The ugly face of American Imperialism in Syria
Turkey is threatening to invade Syria (again) in order to defend al-Qaeda-controlled Idlib province from the Syrian army.
Meanwhile, Turkey's Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has asked the U.S. to sell them Patriot missiles so that they can shoot down the Russian jets that are supporting the Syrian army's offensive.
Caught in middle of this fighting is over three-quarters of a million refugees.
Needless to say, this is a dangerous and alarming development.
What is being overlooked is how a couple hundred miles away the U.S. is trying to pick a fight.
A video has emerged showing a U.S. military vehicle running a Russian armored truck off the road in Syria after it tried to pass an American convoy...
Eventually, the lead Russian vehicle successfully passes the first American vehicle on the right side of the road, and then speeds up to pass the second, only to be run off the road.The Russian vehicle almost hits a civilian bystander who had been walking along the shoulder. It appears that the American and Russian truck also make contact at one point, before they both slow to a stop...
Incidents between U.S. and Russian forces in northeastern Syria have been increasingly common for weeks now, though they have typically involved American troops block the movement of Russia's forces. There have been some reports of more physical altercations, including a fistfight in January.
This does appear to be the first known incident of Russian and American convoys actually duking it out on Syria's roadways, which points to a serious escalation in tensions.
#US army vehicle pushes #Russia police vehicle off the road, today, eastern Qamishli NE #Syria. pic.twitter.com/X5RNPyqafL
— Mohammad (@ibrashino) February 19, 2020
This is both stupid and dangerous.
But what happened last week was truly ugly.
Based on these videos, the people of Syria don't want to be under U.S. occupation. Figure that.
It happened in #Syria’s Khirbet Amo village after #US forces killed one person in clashes with pro-regime forces. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says it's not clear whether the killed person is a civilian or an armed regime loyalist. 1
— Nafiseh Kohnavard (@nafisehkBBC) February 12, 2020
Sometime after these events, this happened.
A Syrian civilian was killed and another wounded in a rare clash between US troops and a group of government supporters who tried to block a United States convoy driving through a village in northeastern Syria, state media reported.The Syrian state-run media on Wednesday said the killed man was among residents of a village east of the town of Qamishli who had gathered at an army checkpoint, pelting the US convoy with stones and taking down a US flag from one of the vehicles.
At that point, US troops fired with live ammunition and smoke bombs at the residents, the report said.
The SAA prevented today a US convoy from crossing Khirbet Amo, south Qamishli, and the villagers supported the SAA and threw stones on the US patrol which shot & killed 1 civilian.
In the video, a civilian tells the occupation: "You cannot pass even if there are 100 agreements." pic.twitter.com/I2ehR4k47N— Kevork Almassian (@KevorkAlmassian) February 12, 2020
So guess what? The neighboring Syrian villages noticed, and had a meeting.
The Arab tribal elders and leaders held a gathering on Tuesday in the village of Khirbet Amo in the Qamishli countryside during which they declared their solidarity with the residents of Khirbet Amo who presented “an honourable image of resistance” against US forces, forcing them to retreat.Sheikh Abdul Razzaq Al-Ta’i, leader of the Ta’i tribe, described Khirbet Amo’s residents’ resistance against US forces as “heroic and honourable” and a first step towards launching resistance against “the American forces occupying our land and a clear message to reject their occupation and presence on Syrian soil”.
This will not end well.
Comments
We need to get the hell out and STAY OUT
Let them solve their problems their way instead of "our way or die".
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
A lot of good patriot missles do
against Syrians uniting against a foreign occupier.
The first one shot against russian aircraft will mark the end of the occupation.
We'll see (likely not) flag drapped coffins arriving at Andrews AFB.
Tell everybody
Waitin' for Superman
That they should try to
Hold on
Best they can
He hasn't dropped them
Forgot them
Or anything
It's just too heavy for Superman to lift
[video:https://youtu.be/o0AOG7ciuJo]
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Patriots
only hit like 30 percent or so of what they're fired at? Overpriced and underperforming weapons, an American specialty.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
It's ironic
Turkey is currently being sanctioned by the U.S. for buying S400 missile system from Russia to defend itself from American bombers.
our best wishes to the village elders,
then.
your reuters ink said that the Turks say the US will give them patriot missiles. i can't get into bloomberg, and i sure hope i can take the time to read the 'must read' cobain link:
revanchist ottoman empire restored visions? good grief, erdogan; WTF?
A side question.
If the Turks attack Russian planes with Patriot missiles, the first thing that will happen is the destruction of those missile sites. Turkey dodged a bullet when it shot down that Russian fighter a few years ago. How Russia responds will be tempered by the oil business, or more accurately, the natural gas business.
Since Turkey is waiting for Russian S-400s, attacking Russian planes will put his forces in extreme jeopardy as well as his acquisition of Russian missiles. Plus, Erdogan is behaving like he thinks he can take on the world. He may get another NATO coup for his troubles. Russia doesn't sell Russian missiles for others to shoot down their planes.
This has baffled me
Turkey was quiet during the first part of the Syrian move to retake the M-5 highway. Once the Syrians achieved this, Turkey started getting belligerent and started moving troops into Idlib. At the same time, the number of articles talking about the 'woman and children' of Idlib and the Russians/Syrians destroying hospitals and schools began to rise. The WP did one a few days ago that didn't mention HTS at all? Neither did the cookie cutter article in the NYT.
Today's obligatory article in the WP has one passing reference to al Qaeda.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/as-civilians-suffer-in-...
The title and meat of the article are about woman and children. The premise is we need to stop Syria and Russia.
