Tag: Airstrikes

Syria: Hours Tick Away

The hours go by and we still have not given an adequate response to the alleged chemical attack on civilians by the Syrian military……there was going to be a response in 48 hours well that was about 96 hours ago…..

But while we await the administration’s response to the attack there is something to consider.

I do nor believe that the culprit in the attack has not been adequately identified…..

If you’re feeling an unnerving sense of deja vu amid recent global developments, it’s because we have been here before — many times.

The United States and its allies have been accusing the Syrian government of committing chemical weapons attacks in Syria almost since the conflict began in 2011. In August 2012, then-President Barack Obama publicly warned the Assad government that the red line for his administration was “a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized,” which would prompt a U.S. intervention. (Additionally, after Obama successfully had Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi assassinated in 2011, he also indicated to Assad that he would be next.)

http://theantimedia.com/syria-chemical-weapons-attack-lied/

There are still many questions that need asking and answering…..this administration does not give me confidence that we are being told the truth this time around…..

There are too many pitfalls in any action that would involve Russian or Turkish ……this is not going to end well.

No Good Options For Syria

Trump has promised some sort of action against Assad in retaliation for his supposed chem attack on civilians……will Trump actually listen to his advisers or FOX News?

Are the options any good?

On the evening of 7 April 2018, the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Douma was subjected to an apparent chemical weapons attack. According to local first responders, the attack killed more than 42 residents sheltering in their homes and affected more than 500. The attack came as Syrian government forces subjected the city to a surge in conventional bombing after negotiations stalled over the city’s surrender.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/eastern-mediterranean/syria/can-us-respond-syria-chemical-weapons-attack-without-risking-escalation

More information on the possibilities after the retaliation…..

With war ‘fanatic’ John Bolton in the White House for the first time as his new national security advisor on Monday night, President Donald Trump gathered his military advisors together as lawmakers and anti-war policy experts raised warnings that any move by the president to attack Syria in the wake of a suspected chemical attack over the weekend would not only be extremely “dangerous” but also “illegal.”

“President Trump’s threat to attack Syrian forces in response to a chemical weapons attack is a reckless, knee jerk reaction to a complex and dangerous situation,” Martin said. “There hasn’t been an independent investigation into the chemical weapons attack, Congress still hasn’t debated or authorized the use of force in Syria, and there is still no international legal basis for U.S. military action in Syria.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/10/critics-warn-any-us-attack-syria-ordered-trump-would-be-reckless-dangerous-and

They say that Trump is building a coalition to help with his decision to strike at Assad……

President Trump is in the process of building a new coalition of allies to participate in a multi-nation “strike force” attack on the Syrian government. This talk of coalition action reflects the rapid escalation of plans since US officials embraced Saturday’s allegations of a chemical weapons strike.

Officials said as early as Sunday that the claimed Saturday attack would lead to a US military strike, and President Trump indicated this would happen “very soon.” Instead of a one-off strike, as with last April’s tomahawk missile bombardment of Syria, the US seems to be envisioning starting a whole new war over it.

This new US-led war in Syria doubtless suits much of the administration just fine. After all, this time last week US officials were trying to talk President Trump out of ending US military involvement in Syria. Now, they seem to have a pretext for an open-ended conflict.

https://news.antiwar.com/2018/04/10/trump-builds-coalition-for-war-against-syrian-government/

Trump has cancelled his trip to Peru so that he can be close to the advisers for a decision to attack Syrian forces….the media is working hard to push the airstrike or missile strike or whatever violence they can think of……the MSM wants a war to end all wars especially in Syria……

With America’s major corporate cable outlets—particularly so-called liberal networks like MSNBC—continuing to uncritically provide generals and lawmakers a massive platform to beat the drums of war as President Donald Trump inches closer to launching a military attack on Syria, critics have concluded that the U.S. media has clearly learned nothing from the crucial role it played in cheerleading for the Bush administration’s catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“The push for escalation on TV is overwhelming,” Cenk Uyger, host of The Young Turks, observed in a tweet on Wednesday, reacting to the numerous instances this week of television hosts opining on Trump’s “military options” with the likes of Iraq War supporter and retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey while refusing to question the underlying rationale for or legality of unilateral military action.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/11/showing-they-learned-nothing-iraq-corporate-media-help-beat-war-drums-trump-attack

The world is on the edge of their chairs waiting to see just what tough guy Trump will call as the reaction to the chem attack.

