ‘humanitarians,’ they are terrorists in a uniform, that’s all.”
Wafaa is terrified that these US coalition proxies, which include the White Helmets, have already used Ahmed for one of the reportedly staged events that have been prepared in advance, in order to criminalize the Syrian government and its allies as soon as the SAA liberation campaign begins in earnest.
“Ten days ago, a woman came to see me. She had just arrived from Idlib. She showed me a photo of Ahmed and confirmed he is still alive but imprisoned with many other children. She told me that the White Helmets move the children from place to place depending upon where the attacks might be staged. They are kept in prisons all the time. I worry so much that he is sick or scared and he can’t speak. I am convinced I will see Ahmed’s face in one of these chemical attack videos or reports,” said Wafaa.
As we were talking about Ahmed, his younger brother Hamza was reacting strongly and becoming increasingly agitated.
“He does this every time we discuss his brother, Ahmed. He is deeply disturbed by the loss of his brother,” Wafaa explained. “I used to take more care of Ahmed because he had special needs but now I try to protect Hamza more also.”
Throughout the interview, Wafaa remained composed and eloquent. She presented facts in a considered and objective way. Her child has been abducted, he is imprisoned by some of the most brutal extremist groups in Syria, but Wafaa displayed a fortitude that defied fear or pity. She remained proud and resilient. Mohammed Ibrahim, Ahmed’s father, was quieter and more withdrawn but the unbreakable bond between the couple and Ahmed’s brothers was evident. They were united in hope and determination that Ahmed will survive his ordeal and will be returned to them.
“If Idlib is liberated, we know that our army will bring Ahmed home to us. They will rescue him.”
Wafaa’s first display of anger and frustration came when I asked her to describe the reality of the “moderate” occupation of her homeland to people in the West.
“We have no voice. We are the forgotten Syrian people. Nobody listens to us when we tell the world that these monsters are killing us, killing our children, stealing our lives and destroying our homes. These ‘moderates’ don’t bring freedom or democracy, they bring only bloodshed, fear and loss. We want Idlib cleansed of their presence, we want the West to take their terrorists out of our country. What did we do wrong to deserve this? Why should my son suffer, for what? Please bring this to an end, let us live in peace as we did before 2011.”
Just before I left this family, I filmed Wafaa as she gave perhaps the most powerful message of her interview – “Leave our children in peace. Let our children play, stop ‘playing’ with our children.” In Syria, children have been cruelly exploited to promote war to ensure the deaths of more children. Wafaa is demanding that people in the West recognize this fact and do all they can to prevent more children suffering at the hands of the Western client fanatics and affiliated White Helmets. We should hear her plea and act upon it before it’s too late for Ahmed and all the other children who will suffer the same fate if we do nothing.
Though US intelligence has suggested Assad okayed using chlorine gas in the assault on Idlib, according to the report, it was not clear whether he also authorized the use of more deadly sarin gas.
The US launched dozens of missiles at a Syrian military airfield last April after dozens were killed in a sarin gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib.
On Saturday, the United States’ top general said he and Trump have “routine dialogue” about possible military consequences if the Syrian regime uses chemical weapons in Idlib.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford told reporters in New Delhi that no final decision had been made as yet, Reuters reported.
“But we are in a dialogue, a routine dialogue, with the president to make sure he knows where we are with regard to planning in the event that chemical weapons are used,” said Dunford.
2 minutes of truth about US intervention in Syria from Jeffrey Sachs @JeffDSachs is worth more than 98 percent of the bullshit we are hearing on TV — worth clicking on this: pic.twitter.com/T503g2oL1d
On 7 April 2017, conspiracy web site Truth Theory revived a now-deleted 2013 story by the British tabloid the Daily Mail (headlined, “U.S. ‘backed plan to launch chemical weapon attack on Syria and blame it on Assad’s regime’”). The article’s republishing coincided with an American missile strike retaliating against a chemical attack by the Syrian government on civilians in rebel-held Khan Sheikhoun three days earlier.
