If
there were a hypocrisy meter, the Obama administration surely would
have achieved unprecedented numbers in recent weeks. With the Putin
government announcing and swiftly executing military action in Syria,
the US government and its NATO allies went apoplectic, accusing the
Russians of destabilizing the Middle East, increasing the threat of
terrorism, adding to homelessness, and risking the widening of the
war. Of course any sane observer knows that the US has already
destabilized the Middle East, fomented terrorism, brought on mass
homelessness, and dramatically widened the war, while causing
hundreds of thousands of casualties.
The
Obama administration and its hyper-patriotic opposition within the
ruling class are most indignant because Syria, Iraq, Iran, and the
Russian Federation have signed a mutual assistance accord that mounts
a real anti-extremist front in the wars raging in Syria and Iraq.
Irony of ironies, US meddling in the Middle East has brought two
former intransigent enemies-- Iran and Iraq-- together. To the shock
of US Geo-political schemers, a client state-- Iraq-- dares to defy
its sponsor-- the US-- in forging this agreement. Iran and Russia,
both squeezed extortionately by the vise of US/EU sanctions, have
defied the school yard bullies to support the Syrian government.
Responding
to recent Russian bombings of targets in Syria, Obama denounced the
Russian moves as a “recipe for disaster.” No one in the
administration has explained how Syria-- or Iraq, Libya, Yemen, or
Afghanistan-- could be a bigger disaster.
Obama
has accused the Russians of not discriminating between ISIS (ISIL)
and the other opponents of the Assad government. He maintains that
the Russians are supporting Assad rather than the anti-ISIS effort.
At the same time, the US government concedes that the CIA has armed
its own surrogates with sophisticated anti-tank weapons (TOW
missiles) only useful against Assad's tanks and not ISIS. Hypocrisy!
While
Obama maintains a fictitious difference between good and bad elements
within the “opposition” and an expressed abhorrence of the
violence, the opposition has achieved a “rare” unity in refusing
to even attend meetings to discuss negotiations organized by
the United Nations, according to the Associated Press. The AP story
(Russia Launches New Wave of Air Raids in Syria, Targets IS Posts,
Albert Aji and Jim Heintz, 10-04-15) goes on to acknowledge that the
Syrian Opposition Coalition statement “was signed by the
Salafist-jihadist Ahrar al-Sham as well as some of the rebel units
that have received training and weapons from the United States and
its allies.” Just how this motley united front of accused
“terrorist” organizations and supposed moderates will offer a
better life to Syrians after Assad has never been explained by the US
government. Skeptics would, with justification, fear a repeat of the
Libyan tragedy.
Equipped
with the short memory and stunted imagination typical of US
journalists, few have reflected upon the telling origins of the
Syrian civil war. Of course the official account requires a massive
dose of gullibility. It spins a tale of dedicated democrats who,
foiled by the Assad government in their peaceful demonstrations, take
up arms in a matter of months, even weeks, in 2011. No one in the
media questions how this amorphous mass of private citizens is shaped
up, armed, and led, in such a short span, against a sophisticated
modern military and government security forces. Despite the
miraculous appearance of arms from the late Muammar Gaddafi's
destabilized Libya, despite the appearance of foreign fighters, US
journalists found no cause to look for the hidden hands.
