On September 17, 2014, the United States House of Representatives voted to approve the White House plan to arm and train the alleged “moderate” Syrian rebels. The vote was 273-156 in favor of the $500 million plan. Of course, the bill in question was actually an amendment that was cynically attached to a bill designed to continue funding for the federal government in the short-term, ensuring maximum support from members of the House.
Then, on Thursday September 19, the U.S. Senate followed suit by approving the plan as well. The support for the plan in the Senate was, as expected, bipartisan with members such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, John McCain, John Boehner, and Lindsey Graham voting “Yes” on the bill.
Yet, while the amendment was sold to the American people and even members of Congress as Obama’s plan to “detect and degrade” ISIS, the reality is that the plan is nothing more than a plan to detect and destroy the Syrian government to benefit of ISIS and other fundamentalist groups that the United States has created, funded, trained, and directed since the very beginning of the Syrian crisis.
Even Congressman Justin Amash was able to recognize the fact that this new amendment was a clever disguise for a war on the secular government of Syria with no options off the table, including the use of ground troops.
Today’s amendment ostensibly is aimed at destroying ISIS—yet you’d hardly know it from reading the amendment’s text. The world has witnessed with horror the evil of ISIS: the public beheading of innocents, the killing of Christians, Muslims, and others.
The amendment’s focus—arming groups fighting the Assad government in Syria—has little to do with defeating ISIS.The mission that the amendment advances plainly isn’t the defeat of ISIS; it’s the defeat of Assad.
If the Syrian groups that are “appropriately vetted” (the amendment’s language) succeed and oust Assad, what would result? Would the groups assemble a coalition government of anti-Assad fighters, and would that coalition include ISIS? What would happen to the Alawites and Christians who stood with Assad? To what extent would the U.S. government be obligated to occupy Syria to rebuild the government? If each of the groups went its own way, would Syria’s territory be broken apart, and if so, would ISIS control one of the resulting countries?
The truth is not that “we don’t know much about the groups we are funding in Syria.” The truth is that “we” know full well that they are ISIS/Al-Qaeda terrorists, with only an occasional name change and branch off due to Western political motives or internal squabbling. That has been and still is the whole point.
There never were any moderates to support in Syria to begin with.
In Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, rebels aligned with Al Qaeda control the power plant, run the bakeries and head a court that applies Islamic law. Elsewhere, they have seized government oil fields, put employees back to work and now profit from the crude they produce.
Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government.
Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of. [emphasis added]
For those who may not see the pattern – while the United States and NATO deliberated engaging in targeted airstrikes in Syria and the Syrian government subsequently states its opposition to those attacks and its intentions to shoot down the planes delivering those strikes if they do not coordinate with the Syrian government, death squads have effectively eliminated the air defense capability of the Syrian government in the east of the country.
After all, the Pentagon even stated that one of the biggest threats to an airstrike operation in Syria is the Syrian government’s air defenses. Thanks to ISIS, those air defenses no longer exist in the east of Syria.
This was the end game of the ISIS battle to take over Taqba from the start – eliminate air defenses so that the NATO powers can launch airstrikes against the Syrian military and thus freeing up a launching pad for the terrorists to conduct attacks even deeper into Syria.
While the White House’s recent “plan” to “detect and degrade” ISIS is simply more of the same rhetoric covering the fact that NATO has been funding, arming, training, and directing ISIS and related organizations for the purpose of overthrowing Assad.
Clashes happened on Sunday at the Turkish-Syrian border as Turkish security troops fired tear gas and water cannons on Syrian Kurd refugees trying to flee the onslaught of Islamic State militants.
Amid the clashes, Turkish authorities temporarily closed the border, through which at least 70,000 people have fled the violence in Syria this week.
There were conflicting reports on what triggered the clashes. The state-run Anadolu Agency said the Kurds started throwing stones at the security forces trying to keep out a large group of Kurdish onlookers. Private NTV television said the group wanted to transport aid to Syrian Kurds on the other side of the border.
The altercations happened after the Kurdish militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) called on young Turkish Kurds to take up arms and go to Syria to help Kurds against IS attacks. The PKK has fought for secession from Turkey for three decades and is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that more than 300 Kurdish fighters have crossed into Syria from Turkey lately.
Syrian Kurds have been fleeing to Turkey since Tuesday, when the Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS) launched an offensive operation against Kurd-populated areas in the north of the country. The IS has captured at least 64 villages around the border city of Ayn al-Arab, which Kurds call Kobani.
According to estimates by the UN’s refugee agency, at least 70,000 Kurds, most of them women, children and elderly people, have fled to Turkey since Saturday alone. The total number of refugees may be as high as 100,000.
Arab stone throwers attacked a bus full of Jewish school children near Jerusalem’s Old City on Sunday morning, causing damage but no physical injuries.
The attack occurred in the valley between the Old City and the Mount of Olives. The children were on a field trip at the time of the attack.
The assailants managed to shatter part of the bus’ windshield, and a number of terrified children were treated for shock.
The attack was the latest in what the Israeli media has dubbed “the silent intifada”.
In July and August, no fewer than 152 attacks on Jewish residents of Jerusalem were registered with police, and the violence appears to be escalating as September nears its end.
Police have arrested hundreds of local Arab residents believed involved in the attacks. Some of the suspected perpetrators are as young as nine-years-old.
Mayor Nir Barkat has vowed to continue the crackdown until peace is restored to all neighborhoods in the capital, but many fear the authorities will not truly do what is necessary until the rioters and terrorists manage to spill Jewish blood.
“Until there is blood, no one is going to take the hard measures needed to end this violence,” wrote Orly Goldklang, deputy editor of the Israeli daily newspaper Makor Rishon. “These relatively minor acts of terror (and Israel’s failure to react strongly) are setting the stage for much larger attacks.”
Indeed, this has been a common criticism of Israeli authorities for years. Typically, the police and army are not given a green light to respond in force until enough Israelis are killed or wounded.
“If we don’t come to our senses soon, a far greater outbreak of violence is only a matter of time,” warned columnist Nadav Shragai in the daily Israel Hayom.
Fresh deadly clashes have erupted in eastern Ukraine, killing seven and injuring eight as representatives from Kiev and pro-Russia forces prepare to discuss the ceasefire violations.
Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said on Friday that two soldiers were killed and three others injured in the last 24 hours, the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency reported.
A search was also launched for six servicemen who reportedly went missing, the spokesman said, adding that the injuries were caused by artillery fire across the region.
Local authorities asserted that pro-Russia forces violated the ceasefire by shelling government positions.
The militias, however, said they only returned fire after they were attacked by government forces.
Meanwhile, despite the violence, representatives of the Kiev government and separatist leaders are expected to attend fresh talks in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, later in the day.
Alexei Karyakin, a separatist leader from Lugansk, said the main topic would be to ensure that the ceasefire is respected.
He added that a special role should be given to monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The unlimited ceasefire was introduced on September 5 after an OSCE-mediated round of talks in Minsk.
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