U.S. Adding Fuel to Fire in Syria

Date: 18 February 2017 - 20:50

News ID: ۳۶۹۴۵

By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

U.S. military officials say the Trump administration may soon authorize sending combat troops to Syria.
The U.S. has already sent several hundred of its special operations forces to Syria. The Pentagon claims their operations have been limited to training and assisting Kurdish fighters in their battle against ISIL and other terrorist groups. This is far from the truth.
U.S. airstrikes in Syria have killed many civilians already - though the Pentagon is officially denying any deaths. The U.S. warplanes have also attacked and destroyed civilian targets like hospitals, silos, schools, oil refineries, and airports. The new push seems to be aiming for these sorts of targets again.
Little wonder Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the U.S. occupation of Iraq is to blame for the creation of ISIL, and that any bid by the U.S. to dispatch ground troops to Syria to allegedly fight ISIL forces will fan the flames of extremism in the Middle East, and adversely impact the security of the whole world. He couldn’t be more accurate.
The whole world knows that the war party has designed the War on terror to last forever. This is all about endless bombings, endless wars, and endless occupations. The Pentagon’s over $1.5 billion-a-day budget is designed to acquire the U.S. the needed leverage to control every aspect of global affairs. Military spending accounts for nearly a third of the country’s overall budget, which runs into trillions. Someone needs to spend that money somewhere. Why not in Syria!
Certainly, the U.S. didn’t invade the Middle East to destroy Al-Qaeda, Taliban and ISIL. This was never the intention. The U.S. occupying troops are here to stay and to protect America’s alleged interests. No matter what the outcome is in the war, and no matter how much more suffering it causes, the official policy says, "stay, bomb, and occupy.” Mind you, they have already built military bases deep inside the Syrian territory on the pretext of protecting their "moderates”, which we all know – and they themselves admit - are linked to Al-Qaeda.
So no matter what is the outcome of the current conflict or ceasefire, war remains the default setting. It’s endless. The U.S. will never stop occupying the Muslim world. It will never stop "democratizing” the "undemocratic” Muslim nations. It will continue to bomb and kill innocent civilians, directly or indirectly, in Syria.
It’s been said before and here it is again: President Donald Trump has striking similarities with Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Trump typically rails against American troops involvement around the world, but he is not alone in calling for ground troops in Iraq and Syria. In essence, his anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant foreign policy agenda is similarly based on Pentagon’s yet more "humanitarian” interventions and wars. He will carry on with much of what Obama started in Syria and Iraq. Expect nothing less.
At a time when a nationwide ceasefire in Syria is largely working, it doesn’t make any sense for President Trump to insist that Syria needs more U.S. bombing runs, and that America should go to Syria and stand shoulder to shoulder with its regional vassals and head-chopping moderates "on behalf of our common security.”
That said, including the House of Saud and the mere extras in a bogus coalition to fight the very sectarian monster they helped create is yet another reason why the new mission creep into Syria and the clear case of aggression against Syrian people and sovereignty to affect regime change is illegal under international law, and hence destined for failure.
In sum, if Washington is really serious about fighting terrorism and helping to relieve the human suffering of the Syrian population, there are immediate non-military means by which it should act more intensely, such as by not sending arms to its Al-Qaeda-allied proxy forces and by hugely sending U.S. aid to the at least 2 million people who have fled with their families for refuge in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, and several other countries.
The billions of dollars that the Trump administration would spend on the new military engagement would be more wisely used to increase humanitarian aid to the Syrian refugees in these countries.