Via Global Research.
Everything I wrote about yesterday is born out once again in this article by Mike Whitney. The bombing of Syrian troops at Deir Ezzor was a decision by the Pentagon that could only have been approved at the highest levels, and I mean Ash Carter, Secretary of Defense, who has a near-psychotic hatred of Russia. Before this happened, Debka informed me that the Pentagon and the CIA were already rebelling against the new deal that would have required the US and Russia to cooperate against Syrian Al Qaeda. But Syrian Al Qaeda is our strongest ally in the war against Assad. Most of our weapons go to them and groups like them. How can cooperate against our Al Qaeda buddies? We can’t. Hence the rebellion where the Pentagon renounced civilian control of the military and decided to bomb Syrian troops against the wishes of the Commander in Chief. It’s a dirty game these bastards are playing.
I’ve talked a long time about the Deep State. Well part of the Deep State is the Pentagon and the CIA. It’s the Pentagon and the CIA who are behind all of these attacks in violation of civilian authority over the army. So the Deep State is defying the President and his Administration, but that would not be unusual as it’s the Deep State that really runs the country, not whatever Administration or certainly Congress is in power. Dirty game.
You must understand the mindset of the CIA. The CIA believes that US Administrations come and go, but none of them really affect the CIA’s overall goals much. Nor do CIA directors. The CIA believes that directors come and go, but the CIA still does whatever it wants no matter who is in charge. If an administration tries to put one of their guys in charge of the CIA like Panetta in order to reign in the CIA, the CIA will simply disobey him or they will make it so that the CIA Director obeys the CIA and not the other way around. Dirty game.
They can’t get a UN Security Council resolution for attacking Assad or for their insane no-fly zone, so they are thinking about attacking Assad surreptitiously, possibly via third parties, and then denying that we did it. Dirty game.
Of course soon after these threats were issued, our main ally on the ground, Syrian Al Qaeda, launched a mortar strike against the Russian Embassy in Damascus. We might as well just say that the US military launched a mortar attack on that embassy, but we did it via our jihadist pals on the ground so we’re not responsible. Dirty game.
The idea here is to ramp up support for Al Qaeda and the rest of the headchoppers by flooding them with weapons including MANPADS to take down jets, thereby trapping Russia in a quagmire in Syria. The model here would be Afghanistan, where we flooded maniacal jihadis not too different from the ones in Syria with the explicit goal of trapping the USSR in a quagmire, which is precisely what happened. Dirty game.
After the bombing of Syrian troops at Deir Ezzor on September 17, US jets bombed two bridges over the Euphrates River in ISIS territory. There was no objective military reason for these attacks except that Syrian troops need to cross those bridges if they are going to attack the core of ISIS held territory. So here we are once again carrying out airstrikes in support of ISIS as we did at Deir Ezzor. We should change the name of the US Air Force to the ISIS Air Force. So we are attacking ISIS and supporting them at the same time. It all seems so insane, but this is standard practice for US military foreign policy skullduggery. Dirty game.
At the end, Whitney points out that Russia has just threatened to attack any air forces attacking Syrian forces on the basis that Russian forces are embedded with Syrian troops all over Syria, so Russia says an attack on the SAA is an attack on the Russian military. They will shoot down any jets, drones or cruise missiles that attack Assad. Checkmate.
I can’t believe we are doing this. We are threatening to go to war with in order to support Al Qaeda of all people. What the Hell happened to my country.
Pentagon Begins Low-Intensity, Stealth War In Syria
“Last Wednesday, at a Deputies Committee meeting at the White House, officials from the State Department, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed limited military strikes against the (Assad) regime … One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment.” – Washington Post.
Call it stealth warfare, call it poking the bear, call it whatever you’d like. The fact is, the Syrian war has entered a new and more dangerous phase increasing the chances of a catastrophic confrontation between the US and Russia. This new chapter of the conflict is the brainchild of Pentagon warlord, Ash Carter, whose attack on a Syrian outpost at Deir Ezzor killed 62 Syrian regulars putting a swift end to the fragile ceasefire agreement.
Carter and his generals opposed the Kerry-Lavrov ceasefire deal because it would have required “military and intelligence cooperation with the Russians”. In other words, the US would have had to get the green light from Moscow for its bombing targets which would have undermined its ability to assist its jihadist fighters on the ground. That was a real deal-breaker for the Pentagon. But bombing Deir Ezzor fixed all that. It got the Pentagon out of the jam it was in, it torpedoed the ceasefire, and it allowed Carter to launch his own private shooting match without presidential authorization.
Mission accomplished. So what sort of escalation does Carter have in mind, after all, most analysts assume that a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia will lead to a nuclear war. Is he really willing to take that risk? Heck no, but not everyone agrees that more violence will lead to a nuclear exchange. Carter, for example, seems to think that he can raise the stakes considerably without any real danger, which is why he intends to conduct a low-intensity, stealth war on mainly Syrian assets that will force Putin to increase Russia’s military commitment. The larger Russia’s military commitment, the greater probability of a quagmire, which is the primary objective of Plan C, aka–Plan Carter. Take a look at this clip from an article in Tuesday’s Washington Post which helps to explain what’s going on:
“U.S. military strikes against the Assad regime will be back on the table Wednesday at the White House, when top national security officials in the Obama administration are set to discuss options for the way forward in Syria… Inside the national security agencies, meetings have been going on for weeks to consider new options to recommend to the president to address the ongoing crisis in Aleppo…
A meeting of the National Security Council, which could include the president, could come as early as this weekend. Last Wednesday, at a Deputies Committee meeting at the White House, officials from the State Department, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed limited military strikes against the regime… The options under consideration… include bombing Syrian air force runways using cruise missiles and other long-range weapons fired from coalition planes and ships… One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment, the official said.” (Obama administration considering strikes on Assad, again, Washington Post).
