Moscow, suspected of stepping up its military involvement in the Syrian conflict, is coming under fire from the White House. While it’s known that Russia wants its ally the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to endure and has been supplying the Syrian Army with weapons as well as military advisers, reports suggest that Russian infantry forces are now operating within the country.
American President Barack Obama has characterised this new Russian push as “a big mistake” that’s “doomed to fail.” Moreover, he’s successfully pressed hard on Bulgaria to refuse Russian aircraft to use its airspace and is leaning on NATO-member Greece to do the same. At the same time, he’s liaising with Turkey that’s more interested in bombing Kurdish militias than Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has confirmed that some flights are indeed transporting weapons together with humanitarian aid to Syria, but the Kremlin won’t confirm or deny the presence of troops, other than trainers and advisers.
Quite frankly, Obama doesn’t have a leg to stand on from a moral or strategic perspective. He’s done next to nothing to halt this four-and-a-half-year civil war that’s seen 250,000 killed and 11 million displaced from their homes.
Early on, he praised the Free Syrian Army (FSA), promised them heavy weapons and then abandoned those ‘moderate’ fighters who complained they had to ration bullets. Most FSA soldiers have now joined Islamist or terrorist groups with more effective hardware. It’s likely, too, that the 5,000-plus trained by the CIA were Islamists who’ve since joined Daesh, Al Qaida and Jabhat Al Nusra.
Obama was left with egg on his face when he reneged on acting upon his own “red line”—his pledge to target Syrian military and chemical sites—were the regime to deploy chemical weapons, which a United States official has confirmed is now being manufactured by Daesh, while there are reports it’s being used against civilians in the form of mustard gas causing suffocation, blistering skin, vomiting and abdominal pain. Children are dying and all Obama does is tut-tut.
Refugees in camps based in Jordan have now been told their life-saving aid is about to be cut off because of lack of funds, leaving them hungry. Hundreds of thousands fleeing bombs and Daesh atrocities are flooding in to Europe and who can blame them! If you or I were forced to walk in their shoes, we would do the same.
Yet, all we hear from Western capitals, in particular, Paris and London, is talk about air strikes which haven’t worked in Iraq and won’t in Syria.
Even US Secretary of State John Kerry admits there is no solution without ground forces, adding that America has no intention of inserting boots on the ground. It’s a pity that President George W. Bush didn’t share that same mindset. If he had, there would be few Iraqi and Afghan refugees facing police batons, teargas and inhumane relocation camps in Hungary, where they are crammed alongside Syrians behind barbed wire scrambling to catch sandwiches.
Deaths by humiliation
I heard a middle-aged Syrian refugee with young children express the feelings of many, saying death by a bomb would have been preferable to the thousands of deaths by humiliation he and his family have suffered traversing Macedonia and Hungary.
The US and its Western allies have left a void in Syria and if that’s being filled by Russia, so be it. Where is Obama’s plan? He’s never had one except to head up useless Geneva conferences. And he’s still calling for a political settlement even when the regime controls 25-30 percent of the country whereas by some estimates Daesh controls more than 50 percent—the remainder held by warring rebels. Does Obama intend to hold talks with ‘Caliph’ Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the Daesh leader, I wonder?
If Russia is taking the lead partnered with Iran, believed to have dispatched hundreds of its elite Quds Force to Syria within recent days, then this is the fault of the so-called Leader of the Free World. For all his moral certitude and trumpeting of America’s values, he has stood back watching Al Assad’s own people who’ve been thrown to the mercy of the most bestial terrorist group the world has ever known. Those who believed that Obama would help them were left stranded.
Almost all the Syrian refugees interviewed say they want nothing more than to return home. They don’t want to be strangers in foreign lands where—with the exception of Germany, Austria and Sweden—they are looked upon as scroungers or potential terrorists. Setting aside geopolitical considerations, any country or countries ready, able and willing to eradicate the head-chopping hoards should be supported.
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.
