{"id":35978,"date":"2018-07-16T07:31:01","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T12:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=35978"},"modified":"2018-07-16T07:31:01","modified_gmt":"2018-07-16T12:31:01","slug":"the-myth-of-us-inaction-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=35978","title":{"rendered":"The Myth of US \u2018Inaction\u2019 in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Myth of US \u2018Inaction\u2019 in Syria<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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Introduction<\/b><\/p>\n

When the Russian military intervened in the Syrian war in October 2015, many in the Western press complained bitterly, demanding that US planners intervene directly in Syria on behalf of the anti-government rebels in response. Reuters<\/i> alleged<\/a> that \u201cThe Middle East is angry and bewildered by US inaction in Syria,\u201d arguing that \u201cThe question on everyone\u2019s mind is: will the United States and its European and regional Sunni allies intervene to stop President Vladimir Putin from reversing the gains made by mainstream Syrian rebels after more than four years of war? Few are holding their breath.\u201d The Washington Post<\/i> similarly argued<\/a> that Russian president Vladimir Putin was \u201cexploiting America\u2019s inaction,\u201d while the Guardian <\/i>lamented<\/a> the \u201cwestern inability to care enough about the plight of Syrians.\u201d As Russian and Syrian forces battled rebels one year later in Aleppo, more dramatic accusations of US inaction emerged, with Foreign Policy<\/i> describing<\/a> US policy in Syria under Obama as \u201cinaction in the face of genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea that the United States has not intervened in Syria and is guilty of \u201cinaction,\u201d is a myth however. The United States and its Western and Gulf Allies have intervened in the Syrian conflict from early on. US planners have been fighting what the New York Times<\/i> described<\/a> as a \u201c$1 Billion Secret C.I.A. War in Syria\u201d while providing weapons to rebels through a program considered \u201cone of the costliest covert action programs in the history of the C.I.A.\u201d Starting in the fall of 2012, the US and its Gulf partners, under the direction of then CIA director David Petraeus, were openly sending<\/a> \u201ca cataract of weaponry\u201d into Syria. It is likely that such shipments began much earlier without public acknowledgment, via the \u201crat line\u201d from Libya, as reported<\/a> by journalist Seymour Hersh.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Myth of US \u2018Inaction\u2019 in Syria Introduction When the Russian military intervened in the Syrian war in October 2015, many in the Western press complained bitterly, demanding that US planners intervene directly in Syria on behalf of the anti-government rebels in response. Reuters alleged that \u201cThe Middle East is angry and bewildered by US […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[694,776,20898,827,20899],"class_list":["post-35978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-russia","tag-syria","tag-the-libertarian-institute","tag-united-states","tag-william-van-wagenen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35979,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35978\/revisions\/35979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}