On 6/3/17, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Murder is murder. Violence begets violence. There has never been a
"good war". Even our Civil War President Abe Lincoln did not begin
with the intention of freeing the Slaves. I was born during FDR's
first term. Since that time we have not had a president who did not
have blood on his hands. Even having voted for Barack Obama in 2008,
I could not vote for him in 2012. While some of the President Parade
during my 82 years have only a small measure of respect from me, at
least I could say that I respected the Office of the President. Not
so with Donald Trump. I do not need to seek out Trump's naysayers to
form my opinion of the man. Every action, every speech, every Tweet
drips with insincerity and he sounds to me as if he is sneering at the
American People. Trump's reign is the culmination of a nation that
consistently comes in on the side of Tyranny over democracy. Bloody
hands, lying lips, and a crotch grabbing Ape is no example to prove
Americans respect for the Office.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/3/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Victims of an airstrike in Idlib, Syria. (photo: AFP)
After US Bombs Syrian Government for Third Time in 8 Months, Media Ask
Few
Questions
By Ben Norton, FAIR
02 June 17
The United States has bombed Syrian government-allied forces three times
in
just eight months. Major media outlets have overwhelmingly failed to ask
critical questions about these incidents, preferring instead to echo the
Pentagon.
For years, media have consistently downplayed the extent of US military
intervention in Syria, and repeatedly propagated the long-debunked myth
that
Washington never pursued regime change there in the first place. The
distorted reporting on these US attacks reflects this longer trend.
On May 18, the US military launched an air raid against forces allied
with
the Syrian government, killing several soldiers. The Trump administration
claimed Syrian- and Iranian-backed militias had entered a 55-kilometer
(34-mile) "deconfliction zone" around a base in southern Syria, near the
borders of Iraq and Jordan, where the US trains opposition fighters.
Yet US officials also later admitted that they do not themselves
recognize
the legitimacy of these de-escalation zones-even while using them to
justify
carrying out such attacks.
No major media outlets questioned the government narrative, or the notion
that the Syrian-allied forces were a "threat." (For context, 34 miles is
the
distance between Aleppo and Idlib, considered two separate theaters in
the
Syrian civil war. It is also roughly the distance between Baghdad and
Fallujah, or between Washington, DC, and Baltimore.)
In its report on the attack, Reuters' cartoonish headline (5/18/17) was
"US
Strikes Syria Militia Threatening US-Backed Forces: Officials." The
article
uncritically repeated that an unnamed pro-government militia "posed a
threat
to US and US-backed Syrian fighters in the country's south."
Reuters added that, when those "threatening" government-allied forces
were
hit, they were allegedly still a distant 27 kilometers (17 miles) from
the
US-led coalition's al-Tanf base.
USA Today (5/18/17) simply noted that the "forces came within a 34-mile
defensive zone around the al-Tanf base," and unskeptically claimed the US
airstrike "targeted pro-regime forces who were threatening a coalition
base."
Fox News (5/18/17) triumphantly declared, "US Airstrikes Pound Pro-Assad
Forces in Syria." Obediently echoing the US government, Fox claimed the
Syrian forces "were near the Jordanian border and deemed a threat to
coalition partners on the ground."
The New York Times' report was similarly deferential (5/18/17), echoing
Pentagon officials who insisted the pro-government convoy "ignored
warnings."
Unquestioned Double Standards
Later follow-up statements added a wrinkle to the US government narrative
the media had parroted.
In peace talks in early May, Russia, Iran and Turkey signed an agreement
to
create four deconfliction zones in Syria. This deal was supposed to apply
to
the US as well, but the Trump administration has refused to recognize the
legitimacy of these de-escalation zones-even while using them to justify
attacks on Syrian government-allied forces.
The US military official who is leading the air war against ISIS, Air
Force
Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, insisted at a May 24 press conference (The
Hill,
5/24/17), "We don't recognize any specific zone in itself that we
preclude
ourselves from operating in."
Harrigian stressed that the US carries out whatever air strikes it wants
in
Syria. "We do not have specific zones that we are deconflicting with
them,"
the general said. "When we've talked to the Russians, we do not talk
about
those deescalation zones."
Yet media reports still went along with the narrative that US forces were
"threatened" by Syrian government-allied forces miles away in a zone that
the US does not even accept as legitimate.
An anonymous CENTCOM official quoted two weeks after the attack by
Military
Times (5/30/17) complained, "These patrols and the continued armed and
hostile presence of pro-regime forces inside the deconfliction zone are
unacceptable and threatening to coalition forces."