The Daily Mail article reported having evidence of an impending “false flag” attack. (A so-called “false flag” is a common conspiracy theory that asserts governments initiate crises — real or fabricated — to lay the groundwork for unpopular actions such as confiscating guns, or, in this case, removing a president from power.) Conspiracy web sites claimed the reason for the article’s deletion was “unclear,” implying that forces intent on hiding a nefarious plot to oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad pressured the publication to do so.
The Daily Mail article, originally published 29 January 2013, reported that U.S. officials had told a British defense company they had been given a “green light” for chemical weapons use in Syria that could then be blamed on Assad:
Leaked emails have allegedly proved that the White House gave the green light to a chemical weapons attack in Syria that could be blamed on Assad’s regime and in turn, spur international military action in the devastated country.
A report released on Monday contains an email exchange between two senior officials at British-based contractor Britam Defence where a scheme ‘approved by Washington’ is outlined explaining that Qatar would fund rebel forces in Syria to use chemical weapons.
Barack Obama made it clear to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad last month that the U.S. would not tolerate Syria using chemical weapons against its own people.
State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert released a statement today warning the Syrian government to cease and desist from its final military push against ISIS and al-Qaeda groups in southwest Syria.
The United States is “deeply troubled by reports of increasing Syrian regime operations in southwest Syria” because such operations are within the “de-escalation zone negotiated between the United States, Jordan, and the Russian Federation last year and reaffirmed between Presidents Trump and Putin in Da Nang, Vietnam in November,” the statement says.
What a strange warning. The United States, which illegally occupies territory of a country nearly 6,000 miles away, is warning Syria, the country it partly occupies, not to conduct military operations against terrorist organizations within its own borders!
Aside from the absurdity of Nauert’s press release, there is the important matter that the whole statement is a lie.
First, the “deconfliction zone” to which she refers has been unilaterally declared by the United States. Syria never agreed to cease military operations within its own borders. Suggesting that Damascus is violating some agreement when it was never party to the agreement is shockingly dishonest.
Second, even the “de-escalation zones” agreed between Russia, Iran, and Turkey in Astana, Kazakhstan, in May, 2017, exempted UN-recognized terrorist groups from the deal. So even if Syria was a party to the US-claimed “de-escalation” agreement, its current advance on ISIS and al-Qaeda controlled territory would not be a violation.
Third, the State Department’s claims on the “Da Nang” agreement between Presidents Putin and Trump are purposely misleading. The very first sentence of the “Da Nang” statement affirms the two leaders’ “determination to defeat ISIS in Syria,” demonstrating the high priority placed on fighting ongoing terrorist occupation of parts of Syria.
So why now, seven months later, is the US warning Syria against completing the very task that Trump and Putin made a top priority?
Also, the “Da Nang statement” discusses the “de-confliction” areas explicitly in the context of the fight against ISIS:
The Presidents agreed to maintain open military channels of communication between military professionals to help ensure the safety of both US and Russian forces and de-confliction of partnered forces engaged in the fight against ISIS. They confirmed these efforts will be continued until the final defeat of ISIS is achieved.
Israel and US neo cons will never give up on Syria and Iran.
So, again, why is the US objecting to the Syrian government’s actions to achieve a goal — defeat of ISIS — reiterated by the US government?
The “Da Nang” statement also made it clear that when it comes to Syrian territory, that country’s sovereignty must be respected:
The Presidents affirmed their commitment to Syria’s sovereignty, unity, independence, territorial integrity, and non-sectarian character…
How can the US be committed to Syria’s sovereignty when it violates that sovereignty by occupying Syrian territory and warning the Syrian government against attacking al-Qaeda and ISIS-dominated areas of Syria?