Syria: Our Nice, New Missiles

We wait for the final decision on what will Trump do about the alleged chemical attack on civilians……

Right now there s a war of words going on between US and Russia…..

If the US tries to launch missiles at Syria, they will be shot down and the warships or planes they’re launched from will become targets, Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon said Tuesday night, echoing earlier warnings from Moscow. “If there is a strike by the Americans, then … the missiles will be downed and even the sources from which the missiles were fired,” Alexander Zasypkin told a Hezbollah-affiliated TV station, per Reuters. The words planted no fear in President Trump, who on Wednesday morning addressed the news in a tweet, telling Russia to “get ready … because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!” The Guardian reports a Russian foreign ministry rep addressed the tweet, saying “smart missiles should fly towards terrorists, not [a] legal government.”

Moscow’s United Nations envoy also warned against US action Tuesday, saying that Washington will “bear responsibility” for any “illegal military adventure” carried out in response to a suspected chemical attack that killed scores of civilians, the BBC reports. Vassily Nebenzia was speaking during a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in which the US and Russia blocked each other’s attempts to set up investigations of the alleged chemical attack. Trump has canceled a trip to Latin America in order to oversee the US response, which he said Monday would be decided on within 48 hours. The Telegraph reports that European traffic controllers have warned aircraft that strikes in the region are a strong possibility in the next 72 hours. (Russia is jamming the signals of American drones over Syria.)

Will Trump roll the dice?

All this moral outrage is so plastic…..we scold Assad for killing women and children and the US is killing the same people with their drones…..we look pathetic scolding anyone for doing what we are already doing.

The clock is ticking….we should have Trump’s decision soon……and the world will react.

Syria–The Clock Is Ticking

The news came down that Syria has once again used chemical weapons on its citizens….about  year ago trump had to make a similar decision…..(read about it here)….

https://lobotero.com/2017/04/10/syrian-airfield-photos/

This should have been the lead because of the raid on Trump’s lawyer’s office……at this point….who cares?  We are about to attack a sovereign nation and possibly kill Russians or Iranians or Syrians and we are focused on some damn lawyer thing.

On Monday the president said that he would decide the response to the chem attack……..

President Trump on Monday said he would decide how to respond to a suspected chemical attack in Syria within 48 hours, reports the Hill. Trump had previously condemned the “animal Assad” by tweet over the civilian deaths, but he addressed the matter in person Monday with reporters. “It was atrocious. It was horrible,” said the president. “This is about humanity and it can’t be allowed to happen.” Trump said he’d be meeting with his national security team—including new national security adviser John Bolton, who starts Monday—to figure out the next steps. “If it’s the Russians, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them together, we’ll figure it out,” he said.

Earlier Monday, defense chief Jim Mattis also called out Russia, reports USA Today. “The first thing we have to look at is why are chemical weapons still being used at all when Russia was the framework guarantor of removing all the chemical weapons,” he said. “And so, working with our allies and our partners from NATO to Qatar and elsewhere, we are going to address this issue.” The White House has asked the UN Security Council to launch an independent inquiry into the attack. (The US military hit a Syrian air force base last year, and one big question is whether Trump will be more aggressive this time.)

There is a familiar timeline on this situation….you may check it out here……

An alleged new ‘chemical incident’ in Syria reminds of a similar series of events we saw last year. We are told to believe that each time the U.S. pulls back from the war on Syria the Syrian government is responding with a ‘chemical attack’ that pulls the U.S. back in.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/timelines-of-gas-attacks-in-syria-follow-a-similar-scheme.html

Trump was very vocal on how he  feels about these attacks on children…….and yet wants to know why we cannot killed the families of alleged terrorists with drone strikes…..

Trump has said “this is about humanity and we cannot let this go on”…….what about Yemen?  What about the deaths in Palestine?  Where does he draw the line on humanity?

Do not forget the babble that comes out of Nikki Haley’s mouth…..she is the consummate hypocrite….her fake outrage does NO one any good…..her idle words fall on deaf ears…..

We will see how many people the US action will cost….will it be note worthy?

Israel: “Okay We Did It”!

Ten years ago someone attacked an alleged nuclear power plant in Syria…of course the world pointed at Israel as the attacker….but as usual Israel said that it was not them that attack the plant…..well Israel has decided to let the world know the rest of the story…..

