US-Israeli determination to keep the Syrian people suffering

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator

Israel attacked the Aleppo International Airport in northwest Syria on March 7 and caused the international humanitarian aid for the earthquake victims to be canceled due to the damages of the airstrike.

While the world is watching the suffering of Turkey and Syria following the massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake on February 6, Israel was targeting the place in Syria which was hardest hit by the natural disaster with the man-made destruction of a civilian airport that connects Syria to Europe and the world. 

Foreign donors including the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria have flown aid into Aleppo airport following almost 5,000 deaths reported in Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, and Jeblah.  Hundreds were injured and hundreds of thousands have been made homeless after the quake. The Syrian government has said the resources needed to meet the needs of the affected areas are more than they have on hand after over a decade of the US-NATO attack on Syria for regime change.

This was the second attack by Israel on Aleppo airport in six months and was Israel’s third air strike in Syria this year. In January, Israel attacked the Damascus International Airport. Last year, Israel carried out more than 30 air strikes in Syria.

Last month, Israel attacked a civilian neighborhood in Damascus, Kafr Sousa, killing 15 sleeping in their beds.

Yankee Go Home

Republican Representative from Florida, Matt Gaetz, introduced a bill in the House to withdraw all US troops illegally occupying Syria.

“Congress has never authorized the use of military force in Syria,” Gaetz said. He added, “The United States is currently not in a war with or against Syria, so why are we conducting dangerous military operations there?”

There are about 1,000 US troops in Syria. They are partnered with the separatist militias, SDF and YPG, who have set up a communist semi-autonomous government in the northeast. This has angered Turkey, a fellow NATO member with the US because the YPG is aligned with the PKK, a terrorist group responsible for over 30,000 deaths in Turkey over decades.

On March 4, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, arrived in Syria, where he met with US troops there and said Washington’s military presence there was critical to the security of both the US and its allies. The ally he referred to was not Turkey, which has the largest army in Europe, but rather the SDF and YPG who are a stateless militia following communist political ideology, and in open armed conflict with Turkey, a US ally that hosts a US airbase at Inderlik.

The US troops occupying Syria illegally are there for two purposes. Firstly, they protect the SDF and YPG from serious attack, or dismantlement by Turkey, which views them as the enemy. Secondly, the US troops stationed at Al Tanf, on the Baghdad-Damascus highway, serve to prevent goods from being trucked from Iraq to Syria.

The US troops at Al-Tanf are partnered with a militia Maghawir al-Thawra, who are Radical Islamic terrorists not far different than Al Qaeda. There is an ethical question surrounding the US occupation in Syria: is it ethical for a western democracy like the US to partner with a communist militia, or a militia following Radical Islam?

The answer to that question came from an unnamed former US military member, “The US uses any asset they have access to, regardless of ideology.”

In response to Milley’s visit to Syria, Gaetz said, “America has no discernible interest in continuing to fund a fight where alliances shift faster than the desert sands. … If General Milley wants this war so bad, he should explain what we are fighting for and why it is worth American treasure and blood.” 

Gaetz, legislators, and activists are seeking to return war-making power to Congress. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution is clear: Only Congress can declare war.  This resolution would have removed the US troops from Syria, but it did not pass.

On March 7, Gaetz tweeted, “Obama got us into a civil war in Syria. President Trump did everything to get us out of Syria. The Deep State is doing everything to keep us in Syria. My War Powers Resolution puts AMERICA FIRST and brings our troops home!”

Milley’s visit to occupied Syria explains Biden’s Syria policy. Biden is dead-set on continuing the occupation of Syria, maintaining Idlib as an Al Qaeda safe-haven, maintaining the SDF and YPG as a semi-autonomous communist enclave opposing both Damascus and Ankara, and preventing the reconstruction of Syria following a decade of armed conflict by terrorists aligned with the US, and the recent earthquake.

Some have said that the US, SDF, and YPG are fighting to keep ISIS from a comeback. However, with less than 1,000 US troops, and their lightly-armed partners, this cannot be considered an effective military force against terrorists. The Iraqi Army, the Syrian Arab Army, and their Russian military partners are effective military forces capable of keeping ISIS on the run. This proves that the US occupation serves no military purpose, but is strictly a political ploy.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged in 2021 that it was US policy to “oppose the reconstruction of Syria,” and the policy hasn’t changed. Buildings, homes, businesses, and hospitals have been destroyed and need to be rebuilt. These are civilian properties deserving to be rebuilt, and yet the US policy is to keep the Syrian people suffering, homeless, unemployed, and lacking medical facilities.

Blinken’s representative for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, has toured her area of responsibility but has never visited Damascus. The Biden administration views the small province of Idlib, under the occupation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, as the only legitimate government in Syria.  Muhammed al-Julani is the leader in charge of his Salvation government there. He is the man to whom all international aid is delivered. He has ordered his men to raid aid warehouses, held aid workers for $60,000 ransom, distributed aid only to his Radical Islamic ideology supporters, denied aid to civilians who oppose the Islamic Law interpretations imposed on Idlib, and denied women from aid programs.

Julani fought against the US troops in Iraq while with Al Qaeda, became personally associated with the ISIS leader Baghdadi while in Iraq, and then came to Syria and formed Jibhat al-Nusra, a terrorist group that was reported to be even more vicious than ISIS, and now is the supreme leader of the US-EU protected enclave of Idlib. All UN aid, and that of every international humanitarian aid organization, passes through his hands alone.

An ethical question arises from Idlib: how do international aid organizations balance the need to help about 3 million civilians in Idlib, with the fact that they are enabling a terrorist leader and his fighters to hold the basic needs of unarmed civilians hostage?

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist