Stars and Stripes warns Obama over escalation in Syria

Obama Escalates In Syria; Stars and Stripes Runs Accurate Warning | LaRouchePAC

Unnamed U.S. officials said, Sunday, that President Obama has decided to allow U.S. airstrikes in support of U.S.-trained rebels no matter who brings them under fire, even if it comes from the Syrian army. White House National Security Council spokesman Alistair Baskey told Reuters that only the U.S.-trained forces were being provided a wide range of support, including “defensive fire (in layman’s terms, airstrikes) support to protect them” and pointed to the July 31 U.S. airstrikes as proof, in support of the rebel group Division 30 when it came under attack from Al Nusra.

Reuters notes the possibility that U.S. forces might come into direct confrontation with Syrian government forces cannot be ruled out. Indeed, some might argue that Obama’s policy makes such a clash inevitable, despite the stipulation that U.S. policy is aimed only at ISIS, and the administration’s failure to get Congress to support a direct attack on the Assad government in the late summer of 2013.

Historian Stephen R. Weissman, writing in an Aug. 2 op-ed in U.S. military newspaper Stars & Stripes, argues that in fact, the Obama Administration is following a pattern that was first set in the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson deceived the American public about the presence of U.S. military forces in Southeast Asia. The result was war that devastated Vietnam, the U.S. military and U.S. foreign relations. That pattern, however, has continued ever since.

Weissman particularly points out the U.S./NATO attack on Libya in 2011, which was promoted as protection of civilians, but was really about regime change.

“Indications are that the problem of deceptive military missions persists today as the U.S. expands its military presence in the Middle East to confront violent jihadis,” writes Weissman.

What began as a program to train armed opponents of the Assad government has morphed into a program to target ISIS. U.S. officials were then hinting that they might extend U.S. involvement to include “protection” of the forces the U.S. is training as they integrate with existing rebel groups in Syria.

“Such scenarios could bring America into direct conflict with Syrian government forces,” Weissman writes.

Further potential expansion comes with the discussions of establishing a safe zone inside Syria along the Turkish border.

“What appears then to be a stealthy expansion of the anti-Islamic State ‘train-and-equip’ mission could have major consequences for U.S. policy in the Middle East, which the administration has not discussed publicly,” Weissman writes. “An increased U.S. military commitment to anti-Assad rebels on the ground could produce military responses by Syria’s allies — Iran, Hezbollah and Russia.”

Indeed, Moscow, Monday, warned that U.S. attacks on Syrian troops will only further destabilize the situation. Moscow has “repeatedly underlined that help to the Syrian opposition, moreover financial and technical assistance, leads to further destabilization of the situation in the country,” Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said, adding that IS terrorists may take advantage of this situation.

And the Obama Administration, Weissman notes, is doing all of this without a plan for bringing the war to a satisfactory conclusion and without consulting with or authorization from the U.S. Congress.

“These are the very consequences that the public feared when it demanded that Congress pull the plug on the administration’s plan to bomb Syria in September 2013,” Weissman concludes. “During this Presidential election year, voters need to communicate to the candidates that they will hold them accountable for telling the truth about the purposes of American military missions and their potential consequences.”