Instead,
journalists continue to churn out copy that carefully follows the
US/NATO line on all Middle Eastern matters. Consider the aptly named
Liz Sly who slyly pumps out dispatches through the Washington Post
that resemble rewrites of State Department releases. As with her
equally discredited colleagues Judith Miller and Brian Williams,
there seems to be no journalistic sins that warrant her consignment
to journalistic hell. Sly infamously disseminated the fabricated
story “Gay Girl in Damascus”:
On
June 7, 2011 she wrote 'Gay
Girl in Damascus' Blogger Detained,
a news article that merged claims from a blog post with what appeared
to be independently gathered facts in a way that suggested that
youthful, attractive Syrian-American, Amina Arraf, was grabbed off
the street along with 10,000 other Damascus citizens by the evil
Assad forces. On
June 8, the Washington Post retracted the story and on June 10, a
40-year-old US citizen confessed that the person, the story, and the
blog were a hoax that he concocted. (ZZ's
blog)
Of
course perpetrating a hoax has not stopped Sly from advancing her
career. On October 1, 2015, Sly (along with Andrew Roth) wrote from
Beirut a story appearing in the Washington Post:
The expanding
Russian involvement in Syria threatened to further complicate efforts
to secure a negotiated settlement to the 4-year-old war at a time
when the influx of refugees into Europe and the endurance of the
Islamic State is focusing world attention on the unrelenting
bloodshed in Syria.
Negotiated
settlement? The “rebels” steadfastly refuse to even discuss a
UN-sponsored meeting about negotiations as reported by the Associated
Press. How does Russian involvement threaten something that only
exists in the mind of Liz Sly?
As
for refugees, Sly had previously written a fantastic, tortured story
of how refugees in Lebanon voting absentee and en
masse
for Assad were actually coerced from afar by the nefarious Assad.
This wild disparagement of Syrian refugees' sentiments for Assad
reveals profoundly Sly's lack of understanding of the roots of the
conflict and her determination to view the refugee crisis through the
lens of State Department policy goals and not compassion.
Following
the lead of US policy makers, Sly and her colleague denounce the
Russian bombing targets:
Some of the towns
struck are strongholds of a recently formed coalition, Jaish
al-Fateh, or Army of Conquest, that includes the Syrian al-Qaida
affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra alongside an assortment of Islamist and
moderate factions. Among them was a mosque in the northern Idlib town
of Jisr al-Shugour, whose capture by the rebel coalition in April
underscored the growing threat to the regime.
But
notice how she concedes that Russian planes target a coalition-- a
diverse ideological “assortment”-- of combatants, a concession
that al-Qaida cooperates with the so-called moderates. Surely this
acknowledges that the anti-Assad movement is a snake pit of
opportunists. And the Russians are to be faulted for not asking for a
show of hands within the Army of Conquest?
In
light of the recent criminal bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan, a
murderous act that NO journalist in the West can lay at the US's
doorstep without preceding the fact with a host of mealy-mouthed
“alleged,” “suspected,” or “charged” disclaimers, isn't
it hypocritical that Sly so easily and assuredly blames the Russians
for blowing up a mosque?
Roy
Gutman at McClatchy
(10-3-15) reports that the Kurds, the only reliable fighters against
ISIS, support the Russian effort in Syria: “'We want Russia to
provide us air support as well as weapons in our fight against the
ISIL militants,' a YPG commander, Sipan Hemo, was quoted as telling
the Russian Sputnik
news portal. 'We can organize an effective cooperation with Russia on
the issue'... Some analysts speculated that the YPG was interested in
Russian support because Moscow was unlikely to respond to Turkey's
worries that the Kurds' success would fuel a push for independence
among its own Kurdish minority.”
Similarly,
Iraq's Shiite militia welcome the Russian engagement. The
Washington Post
reports (10-05-15): “...Iraq's most powerful Iranian-backed Shiite
militias said Monday they would welcome Russian airstrikes on IS in
the country and accused the U.S. of failing to act decisively against
the hardline group.”
As
they have in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and so many other countries,
US and NATO meddling in Syria has unleashed destructive forces
further destabilizing the Middle East.
Sadly,
the forthcoming US Presidential elections promise no respite from
this cesspool of hypocrisy. All the Republican candidates separate
themselves from the administration by advocating more military
intervention.
Hilary
Clinton, similarly, appeals to the war mongers by advocating a no-fly
zone over Syria-- an act that would strengthen ISIS and the Islamists
by weakening Assad.
And
Bernie Sanders evades the issue.
Zoltan
Zigedy
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