Meanwhile, Syrian rebels applauded the US attack and called for more
strikes
against the government.
'First Time' for a Third Time
Immediately after the May 18 airstrike, media portrayed the attack as
something completely new. The Associated Press published a newswire
headlined "US Airstrike Hits Pro-Syria Government Forces for First Time,"
which was reprinted by the Washington Post and Yahoo News. Foreign
Policy
(5/18/17) similarly claimed "US Bombs Syrian Regime Forces for First
Time."
In reality, this was the third time in eight months that the US bombed
Syrian government and allied forces. Some of these reports, strangely,
even
acknowledged the Trump administration's April strike on a Syrian
airfield,
but acted as though this somehow did not constitute an attack.
In September 17, 2016, the Syrian military was leading a fight against
the
genocidal extremist group ISIS near the airport of Deir al-Zor, in
eastern
Syria. Suddenly, the US launched an hour of sustained airstrikes on the
Syrian military, killing 106 soldiers in the attack, according to the
Syrian
government.
The US insisted the air raid was an accident and that it had meant to
target
ISIS militants. This has been called into question, however. A senior
officer in the Syrian Arab Army said the US-led coalition had sent drones
above the Syrian troops' positions before the attack, so it knew where
they
were situated. The officer also recalled that the majority of the US
airstrikes were not targeted at the frontline, where the Syrian soldiers
were fighting ISIS.
Ultimately, it was the self-declared Islamic State that benefited from
the
US attack. The extremist group seized important areas around the Deir
al-Zor
airport. The US air raid also led to a breakdown in the ceasefire in
Syria
that had been agreed to just six days before.
Since President Donald Trump entered office, the US has launched two more
intentional attacks on pro-government forces. In April, the US launched
59
Tomahawk missiles at Syria's Shayrat airbase, in an attack that the
Pentagon
said destroyed 20 percent of Syria's war planes. Trump claimed the strike
was done in retaliation for a chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun, a
village
in the Al Qaeda-dominated province of Idlib, although this accusation has
been called into question by some arms experts.
This incident, the US's first officially intentional attack on the Syrian
government, also in effect aided ISIS, which launched an offensive near
the
city of Homs immediately afterward.
Unasked Questions
Many questions remain unanswered. Why can the US use deconfliction zones
it
does not even itself recognize to justify attacking Syrian
government-allied
forces? Do the US and UK have the right to tell Syria where its forces
can
go in its own country? How is 34, or 17, miles "close"? How can the US
attack Syrian government forces without benefiting ISIS, a group that
routinely threatens Western civilians?
A strong independent media should be asking these important questions.
Instead, news outlets are effectively recycling government press
releases.
For their part, Syria and Russia were furious after the May 18 strike.
"This
brazen attack by the so-called international coalition exposes the
falseness
of its claims to be fighting terrorism," declared a Syrian military
official
on state media. The Syrian government said "a number of people" were
killed,
and equipment including a tank and a bulldozer were struck.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called the attack "a breach of Syrian
sovereignty," and Russia's deputy foreign minister said it was
"completely
unacceptable."
Yet the apparent presupposition shared and spread by corporate media is
that
Syria now belongs to the US, and the US can do whatever it wants in the
country without anyone questioning it-especially not media outlets, which
have been bending over backward to defend US actions.
Escalating US Military Intervention
The May 18 US air raid at the town of al-Tanf is only the latest in a
string
of attacks that have steadily been growing under Trump. The US has not
officially declared war in Syria, although for more than 1,000 days it
has
waged thousands of airstrikes in the country, most of which have targeted
ISIS.
Thousands of civilians have been killed in the US air campaign, which
began
in September 2014.
Even the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights-which is frequently cited by
media as an impartial observer, even though it until recently had the
Syrian
opposition flag openly at the top of its website and consists essentially
of
one man in England-has acknowledged the massive civilian casualties.
In the month from mid-April to mid-May alone, at least 225 civilians were
killed in US-led air strikes in Syria, including 44 children and 36
women,
according to the Observatory. From February to March, another 220
civilians
were killed.
The bombing campaign against ISIS has killed many civilians in Iraq as
well
as Syria. FAIR has previously detailed how media outlets have whitewashed
and downplayed US complicity in the deaths of hundreds of civilians in
Mosul, Iraq.
Media should be asking critical questions about US military intervention
in
Syria and beyond. Instead, they are downplaying US involvement and
relaying
Pentagon press releases.
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