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What Bombs? Obama’s ‘Arab Coalition’ Were Only Cheerleaders in Syria Airstrike

Peter Sterry
21st Century Wire

Much was made by U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday about his “Arab Coalition”, as the US announced it had hit Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, IS) terrorist targets inside Syria overnight.

Very noticeably, Washington and the US media really went overboard all day, stressing how its new Arab partners have finally answered the call, “taking the fight to the terrorists”. But have they really?

Are the Arab partners really pulling their weight?

NATO member Turkey has been allowed to sit out this latest Washington DC-backed ‘non-war’ war. Turkey is the country who has single-handedly done more for ISIS than any other nation, by allowing armed Islamic terrorist fighters to roam in and out of Syria via Turkey’s southern border, along with guns smuggled in from Libya, since 2011.

We are told that Obama’s partners for this dramatic air operation comprised of the usual gaggle of GCC monarchies and dictators: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Jordan and Bahrain. But what role did they really play in the attacks?


F22 FIGHTERS: US proud to announce the combat debut of their new $300 billion project.

Painting the image of a real coalition is crucial for Washington’s PR offensive. Mandarins on Pennsylvania Ave are trying really hard to make a unilateral action look like a thriving “coalition”.

It would be great if the Arab partners were in fact pulling their weight, but here’s where the seeds of doubt come in…

Many believe it’s a coalition in name only, because oil monarchies really don’t have the stomach to get their hands any dirtier than they already are. Although this will never be openly mentioned by the US President or any high ranking official on TV, everyone ‘who knows’, knows (ask any CIA analyst) that the Gulf states have been nursing and funding most major al Qaeda and terrorist groups operating in the region. For Washinginton’s ‘special friends’ Saudi Arabia and Qatar, sending dirty money to fund terrorist brigades like al Nusra and ISIS in Syria and Iraq is one thing, but actually having to do any dirty work (which gulf monarchs normally hire other people to do) – like going and cleaning up their jihadi mess – is something else altogether.

Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral Jim Kirby seemed very cagey about the issue and in the end was reluctant to release any information regarding specifics about what Washington’s ‘Arab partners’ actually did during the raid on supposed ISIS/ISIL targets Syria. We are told that Arab allies, “took part”, “participated in”, and “joined in”, but that’s as far as it goes.

Obama’s camp was running cover too, as White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest stated, “Given that these operations are ongoing, we are not in a position to provide additional details at this time”. Nothing to see here – move along.


ABAB PARTNERS: Looks like Saudi elitists were not willing to blow up their own Wahabi terrorist fighters in Syria.

Obama insists that he has, “made clear that America would act as part of a broad coalition. That’s exactly what we’ve done.” The facts tell a different story…

Early media reports trumpeted Jordan’s role in “providing intelligence” for targets and ISIL movements. That’s probably the only credible leg of the narrative. Jordan would be able to do this, especially since, over the last 3 years, it was the Kingdom of Jordan who has kindly donated it’s land along the Syrian border for US and British special forces to conduct training and arming of rebel and Islamic fighters before deplying them in Syria to stir havoc and violence there. Nice work Jordan.

M.I.A. Arabs Dropping Bombs

The more you look at Obama’s coalition fable, the more Osama bin Laden’s epic burial at sea comes to mind.

Based on the absence of any reports, or specific details on Arab ordinances deployed, it seems that being a member of Obama’s “broad coalition” means you don’t actually have to fight, and even if you don’t, US officials will tell everyone you “took part” anyway. That’s right – you’ll get credit for fighting even when you didn’t show. Sweet deal this coalition, where can we join up?

Seeing that no one in Washington wants to talk about those ‘Arab airstrikes’, what other conclusion can be drawn?

Still, we kept digging, hoping to find some clue that might place the Arab partners in harm’s way. We thought this might lead somewhere, when Army Lt. Gen. William Mayville Jr. said on Tuesday, “The airstrikes came in three waves, with coalition partners participating in the latter two”.

Waves two and three then? What type of ordinances did they drop, and from which aircraft? Which targets, and how many?

Then came another vague description, “In all, 200 pieces of ordinance were dropped by coalition members, and four dozen aircraft were used, a U.S. official told CNN.  About 150 weapons used were precision-guided munitions. The United States fired 47 Tomahawk missiles, eight of them against Khorasan targets.”

The US weren’t shy when it came to naming off their toys – they deployed F-16, F-18 fighters, F22 Raptors, Rockwell B-1 strategic bombers, MQ-1 Predator drones and Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from US ships in the Red Sea and Arabian Sea. You’d think the Arab partners would be proud to show off their own hardware (purchased from the US) and boast about the targets they destroyed, right? Apparently not.

Still, really hard to pin these Arab partners down. Eventually, you come to realise that if Washington’s brain trust had information, they would have released it by now, therefore, it’s safe to say that there is no information. The ‘Arab partners’ were bench warmesr, nothing more than glorified cheerleaders, and not very good ones at that.

By late Tuesday, Washington upgraded it’s statement from “Arab partners took part”, to “US carried out the majority of strikes”.

Even David Frum from The Atlantic seemed frustrated:

You’d think the Rightwing would be exposing Obama’s latest cover-up, but no. They were running cover too…

FOX News loves nothing more than a good war and was in its element on Tuesday. No surprise that any FOX war coverage will feature the free-flow of lies, exaggerations and half-truths to grease the wheels of war. The Greta Van Susteren Show is one cog in that wheel.

