U.S. Duplicity and World War in Syria

Duplicity and publicity are all the United States is capable of, so much so that one dismisses the top-of-the-fold story yesterday by Eric Schmitt and Michael Gordon ("U.S. Aims to Put More Pressure on ISIS in Syria"), two reporters who are usually tasked with the big propaganda roll-outs, as more of the same and awaits a quote from either Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov or some Iranian official to at least get a semblance of the truth.

Those quotes arrive today in "Russian Soldiers Join Syria Fight" by Andrew Kramer and Anne Barnard:

Russian officials say they are targeting the Islamic State, though their bombs have mainly hit territories held by other insurgents who oppose Mr. Assad, Russia’s ally. The strikes have hit the Army of Conquest, an Islamist faction that includes the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, as well as more-secular groups that often fight alongside it, including some that have received covert American aid. 

The Obama administration, by contrast, says its own airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria can succeed only with a political transition that ends with Mr. Assad’s removal. 

The administration’s position was ridiculed Monday by Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, who said the American airstrikes, which began more than a year ago, had done little militarily. In comments carried by Russia’s official Tass news agency, Mr. Lavrov said that even the Americans had acknowledged their faltering efforts to create a force of so-called moderate insurgents in Syria.

“Nobody knows about these people,” he said. “Nobody’s really heard about the moderate opposition.”

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran, Mr. Assad’s regional ally, was also dismissive of the American efforts in Syria, both to unseat Mr. Assad and to combat the Islamic State. Sounding emboldened by the Russian airstrikes, Mr. Zarif said at a talk in New York that there was a difference between Russia — which was invited by Mr. Assad to help — and the American-led coalition that has been bombing Syria. “Why are you there?” he said. “Who gave you the right to be there?”

The lies and the omissions of the official U.S. position are too layered and numerous to conveniently recite. But let's give it a shot. First, the big one that is being leaned on heavily by the press, which should and no doubt does know better, that Russian airstrikes are targeting the "moderate" Syrian opposition and driving otherwise secular fighters into the arms of the jihadists of Al Qaeda and ISIS. This is a lie, plain and simple, the main fabrication the U.S. relies on to justify its actions in Syria. The actuality is that the U.S. is working with the Salafis to destroy Syria and Iraq and pressure Iran, as the U.S. worked with the mujahideen to destroy Afghanistan.

The big omission in this context is the revolt of the Centcom analysts, a story which confirms the Russian and Iranian positions that the U.S. is engaged in a phony war against ISIS while the jihadists of the Army of Conquest (the Pepsi to Islamic State's Coke) roll along destroying the Syrian state.

Now with Turkey's keening over a Russian incursion into its air space, followed by a NATO reprimand, we're getting closer to World War III or World War IV, whichever one it is by now. According to Kramer and Bernard,

The potential combination of Russian ground forces and aerial attacks particularly threatens to undermine Turkey’s Syria policy, which aims for the establishment of a “safe zone” along the Turkish border where some Syrian refugees could return in the future. 

The Russian air incursion happened on Saturday, when Turkish fighter jets scrambled to intercept a warplane that trespassed into Turkish airspace. On Monday, NATO issued a warning to Russia, as the United States began urgent consultations with Turkey over what they called “next steps.” 

Russia’s actions were “an unacceptable violation” of Turkish airspace, NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said after meeting with the Turkish foreign minister, Feridun Sinirlioglu. Mr. Stoltenberg added, “Russia’s actions are not contributing to the security and stability of the region.”

The United States is completely out of whack with the will of its people, passing trade deals, which are  overwhelming rejected by voters on both the left and the right, with the goal of a future conlict with China. It is a vision of the future which offers nothing but poverty and war. No wonder most works of popular fiction seem to be dystopian. This system of war and poverty calls for a rebellion. We need to be thinking about wise, efficient ways this rebellion can be brought about.