RSS
US angry as Russia tips the balance in Syria
Posted on September 16, 2015 by Linda S. Heard
Moscow, suspected of stepping up its military involvement in the Syrian conflict, is coming under fire from the White House. While it’s known that Russia wants its ally the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to endure and has been supplying the Syrian Army with weapons as well as military advisers, reports suggest that Russian infantry forces are now operating within the country.
American President Barack Obama has characterised this new Russian push as “a big mistake” that’s “doomed to fail.” Moreover, he’s successfully pressed hard on Bulgaria to refuse Russian aircraft to use its airspace and is leaning on NATO-member Greece to do the same. At the same time, he’s liaising with Turkey that’s more interested in bombing Kurdish militias than Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has confirmed that some flights are indeed transporting weapons together with humanitarian aid to Syria, but the Kremlin won’t confirm or deny the presence of troops, other than trainers and advisers.
Quite frankly, Obama doesn’t have a leg to stand on from a moral or strategic perspective. He’s done next to nothing to halt this four-and-a-half-year civil war that’s seen 250,000 killed and 11 million displaced from their homes.
Early on, he praised the Free Syrian Army (FSA), promised them heavy weapons and then abandoned those ‘moderate’ fighters who complained they had to ration bullets. Most FSA soldiers have now joined Islamist or terrorist groups with more effective hardware. It’s likely, too, that the 5,000-plus trained by the CIA were Islamists who’ve since joined Daesh, Al Qaida and Jabhat Al Nusra.
Obama was left with egg on his face when he reneged on acting upon his own “red line”—his pledge to target Syrian military and chemical sites—were the regime to deploy chemical weapons, which a United States official has confirmed is now being manufactured by Daesh, while there are reports it’s being used against civilians in the form of mustard gas causing suffocation, blistering skin, vomiting and abdominal pain. Children are dying and all Obama does is tut-tut.
Refugees in camps based in Jordan have now been told their life-saving aid is about to be cut off because of lack of funds, leaving them hungry. Hundreds of thousands fleeing bombs and Daesh atrocities are flooding in to Europe and who can blame them! If you or I were forced to walk in their shoes, we would do the same.
Yet, all we hear from Western capitals, in particular, Paris and London, is talk about air strikes which haven’t worked in Iraq and won’t in Syria.
Even US Secretary of State John Kerry admits there is no solution without ground forces, adding that America has no intention of inserting boots on the ground. It’s a pity that President George W. Bush didn’t share that same mindset. If he had, there would be few Iraqi and Afghan refugees facing police batons, teargas and inhumane relocation camps in Hungary, where they are crammed alongside Syrians behind barbed wire scrambling to catch sandwiches.
Deaths by humiliation
I heard a middle-aged Syrian refugee with young children express the feelings of many, saying death by a bomb would have been preferable to the thousands of deaths by humiliation he and his family have suffered traversing Macedonia and Hungary.
The US and its Western allies have left a void in Syria and if that’s being filled by Russia, so be it. Where is Obama’s plan? He’s never had one except to head up useless Geneva conferences. And he’s still calling for a political settlement even when the regime controls 25-30 percent of the country whereas by some estimates Daesh controls more than 50 percent—the remainder held by warring rebels. Does Obama intend to hold talks with ‘Caliph’ Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the Daesh leader, I wonder?
If Russia is taking the lead partnered with Iran, believed to have dispatched hundreds of its elite Quds Force to Syria within recent days, then this is the fault of the so-called Leader of the Free World. For all his moral certitude and trumpeting of America’s values, he has stood back watching Al Assad’s own people who’ve been thrown to the mercy of the most bestial terrorist group the world has ever known. Those who believed that Obama would help them were left stranded.
Almost all the Syrian refugees interviewed say they want nothing more than to return home. They don’t want to be strangers in foreign lands where—with the exception of Germany, Austria and Sweden—they are looked upon as scroungers or potential terrorists. Setting aside geopolitical considerations, any country or countries ready, able and willing to eradicate the head-chopping hoards should be supported.
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.