Each FOX show has a list of military ‘go-to guys’ for producers to call to get an expert opinion when little is actually known. Enter Greta’s ‘expert’ guest, Bob Scales, US Army Major General (Retired), appears to have lied on air about which Arab states actually dropped bombs on Syria early Tuesday morning.

After Greta mentioned to Scales how, ‘Two Qatari Mirage fighters only flew along for the ride but dropped no bombs in Syria’, Scales got excited and tried to fill in the blanks regarding the White House ‘coalition’ narrative, crowing:

“The other (Arab) four states actually dropped bombs!”

Those four other Arab state would have been Saudi, UAE (United Arab Emirates), Bahrain and Jordan. Scales gave no specifics and was moved off quickly, and Greta did not challenge him on his claim.

Say it on TV and millions will believe it. Experts are seldom around long enough to defend their on-air quips. No bother.

Noah Rothman, Associate Editor of Hot Air.com, tweeted on Monday night:

Again, more “dropping bombs”, and even some “kinetic activity” (meaning movement?), but no specifics, and certainly no proof to substantiate the claims on Arab bombs being dropped.

Helluva coalition Barack.

Did the US bomb a load of empty buildings in Syria on Tuesday?

US CENTCOM in Doha, Qatar may have a leak. According CNN Middle East correspondent Arwa Damon (photo, left) revealed on air that early Wednesday that ISIL terrorists allegedly held up in Raqqa, Syria, may have been tipped off weeks in advance to the US airstrikes on Syria. According to Damon, Raqqa resident had “mixed reactions to the strikes”, and that, “15-20 days before the airstrikes, (ISIL) buildings were evacuated, and fighters then mixed in with the local population”.

So this means that Obama’s grand strikes on Raqqa only blew up some empty buildings. How can the US know who is where, and a better question is how much can the public trust US reports of its own bombing campaigns. Expecting truthful reports and damage assessments from Washington is a tall order, especially since it has no track record of being highly politicised in its communications and not delivering transparency in its assessments.

Inventing Reality

When it comes to lying and making up reality, the Leftwing media aren’t much better than FOX News, as evidenced by MSNBC’s not-so-bright news anchor Chris Matthews (photo, left), tried being clever by claiming:

“Its the first time in history that Arab countries, Arab states, have gone out and killed Arab terrorists.”

Matthews proves here that you don’t have to be smart to land a news anchor job in the US. The Syrian military has been fighting ISIS, al Nusra, Front Victory and other terrorist groups for three years now. The Lebanese Army has also been battling smaller bands of terrorists, but terrorists nonetheless, in their country too. But as far as the brains at MSNBC are concerned – these don’t count, but somehow Washington’s phantom Arab sorties over Syria do.

United States didn’t waste this opportunity to introduce a new evil villain, or “al Qaeda affiliate”. Terrorist organization, the Khorasan Group, were given a big PR launch by Obama who described its members as, “seasoned al Qaeda operatives in Syria.” The US media loved it, and gave Khorasan wall-to-wall coverage all day and night on Tuesday.

Washington has suddenly claimed that the Khorasan Group, “was nearing the execution phase of an attack either in Europe or the homeland”.

We are now told that these shadowy plots against the United States were only discovered by the US ‘intelligence community’ this past week. Of course, no one could say what the target might have been, only that it “potentially involved a bomb made of a nonmetallic device like a toothpaste container or clothes dipped in explosive material”. US media have also been shouting about how Khorasan, described by one US pundit as a “Terrorist All-Stars”, who plan to “target US airlines”, and how “these are people linked to 9/11”. Couldn’t be more perfect.
 
It seems that Washington only advanced their narrative of the ‘Khorasan imminent threat’ to give some legal coverage at home, perhaps under a Bush-era Executive Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). In reality, Obama has no ground to bomb Syria, giving the Republican-controlled House of Reps another rope to hang the lame duck President.

Internationally, it’s the same – no UN resolution, and no authorisation. Totally illegal. But Washington has a colourful storyline for the media, and in the end, that’s all that’s really required these days because Washington knows that when push comes to shove with the international community – it will do what it wants, when it wants. Only Russia, China and Bolivia will protest, while the rest of the UN will hide behind the tall chairs in New York.

Guess what happens next? Yep, you guessed it…

CNN reported:

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin warning law enforcement agencies to be on heightened alert for lone-wolf terror attacks on U.S. soil in wake of the airstrikes, a U.S. law enforcement official told CNN”.

That’s right – an imminent, but unspecific threat of “lone wolf terror reprisals”. If it reads like a script, that’s probably because it is.

But the biggest lies and distortions were reserved for the US State Department:

UGLY DIPLOMACY: State Dept. regime changer Samantha Power.

“The Syrian regime has shown that it cannot and will not confront these safe havens effectively itself,” Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., wrote in a letter obtained by CNN. “Accordingly, the United States has initiated necessary and proportionate military actions in Syria.”

Her statement shows us the twisted level the US State Department is working on. Washington’s Queen of Nation-Building is blaming the Syrian government for ‘not confronting ISIS’ while the US is shipping in arms and training foreign fighters to fight against the Syrian government, fueling a bloody civil war in that country.

Lady Power is either extremely arrogant or has completely checked out of reality.

Either way, it’s scary to think about the people in charge in Washington DC.

READ MORE ISIS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire ISIS Files

READ MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR AT: The Peter Sterry Files

 

 

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