As hawkish as Hillary Clinton looked to be, Donald Trump has shown no
inclination to become the "Peace Maker". He is simply rattling
different sabres.
The old Establishment which backed Clinton, is on the decline. The
New Establishment, managing Donald Trump, is feeling its way as it
takes over. Trumps billionaires versus Clinton's billionaires. No
room for the Working Class in that struggle. To attempt to have a
voice, the Working Class must stop trying to piggy back on the
shoulders of the Super Rich. When we understand that the Corporate
Empire must have the support of the Working Class, then we may see the
beginning of a revolt. Sure, when enough of us stop supporting and
stop working for the Corporate Empire, times will get hard. But
they're getting tougher all the time even as we continue to do the
bidding of our Billionaire Masters.
We are on the brink of an open declaration of a Military Takeover. Of
course, I've long maintained that we really have undergone a quiet
Coup by our Pentagon.
Anyway, be certain to fasten your safety belts. We're in for one wild ride.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/6/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Truthdig
Inquiry Points Toward a Pentagon Plot to Subvert Obama's Syria Policy
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/report_points_to_a_pentagon_plot_to_subv
ert_obamas_syria_policy_20170105/
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Posted on Jan 5, 2017
By Gareth Porter
President Barack Obama answers a question about Syria and Islamic State
during a news conference in early 2016. (Victor R. Caivano / AP)
Airstrikes by the United States
(http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/9478
39/coalition-halts-airstrike-in-progress-against-possible-syrian-military-po
sition/) and its allies against two Syrian army positions Sept. 17 killed
at least 62 Syrian troops and wounded dozens more. The attack was quickly
treated as a non-story by the U.S. news media; U.S. Central Command
(CENTCOM) claimed the strikes were carried out in the mistaken belief that
Islamic State forces were being targeted, and the story disappeared.
The circumstances surrounding the attack, however, suggested it may have
been deliberate, its purpose being to sabotage President Obama's policy of
coordinating with Russia against Islamic State and Nusra Front forces in
Syria as part of a U.S.-Russian cease-fire agreement.
Normally the U.S. military can cover up illegal operations and mistakes
with
a pro forma military investigation that publicly clears those responsible.
But the air attack on Syrian troops also involved three foreign allies in
the anti-Islamic State campaign named Operation Inherent Resolve: the
United
Kingdom, Denmark and Australia. So, the Pentagon had to agree to bring a
general from one of those allies into the investigation as a co-author of
the report. Consequently, the summary of the investigation
(http://www.centcom.mil/Portals/6/media/REDACTED_FINAL_XSUM_Memorandum__29_N
ov_16___CLEAR.pdf ) released by CENTCOM on Nov. 29 reveals far more than
the Pentagon and CENTCOM brass would have desired.
Thanks to that heavily redacted report, we now have detailed evidence that
the commander of CENTCOM's Air Force component attacked the Syrian army
deliberately.
The Motives Behind a Pentagon Scheme
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and the military establishment had a
compelling motive in the attack of Sept. 17-namely, interest in maintaining
the narrative of a "new Cold War" with Russia, which is crucial to
supporting and expanding the budgets of their institutions. When
negotiations on a comprehensive cease-fire agreement with Russia, including
provisions for U.S.-Russian cooperation on air operations against Islamic
State and Nusra Front, appeared to gain traction last spring, the Pentagon
began making leaks to the news media about its opposition to the Obama
policy. Those receiving the leaks included neoconservative hawk Josh Rogin
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/obama-proposes-new-
military-partnership-with-russia-in-syria/2016/06/29/8e8b2e2a-3e3f-11e6-80bc
-d06711fd2125_story.html?utm_term=.a805f4ec0d1a ) , who had just become a
columnist at The Washington Post.
After Secretary of State John Kerry struck an agreement Sept. 9 that
contained a provision to set up a "Joint Integration Center" (JIC) for
U.S.-Russian cooperation in targeting, the Pentagon sought to reverse it.
Carter grilled Kerry
(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/world/middleeast/syria-john-kerry.html ;)
for hours in an effort to force him to retreat from that provision,
according to The New York Times.
Lobbying against the JIC continued the following week after Obama approved
the full agreement. When the commander of the Central Command's Air Force
component, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigan, was asked about the JIC at a press
briefing Sept. 13, he seemed to suggest that opponents of the provision
were
still hoping to avoid cooperating with the Russians on targeting. He told
reporters that his readiness to join such a joint operation was "going to
depend on what the plan ends up being."
But the Pentagon also had another motive for hitting Syrian troops in Deir
Ezzor. On June 16, Russian planes attacked a remote outpost of a
CIA-supported armed group, called the New Syrian Army, in Deir Ezzor
province near the confluence of Iraq, Syria and Jordan. The Pentagon
demanded an explanation for the attack but never got it.
For senior leaders of the Pentagon and others in the military, a strike
against Syrian army positions in Deir Ezzor would not only offer the
prospect of avoiding the threat of cooperating with Russia militarily, it
would also be payback for what many believed was a Russian poke in the U.S.
eye.
