John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Trump defends decision to pull U.S. troops back from Syrian-Turkish border
“Democratic and Republican lawmakers condemn decision, fear a Turkish offensive”
The only people who ever seriously fought the Jihadists in Syria are the Syrian Army, their Iranian allies, and their Russian allies.
America has many times used the excuse of Jihadists to stay somewhere in Syria where it doesn’t belong. It is not an ally of Syria and has never been given permission even to be there, let alone create military bases, train rebellious people, distribute weapons and supplies to them, and generally to encourage mayhem.
What it has really been doing in the Northeast is to assist the Syrian Kurds in opposing Syria’s government and encouraging the notion of a Syrian Kurd rump state. Anything to weaken Syria.
The amount of misinformation on the topic of Syria and its nasty war, a war deliberately created by outside interventions, is monumental, and with good reason since those responsible don’t want the world really to understand what has been going on. That is the way hybrid and proxy wars work.
The Syrian War was always about toppling a legitimate government by using proxy fighters. The proxies get plenty of publicity as “Jihadists” but they really are for the most part plain old recruited mercenaries playing theater parts. And of course, as with any army, the ordinary soldiers receive very little information about what it is all about. All of their pay and supplies has come from the informal coalition of Saudi Arabia and America and Israel and Britain and France and a Gulf State or two.
Every time an arms cache has been discovered by advancing Syrian forces, it contains weapons made in America or Israel or Bulgaria, a country from which the CIA often buys volume-discount weapons to send to interventions and coups.
The people in Washington who are upset by Trump’s move are using terms like “betrayal of allies.”
It’s ridiculous language if you know any history of the region, but most of the people using the words are themselves being dishonest, not telling people why they really want to assist the Kurds.
First, the Kurds are not allies. They do not even represent an organized state, although they always dream of creating one. They are scattered as a minority in many places of the region, almost like a large population of gypsies. Their fierce hope for a state makes it easy for someone like the United States to exploit them for undeclared purposes, as it has been doing now and has done previously.
Some people tried warning the Syrian Kurds about depending on the United States for help, but they wouldn’t listen. The region borders on Turkey, which has its own substantial and rebellious Kurdish population, and is simply never going to tolerate a Kurdish-run rump state on its border. It regards the idea as a serious security threat, given the aspirations of its own Kurds. So American notions have been at direct odds with Turkey’s interests from the start.
The United States has toyed with this notion about the Kurds in northeastern Syria as a kind of consolation prize for having lost the main war in Syria, the war using proxy forces to destroy the Syrian government. Hiving off an important segment of Syria, a place with crude oil reserves, would clearly hurt the country. Trying to reclaim it, even if eventually successful, would keep poor Syria in turmoil for years to come. Israel, unhappy about the main proxy war having been lost, was keen on the concept.
You do have to put the Syrian War into its proper context. It is part of the long series of Neocon Wars in the Middle East designed, more or less, to pave over everything anywhere near Israel. That’s what the meaningless term, “War on Terror,” going back to George Bush really was about. You cannot have a war on a method, clearly, but the term just managed to jumble things up enough for the public and to feature that witch-like incantation term, “terror,” so that America’s government would never have to account for what it was actually doing.
America had done a full-fledged traditional invasion of Iraq, complete with one pathetic ally to share the shame. It was a terribly bloody and destructive enterprise, and so for the other names on its list of countries in the Middle East to be paved over, it settled for proxy and hybrid efforts.
The invasion of Iraq was not only extremely costly, it produced waves of bad publicity and condemnation, something to be avoided when your public relations efforts focus on words like “democracy” and “freedom.” Proxy and hybrid hostilities allow you to put up smokescreens so that no one quite knows what you are doing. You can even blame other people.
Out of the immense destruction American bombing in half a dozen lands caused in a “War on Terror,” we did see, here and there, some few people seek reprisal and revenge against the very powerful who were abusing their power. Those few instances of “International Terror” served, almost like public relations stunts, to reinforce the government’s explanation of what all the killing was about.
The United States has betrayed the region’s Kurds before, going back to the days of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. American plotting got Iraq’s Kurds to rebel against Saddam, and they ended in a mass slaughter. Suggestions of American support vaporized.
Well, here we go again. Unless new steps are taken to avert it, Turkey is going to do the Syrian Kurds serious damage. This United States move serves also as an important gesture to Turkey about America respecting its interests. After all, America and Turkey have had a number of noisy, public disagreements recently.
No matter how difficult the United States sometimes finds accommodating Turkey’s Erdogan, in the end, it very much wants Turkey to remain in NATO. Its geographical location makes it almost a kind of capstone in NATO’s edifice.
It’s not clear how this will all turn out, but Israel, so immensely influential in Washington, is not happy with anything that could end in any degree of Syrian reunification.
The apocalyptic tone about Trump’s move used by Senator Lindsey Graham – one of the most tireless defenders in Washington of Israel’s narrow interests, so much so he frequently makes himself ridiculous – tells us all we need to know about Israel’s view. Israel does like, whenever possible, not to be heard commenting directly on American military decisions, so it uses proxies like Sen. Graham.
The Kurds, armed by America to fight against Syria, may be able to approach the Syrian government and invite them to take back the region, protecting them against the Turks. It is notable that Russian engineers just completed in record time a new military-style bridge crossing the Euphrates into NE Syria, one capable of supporting armored vehicles.
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
‘Credible evidence’ Saudi crown prince is responsible for Khashoggi killing, UN says
Saudi Arabia’s foreign affairs minister rejects report, saying it contains ‘clear contradictions’
One wag has suitably nicknamed this charmer as Prince Bone-saw.
The bloody Crown Prince is protected for one major reason, he does a lot of dirty work in the region that the United States wants done. He has, as they say, earned his “creds.” And, let’s face it, when you are running a brutal empire as the United States is, you can’t be overly picky about your friends.
It helps that the Prince buys vast amounts of military gear, tens of billions worth, but he would never have been allowed to buy such quantities – Israel would be on the phone to the President immediately – if he weren’t doing so much approved and welcome work.
His assuming power was effectively a palace coup. He kidnapped a large number of fellow Saudi princes, some with claims to the throne as valid as his, and held them to ransom for many tens of billions of dollars and, most importantly, submission to him.
In the established ways of this fabulously rich clan, agreement among the various chief members is reached on who is to become the next ruler, much the way the Catholic Church’s Cardinals, Princes of the Church, meet in secret to select the next Pope. But the Crown Prince was having none of that. The current king retains his title, but he is old and said to be rather senile.
So, we have a young and energetic Prince effectively ruling, one, as it happens, with a notoriously fragile ego – he is said to have been furious over some of Khashoggi’s writing – and a great relish for bloodshed. There are unconfirmed stories about a good many other bloody deeds.
But through the entire palace coup and Mafia-style shake-down operation, we heard no complaints from the US or Canada.
Then, he briefly imprisoned Lebanon’s President Hariri who flew to Saudi Arabia on a false-pretext invitation. Hariri’s plane was blocked, and he was arrested. We never learned any details of his treatment because our press made no effort to investigate the absolutely bizarre event.
I’m sure he was threatened over some serious vulnerability, either personal or national. He was forced to resign his elected office, something that pleased American interests.
Again, no complaints from the US and Canada.
The Crown Prince has been a major supporter of the covertly-organized, fake-jihadi, mercenary outfits destroying Syria. Outfits like al-Nusra and ISIS had a lot of their costs covertly paid by him. He was, of course, trying to do something the US very much wanted done, and that is to see Syria toppled. So far, over half a million people have died, and great parts of that beautiful and historic land have been laid waste.
Again, no complaints from the US and Canada.
Indeed, in this case, we just get a continuous stream of Iraq-invasion-quality nonsense about who is doing what to harm Syria.
The Prince, of course, started the horrendous war in Yemen, something covertly supported by the US and its allies. Busloads of women and children have been incinerated. Starvation and disease have been employed as weapons.
