A US warplane takes off from a US aircraft carrier to bomb targets in Syria. (cc photo: Alex King/US Navy)
“President Obama has long refused to approve direct military intervention in Syria,” the New York Times asserted in an editorial (9/29/16) about “Vladimir Putin’s Outlaw State.”
That’s a peculiar thing to say, given that the Times regularly covers the United States’ ongoing direct military intervention in Syria. Since 2014, according to official Pentagon figures, the US has carried out 5,337 airstrikes in Syria. According to the monitoring group Airwars, these airstrikes (along with a few hundred strikes by US allies) have likely killed between 818 and 1,229 Syrian civilians.
Nor is direct US military intervention in Syria limited to aerial attacks. In May 2015, the New York Times (5/16/15) reported on a combat raid by US Delta Force commandos in eastern Syria. Later that year, the Times (10/30/15) observed that President Barack Obama had announced he was sending (in the paper’s words) “several dozen” special forces troops on an “open-ended mission” inside Syria.
This somehow does not meet the New York Times‘ definition of “direct military intervention in Syria.”
Just a couple of weeks ago, the Times (9/16/16) wrote about three dozen more special forces going to aid Turkish troops inside Syria. Officially, these will have an “advise and assist” role—but the Times (12/27/15) has elsewhere noted the frequent US practice with regard to special forces of “resorting to linguistic contortions to mask the forces’ combat role.”
The Times, for its part, is engaging in some kind of linguistic contortion of its own to make none of this qualify as “direct military intervention in Syria.” Presumably it has something to do with the airstrikes and special forces not being aimed at the Syrian government of Bashar Assad, but at the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS—a rival to Assad’s power in Syria that the US is semi-officially at war with, even as Washington provides arms and training to other armed groups trying to overthrow Assad.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. You can follow him on Twitter at @JNaureckas.
You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com, or write to public editor Liz Spayd at public@nytimes.com (Twitter:@NYTimes or @SpaydL). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
Good piece, but the direct military action bit is really a minor point.
Try substituting “Obama” for “Putin, and “the U.S.” for “Russia”. and the narrative is no less accurate, especially if you substitute Ukraine for the specific “Crimea.” Then if you substitute Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan or other countries that we’re bombing for Syria, it’s even clearer, although it works with Syria too.
Textbook propaganda projection.
Well, we can, at least, expect that the two major party candidates for President will be spending the weeks before the election thoroughly discussing, between themselves and among the public, the global strategic and tactical rationale for our current actions in Syria and the candidates specific plans for handling the issues, once s/he is elected.
I look forward to an informed and enlightening debate on this and the other armed conflicts that we’ve been pursuing for years in the Middle East. That what elections are for, in a democracy. Aren’t they?
Unfortunately, getting an “informed and enlightening debate” from two serial liars is as likely as getting fair and accurate reporting from the NYT.
The “Outlaw State” rhetoric is very bothersome. This is how the media paves the way for open warfare.
Russia is not an outlaw state. It is a large, populous nation with a 1,000 year history. It has its own interests and own foreign policy. It is – and this is what Washington cannot stand – another pole of global power. The US should try to bring Russia to heel through force is not just wrong-headed, it is impossible.
Our national media is very uniform. It’s rhetoric is very aggressive. And within the last 15 years, it has led us into a major, still ongoing disaster in Iraq and helped spawn these interventions into Libya and Syria on rhetoric and untruths. The UK parliament just released another report, similar to the Chilcot Report on Iraq, that shows that there was no real threat to the citizens of Benghazi and that the war on Libya was another disaster that has made things worse, not better. The media of the United States are no longer useful as a watchdog of government – they are now simply an arm of its often dangerous foreign policies.
When are we going to wake up to these facts? When the missiles are launched?
I certainly hope that isn’t what it takes. But you can ask the Germans what it took to end their desires for world domination.
What is important here is this exposes the ruminant evacuation that Obama is somehow “reluctant” to attack Syria. He’s been doing it for several years. He’s just “reluctant” to be BLAMED for starting a war with Syria.
People forget that the Administration submitted THREE UN Security Council Resolutions with Chapter 7 language in them to justify a war with Syria – just like it did with Libya. Only the vetoes of Russia and China – burned over Libya – prevented us from attacking Syria three or four years ago. Obama was not “reluctant” then – and he’s not “reluctant” now.
In fact, given the rhetoric over Aleppo, it seems clear that Obama is preparing to attack Syria once again. The REASON Russia intervened last fall was because the discussion of a “no-fly zone” and a “safe zone” was being used to prepare the world for a war with Syria. Now the US is going to use the Turkey invasion and the Syrian-Russian effort to prevent Aleppo from falling into Turkish hands to once again try to impose a “no-fly zone” and take Russia out of the picture.
The problem is that Russia will NOT allow itself to be taken out of the picture. And they are quite as capable of imposing a no-fly zone on US aircraft with their S-300/S-400, BUK and Pantsir anti-aircraft systems and their superior air-to-air fighters.
If Obama is not careful, we could be at World War Three with Russia in a matter of weeks or months.
“In fact, given the rhetoric over Aleppo, it seems clear that Obama is preparing to attack Syria once again. ”
In fact there was zero interest in a large-scale intervention in Syria in either civilian or military quarters. All this is documented in a NY Times article from October 22nd 2013, written when the alarums over a looming war with Syria were at their loudest, that stated “from the beginning, Mr. Obama made it clear to his aides that he did not envision an American military intervention, even as public calls mounted that year for a no-fly zone to protect Syrian civilians from bombings.” The article stressed the role of White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough, who had frequently clashed with the hawkish Samantha Power. In contrast to Power and others with a more overtly “humanitarian intervention” perspective, McDonough “who had perhaps the closest ties to Mr. Obama, remained skeptical. He questioned how much it was in America’s interest to tamp down the violence in Syria.”
Do you seriously consider the NYT as a reliable source for anything except cherry-picked purposedly leaked governmental ‘secrets’ ?
“the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS—a rival to Assad’s power in Syria that the US is semi-officially at war with …”
Please correct that to “semi-officially *semi-*at-war with”.
Sure, but can anyone tell me what Russia has to gain by attacking or covering attacks on hospitals, medical supply centers, food depots, and water pumping stations in violation of the cease-fire agreement they signed?
Good question, unless they want to protect Assad’s regime at litterally any price, including committing serious war crimes.
Such attacks have become a war strategy of choice : the US in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia in Yemen, Bahrein’s authorities and Assad in their own countries. But so far we do not know for sure who bombed those Syrian hospitals and therefore can only guess at the motivation behind them. The world has a long history of provocations in order to blame some one for a serious crime it did not commit and on that particular battle field, alliances and animosities change almost daily (eg Russia & Turkey, Turkey & US, etc). Then there’s Iran, Iraq, Israel and even some European countries militarily involved.
“But so far we do not know for sure who bombed those Syrian hospitals and therefore can only guess at the motivation behind them.”
Well, everybody knows that the rebels have a secret air force in Jordan whose sole mission is to carry out “false flag” missions against their own supporters in order to create enough anger against Assad so that “regime change” will finally take place after a half-decade. Just read Alex Jones for more information on this.
Who are the true terrorists after all?
It’s never law breaking, or Geneva Conventions violations, or direct intervention, or human rights violations or even torture if the United States government does it! Although, when “anyone” else does it, it most certainly is!!