Yes we need to help them, but there is no mention of the fact that HTS shoots civilians that try to flee. Or that Turkey is supporting a terrorist organization. Our deep state hatred is so bad we would rather support al Qaeda than allow Syria to exist.
Then seem baffled when our patrol takes a wrong turn and finds itself facing intense hatred. The US surrounds itself with yes men in countries then is baffled when reality hits them.
Kind of like Bloomberg making a wrong turn into a DNC debate. He's been surrounded by yes men telling him how great he is.
I respect the fact that you are baffled.
If you have watched the war machine as long as I have, and you probably have, I think you will have seen a consistent pursuit of war, more war, more need for war, more failure, more war. I have said for the entire period of our Middle East War that the reason there isn't a peace movement in this country is that our media are not publishing photographs of atrocities, carnage, and starvation, particularly of children. But when they have a need for support for the war, they suddenly have the ability to publish such photography. Suddenly, at the time of Assad's supposed chemical attacks, we saw photographs of dead children, immediately at the moment of agreements for ceasefire. Suddenly, this week, as it has become clear that Syria has re-taken the last strongholds of Al Qaeda, there was a large photograph of a starving child in Yemen in our mainstream newspaper, based on the premise that the Houthis caused it, never mind the fact that the Saudi war on Yemen has caused the deaths of at least 85,000 children, tortured to death by starvation, but there have been no pictures of that.
The crude manipulation of the atrocity of war by the war machine and its media is obvious. I must say that in spite of the use of such crude tactics, the American people continue to oppose these wars. Our political leadership, however, continues to engage in them, notwithstanding they are illegal.
I also want to respond to your statement,
This proxy factor is the crux, the filth, and the treason of our foreign policy. From remote-controled explosives training for Islamic jihad fighters in North Carolina before 9/11, to our using and then dumping of the Kurds in Syria, to our support of Saudi Arabia in starving children and bombing school buses in Yemen, to our training Nazi paramilitary forces in Ukraine, we continue to arm our enemies, ostensibly to prevent them from nationalizing their resources. Brilliant. And the fact that the policy is a never-ending failure only makes it more profitable for the merchants of death.
Tulsi Gabbard has said a couple of things about this policy, one of which was that it made us, "the prostitute of Saudi Arabia,” and I agree with her about that. But she has also said that, "the mission is unclear." I disagree with her about that. The mission is very clear. Our military industrial dictatorship is fascist.
And here,
if you want to know why you are frustrated and appalled by our leadership's explanations of our actions in Syria, watch this response by John Kirby to a reporter asking about the JIC, which I think was the Joint Implementation Center agreement in September 2016. In this agreement we were arranging with Russia to stop the Syrian military from air strikes against the "opposition," while also allowing all forces to bomb ISIS and Al Nusra, aka Al Qaeda. UNFORTUNATELY, in other press conferences the administration had established that Al Nusra, aka Al Qaeda, was mixed, interspersed, mingled, and MARBLED with the "opposition." Therefore it was going to be tricky to manage this agreement, but we were going to use "maps" and "people we had on the ground" and stuff.
The response to this topic is at about minute 11:22.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1smryz-D4xQ]
Map of Syrian Gains
Southfront.org has a nice map of Syrian gains in Idlib over the past year:
https://southfront.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/20feb_NorthWest_Syria_...
The purple shows the gains--what used to be held by the terrorists (backed by Turkey). I'd say about half of the province has gone back to Syrian control. The mix of green and black is still under terrorist control. The baby blue region at the top, Afrin, is Syrian territory that was invaded by Turkey and which now Turkey says it is not going to give up. After Idlib is freed, I'm wondering whether Syria and Russia will try to take back Afrin as well.
The area where the Americans are is off the eastern edge of that map. Damascus is off the map to the south, below Hama. The large city of Aleppo, in the top part of the map, is finally free of terrorists, who held the purple part of the city and the western suburbs up until about a week ago. Things are finally peaceful there, after years of fighting.
Neocon allies Turkey are now the new proxy forces
for Israel detailed in the PNAC. Netenyahu and The Usual Suspects planned this out 22 years ago and it's moving along nice and slowly, ie more profitably, than they could have ever dreamed.
The ugly face of American Imperialism in Syria, Libya, Iraq,
Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Yemen, Palestine, Chile, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, Vietnam, Korea, Lebanon, Kuwait, Dominican Republic, Panama, Korea, Laos, Cambodia and lots more. Get the picture? Some estimates have the US at over 10 million people dead, probably 3.8 in Vietnam and 3 in North Vietnam. Add a million in Laos and Cambodia each. Add in the brutal violence of fire bombing cities in Germany and Japan and dropping two atomic bombs on cities in Japan. That's collective punishment of civilian populations, a war crime. That's why we are the exceptional nation, exceptionally dangerous, aggressive and cruel. Nations that have suffered under US economic sanctions should also be included as the point here is to physically harm the people of those nations.
And the Russian Federation and China are aggressive, dangerous countries to be countered? You have got to be kidding! We have a morally sick country and what lies ahead of us is worse, as the (unelected) deep state seems to have achieved complete control of foreign policy, and the people are numb or morally absent. A trillion dollars on more nukes and more usable (???) nukes. Space as the next war fighting frontier? Will anything wake up the people of the US, and what the hell is going on with the people of Europe? They should know better, instead they provide cover. The coalition? The US will turn on you economically, e.g. North Stream II, and then politically and militarily as they engineer, finance and train and assist a violent revolution of your democratically elected government.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.