The United States — which maintains hundreds of US troops illegally in Syria — warns Syria about conducting military operations within its own borders against internationally-recognized terrorist groups, citing the “Da Nang” agreement, which:
…reinforces the success of the ceasefire initiative, to include the reduction, and ultimate elimination, of foreign forces and foreign fighters from the area…
But those “foreign fighters” they agreed to eliminate by definition must include the US military itself! So actually it is the US that is violating the agreement by remaining in Syria, not the Syrian government by fighting al-Qaeda!
As an astute colleague wrote today, “have also been rumors in Washington that the Administration is preparing for something ‘big’ in Syria, possibly related to warnings from the Pentagon that Syrian forces have been threatening the unilaterally declared “de-escalation zone” in the country’s southeast.”
Nauert’s release may be one big lie, but the US threat against Syria is looking to be deadly serious.
Saudi-Led Coalition Bombs Yemen Wedding with US Weapons, Killing 131 Civilians
Back-drop quicki–The Israeli goal is to take out Iran. But first they needed US to take out Syria for them to neutralize Syria and make the path clear for Israel to reach Iran without getting a bloody nose. US planned to use a chemical attack false flag in Syria to blame on President Al-Assad but before they could, Syria agreed to become a signatory of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which it did and is. That took away US excuse to invade Syria for “humanitarian” reasons. So the US sent Al-Qaeda to Iraq and came back with “ISIS” to terrorize the Syrians etal, thus the US used ISIS terrorists as an excuse to go into Syria.
As it happened, Putin went into Syria also to fight ISIS with Iran’s help. That was for the purpose of embarrassing the US since they created ISIS to last long enough for Israel to get to Iran. Putin exposed the fact that US wasn’t fighting ISIS at all and Israel was aiding the wounded. Yemen was a part of the counter-terror coalition in the region and realized that US was not fighting ISIS but on the contrary was aiding the terrorists. They saw the war on ISIS was a fraud. So Yemen quit the coalition. Saudi Arabia soon led a coalition against Yemen.
Houthi said Israeli jets have been seen in Hudaydah’s skies over the past few days amid a push by Saudi mercenaries to seize the city, Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported.
“Yemen is actually fighting against a Saudi-Zionist coalition,” he said, referring to a military campaign which Riyadh has been carrying out against Yemen since 2015.
Several Western countries, the US and the UK in particular, are widely known to be helping Saudi Arabia in the aggression, but this is the first time claims of Israeli complicity have been made.
Referring to close ties between Israel and terrorist groups in Syria, Houthi noted that the Takfiri elements in Yemen are also the “mercenaries and servants” of Tel Aviv and Washington.
Israel and Saudi Arabia have no diplomatic relations, but latest reports say the two regimes are working behind the scenes to establish formal contact.
A senior Israeli nuclear expert revealed recently that Tel Aviv was selling Saudi Arabia information that would allow the kingdom to develop nuclear weapons.
Ami Dor-On, a senior nuclear commentator with the Israeli military organization iHLS, said the cooperation has been made possible in the wake of widening ties between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hudyadah situation
Hudaydah, home to about 400,000 people, is a lifeline for aid to war-torn Yemen. Riyadh claims the Houthis are using the key port for weapons delivery, an allegation rejected by the fighters.
The city, which lies on Yemen’s western Red Sea coast, has witnessed renewed tensions over the past few days. Saudi-backed forces have closed in on Hudaydah, sparking fears of an all-out assault.
The UN and humanitarian organizations have warned that a potential Saudi attack on Hudaydah could result in a disaster.
Jan Egeland, a former UN aid chief who now heads the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Doha-based Al Jazeera broadcaster on Saturday that a Saudi attack would make the situation “much worse.”
“We must avoid war at all costs in Hudaydah, not only because of the hundreds of thousands of people who would get in the crossfire but also because the port and the lifeline will be destroyed,” he said.
Egeland further demanded “a ceasefire and peace talks” to resolve the crisis in Yemen.