In September of 2007, Israeli warplanes carried out a major attack against a site in the Syrian desert. A few months later, US officials commented, claiming the site to be an in-construction Syrian nuclear reactor, which the Bush Administration accused North Korea of being behind.

On Wednesday, Israel ended a decade-long silence on the attack with a report, confirming it was in keeping with Israel’s policy of destroying foreign nuclear facilities in the region. This was presented in the context of threatening to attack Iran.

It’s not clear what the impact of this admission will be, as everyone knew Israel carried out the attack long ago. That attack, according to former IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei, was in violation of international law. It also made it really hard to prove Syria had a secret, illegal reactor, since Israel blew it up and didn’t tell anybody until it was already a smoldering hole in the ground.

Nowadays, Israel attacks Syria so often that such a strike hardly matters anymore from the perspective of their bilateral relations. It is, however, fueling new allegations of secret Syrian nuclear facilities elsewhere in the country, with the same lack of evidence surrounding the 2007 site.

(antiwar.com)

After they admitted to the attack they then turned on Iraq and informed them that they could be next…….

“(He) made it clear that we were very happy that events had eliminated this threat and that if there were any threats to Israel that would emerge from this situation, the United States would stand with Israel, period,” Jeffrey said Wednesday.

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday used the admission to threaten the entire region.

Another minister, Israel Katz, also tweeted out a not-so-veiled threat: “The courageous decision of the Israeli government almost 11 years ago to destroy the nuclear reactor in Syria and the successful operation following it sends a clear message: Israel will never allow nuclear weapons to countries like Iran who threaten its existence.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has continues to argue without proof that Iran is on its way to producing nuclear bombs, said: “The Government of Israel, the IDF, and the Mossad prevented Syria from developing a nuclear capability. For this they are deserving of all praise. Israel’s policy has been and remains consistent—to prevent our enemies from arming themselves with nuclear weapons.”

This is the same argument that Israel has made against Iran for at least 40 years and yet it has not achieved a bomb……

Let say that Israel attacks Iran then the US will be on the hook to help our “ally”….after all they have paid for out help through the buying of Congresspeople……

Oh goody yet another conflict that we Americans must fight and to die for another “ally” that could care less about our troops…..

When will Americans learn that Israel is NO friend?

Just Who Is Dead?

Recently the Russians claimed to have killed the ISIS leader al-Baghdadi….I wrote about the news piece ……

Source: Death Of A Bad Man – In Saner Thought

I bring this up because the US has issued a report that says they have killed the “Grand Mufti” religious leader of ISIS…..

US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed today that the Islamic State’s Turki al-Bin’ali was killed in a May 31 airstrike in Mayadin, Syria.

Mayadin, which is in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor, has become a hub for the so-called caliphate’s senior personnel. The US has targeted several high-profile figures in or near the city this year.

Source: CENTCOM Confirms Islamic State’s “Grand Mufti” Killed in Airstrike | RealClearDefense

Now this could be good news….but the US has killed “leaders” before…one guy in Afghanistan he was killed at least 3 separate times….

If true this could be good news…take out the radicalizing force of the group….but this does not eliminate the group….just one of the “soldiers”.

Since both were supposedly in Syria, around Raqqa, could one be mistaken for the other…..

Just who is dead at this point?

More news from the ISIS front…..

It seems that ISIS is admitting that they are doomed….one of their last acts of violence in the Iraqi city of Mosul was barbaric and unnecessary….

In what American commanders called a crime against the people of Iraq and the country’s prime minister called an admission of defeat, officials say ISIS fighters blew up Mosul’s most iconic mosque Wednesday night as government troops closed in. The Grand al-Nuri Mosque, more than 800 years old, was where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in 2014 during his only public appearance, the BBC reports. ISIS—whose fighters had been seen bringing explosives to the site, according to CNN—claimed the mosque in Mosul’s Old City had been destroyed by American aircraft, but US commanders swiftly denied the claim, saying there had been no strikes in the area.

Aerial photos showed little but rubble remaining at the mosque complex, where the black flag of ISIS had flown since 2014. The destruction of the mosque and its famous minaret “amounts to an official acknowledgement of defeat,” Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi said in a statement. The Old City is the only part of Mosul still held by ISIS and commanders say the “final chapter” of the offensive to retake the city has begun. The Iraqi military says elite counterterrorism units had fought their way to within 170 feet of the mosque when it was destroyed, Reuters reports.