Don’t you think the Washington Post should have mentioned that Carter’s sordid-little enterprise is already underway? Consider the bombing of Deir Ezzor, for example. Doesn’t that meet the Post’s standard of “U.S. military strikes against the Assad regime”? Sure, it does. And what about the two Syrian bridges US warplanes took out over the Euphrates last week (making it more difficult to attack ISIS strongholds in the eastern quadrant of the country)?
Don’t they count? Of course, they do. And let’s not forget the fact that Carter’s jihadist buddies on the ground launched a mortar attack on the Russian embassy in Damascus on Tuesday. That’s another part of this low-intensity war that’s already underway. So all this rubbish about Obama mulling over these “new options” for “military strikes” is complete hogwash. Plan Carter is already in full swing, the train already left the station. The only thing missing is presidential authorization which probably isn’t necessary since Il Duce Carter decided that it was his turn to run the country. Now check out this clip from a Memo to the President from a group of ex-U.S. intelligence agents who compelled to warn Obama about (among other things) “asserting White House civilian control over the Pentagon.” Here’s an excerpt:
“In public remarks bordering on the insubordinate, senior Pentagon officials showed unusually open skepticism regarding key aspects of the Kerry-Lavrov deal. We can assume that what Lavrov told his boss in private is close to his uncharacteristically blunt words on Russian NTV on Sept. 26: “My good friend John Kerry … is under fierce criticism from the US military machine.
Despite the fact that, as always, [they] made assurances that the US Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama, supported him in his contacts with Russia… apparently the military does not really listen to the Commander in Chief.” Lavrov’s words are not mere rhetoric … Policy differences between the White House and the Pentagon are rarely as openly expressed as they are now over policy on Syria.” (Obama Warned to Defuse Tensions with Russia, Consortium News)
How shocking is that? When was the last time you read a memo from retired Intel agents warning the president that the Pentagon was usurping his Constitutional authority? That sounds pretty serious, don’t you think? Bottom line: The Pentagon is basically prosecuting their own little war in Syria and then chatting up the policy with Obama when they damn well feel like it. Here’s more from the Washington Post:
“The CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff … expressed support for such “kinetic” options, the official said … That marked an increase of support for striking Assad compared with the last time such options were considered.” (Washington Post)
Of course they want to bomb Assad. They’re losing! Everyone wants to bomb someone when they’re losing. It’s human nature. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. It’s a very bad idea. Just like supporting Sunni extremists is a bad idea. Just like giving shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS) to fanatical crackpots is a bad idea. How crazy is that? And how long before one of these religious nutcases use their new toys to take down an Israeli or American jetliner? Not very long, I’d wager. The idea of doubling-down on homicidal maniacs (by providing them with more lethal weapons) is really one of the dumbest ideas of all time, and yet, the Pentagon and CIA seem to think that it’s tip-top military strategy. Here’s one last blurb from the WA Post article:
“Kerry’s deputy, Antony Blinken, testified last week that the U.S. leverage in Russia comes from the notion that Russia will eventually become weary of the cost of its military intervention in Syria. “The leverage is the consequences for Russia of being stuck in a quagmire that is going to have a number of profoundly negative effects,” Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.” (Washington Post)
See? There it is in black and white. “Quagmire”. The new “Plan C” strategy is designed to create a quagmire for Putin by gradually ratcheting up the violence forcing him to prolong his stay and deepen his commitment. It’s a clever trap and it could work, too. The only hitch is that Putin and his allies appear to be making steady headway on the battlefield. That’s going to make a lot harder for Syria’s enemies to continue the provocations and incitements without triggering massive retaliation. But maybe Carter hasn’t thought about that yet.
NOTE: Russia Issues Warning to Pentagon; Hostile Aircraft That Threatens Syrian Troops Will Be Shot Down.
This is from a Thursday report on Sputnik International:
“The Russian Minister of Defense said “that “Russian S-300, S-400 air defense systems deployed in Syria’s Hmeymim and Tartus have combat ranges that may surprise any unidentified airborne targets. Operators of Russian air defense systems won’t have time to identify the origin of airstrikes, and the response will be immediate. Any illusions about “invisible” jets will inevitably be crushed by disappointing reality.” No More Deir ez-Zors. “I point out to all the ‘hotheads’ that following the September 17 coalition airstrike on the Syrian Army in Deir ez-Zor, we took all necessary measures to exclude any similar ‘accidents’ happening to Russian forces in Syria,” Konashenkov said. (Sputnik)
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [email protected].
The original source of this article is Information Clearing House Copyright © Mike Whitney, Information Clearing House, 2016