“What we asked for is that the United States, the United Kingdom and France who have influence over the Saudi-led coalition – they sell arms, they have close military relations, close diplomatic and intelligence cooperation – guarantee that attacks stop,” he added.
Earlier this week, the UN voiced grave concerns about the situation around Hudaydah.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also warned that fighting in Hudaydah would make “an already catastrophic situation even worse.”
“The ICRC is line with international humanitarian law urges all the parties to the conflict to respect civilian lives by taking every possible measure to protect civilians,” the Geneva-based humanitarian institution said in a statement.
Yemenis conduct retaliatory attacks
Separately on Saturday, al-Masirah reported that Yemeni army soldiers and fighters from allied Popular Committees had destroyed seven Saudi armored vehicles in the kingdom’s southern regions of Asir and Najran.
The Yemeni attacks came in retaliation for the Saudi-led military campaign on the impoverished state.
Yemeni forces further managed to prevent the advance of Saudi and Sudanese mercenaries in Asir and killed dozens of them, the report said.
Saudi Arabia and its allies launched a war on Yemen in March 2015 in support of Yemen’s former Riyadh-friendly government and against the Houthis.
The military campaign has killed and injured over 600,000 civilians, according to the Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights.
Saudi Arabia has also imposed a blockade on Yemen, which has smothered humanitarian deliveries of food and medicine to the import-dependent state.
Netanyahu, idiot: “We did not cross Iran’s borders,” he said. “They came here.” Looks like WW3 isn’t here yet.
The United States considers the Golan Heights to be Syrian territory held under Israeli occupation subject to negotiation and Israeli withdrawal. The United States considers the application of Israeli law to the Golan Heights to be a violation of international law, both the Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force and United Nations Security Council Resolution 242.
In February, Israel accused Iran of sending an armed drone into its territory, which Iran denied, and the Syrian Golan is no part of Israel territory, after which an Israeli plane was shot down while bombing Syria – the first time the country had lost an aircraft in combat in 35 years. Israel has since retaliated with bolder strikes on Iranian positions in Syria which have killed at least 13 Iranian nationals.
It is understandable that observers are alarmed about an Iran-Israel conflict in the aftermath of the violation by Trump of the 2015 Iranian nuclear enrichment treaty. Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu worked hard to undermine the treaty in the US, using cut-outs such as allegedly corrupt casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who bought the Republican Party in Congress with massive campaign contributions.
Golan Heights is very important because Israel steals it’s water, land and all resources. Between 80,000 and 130,000 Syrians were driven from the heights during the Zionist Six-Day War of expansion including 17,000 Palestinians refugees from the 1948 Zionist invasion.
Israel military occupation of the Syrian Golan
The Israelis struck a Golan village in Syria, baiting Hizbullah and Iran into a response, and then used the response as a pretext for a substantial set of bombing raids on alleged Iranian facilities in Syria. Netanyahu appears to have cleared these strikes with Vladimir Putin, who seems to have okayed them as long as they did not threaten Syrian regime stability or harm Russian military forces in Syria.
Israel’s security cabinet believes Iran “has gotten the Israeli message, and won’t mess with us in the near future,” officials told Hadashot TV news Friday night, a day after Israel launched dozens of strikes on Iranian military sites in Syria in response to an Iranian missile barrage directed at Syria’s Golan Heights occupied by Israel illegally.
Israeli leaders assess that the Israeli action has made it clear to Tehran that it does not possess the operational infrastructure it needs in Syria to successfully contend with IDF capabilities, the report said.
The army has told ministers in the top forum that it thus believes the current round of hostilities to be over, though tensions in the Zionist occupied north will persevere, and border incidents are still possible.
Speaking in Syria’s Golan earlier Friday, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman sent a message to Syrian President Bashar Assad, telling him to “throw” Iranian forces out of his country.