Why?  What purpose did this serve?

More thoughts on the destruction of this magnificent mosque…..

Source: In Apocalyptic Vandalism, ISIL blows up 800-year-old Nuri Mosque in Mosul | Informed Comment

Death Of A Bad Man

Word is spreading through the news organization that ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi, has been killed in a Russian airstrike…..I believe this is the 5th time he has either been injured or killed…..what we need is verification…..not speculation…

Russia’s claim to have killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an airstrike in Raqqa on May 28 should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. At the time in question, the U.S.-led Syrian Democratic Forces (S.D.F.) were only days away from launching their final assault on the city and there’s no logical reason imaginable why Baghdadi would have risked staying in a surrounded, sitting target. Notwithstanding justified doubts surrounding Baghdadi’s then presence in Raqqa, Russia’s statement also says its strike killed another 330 ISIS fighters – which is almost certainly an absurd claim.

Russia has a long track record of issuing fake claims and deliberate misinformation during its campaign in Syria. This recent statement also contradicts a claim by its Syrian partner, the Assad regime, to have killed Baghdadi themselves on June 10. Either Baghdadi has dozens of lives, or nobody really knows where he is.

Source: Russia’s Baghdadi Claim Needs Verification | Middle East Institute

Let us say that their claim is genuine…..what will that mean for the region?

Does that mean we may be winning the War on Terror?  I think not…there will be someone to step into the void.

The news of the possible death of the leader of the so-called Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, no doubt filled most people with a certain sense of relief. It’s not often the death of a human being elicits such an emotion but Baghdadi, most sane people can agree, barely makes the homo sapiens cut.

Nonetheless, our collective exhale may be premature. According to the Russian defence ministry, Baghdadi may have been caught by a Russian airstrike targeting a meeting of senior ISIS commanders south of Raqqa, the capital of the group’s self-declared caliphate, at the end of May. He was reportedly killed along with 30 other mid-level ISIS commanders and 300 fighters.

Source: Why the death of ISIS’s leader could spell trouble – Macleans.ca

You see if he is dead then he is one terrorist dead…there are many others waiting their turn.

Do not rejoice…..be vigilante…..

Death Of Children Is Unacceptable

The recent cowardly attack on the concert in Manchester England…killed and wounded many children and the world went crazy in its condemnation of the bastards that killed these children and rightly so.

Anytime that civilians are targeted for some sort of attack should be met with condemnation around the world……should be called what it is…..a war crime….a crime against humanity……NO matter who the perp is!

I say that because of recent news……

Exemplified by the hundred and some odd people they’ve killed in the last 48 hours, the US is struggling mightily with the narrative that they are taking extraordinary care to limit the number of civilian casualties in the air war in Syria, and are rapidly losing any pretense of a moral high ground.

Indeed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is noting that the soaring death toll from US airstrikes has now surpassed the civilian toll of the Assad government’s own airstrikes, which the US and other Western nations have condemned as indiscriminate and irresponsible.

Oftentimes, US officials have been so outraged at Syria’s “indiscriminate” air strikes that they’ve demanded regime change, and has railed at Russia and Iran for tolerating their tactics in bombing civilian targets. Obviously, the US never sees the same problem with its own massive killings.

That’s probably because officially, they don’t even recognize the overwhelming majority of the civilian deaths they cause, as the Pentagon’s official death toll for the air war in Iraq and Syria omits virtually all major incidents, and tends to be at most 10% of the toll reported by NGOs.

(antiwar.com)

Civilians should be off limits….even if they are family members of “bad guys”…I do not believe in the only “Guilty by association” bullshit.

You can pick your friends but you cannot pick your family….it is a crime to punish a whole family for the action of one person…..where will the US draw the line….since we are so found to drawing those lines…..?

The US is always using children and civilians to gin up some sort of action…and yet we are just as guilty as anyone in the deaths of civilians especially children…..and yet that is somehow acceptable.

Using civilian deaths that is until it is the deaths they cause……those deaths are under reported……

The Pentagon continues to offer “official” civilian death tolls from the US air war in Iraq and Syria that is only a tiny fraction of the killings documented by private NGOs, but even this deliberate undercount is rising at a growing rate, reflecting what is in reality a precipitous spike in civilian deaths.