Again, no complaints from the US or Canada.
He has brutally suppressed Shia Muslims inside Saudi Arabia, literally bulldozing some areas where they lived, the Shia, of course, being sympathetic with their fellow Shia religionists in Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
Again, no complaints from the US and Canada.
The number of beheadings and crucifixions – yes, they still do that for certain offences – has strikingly increased in the Crown Prince’s Saudi Arabia, and we have very young people, teenagers, sometimes sentenced to death for political beliefs. At one point, the government was looking to hire some additional swordsmen to handle the increased workload.
Again, no complaints from the US and Canada.
No, the US and Canada just smile and sell warehouse-sized lots of military gear to the Prince.
And not that long-ago, Western newspapers were filled with disinformation articles about what a breath of fresh air the Prince was, how progressive he was. The Guardian in Britain was most notable in the effort.
The Prince did a grand tour in the United States to meet every influential person they could line up to shake hands with him, such was his manufactured renown. This was all, of course, a little before he had a man cut-up alive and burnt in a backyard barbecue for writing things he didn’t like.
Israel’s Netanyahu has gone out of his way to express admiration and friendship, but that isn’t hard to understand. Twenty years ago, Saudi Arabia was a very vocal critic of Israel. Events of 9/11, bringing intense fears of an American invasion on a flimsy pretext, caused an abrupt change of course for the kingdom.
The Prince assuming power is the ultimate result, and he has established such a close relationship that Israel has become a secret ally. They work together on a number of bloody projects, from Syria to Yemen and to threatening Iran, making theirs a genuine brotherhood of blood.
NOTE:
It is only owing to revelations by Turkey’s Erdogan that details of the Khashoggi butchery came to light. Here is some early stuff which might interest you:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/17/john-chuckman-comment-here-is-what-the-turks-know-about-the-khashoggi-murder-there-really-cannot-be-a-doubt-that-this-was-planned-to-happen-exactly-as-it-did-and-no-doubt-authority-came-from-the-to/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/15/john-chuckman-comment-what-is-really-going-on-in-saudi-arabia-and-turkey-with-the-apparent-brutal-murder-of-journalist-jamal-khashoggi-inside-a-saudi-consulate-in-turkey-truth-and-justice-under-am/
This may also be of interest:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/18/john-chuckman-comment-the-israeli-saudi-de-facto-alliance-what-the-murderous-crown-prince-represents-for-america-re-making-the-planet-and-hitlers-willing-helpers/
CHUCKMAN'S WORDS ON WORDPRESS: COMMENTS FROM THE WORLD'S PRESS 
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Trump defends decision to pull U.S. troops back from Syrian-Turkish border
“Democratic and Republican lawmakers condemn decision, fear a Turkish offensive”
The only people who ever seriously fought the Jihadists in Syria are the Syrian Army, their Iranian allies, and their Russian allies.
America has many times used the excuse of Jihadists to stay somewhere in Syria where it doesn’t belong. It is not an ally of Syria and has never been given permission even to be there, let alone create military bases, train rebellious people, distribute weapons and supplies to them, and generally to encourage mayhem.
What it has really been doing in the Northeast is to assist the Syrian Kurds in opposing Syria’s government and encouraging the notion of a Syrian Kurd rump state. Anything to weaken Syria.
The amount of misinformation on the topic of Syria and its nasty war, a war deliberately created by outside interventions, is monumental, and with good reason since those responsible don’t want the world really to understand what has been going on. That is the way hybrid and proxy wars work.
The Syrian War was always about toppling a legitimate government by using proxy fighters. The proxies get plenty of publicity as “Jihadists” but they really are for the most part plain old recruited mercenaries playing theater parts. And of course, as with any army, the ordinary soldiers receive very little information about what it is all about. All of their pay and supplies has come from the informal coalition of Saudi Arabia and America and Israel and Britain and France and a Gulf State or two.