Liberman visited the northern city of Katzrin to debrief residents following Israel’s largest air campaign in Syria in more than 40 years, in which it said it bombed over 50 Iranian targets.
The sortie came after Iran fired 20 missiles toward Israel [legally Syria] just after midnight on Thursday morning, the IDF said, forcing illegal Zionist residents of the Syrian north into bomb shelters. Military reported Four of the missiles were knocked down by the Iron Dome air defense system and the rest fell short of Syrian territory, occupied by Israel illegally. But actually what Israel calls an attack was Iran using anti-aircraft system to protect it’s legal defense forces in Syria.
Liberman urged Syria to expel the Revolutionary Guard’s al-Quds Force, which Israel lied about the missile attacks early Thursday morning.
“I want to use this opportunity to give Assad a message,” he said. “Throw out the Iranians, throw out Qassem Soleimani and the Quds force. They don’t help you, they only harm you, and their presence makes us to bomb you because we don’t like it..”
Liberman also told Israelis they should not let the threat from Syria deter them from visiting the Syrian Golan. “You can come, you can return to the bed and breakfasts, to tour, to hike, ” he said. “There are truly amazing views and among the most beautiful places [they’ve occupied illegally] , and there is no problem. We are back to normal.”
He said that it was a mistake to think that Thursday morning’s attacks on the Iranian bases had completely solved the problem, but that the army was ready for anything and would continue to do whatever necessary to ensure Israel [occupied Syria] is secure.
The defense minister welcomed Iran’s statement that it did not want an escalation between the two countries and stressed that Israel was also not looking for more confrontation with anyone.
“We did not cross Iran’s borders,” he said. “They came here.” [LOL, where is here? Golan Syria? The Iranians are in Syria legally. Everywhere. The Israelis are not welcome in any part of Syria including the Syrian Golan. Legally they have been ordered to get out]
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that Israel would be victorious in its “ongoing campaign” against Iran.
“I have established a basic principle: Whoever strikes us, we are going to strike them,” Netanyahu said.
Israel has long warned it will not accept Iran entrenching itself militarily in neighboring Syria, where the Islamic Republic backs Assad’s regime in the country’s seven-year civil war.
The Jewish state has said said it also conducts operations in Syria to stop what it says are advanced arms deliveries to Iran-backed Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed ‘terror’ group [Hezbollah’s function is to protect the sovereignty of Lebanon] which is said to have 140,000 missiles and rockets aimed at Israel from Lebanon. [Israel is perpetually at war with all it’s neighbors.]
Distorting the timeline of events is a longtime Israeli strategy to make its enemies look like the aggressors and pass itself off as the victim. Israel’s massive aerial attacks earlier today on Iranians and Syrians — its most extensive cross-border strikes in decades — are carrying out this propaganda strategy to perfection, and even normally skeptical news outlets are being fooled.
Here’s the actual order of events:
* Just one hour after Donald Trump violated the Iran nuclear deal on May 8, Israel launched missiles against targets south of Damascus, Syria, reportedly killing 15 people, at least 8 of them Iranians.
* In response, Iran early this morning apparently struck back with 20 rockets aimed at the Golan Heights, (which is occupied by Israel since 1967 but is still legally part of Syria).
* Hours later, Israeli warplanes attacked dozens of allegedly Iranian targets in Syria.
The mainstream Western media is falling into Israel’s propaganda trap. Most reports are treating the Iranian rockets as the original provocation, and framing Israel’s massive air strikes as the (understandable) response. Unusually, the New York Times coverage was actually moderately less biased than other outlets, such as the Washington Post and the BBC. The Times at least noted — down in paragraph 12 — that Israel had first attacked Syria right after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran deal.
Nor, so far, are the major media connecting Benjamin Netanyahu’s belligerence to his desperate need to distract from the multiple domestic corruption investigations against him and his wife — an angle some of the Israeli press is not too squeamish to note. In the excellent online publication, +972, Dahlia Scheindlin notes today that Netanyahu’s strategy is working; he “appears to have inoculated himself against looming corruption charges due to the dramatic developments on the security front.” She adds that the latest Israeli opinion polls show Netanyahu’s Likud party with its highest level of support in a decade.
