America’s sordid history reflects a despicable legacy of ravaging, colonizing and plundering one nation after another.
Millions of lives were lost, countless millions more displaced, their welfare and futures destroyed.
The human cost is dismissively called collateral damage, ignored in pursuing US objectives, along with fundamental rule of law principles.
Washington rules alone matter. A NYT report about the Trump administration sending a stability team to Syria would be laughable if conditions in the country weren’t so tragic and devastating for millions internally displaced, millions more in neighboring and other countries.
According to The Times, the mission of a seven-member State Department team is “help(ing) Syrians return home by organizing efforts to clear roadside bombs left behind by the Islamic State and to restore electricity and access to clean water, in part to prevent the areas from becoming breeding grounds for militants.”
Here’s what The Times and other media scoundrels never explain. In March 2011, Obama launched naked aggression on the country, using ISIS and other terrorists as imperial foot soldiers – providing them with aerial support since September 2014 on the phony pretext of combating Daesh.
Since taking office in January, Trump escalated US war, aiming to separate northern and southern parts of the country from Damascus control, compromising Syrian sovereignty ahead of attempting to destroy it altogether, along with replacing Assad with pro-Western puppet rule.
Civilian casualties likely approach a million or more, large parts of the country ravaged and destroyed, around half of Syria’s 19 million people internally or externally displaced – their lives in shambles, many from the loss of loved ones, property and other possessions.
The notion that the Trump administration wants stability returned to the country and an existing humanitarian crisis alleviated flies in the face of over six years of US high crimes against its sovereignty and people.
Further, what possible difference could even the most well-meaning seven US team members make for millions of long-suffering people, devastated by years of US-orchestrated aggression?
The real purpose of US military and administration personnel in Syria and all other countries is solely to serve its imperial objectives, the humanitarian intervention canard used as a convenient pretext.
In January 2014, Syrian authorities estimated at least $100 billion needed to rebuild the country. Maybe it’s closer to a trillion dollars now, money the country doesn’t have, the cost increasing daily.
The Times quoted a duplicitous State Department statement, saying “(o)ur efforts in post-ISIS areas will be strictly focused on stabilization and thus meeting the immediate needs of civilians in order to enable them to return home and to prevent the return of ISIS.”
“The efforts are limited to the provision of humanitarian assistance, clearing explosive remnants of war, and the restoration of essential services.”
Days earlier, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford said “an ongoing effort, led by the State Department, (is needed) to put together a governance body so that as soon as Raqqa is seized, there is effective local governance.”
Raqqa is sovereign Syrian territory along with all other parts of the country. US operations in northern and southern areas, along with its aerial campaign, are flagrantly illegal – with no Security Council or Damascus authorization.
Washington has no plan for defeating ISIS – the scourge it created and supports, along with other regional terrorist groups.
Most of Daesh Mosul and Raqqa fighters aren’t being combatted. They were redeployed to other areas, serving imperial interests wherever they’re sent.
The battle for these two cities features indiscriminate US-led terror-bombing, massacring and injuring thousands of civilians, displacing hundreds of thousands more.
The only nonmilitary efforts America intends making in Syria and other countries it attacked involve illegally establishing imperial control.