At 10 am on the 10th of October, two F-16s bombed Aleppo’s power station, cutting the supply of power and of pumped water to the city. As reported by TASS, the F-16s came from Incirlik base in Turkey, and were presumed to belong to the US, but it can be noted that both Turkey and Israel have F-16s and commonly violate Syrian airspace.
Understanding the premeditated nature of the West’s war on Syria and the fact that this current conflict serves only as a stepping stone toward a well-defined strategy to next destroy Iran explains why “partnering” with the US in any kind of solution regarding Syria is an impossibility. A “political settlement” that results in the division of Syria or the removal of the current government is also entirely unacceptable for this same reason.
Where is all the coverage of the utterly useless, dishonest and misguided Western campaign in Syria? If this had a tenth of the coverage given to Russian bombing I think the public and political discussion in Britain would be very different.
Another reason for Western vexation over Russia’s intervention in Syria is that it is exposing the fraudulence and criminality of the Western powers and their regional client regimes. Russia is conducting operations that are lawful under international law with the full consent of the Syrian government – unlike the US-led coalition which is bombing the country illegally. Vladimir Putin has cogently delineated the all-important legal difference. From the Western viewpoint, this exposure of their depredations is intolerable.
The Obama Administration has been training terrorists of Al Qaeda/Al Nusra, allegedly to fight ISIS, much like the disgraced General David Petraeus did in Iraq and Afghanistan along with Obama’s special ISIS coordinator, the just-resigned General John Allen. The US-trained “moderate” terrorists were being readied, it’s now clear to all the world, in reality, to battle Assad and open the way for a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Syria and a real plunge into darkness for the world if that were to succeed.
The New Great Game in Eurasia advanced in leaps and bounds last week after Russia fired 26 cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea against 11 ISIS/ISIL/Daesh targets across Syria, destroying all of them. These naval strikes were the first known operational use of state-of-the-art SSN-30A Kalibr cruise missiles.
All it took for the Pentagon was a backward look over the shoulder at the flight path of those Kalibr missiles – capable of striking targets 1,500 km away. Talk about a crisp, clear, succinct message from Moscow to the Pentagon and NATO. Wanna mess with us, boy? With your big, bulging aircraft carriers, maybe?
This initial real-world use of long-range LACMs by Russia has significant strategic importance, because the carriers of such systems (surface vessels and submarines), stationed elsewhere in the ocean, can minimize the potential use of nuclear weapons and offensive antiballistic systems by those states that still consider the Russian Federation to be their “biggest potential enemy,” an “aggressor state,” and an “annexing state.” These high-impact weapons systems could be used for preemptive or retaliatory strikes with both nuclear or non-nuclear warheads.
When President François Hollande re-launched the war against Syria, in July 2012, he maintained – and this is unique in the history of France – his predecessor’s private chief commander, General Benoît Puga. He has adopted the rhetoric and the mannerisms of colonialism. He declares that the Syrian Arab Republic is a « bloody dictatorship » – (meaning we have to go in and « liberate an oppressed population ») – and that the power in Syria has been confiscated by an Alawite minority – (meaning that we have to « emancipate » the Syrians from this horrible sect.) He forbids Syrian refugees in Europe to participate in the elections being held in their home country, and decides in their stead that the Syrian National Council – non-elected – is their legitimate representative. His Minister for Foreign Affairs, Laurent Fabius, declares that the democratically elected President, Bachar el-Assad, « does not deserve to be on this Earth ».
US President Barack Obama and his top diplomat John Kerry have repeatedly insisted that Assad must stand down in any eventual political outcome. In other words, the Americans want regime change by hook or by crook against what is, as Putin has clearly stated, the “legitimate government of Syria” – and a long-time strategic ally of Russia to boot.
The great danger of faking your ability to do something in the public square is that someone with an actual desire to the job you are pretending to do might come along and show you up.
This is what has just happened to the US in Syria with the entrance of Russia into the fight against ISIL.
The “fifty Labour MPs” threatening to vote for military action in Syria, if they exist beyond the Guardian’s imagination, are still living in the Blair days. Back then, while the US empire was riding high, “New Labour” grew used to being handsomely rewarded for supporting genocidal war crimes. It was the kewl way to be. It got them shed loads of cash, seats at the high table, and total immunity from recrimination or justice.
The question that the supine Western media should be asking the NATO chief and his Washington superiors is this: if you can so clearly quantify and delineate the IS and Al Qaeda bases, then why has the US-led coalition evidently been wasting 12 months bombing empty desert spaces instead of degrading and defeating these groups, as vowed by US President Barack Obama over a year ago?