Larry Derfner, the American-turned-Israeli who is one of that country’s most experienced reporters, is hammering away at the truth on his Facebook page:
I’ve been arguing all day against Israel’s policy of continually bombing Syria, Lebanon and Iran, pointing out that they’re not bombing us, we’re bombing them, which means we’re not acting in self defense, we’re the aggressors. . . For [people with the opposing opinion] it doesn’t matter how many times Israel bombs the enemy and the enemy doesn’t bomb back — Israel is still bombing in self-defense and the other side is still the aggressor. Why? Because Israel is Israel and Iran/Syria/Lebanon is Iran/Syria/Lebanon. Israel is right because it is good and they are wrong because they are bad. . .
Journalist Jamal Ghosn says this is the latest in a long string of threats, while Israel violates Lebanese sovereignty every day.
This is the title of the “Arab” Zionist station: depicting the Israeli enemy as a victim. “Launching rockets from Syria on the Golan… Israel is responding. ” Israel is answering? Israel has carried out more than 110 raids on Syria in the past years, and Golan is Syrian territory according to International law.
May 2018 Trump exits the Iran deal, an hour later Israel is flying over Lebanon [illegally] and bombing Syria [illegally].
June 9-10, 1967: Israel attacks Syria, occupying the country’s Golan Heights during its Six Day War on Arab territories.
October 5, 2003 (Ain es Saheb airstrike): An Israeli warplane squadron attacks a camp about 24 kilometers northwest of the Syrian capital, Damascus, injuring a civilian guard.
September 6, 2007: Israel attacks Dayr al-Zawr Province in northeastern Syria, striking what it says is a suspected nuclear reactor.
November 11, 2012: Israel fires a “warning shot” in the direction of Syria, alleging that it is responding to a stray mortar round fired from the southwestern Syrian province of Quneitra.
November 17, 2012: Israel opens artillery fire against positions belonging to the Syrian Army, alleging that it was retaliating for attacks on an Israeli patrol near the demilitarized zone. It later stages a direct strike at the source of mortar shells that it says the Syrian Army fired in response to the first Israeli strike.
January 30, 2013: Israeli warplanes strike a convoy that Tel Aviv claims was carrying weapons to Hezbollah.
March 24, 2013: The Israeli military releases a guided missile at a Syrian trench used for deploying machineguns. It alleges it is responding to shots fired at Israeli forces in the occupied Golan Heights, though affirming that none of its troops had been wounded in the alleged incident there.
May 21, 2013: Israeli forces attack what they say is the source of fire targeting an Israeli vehicle in the Golan Heights.
July 17, 2013: The Israeli military fires at a group of unidentified individuals on Syria’s border after an Israeli patrols comes under purported fire near the demilitarized zone.
August 17, 2013: Israeli forces hit a Syrian Army outpost with a guided missile, alleging that they are responding to Syrian mortar rounds.
March 18, 2014: Israel hits Syrian military targets, including a military headquarters and an Army base, with artillery and aerial fire, describing the attacks as tit-for-tat strikes after a purported explosive goes off near an Israeli military vehicle close to the Syrian border. It says one Israeli soldier was killed in the alleged incident.
March 28, 2014: Israeli forces fire volleys of bullets at what the regime calls the source of Syrian mortar shells fired at Israeli military positions on Mount Hermon in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
June 23, 2014: The Israeli regime bombards Syrian Army targets several times, killing at least 10 Syrian soldiers in response to an alleged strike a day earlier on a water truck moving along the border fence.
July 15, 2014: The Israeli military kills 18 Syrians, including eight civilians, in attacks on three locations on Syrian soil. It says it had come under rocket attack in the occupied Golan Heights earlier.
