=by= Stephen Lendman
Syria’s Deir Ez Zor—a pile of rubble. Would you live here? This is what US foreign policy does wherever it casts its criminal shadow. Large portions of the Middle East look like this, unfit for human or animal habitation, while the rain of death continues. (Click on image to fully appreciate the reality.)
A previous article explained Syria’s Foreign Ministry reported US-led warplanes bombed its army camp in Deir ez Zor province – killing three soldiers, injuring 13 others, as well as destroying three armored vehicles, four military vehicles, an arms and ammunition depot, as well as 23mm and 14.5mm machine guns.
The Pentagon denied being caught red-handed in its latest attempt to push back on Russia’s effective intervention against ISIS and other terrorists groups in Syria.
It blamed Moscow for its provocative aggression. An unnamed Pentagon spokesman lied, claiming it’s “certain” a Russian warplane carried out the attack. “We’ve got a radar track showing a Backfire bomber flying directly over the town that the Syrians named a few minutes before the first claims that we killed some Syrian troops.”
Rubble, rubble everywhere. This is what exported “democracy” looks like to those at the receiving end. But the distracted and terminally ignorant American public doesn’t know and probably could care less.
Who knows what Washington has or doesn’t have. It’s “certain” it bore full responsibility for the incident. Russian airstrikes are directed solely against ISIS and other terrorist groups with pinpoint accuracy, shown by photographic evidence each time.
A US-led anti-Assad coalition statement claiming attacks were conducted “against oil well heads” about 35 miles from the Syrian base was a bald-faced lie – compounded by saying its warplanes struck no “personnel targets…We have no indication any Syrian soldiers were near our strikes.”
The dead, injured and destruction tell another tale. Even the pro-Western, London-based, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights surprisingly reported US-led airstrikes attacked a Syrian military post near Ayyash in western Deir al-Zor on Sunday.
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A report by the UK’s The Independent filed by Patrick Cockburn seems to confirm most of Steve Lendman’s assertions, but we do not bring this up because we think Lendman needs validation by Cockburn, if anything, quite the opposite. And while this dispatch by Cockburn is, on balance, helpful, it still carries the characteristic insidious vagueness and outright embedded lies that mar much of his testimony. Declares Cockburn:
Eastern Syria is mostly held by Isis, but the Syrian Kurds have taken much of the northern border area, cutting Isis off from Turkey. Ankara is adamant that it will not allow the Kurds to attack west of the Euphrates to close Isis’s last access and exit point to the outside world. The US is pressuring Turkey to seal the border to Isis by sending up to 30,000 troops to close off the area from the north. The Russians have increased their bombing of the border area in north-west Syria to seal off non-Isis Syrian opposition forces from Turkey.
The Big Lie, which Cockburn in all likelihood knows, is simply this gem:
The US is pressuring Turkey to seal the border to Isis by sending up to 30,000 troops to close off the area from the north…
Really?
If the US had wanted Turkey to close this damn border, Ankara and its tinpot puppet Erdogan would have done so long ago. Washington does not need to plead with the Turks, as the Pentagon owns the Turkish top brass, supplies most of the advanced weaponry, and the would-be sultan Erdogan is an eager partner in NATO crimes in the region.
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It bears repeating, the Pentagon was caught red-handed. Russia so far hasn’t commented on the incident or false accusations claiming its warplanes were responsible.
US, UK, French and other coalition partners continue bombing Syrian infrastructure and government targets. Sunday’s attack was the first known one directed at Assad’s military – suggesting more provocative actions to come.
So far, they’ve included a Turkish warplane downing a Russia Su-24 bomber in Syrian airspace – OK’d by Washington, Ankara obstructing Russian sea traffic through the Bosphorus Strait and Dardanelles in either direction, international waterways in northwest Turkey connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.
Erdogan is involved in stealing, smuggling, transporting, refining and black market selling industrial scale quantities of Iraqi and Syrian oil.
He’s illegally bombing Kurdish fighters in northern Syria and Iraq – on the phony pretext of combating ISIS. His troops operate illegally in northern Iraq, violating its sovereign territory – perhaps to keep oil smuggling routes open and aiming to expand Turkish borders, incorporating parts of northern Iraq and Syria.
Washington is sending more specials forces to Syria on top of thousands already there, along with additional numbers illegally to Syria, perhaps many more to follow.
Fars News reported “US experts” intend turning a “desolate airport…controlled by Kurdish forces in Syria’s Hasaka region…into a (US) military base.”
Runways are being constructed to accommodate US warplanes – the operation entirely illegal, uninvited on foreign soil.
The area is close to the Turkish border, in Northern Syria, a region in which NATO criminal designs and biblical prophecies seem to intersect with the aim of causing Armageddon. (Click on image)
Washington is upping the stakes, escalating things dangerously toward direct confrontation with Russia, a reckless act – complicit with Turkey, Britain and other coalition partners.
Obama earlier promising he’ll “not put American boots on the ground” proved false – one of his many Big Lies. Will full-scale US invasion follow – with thousands of US special forces and perhaps other combat troops, protected by US warplanes?
War winds are blowing dangerously toward gale force. Possible US instigated nuclear war is humanity’s greatest threat.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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The empires treachery knows no bounds. The psychopaths running the show walk a fine line that will surely lead to a nuclear exchange. Which they willfully desire. While 90% of the misinformed, clueless american public fiddle like so many Nero’s. Completely consumed with consumption of any sort.