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Iraq to Washington: We Don't Want Your Troops

Wednesday October 28, 2015

What a difference a day makes. Just 24 hours ago US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was telling the Senate Armed Services Committee all about the Obama Administration's new military strategy for the Middle East. The headline grabber from his testimony was the revelation that the US military would begin "direct action on the ground" in Iraq and Syria. 

"We won’t hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL (ISIS)," he told the Committee. The new strategy would consist of "three R's," he said: more US action, including on the ground, with Syrian opposition "partners" to take ISIS stronghold in Raqqa, Syria; more intense cooperation with the Iraqi army including with US-embedded soldiers to retake Ramadi from ISIS in Iraq; and the beginning of US military raids, "whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground.”
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Breaking: Sec Def Tells Congress US to Begin 'Direct Action on the Ground' in Syria and Iraq

Tuesday October 27, 2015

US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that United States military forces would soon begin "direct action on the ground" in Iraq and Syria, promising more missions like the recent operation to free hostages in Iraq that cost the life of US special forces member Sgt. Joshua Wheeler last week.

“We won’t hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL, or conducting such missions directly whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground,” he added.

This signals the beginning of both Iraq War 3.0 and Syria War 1.5. It is unclear whether Iraq would welcome more US troops on the ground, but it is certain that US military operations on Syrian territory are a violation of Syrian sovereignty and therefore illegal under international law.
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Washington: Assad Still Must Go

Tuesday October 27, 2015

At the State Department's daily briefing today, Spokesman John Kirby conceded that the Syrian government led by President Assad may have a role to play in a "political transition" of the country. 

The apparent shift was in response to a reporter who pointed out that Assad is not opposed by the entire population of Syria:

...the Assad regime definitely represents a certain constituency in Syria. The minorities, Christians, even a portion of the Sunnis look at the Syrian regime as their representative, in particular at Bashar al-Assad. Why should Bashar al-Assad be complex nixed out of the process, considering that he controls the larger portion on the ground, proudly asserting themselves as the major power in that conflict on the ground? Why should Assad be nixed out of the process?

State Spokesman Kirby replied:

Nobody said that there wouldn’t be a role for Assad or for the institution of his – institutions of his government in the transition.

It appears to be a slight step back from the previous position that no talks could be held on Syria's future until Assad is out of power. In fact, however, this "shift" is more cosmetic than substantive, as Kirby reiterated that, "nothing’s changed about our position on Bashar al-Assad."
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Into Africa: Obama's Newest War

Thursday October 15, 2015

What to do when an intervention has completely imploded, contributing to 200,000 deaths, destroying a country, and pushing the US closer to a nuclear conflict with Russia than at any time in the past 40 years? 

Well if you are President Obama you press forward with yet another US military intervention!

And of course you ignore the Constitution in the process.

President Obama announced yesterday that he would be sending some 300 US troops to the African country of Cameroon to help battle Boko Haram, a fundamentalist Sunni sect influenced by Wahhabism -- Saudi Arabia's second most famous export. Earlier this year, the leader of Boko Haram allegedly pledged his group's allegiance to ISIS.
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Breaking: Washington Airdrops Tons of Weapons to Rebels in Syria

Monday October 12, 2015

Hopeful news at the end of last week that the Obama Administration was considering disengaging from its schizophrenic war in Syria  has given way to the ugly reality that Washington's neocons in charge will never back away from a fight (as long as they are not doing the fighting). 

First bit of bad news, we saw the policy shift away from vetting and training rebels. The Administration announced that because the $500 million plan to train and equip vetted "moderate" rebels has been an obvious failure, the solution was to remove the training and vetting part of the project and simply send military equipment. From now on only leaders of the rebel groups would be vetted. The fighters would simply be armed, no questions asked.
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Defense Spending Bill: $600 Million More to Train "Moderates" in Syria

Saturday October 10, 2015

Last year's National Defense Authorization Act allocated half a billion dollars to train "vetted," "moderate" rebels to attack ISIS in Syria and also to overthrow the country's sovereign government. This schizophrenic policy goal not surprisingly produced a total (after the others were killed, captured, or willingly gave their weapons to ISIS) of four or five fighters. Even this micro force of five ultimately found itself in the depths of embarrassment as it was carjacked by al-Qaeda. Half a billion dollars to have five guys carjacked! Put ten plumbers in a room and they could craft a more workable foreign policy than the entirety of the US foreign policy establishment.

So how does Capitol Hill respond to such a total failure? Reassess the policy and cut the losses? Welcome the Russian entry into the fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria? Look at Iraq and Libya and decide that regime change is just an illicit fantasy of the perpetual adolescents of the neoconservative movement?
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Why is Washington Against Russia Bombing ISIS and Al-Qaeda?

Thursday October 1, 2015

On Wednesday the Russian military became active in the fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria. Pursuant to a request from the Syrian government, Moscow first began deploying military equipment and trainers as well as humanitarian assistance. Then the Russian parliament approved the use of force, and force was indeed used on Wednesday. 

The Obama Administration is not happy about this development. 

The US has been bombing Syria for a year without permission from the Syrian government and without a UN Security Council resolution authorizing an attack on a sovereign nation. That means US strikes on Syrian soil are illegal according to international law. However the first US response to the Russian strikes against ISIS in Syria was to condemn the Russian government for not coordinating its strikes with the US.
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US Exploited Assad's Fight Against Al-Qaeda

Thursday September 24, 2015

The US government has been relying on its standard narrative that the Syria crisis emerged spontaneously after an "Arab Spring" inspired protest was violently suppressed by the Syrian government. The entire US intervention was justified on these grounds. In other words, the "Assad must go" position of the US government was simply a reflection of his decision to attack his own citizens in 2011. Thus the Obama Administration, as it did in Ukraine, has attempted to disavow any role in fomenting the uprising and thus any responsibility for the violence that ensued.

But like much else in US foreign policy the narrative is wholly false, constructed to propagandize the American people in favor of US intervention and shield the US government from any fallout.

In fact the US government had long had its sights on regime change in Syria, starting at least with the Project for a New American Century's plan peddled to George W. Bush to overthrow five countries in five years and remake the entire Middle East. The neocons always like to think big, but like any slimy salesman they never deliver as promised. Their Iraq "cakewalk" proved a deathwalk.
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UK Assassinates British Citizens In Syria

Tuesday September 8, 2015

British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that his government had used drone strikes to kill two British citizens suspected of membership in ISIS in Syria. This is a major escalation for a country whose parliament voted against British bombing of Syria in 2013. Cameron claimed he had no other choice but to bomb, as there was "no government to work with" in Syria -- after the past four years of US/UK "regime change" policy toward Syria had nothing to do with this! More today on the Liberty Report...
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Prisoner Of Conscience? The Case Of The Kentucky Clerk

Friday September 4, 2015

Civil liberties, civil disobedience, judicial supremacism, state's rights, rule of law, natural rights, etc. The case of Kentucky's county clerk Kim Davis is much more complicated and nuanced than proponents or opponents of her actions would have us believe. As she currently remains in jail for refusing to sign marriage certificates for same-sex couples, the Ron Paul Liberty Report takes a look at the many ways of looking at this very difficult issue...
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