September 23, 2014: Israel downs a Syrian military aircraft that it alleges wandered into the occupied Golan Heights.
August 20, 2015: Israel takes Quneitra and its neighboring province of Rif Dimashq under successive airstrikes, hitting Syrian military outposts and soldiers. The regime claims it had come under rocket fire in the occupied Golan Heights and the Upper Galilee area earlier. It kills five civilians in an attack on a vehicle a day later, claiming it is seeking to take out those behind the rocket attacks.
Syria shoots down Israeli F-16 jet, pilots eject The Syrian military targets at least one Israeli F-16 warplane that attacked Syrian territory, hitting it and sending it down in flames and smoke.
November 28, 2016: Israel hits an abandoned UN building in the occupied Golan Heights, claiming it is suspected of being used by the militants.
March 16-17, 2017: Israel confirms, for the first time, that it targeted what it called a convoy belonging to the Hezbollah resistance movement near the Syrian ancient city of Palmyra. The attack marked the deepest foray by Israel into Syrian territory yet.
April 23, 2017: Israel’s military strikes positions on the outskirts of Quneitra’s capital city of the same name, killing three forces allied with the Syrian government.
June 24, 2017: Israeli warplanes destroy two Syrian tanks and a machine gun position in response to alleged shells hitting Israel the previous day, killing several Syrian soldiers and civilians.
June 24-26, 2017: Israel kills 13 Syrian soldiers in repeated attacks on Syrian military targets in Quneitra.
October 21, 2017: Israel hits Syrian artillery positions after five mortar rounds come down in an open area in the occupied Golan Heights. Syrian government sources say later that the mortar fire, which caused no damage or casualties, had been aimed at “terrorists linked to Israel.” The terrorists, they say, “had [themselves] launched mortar shells, upon the instructions of the Israeli occupation, on an area of empty land inside the occupied territories to give the Israeli enemy a pretext to carry out its aggression.”
February 10, 2018: The Israeli military conducts strikes against Syrian positions. The Syrian military hits at least one Israeli F-16 warplane during the attacks.
The Israeli military confirms the downing of the F-16.
Well, well. The ‘White Helmets’ aren’t looking quite so pristine as they flee with terrorists from liberated areas in Syria.
The Duran has reported extensively on the real identity of The White Helmets, and we would suggest George Clooney seriously examine the overwhelming amount of evidence that exposes The White Helmets as the Al Qaeda-ISIS terrorists fakes that they are.
The “White Helmets” stole the name Syria Civil Defense from the real Syrian organization. They appropriated the name “White Helmets” from the Argentinian rescue organization Cascos Blancos/White Helmets. They are not independent; they are funded by governments. They are not apolitical; they actively campaign for a No Fly Zone. They do not work across Syria; they ONLY work in areas controlled by the armed opposition, mostly Nusa/Al Qaeda. They are not unarmed; they sometimes do carry weapons and they also celebrate terrorist victories. They assist in terrorist executions.
Less than two months ago the State Department hosted members of the White Helmets at Foggy Bottom. At the time, the humanitarian group was showered with praise for saving lives in Syria.
“Our meetings in March were very positive. There were even remarks from senior officials about long-term commitments even into 2020. There were no suggestions whatsoever about stopping support,” Raed Saleh, the group’s leader, told CBS News.
Now they are not getting any U.S funding as the State Department says the support is “under active review.” The U.S had accounted for about a third of the group’s overall funding.
“This is a very worrisome development,” said an official from the White Helmets. “Ultimately, this will negatively impact the humanitarian workers ability to save lives.”
White Helmets founder Le Mesurier, who graduated from Britain’s elite Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, is said to be an ‘ex’ British military intelligence officer involved in a number of other NATO ‘humanitarian intervention’ theatres of war, including Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq, as well as postings in Lebanon and Palestine. He also boasts a series of high-profile posts at the UN, EU, and UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Not to mention his connections back to the infamous Blackwater (Academi).
