After warning Syria not to fly planes in the Hasakeh Province or risk getting them shot down by US planes in the area, the Pentagon is struggling to convince reporters that there is some sort of distinction between this zone you can’t fly in and a “no-fly zone.”
Fighting erupted between Syrian Army and Kurdish YPG forces in the city of Hasakeh late last week, with the YPG attempting to take the rest of the city, which had long been jointly held and jointly defended, As the fighting escalated, Syrian warplanes bombed Kurdish forces.
The US has its trooped embedded with the Kurdish forces, and argued that the Syrian airstrikes were endangering them. Over the weekend they repeatedly scrambled fighter jets to chase off the Syrian planes, warning they were going to ‘defend themselves.”
The Pentagon has since expanded this to declaring the area “an exclusion zone,” which is distinct from a no-fly zone because the Pentagon says it is a different thing. Spokesman Peter Cook insisted the US has warned Syria not to fly planes in the area for a long time now.
In practice, the move is a dramatic escalation, and Cook’s arguing of semantics didn’t mean much of anything, as he spent the rest of the press briefing railing against the Syrian military for contesting control of Aleppo with al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, and insisted that the Kurds would continue to enjoy US military support in the fighting.
Every indication is that the Kurds started this fight over Hasakeh, and that the military was more than content to leave the city jointly-held. Russia has been trying to get the two sides to stop fighting, with the only condition being that the Kurds return seized checkpoints to the military. The US, by contrast, seems more than eager to keep the fighting going, and to expand the war.
Why do I get the feeling that the “Kurdish forces” are being paid in U.S. dollars ? Silly me.
the Kurd’s in Iraq have been working with Mossad since the sixties I’m not sure if they infiltrated to Syria too, the reason why the US don’t want the Syrian’s bombing in the area.
There is no one “Kurds” and the Israelis were on both sides. They helped one group of Kurds against Iran, another against Saddam, and helped Turkey against yet other groups of Kurds.
Chutzpah.
“The invaders have a right to defend themselves.”
Why didn’t the defense team think of that at Nuremberg?
The Kurds have been committing ethnic cleansing against Arabs in areas they “recaptured” from ISIS.
“Israel has ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Arabs in Palestine. ”
That must be why there are more than ten times as many Arabs in Palestine now as there were in 1948, and why the Arab population in Palestine is not just growing, but growing faster than the Jewish population in Palestine.
The difference between the Palestinian population and the Israeli population is that the regime is importing many of their people to displace the inhabitants in Jerusalem and the other occupied territories.
The difference between the Palestinian population and the Israeli population is that the latter is a subset of the former.
“Subsets” shouldn’t be declaring a Jewish State when they are the minority. That would be like Blacks declaring the US a Black State.
“Subsets” shouldn’t be declaring a Jewish State when they are the minority. That would be like Bla_cks declaring the US a Bla_ck State.
Minorities should be declaring a nation as a “Jewish” State.
What blows me away is how a moderator for this site is completely clueless when it comes to ethic cleansing.
How many more would there be if the Israelis were not systematically repressing them and driving them out?
Of course the US wants a bigger war. Our hawks are already assuming a Hillary win, and they are jumping the gun.
Ethnic cleansing by the YPG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Protection_Units#Forced_displacement
Where is the public outcry? The pseudo liberal left sleeps again. No criticism of the obamanothercountry administration. The msm is worthless.
Hasakah is about fifty miles from the nearest ISIS-controlled territory – one has to ask what US special forces are doing in Hasakah unless it’s persuading the Kurds to attack the SAA. BTW, don’t the Kurds know their own recent history – the United States are very fickle allies except with the Israelis and Saudis and when it suits the USG, it will F**K its lesser allies.
Yup, no fly zone and exclusive zones are different, just like Obama and once Tom are different
Yup, no fly zone and exclusive zones are different, just like Obama and uncle Tom are different
In other Pentagon related news you will not hear about.
Aug 19, 2016 U.S. Army fudged its accounts by trillions of dollars, auditor finds. The United States Army’s finances are so jumbled it had to make trillions of dollars of improper accounting adjustments to create an illusion that its books are balanced.
http://reut.rs/2b40YLd
August 10th, 2016 The Stench of Raw Propaganda
Agents for the elite willing to tell the most blatant and transparant lies, they know the media will not challenge them on their statements. Washington’s plan to invade Syria was blocked by the UK Parliament and Russian diplomacy.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/08/10/the-stench-of-raw-propaganda-paul-craig-roberts/
The question whether an “exclusion zone” is or is not the same as a “no-fly zone?”
Well, the answer depends on what the definition of “is” is, doesn’t it?
Bill,
That’s pretty lazy. I defy you to name a single time that I have ever denied that Israel engaged in, and still engages in, ethnic cleansing. You can’t because I have never done so.
read your first post of this thread, there’s a single time you denied it!
That was the inescapable implication of your response to 3d Face Analysis, calling into question his statement that hundreds of thousands of Arabs were cleansed in Palestine.
Inescapable, huh?
Yes. The gerund explains why that term is applicable.
By what authority in the US Constitution does the US govt assert as giving them unilateral control over ANY foreign sovereign nation? NONE, NOTHING, ITS A WAR CRIME AND AN ACT OF WAR IN VIOLATION OF LAWS OF NATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW!
I can’t think of a better reason for a middle-eastern nation to call for the U N to put sanctions on the U S for being an invading force into their sovereign country. Isn’t this what the U N was established for ?
After all the stories we were told about WWII. I would have never imagined the army of my country becoming an aggressor into another country.
Q: Can they fly there?
A: No.
WTF
The United States has no legitimate reason to be in Syria; they are there illegally, and as such have no authority to tell anyone to do anything.
USA illegally squatting so that it can continue meddling in Syria. GTFO!