Obama at the Pentagon: No End to ISIS War
By Thomas Gaist
July 07, 2015 "Information
Clearing House"
- "WSWS"
- The
US government will continue its military intervention in Iraq and Syria
indefinitely while ramping up its “counterterrorism” operations both overseas
and within the US, President Barack Obama made clear in public remarks at the
Pentagon Monday.Flanked by a phalanx of military
officials and commanders, Obama outlined a perspective of endless war in Iraq,
Syria and beyond in a speech delivered after closed-door meetings with top
military officials.
Nearly a year after its launch, Operation “Inherent Resolve,”
originally presented to the American people as a temporary and limited action,
has become an open-ended war stretching across large parts of Iraq and Syria.
The Iraq-Syria war, which has already involved some 5,000
combat sorties by US and allied war planes and the return to Iraq of thousands
of US troops, is part of what Obama called a “generational struggle” against
“violent extremism,” to be waged without any timetable or geographical
limitation.
“This will not be quick. This is a long-term campaign,” Obama
said.
Obama’s remarks came in the immediate wake of some of the most
intense bombing of the entire campaign, with US and allied war planes launching
some 40 strikes against targets throughout the Iraq-Syria war theater over the
weekend, including heavy strikes on ISIS’s self-proclaimed capital at Raqqa in
Syria, as well as strikes against the Syrian cities of Kobani and Hasakah and
against the Iraqi cities of Habbaniya, Mosul, Makmur, Sinjar and Tal Afar.
The comments also come amid recent indications that Washington
is ramping up the deployment of US troops and military resources throughout the
region. Obama announced just weeks ago that the Pentagon will send an additional
450 ground troops to Iraq as part of plans to establish a new US base and
training camp in Anbar province.
One day later, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen.
Martin Dempsey, told reporters that the Pentagon was preparing for additional
deployments to Iraq, possibly involving thousands more troops and the
establishment of a network of new US bases across the country.
Last week, the Financial Times reported that
Washington’s ally Jordan was preparing to carve out a buffer zone in southern
Syria, backed by “key members of the international coalition against ISIS, who
are expected to provide behind-the-lines military support and advice.”
In recent congressional testimony, Dempsey and Secretary of
Defense Ashton Carter raised the possibility of breaking up Iraq along sectarian
lines, and the Democratic Party-aligned Brookings Institution last month
published a paper calling for a policy of “deconstructing Syria.” These
proposals make it clear that behind the current war in Iraq and Syria is the
drive by US imperialism to carry out a new, neocolonial carve-up of the oil-rich
region.
The US is moving to “accelerate delivery of weapons” to Iraqi
tribal fighters, the Peshmerga and other Kurdish militants and the “moderate”
opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Obama said on Monday.
Rather than attempt a legal justification for the war, which
has been launched and prosecuted behind the backs of the American people and in
defiance of popular opposition, Obama defended his administration’s war policies
by boasting of the large kill count achieved by the US-led coalition.
“It’s important to recognize the progress that’s been made.
We’ve eliminated thousands of fighters,” Obama said, underscoring the fact that
it has become routine for the American president to speak of “killing” or
“taking out” people around the world.
Obama reiterated the US goal of regime change in Syria,
declaring that the US would do more to aid the anti-Assad opposition, and adding
that “the only way” to end the civil war in that country was to “transition to
an inclusive government” without Assad.
Noting that he had recently discussed the war against ISIS
with Russian President Putin, Obama hinted that Putin was amenable to
Washington’s plans to topple Assad.
He said that the US would step up its counterterrorism
operations in countries “from Afghanistan to Nigeria.” This was a signal that
Washington will continue its drone strikes, bombings, commando operations and
other illegal actions in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other
countries.
Obama devoted nearly half of his remarks to what he called the
fight against terror threats within the United States. He said, ominously, that
his administration was “partnering with Muslim communities” in the US and added
that “we expect those communities to step up.” This was a thinly veiled
justification for continuing government surveillance of the American people and
other repressive measures, carried out under the pretext of “protecting the
homeland.”
His remarks followed days of media scaremongering leading up
to the Independence Day holiday on July 4. For several days, the networks led
their news broadcasts with alarming reports of heightened terror threats,
without producing a shred of evidence to substantiate their warnings, while
acknowledging that the government had not detected any “credible, specific
threats.”
Obama’s emphasis on the “war on terror” at home made clear
that the relentless campaign of the government to sow fear and anxiety among the
public in order to justify internal repression and external military aggression
would continue unabated.
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