The White Helmets, formally known as the Syrian Civil Defense, are a group of 3,000 volunteer rescuers that have saved thousands of lives since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. A makeshift 911, they have run into the collapsing buildings to pull children, men and women out of danger’s way. They say they have saved more than 70,000 lives.
Having not received U.S. funding in recent weeks, White Helmets are questioning what this means for the future. They have received no formal declaration from the U.S. government that the monetary assistance has come to a full halt, but the group’s people on the ground in Syria report that their funds have been cut off.
Assad: Chemical Attack Was 100% Fabricated, “al-Qaeda Shaved Their Beards And Put On White Helmets”
The group has an “emergency plan” if the funding is halted for one or two months — but they are worried about the long-term freeze.
“If this is a long-term or permanent halt, it would have a serious impact on our ability to provide the same intensity and quality of services that we currently provide to civilians,” said Saleh.
An internal State Department document said that its Near East Bureau needed confirmation from the administration to green light funding for the White Helmets in Syria by April 15th or the department would initiate “shut-down procedures on a rolling basis.” That document also said that the department needed to be notified by April 6th that it could continue programs that focus on removing land mines, restoring essential services and providing food to moderate forces and their families or those programs would also have to be shut down.
However, U.S. government officials are not talking on the record about the date of the actual funding cutoff for each program, which is leading to confusion.
State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert has previously called the White Helmets “selfless men” and asked journalists to watch a documentary about their work. But the State Department did not respond to a CBS News inquiry earlier this week about which programs are still receiving funding, and the date for when certain programs will lose their funding.
President Trump put a freeze on the $200 million in U.S. funding for recovery efforts in Syria in late March. This freeze means that U.S. support for the White Helmets is not the only project in jeopardy. There are also many other stabilization efforts that are backed by the U.S. — including the clearing of explosive devices, bringing back electricity, rebuilding schools, and getting water running — that may end soon.
U.S. officials are working to see if there is a way to adjust existing funding to cover the costs for these projects. They are also trying to get other countries, such as Germany, to cover some of the costs. Earlier this year, at the Brussels for the donor conference for Syria, German Foreign Minister Maas pledged more than $1.1 billion to help people in need in Syria. But as of now, Germany has not officially committed to stepping in beyond this initial commitment.
Observers are also increasingly concerned about Syria’s young people, who are more prone to radicalization if they don’t get the security and support that they need. As a result of the fighting in the country, thousands of schools have been destroyed. The handful of schools that opened their doors again have received simple necessities like chairs, tables and blackboards from the U.S. — but in most schools children are still sitting on the ground, and teachers are extremely hard to come by.
“The amount of U.S. support is very limited but it is better than nothing, so if that will stop, that will be a disaster. After ISIS they started to open the schools and if money stops, that will be done,” said a senior member of the Deir ez-Zor city council. “Without education the people only have ISIS ideas.”
This week, the State Department said it would continue to defend its partners on the ground in Syria when they announced the final operations to liberate ISIS strongholds in the country.
“The fighting will be difficult, but we and our partners will prevail. We will defend United States, Coalition, and partner forces if attacked. The days of ISIS controlling territory and terrorizing the people of Syria are coming to an end,” wrote State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert. She did not write anything about the stabilization projects.
Meanwhile, much of Syria that has been cleared of ISIS control — such as Raqqa, its self-proclaimed capital — is still in ruins and almost impossible to live in.
“Raqqa is like a sick person in an emergency room. So the money or treatment should come faster than the routine way. He is not a normal sick person,” Abdullah al-Arian, a lawyer in Raqqa advising the governing Civil Council.
“The passion and power the U.S. put in to liberate Raqqa does not at all equal the passion to rebuild Raqqa. It is very much different, much less, much more slow,” says al-Arian. “They give us very beautiful words and promises but not much else.”
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