NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong
Trump Ends Covert Aid to Syrian Rebels Trying to Oust Assad
Despite how despicable Donald Trump remains in so many ways, reports that he plans to end US arming of so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels is good for Syria – and good for the US. While the NY Times had a low-key but relatively straightforward report about the policy change, the more Neocon-oriented Washington Post had this headline: Trump ends covert CIA program to arm anti-Assad rebels in 
Syria, a move sought by Moscow. (One of the paper’s columnists was even more alarmed: Trump’s breathtaking surrender to Russia) Liberal Middle East scholar Juan Cole wrote: Trump hands Putin gift, cancels Support for Syrian Rebels.
Syria, a move sought by Moscow. (One of the paper’s columnists was even more alarmed: Trump’s breathtaking surrender to Russia) Liberal Middle East scholar Juan Cole wrote: Trump hands Putin gift, cancels Support for Syrian Rebels.
This is crazy. Whether or not there may have been an opportunity to replace Syria’s Bashar al-Assad with a secular democratic regime in the early days of the Arab Spring (doubtful), that is clearly no longer a possibility. “Democratic” “moderate” armed rebels – to the extent they exist at all – have no imaginable path to power, compared with the extremist Islamic sectarians who dominate the opposition military forces -- with the continued aid from US allies autocratic Turkey and the absolutist Gulf petro-monarchies. Those who continue to advocate more US intervention or support for the “Syrian Revolution” are promoting the unending destruction in Syria without even the remotest possibility of a positive outcome. They have blood on their hands.
Not surprisingly, Israel, which has quietly intervened in Syria in support of the Islamist rebels, is against efforts to wind down the fighting in Syria through cooperation between Russia and the US, such as the recently-agreed ceasefire in SW Syria. Israel has attacked Syria many times over the years, including during its current civil war, and threatens further attacks against “Iranian bases” in Syria. Look for stepped-up war cheerleading from Washington Neocons and Israel’s poodles in the US Congress.
But this doesn’t mean that US intervention in Syria is over. US support for “anti-ISIS” armed groups, together with US bombing in Syria (illegal under international and US law) and Iraq (technically “legal” but unwise and immoral) is on-going -- with horrific civilian casualties.
The U.S. is also risking a catastrophic military clash with Russia or Iran in Syria. There is no legal or moral basis for the United States to be waging war in Syria, risking conflict with Russia and nuclear apocalypse for us all. Sign up for the Thunderclapand sign the petition to the U.S. Congress and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, urging them to immediately remove all U.S military planes from Syrian skies and keep them out of that country's airspace. Partners Include: RootsAction.org, World Beyond War, DailyKos, Veterans For Peace, The Nation, andWatchdog.net
ISIS is retreating in Syria and Iraq, but the US is not. The Trump administration has not made secret its hostility to Iran -- and the drumbeats for war are building.
The world’s lack of outrage over civilian deaths in Mosul is shameful
The catastrophic number of civilian casualties in Mosul is receiving little attention internationally from politicians and journalists. This is in sharp contrast to the outrage expressed worldwide over the bombardment of east Aleppo by Syrian government and Russian forces at the end of 2016. Hoshyar Zebari, the Kurdish leader and former Iraqi finance and foreign minister, told me in an interview last week: “Kurdish intelligence believes that over 40,000 civilians have been killed as a result of massive firepower used against them, especially by the Federal Police, air strikes and Isis itself.” …“Mosul residents routinely described to Amnesty International how they sheltered in homes with relatives or neighbours in groups of between 15-100.”
It was these groups that became the victims of the massed firepower of pro-government forces. In many streets, every house is destroyed. More
Corporate Media Largely Silent on Trump’s Civilian Death Toll in Iraq
Earlier this week human rights group Amnesty International issued a lengthy report accusing US-backed forces of “repeated violations of international humanitarian law, some of which may amount to war crimes,” in Mosul, Iraq, causing the deaths of at least 3,700 civilians. Neither this report, nor the broader issue of the civilian toll in the US war against ISIS, has come close to penetrating US corporate media. The only major radio or television outlet to report on Amnesty’s claims was NPR (7/12/17). While traditional print outlets, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, did run Reuters (7/11/17) and AP (7/12/17) articles, respectively, on the report, neither covered it themselves. Neither Amnesty’s charges, nor the broader issue of civilian deaths in Mosul, garnered any coverage in television news, with no mention on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN or MSNBC. The expulsion of ISIS from Mosul by the US-led coalition did receive coverage, but the US role in killing civilians was uniformly ignored. More
Pentagon wants to build new US facilities in Iraq, Syria
The Donald Trump administration is pushing Congress for the authority to build new “temporary” facilities in Iraq and Syria as part of the US-led campaign against the Islamic State. In a policy statement released Tuesday night, the White House argues that US troops are hamstrung by legal restrictions on their ability to expand US military infrastructure “in both Iraq and Syria.” The administration wants lawmakers to extend existing authorities that only cover the “repair and renovation” of facilities to also encompass “temporary intermediate staging facilities, ammunition supply points, and assembly areas that have adequate force protection.” … But detractors say the effort could further draw the United States into Syria’s complex civil war, even as Congress continues to resist launching a full-fledged debate over updating the 2001 use of force authorization that remains the main legal justification for US involvement in the region. More
EMPIRE OF DESTRUCTION
It was supposed to be twenty-first-century war, American-style: precise beyond imagining; smart bombs; drones capable of taking out a carefully identified and tracked human being just about anywhere on Earth; special operations raids so pinpoint-accurate that they would represent a triumph of modern military science. Everything “networked.” It was to be a glorious dream of limited destruction combined with unlimited power and success. In reality, it would prove to be a nightmare of the first order. If you want a single word to summarize American war-making in this last decade and a half, I would suggest rubble. It's been a painfully apt term since September 11, 2001. In addition, to catch the essence of such war in this century, two new words might be useful: rubblize and rubblization. Despite the doubts about such a form of global warfare that candidate Trump raised during the 2016 election campaign, the process has only escalated in the first months of his presidency. Washington, it seems, just can’t help itself in its drive to pursue this version of war in all its grim imprecision to its increasingly imprecise but predictably destructive conclusions. More
Trump Is Violating The Iran Deal
With two years of successful implementation in the books, Washington should be celebrating the anniversary of a historic Iran nuclear deal. Instead, President Trump is violating the pact and prompting its demise. With each passing day, it becomes less plausible that his violations are mistakes rather than malicious. This is all the more ironic given reports that his administration plans to once again re-certify Iran’s compliance with its Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) commitments. However, reaffirming that Iran is fulfilling its end of the bargain does not mean America is doing the same… First, it is now clear that the Trump administration intends to flout the full scope of U.S. obligations under the JCPOA so as to limit promised business ties with Iran… Considering, too, that the U.S. has the positive obligation to “agree on steps to ensure Iran’s access in areas of trade, technology, finance, and energy,” Trump’s private urging to foreign countries to withdraw business ties with Iran puts the U.S. in irrefutable breach of the JCPOA. More
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