The Evidence in the Investigation Report
On Sept. 16, Gen. Harrigan, who also headed the Combined Air Operations
Center (CAOC) at al-Udeid airbase in Qatar, set in motion the planning for
the attack on the two Syrian army positions. The process began, according
to
the investigation report
(http://www.centcom.mil/Portals/6/media/REDACTED_FINAL_XSUM_Memorandum__29_N
ov_16___CLEAR.pdf ) , on Sept. 16, when Harrigan's command identified two
fighting positions near the Deir Ezzor airport as belonging to Islamic
State, based on drone images showing that the personnel there were not
wearing uniform military garb and, supposedly, displayed no flags.
But, as a former intelligence analyst told me, that was not a legitimate
basis for a positive identification of the sites as Islamic
State-controlled
because Syrian army troops in the field frequently wear a wide range of
uniforms and civilian clothing.
The report contains the incriminating revelation that the authorities at
CAOC had plenty of intelligence warning that its identification was flat
wrong. Before the strike, the regional station of the Distributed Common
Ground System, which is the Air Force's primary intelligence organ for
interpreting data from aerial surveillance, contested the original
identification of the units, sending its own assessment that they could not
possibly be Islamic State. Another pre-strike intelligence report,
moreover,
pointed to what appeared to be a flag at one of the two sites. And a map of
the area that was available to intelligence analysts at CAOC clearly showed
that the sites were occupied by the Syrian army. Harrigan and his command
apparently claimed, implausibly, that they were unaware of any of this
information.
Further evidence that Harrigan meant to strike Syrian army targets was the
haste with which the strike was carried out, the day after the initial
intelligence assessment was made. The investigation summary acknowledges
that the decision to go ahead with a strike so soon after the target had
been initially assessed was a violation of Air Force regulations.
It had started out as a "deliberate target development" process-one that
did
not require an immediate decision and could therefore allow for a more
careful analysis of intelligence. That was because the targets were clearly
fixed ground positions, so there was no need for an immediate strike.
Nevertheless, the decision was made to change it to a "dynamic targeting
process," normally reserved for situations in which the target is moving,
to
justify an immediate strike on Sept. 17.
No one in Harrigan's command, including the commander himself, would
acknowledge having made that decision. That would have been a tacit
admission that the attack was far more than an innocent mistake.
The Deir Ezzor strike appears to have been timed to provoke a breakdown of
the cease-fire before the JIC could be formed, which was originally to be
after seven days of effective truce-meaning Sept. 19. Obama added a
requirement for the completion of humanitarian shipments from the Turkish
border, but the opponents of the JIC could not count on the Syrian
government continuing to hold up the truck convoys. That meant that
Harrigan
would need to move urgently to carry out the strike.
Perhaps the single most damaging piece of evidence that the strike was
knowingly targeting Syrian army bases is the fact that Harrigan's command
sent the Russians very specific misleading information on the targets of
the
operation. It informed its Russian contact under the deconfliction
agreement
that the two targets were nine kilometers south of Deir Ezzor airfield, but
in fact they were only three and six kilometers away, respectively,
according to the summary. Accurate information about the locations would
have set off alarm bells among the Russians, because they would have known
immediately that Syrian army bases were being targeted, as the U.S.
co-author of the investigation report, Gen. Richard Coe, acknowledged to
reporters.
"Who is in charge in Washington?"
Gen. Harrigan's strike worked like a charm in terms of the interests of
those behind it. The hope of provoking a Syrian-Russian decision to end the
cease-fire and thus the plan for the JIC was apparently based on the
assumption that it would be perceived by both Russians and Syrians as
evidence that Obama was not in control of U.S. policy and therefore could
not be trusted as a partner in managing the conflict. That assumption
proved
correct. When Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin,
spoke to reporters at a press briefing outside a U.N. Security Council
emergency meeting on the U.S. attack on Syrian troops, he asked
rhetorically, "Who is in charge in Washington? The White House or the
Pentagon?"
Seemingly no longer convinced that Obama was in control of his own military
in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled the plug on his U.S.
strategy. Two days after the attacks, Syria announced, with obvious Russian
support, that the cease-fire was no longer in effect.
The political-diplomatic consequences for Syrians and for the United
States,
however, were severe. The Russian and Syrian air forces began a campaign of
heavy airstrikes in Aleppo that became the single focus of media attention
on Syria. In mid-December, Secretary of State Kerry recalled in an
interview
(https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/12/17/kerry-leaving-legacy-h
ope-and-determination-role-state/3DqcfBTEvs8euhTThnhvIK/story.html ) with
The Boston Globe that he had had an agreement with the Russians that would
have given the United States "a veto over their flights. ." He lamented
that
"you'd have a different situation there now if we'd been able to do that."
But it didn't happen, Kerry noted, because "we had people in our government
who were bitterly opposed to doing that." What he didn't say was that those
people had the power and the audacity to frustrate the will of the
president
of the United States.
Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and winner of the
2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of the newly published
"Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare."
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