Every time an arms cache has been discovered by advancing Syrian forces, it contains weapons made in America or Israel or Bulgaria, a country from which the CIA often buys volume-discount weapons to send to interventions and coups.
The people in Washington who are upset by Trump’s move are using terms like “betrayal of allies.”
It’s ridiculous language if you know any history of the region, but most of the people using the words are themselves being dishonest, not telling people why they really want to assist the Kurds.
First, the Kurds are not allies. They do not even represent an organized state, although they always dream of creating one. They are scattered as a minority in many places of the region, almost like a large population of gypsies. Their fierce hope for a state makes it easy for someone like the United States to exploit them for undeclared purposes, as it has been doing now and has done previously.
Some people tried warning the Syrian Kurds about depending on the United States for help, but they wouldn’t listen. The region borders on Turkey, which has its own substantial and rebellious Kurdish population, and is simply never going to tolerate a Kurdish-run rump state on its border. It regards the idea as a serious security threat, given the aspirations of its own Kurds. So American notions have been at direct odds with Turkey’s interests from the start.
The United States has toyed with this notion about the Kurds in northeastern Syria as a kind of consolation prize for having lost the main war in Syria, the war using proxy forces to destroy the Syrian government. Hiving off an important segment of Syria, a place with crude oil reserves, would clearly hurt the country. Trying to reclaim it, even if eventually successful, would keep poor Syria in turmoil for years to come. Israel, unhappy about the main proxy war having been lost, was keen on the concept.
You do have to put the Syrian War into its proper context. It is part of the long series of Neocon Wars in the Middle East designed, more or less, to pave over everything anywhere near Israel. That’s what the meaningless term, “War on Terror,” going back to George Bush really was about. You cannot have a war on a method, clearly, but the term just managed to jumble things up enough for the public and to feature that witch-like incantation term, “terror,” so that America’s government would never have to account for what it was actually doing.
America had done a full-fledged traditional invasion of Iraq, complete with one pathetic ally to share the shame. It was a terribly bloody and destructive enterprise, and so for the other names on its list of countries in the Middle East to be paved over, it settled for proxy and hybrid efforts.
The invasion of Iraq was not only extremely costly, it produced waves of bad publicity and condemnation, something to be avoided when your public relations efforts focus on words like “democracy” and “freedom.” Proxy and hybrid hostilities allow you to put up smokescreens so that no one quite knows what you are doing. You can even blame other people.
Out of the immense destruction American bombing in half a dozen lands caused in a “War on Terror,” we did see, here and there, some few people seek reprisal and revenge against the very powerful who were abusing their power. Those few instances of “International Terror” served, almost like public relations stunts, to reinforce the government’s explanation of what all the killing was about.
The United States has betrayed the region’s Kurds before, going back to the days of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. American plotting got Iraq’s Kurds to rebel against Saddam, and they ended in a mass slaughter. Suggestions of American support vaporized.
Well, here we go again. Unless new steps are taken to avert it, Turkey is going to do the Syrian Kurds serious damage. This United States move serves also as an important gesture to Turkey about America respecting its interests. After all, America and Turkey have had a number of noisy, public disagreements recently.
No matter how difficult the United States sometimes finds accommodating Turkey’s Erdogan, in the end, it very much wants Turkey to remain in NATO. Its geographical location makes it almost a kind of capstone in NATO’s edifice.
It’s not clear how this will all turn out, but Israel, so immensely influential in Washington, is not happy with anything that could end in any degree of Syrian reunification.
The apocalyptic tone about Trump’s move used by Senator Lindsey Graham – one of the most tireless defenders in Washington of Israel’s narrow interests, so much so he frequently makes himself ridiculous – tells us all we need to know about Israel’s view. Israel does like, whenever possible, not to be heard commenting directly on American military decisions, so it uses proxies like Sen. Graham.
The Kurds, armed by America to fight against Syria, may be able to approach the Syrian government and invite them to take back the region, protecting them against the Turks. It is notable that Russian engineers just completed in record time a new military-style bridge crossing the Euphrates into NE Syria, one capable of supporting armored vehicles.