The last report, from early May, only confirmed 23 civilians killed in the entire first quarter of 2017. That’s been revised upward to 128, as the Pentagon finally admitted to killing 105 civilians n a March 17 incident in Mosul. All indications from independent sources are that the Mosul incident actually killed around 220 people.

The Pentagon added another 27 civilian deaths in their new report, which includes April, with almost all of these deaths also happening in Mosul. This once again is far below the many hundreds reported killed everywhere else, but dramatically more than the single-digit monthly tolls they usually admit to.

Civilian deaths are never acceptable…..unavoidable but never acceptable.

Was Syria A False Flag?

Before I begin the Syria post there is some sad news to report……another US service man has been killed in action…..

A U.S. service member has been killed during an operation against al-Shabab militants in Somalia

The U.S. military said Friday that the service member was killed near Barii, Somalia, approximately 40 miles west of Mogadishu.

The statement from the military’s Africa Command said U.S. forces were conducting an advise and assist mission alongside members of the Somali National Army.

The story about the use of chem weapons on the civilian population of a Syrian town lead to the response by the US….a multi-missile strike on a Syrian airfield and then that event slid from the news and more sensational news took its place…..

Behind the scenes there has been rumblings that the alleged attack was a lase flag….

False Flag?

False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one’s own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italy’s strategy of tension.

Newsbud.com is reporting…..The Geopolitical Report, we look into the alleged gas attack used as a pretext to attack Syria. Despite a lack of evidence Syria had anything to do with the attack, the Trump administration and the propaganda media in the United States told the American people both Syria and Russia are responsible. From ambassador Nikki Haley’s theatrical performance before the United Nations Security Council to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertion the attack was a false flag, we examine different aspects and put them into the context of a previous sarin gas attack in Ghouta, Syria, an attack attributed to so-called rebel groups fighting to overthrow Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his government.

Could this be possible?

Several veteran intel officers have written a letter……

Two dozen former U.S. intelligence professionals are urging the American people to demand clear evidence that the Syrian government was behind the April 4 chemical incident before President Trump dives deeper into another war.

AN OPEN MEMORANDUM FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

From: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

Source: Intel Vets Voice Doubts on Syrian Crisis – Consortiumnews

After reading several articles on this attack it has given me pause……NOW I want to know the “rest of the story”….would not be the first time the government has lied to get what they wanted…..

According To Law…..Was It Legal?

Since the attack there has been international outcry saying that the attack was a violation of international law…I am writing about that issue here today….

The first “Press” is from the site of a regular visitor to IST….Green Road Journal…….

According to the Syrian News Agency SANA, the US led Coalition has carried out targeted airstrikes against a chemical weapons depot in Hatla, east of Deir Ezzor. The depot is held by ISIS-Daesh terrorists:
The General Command of the Army and Armed Forces said that the aircrafts of the so-called “US-led International Alliance” on Wednesday between the hour 17:30 and 17:50 carried out an airstrike against a position of ISIS terrorists that includes a large number of foreign mercenaries in the village of Hatla to the east of Deir Ezzor, causing a white cloud that became yellow as a result of the explosion of a huge store that includes a large amount of toxic materials.

Source: Trump’s Missile Attack On Syria; Mass Media Ignores Truth, Morality, Legality And Verifiable Facts, Most Had Orgasmic Reaction To Shooting Off Hard Upright Missiles In Tubes; War Drums Beating, Military Industrial Complex Celebrating | A Green Road Journal

Next is from a major site…Politico….they defend the attack as a legal response….

“No child of God should ever suffer such horror,” argued President Donald Trump during his statement justifying last Thursday’s U.S. missile strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s military. Since then, his decision has faced withering scrutiny, particularly on legal grounds. Critics, from Russia to some members of Congress, have argued the military action was an illegal violation of Syria’s sovereignty. “Whatever it is,” tweeted Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith in response to a question about what the legal justification for the strike was, “it exceeds all prior precedents under domestic and international law.” Use of chem weapons is horrific,” tweeted ACLU national security lawyer Hina Shamsi, “but Trump’s military action violates Constitution & U.N. charter. No legit domestic or international law basis.”

Source: Why Trump’s Attack on Syria Is Legal – POLITICO Magazine

I have given as many posts as possible on this action….I want my reader to be as well informed as anyone……they will decide the validity of this attack.

I still am wondering why NO one and I mean NO ONE is asking the question about the number of missiles fired and the damage done to the airfield….this “attack” does not pass the smell test…..neither the action or the reaction can pass the test.