U.S. government officials from Obama and Kerry on down, and the blatherariat, have been in a tizzy the last few weeks over Russia's bombing campaign in Syria designed to shore up the Assad regime. Especially vexing to the U.S. is that the main Russian targets seem to be the "moderate" Syrian rebels, namely the ones the U.S. supports in a half-assed way. The U.S. has finally gotten around to giving them some anti-tank weapons, but no anti-aircraft ones, which they sorely need.
The Obama regime is paranoid that such a weapon might fall into the hands of terrorists who would use it to shoot down a Western civilian airliner. So what if that did happen? Why are the lives of a few hundred Westerners worth more than those of 200,000 Syrians who have already died? It's cowardly, chauvinistic, and racist to refuse to supply portable anti-aircraft weaponry to the rebels.
Since the U.S. refuses to allow the besieged Syrian people to defend themselves, the U.S. should have destroyed Assad's air force. The U.S. has had over four years to take out Assad's air force, and several fine opportunities, like after the chemical attacks. Nor would it impose a no-fly zone. Now the U.S. is bent out of shape because Assad's allies (Russia and Iran) are intervening decisively for their man.
I'm pretty sure Putin isn't much impressed with the carping and whining coming from the West over his intervention. A pretty pathetic display, all in all. And U.S. fecklessness has cost many Syrian lives.
To top it off, the Europeans force Syrian refugees to risk their lives in the hands of smugglers, trying to sneak into Europe. Just shameful. (And then there's that cur Donald Trump, who brayed in front of a mob of racist white reactionaries that he'd send "back" the measly 10,000 Syrians Obama claimed he'd let into the U.S. in the next two years- notice that Obama's presidency ends in little more than one year. "They're going back" the loathsome lout exclaimed over and over in his trademark demagogic style, to lusty cheers. What a heartless piece of insect shit. And for what? What does he gain? A moment of approbation from fellow anti-human louts.)
The U.S. has been quick to note the few dozen civilians killed so far by Russian bombs. (This from a nation that has killed millions in aerial bombing campaigns over Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, Germany, Japan, Italy, and we can toss in some thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan.) But here's what makes the hypocrisy especially jarring. Saudi Arabia has been waging an aerial terror war over Yemen for over six months now. They and their Arabian Peninsula lackey states have killed several thousand civilians- and the victims weren't "collateral damage," but rather the intended targets. The Saudis, using their American-supplied warplanes and their American-supplied cluster bombs and other munitions, have deliberately targeted markets, mosques, apartment buildings, and even two wedding within a single week that alone killed close to 200 people. (One wedding involved the family of a Houthi tribal leader who the Saudis don't like.) So far several thousand civilians have died in this Nazi-style (or U.S. or British or Israeli-style, for that matter) aerial terror campaign. Plus, half the children of Yemen are now said by the UN to be at risk of starvation, thanks to the Saudi blockade. (The U.S. is selli And ng the Saudis warships to help them.) The U.S. of course, being an accomplice, is thus culpable in Saudi war crimes in Yemen.
And here's how totally cynical the U.S. is: the U.S. government and media don't even believe the Saudi excuse that the Iranians are taking over Yemen via the Houthis!
One more thing. A BBC correspondent reported this morning that an official in the Russian war ministry told her the reason the Russians went in to Syria is because they determined that the Assad regime was two weeks away from falling. (Shades of their ill-fated Afghanistan intervention!) Even allowing for an overly-pessimistic Russian estimate, that tells us two things: First, that the U.S. blew another opportunity to get rid of Assad, which it keeps claiming it requires (a claim belied by its actions of refusing to adequately help the rebels, and by the stricture it placed on its now defunct Syrian force that those recruits only fight ISIS and NOT the Assad regime forces); and Second, that once again American rightists are proven to be paranoid freaks. They insist that everything Russia does is somehow aimed at the U.S. So Russia didn't go into Ukraine to defend its own vital interests, it did it to restart the Cold War and make America look weak. And it's not going into Syria to prop up a long time client, the only nation in the Middle East that Russia can count as friendly, it did it to spite the U.S., to retaliate for economic sanctions imposed on it, etc.
Nor is this solipsistic mentality limited to the rightwing of the nomenklatura and blatherariat. Just today, one of the young dweebs that NPR staffs its horrid radio programs with, informed the American public that Russia's move into Syria was "a slap in the face" to the U.S. Talk about self-centered! Of course, during the Cold War- which the U.S. is apparently intent on restarting, since it enjoyed winning the last one so much- everything the Soviet Union did was seen as part of an anti-U.S. ploy. And every attempt by oppressed people to throw off U.S.-backed dictatorships was seen as Soviet subversion. [1]
American elites have the attitude that they're at the center of the universe. They've been drunk on power for so long they don't even realize they're inebriated. It distorts their judgment. And the flip side of thinking you're the center of the universe is paranoia- everything revolves around you, so everything that happens is somehow aimed at you.
And there are certainly plenty of examples of the U.S. behaving self-destructively. (But then again, the U.S. isn't unique in that regard. The Axis powers practically behaved as if they had a death wish.)
What was it the ancient Greeks said about Hubris leading to Nemesis?
1] The show is some propaganda named "Here and Now," and the young punk feeding us the party line was one Jeremy Hobson.
Hey look! They even wiped the blood off their hands before shaking! That's how polite they are!
Best of friends. (Unless Assad becomes expendable later.)
Notice they never get too close.
[For insight into the vicious terror state the Assad regime imposes on Syrians, and the hazardous odyssies Syrians trying to escape its malign clutches endure, I recommend "Ten Borders: One refugee's epic escape from Syria," The New Yorker, October 26, 2016 issue.]
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