The obvious and only answer is YES!Yes the US is complicit in the ethnic cleansing going on right now in Syria. I of course wouldn’t limit it to just this one incident. In order to be complicit, choosing to be involved in an illegal or questionable act, especially with others; having complicity, the US needs partner in crime. Which they have in their allied Kurdish groups (Not all Kurds, but, some are extremely vile, despicable and treacherous) The Nation report harkens back to a US airstrike made in Syria, called in by Kurdish militias, which resulted in large civilian casualties-This specific incident was covered here at the blog, May 03/2015: US Led Airstrikes Kill 52 Syrian Civilians, 7 children inc. Completely missing ISISHere is a snip of my commentary at that time, based on the numerous reports I had read.
“Kurdish spokesperson, associated with YPG, knows of no civilian casualties. Or doesn't wish to acknowledge them? If the village was emptied of civilians prior to the strike, as the Kurdish spokesperson claims, what was this large group of civilians including children still doing there?My question is this. Was this large group of persons the intended target of the airstrikes? Because that's the only conclusion I can draw from all these reports”
When the Obama administration stipulated that its modus operandi for the covert war of targeted killing—that there needed to be a “near certainty” no civilians would be killed (however poorly the policy is implemented)—didn’t apply to Syria, it raised eyebrows.
This is another previously mentioned subject!
September 30/2014 :White House- Kill Syrian/Iraqi Civilians- Exemption for airstrikesThe White House has acknowledged for the first time that strict standards President Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes will not apply to U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq.
While I did realize this would mean whole sale slaughter and displacement of civilians I didn't at that time put the 2+2 = Ethnically cleansing Syria for Kurdistan. Though I should have. I should have!Back to the Nation report
A report by McClatchy on Wednesday indicates that not only are the civilian casualties mounting, but points to the US-led coalition, perhaps unwittingly, helping a Kurdish militia carry out ethnic cleansing and a possible war crime.
The first batch of civilian casualties came early on in the Syria campaign launched last September: while targeting a terrorist bomb maker, air strikes killed at least seven civilians, Human Rights Watch said at the time. As the sporadic bombings continued, civilian deaths slowly mounted; an opposition human rights group said in March that coalition forces had caused more than 100 civilian deaths in Syria. (Others have placed the number of confirmed deaths at around 60.)
Then, over one half-hour period last Thursday night, coalition-caused civilian deaths spiked: an initial report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said missile strikes in the village Bir Hamalli killed least 50 civilians from among the village’s 1000 inhabitants; the following day, it raised the toll to 64 confirmed deaths, including 31 children and 19 women. Yesterday, another rights group, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, corroborated the numbers, adding incredibly troubling details of how the attack was carried off.
Mousab Alhamadee of the indispensable McClatchy news agency tied together the Network’s release with his own reporting:
An activist, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity for his safety, told McClatchy last week that he suspected that members of the local Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG in the Kurdish language, which had worked closely with the United States during the fight for Kobani, had intentionally called in the strike to drive away Arab residents.
Alhamadee went on to note that the US military had confirmed a Kurdish role in intelligence gathering for the strike: the militia had—apparently incorrectly—“reported there were no civilians present in that location and that there had not been any civilians present for two weeks prior to the coalition airstrikes,” a US spokesman had said. (The Syrian Network reported that the village was under ISIS’s control, but that the jihadi group doesn’t have any bases there.)
The account proffered to Alhamadee by the Syrian Network was even more troubling: “When two fuel trucks entered the town, the network said residents had reported, the YPG opened fire with tracer rounds. When villagers gathered to aid those wounded by the YPG fire, coalition aircraft fired missiles.”
Whoa, Nelly! If this report is accurate—it’s admittedly thinly sourced, (no it isn't) as is so much reporting about what’s happening on the ground in Syria—Kurdish militias are calling in US bombings to deliberately murder civilians, with the aim of ethnically cleansing Arab villages. And the US is obliging them. (The US denied any civilian casualties, leading one of the rights groups to express shock at the denial.) The tactic seems to have worked: most of Bir Mahalli’s residents reportedly fled.
Here comes the spin-This is all because the US has no 'boots on the ground' (italicized)The US chose to partner with the Kurdish militias for specific reasons. Mutually beneficial reasons.The US/Israel/NATO war mongers get what they want. The Kurdish conspirators get what they want.As long as this all goes as planned.More spin can be found in the last sentence- over reliance on a huckster - The US and company wanted the war- Chalabi was a convenient stooge- he simply fed them information that intelligence agencies likely fed him anyway- Or not. Perhaps Chalabi's alleged providing of information was all a ruse anyway
One such pattern apparent in America’s new modes of warfare—a “light-footprint” of limiting “boots on the ground,” or air campaigns that seek to further minimize risk to US personnel, whether covert drone attacks or overt airstrikes—consist of poor targeting practices exacerbated by alliances with dubious, self-interested local actors. The pitfalls were evident in the Iraq war from the get-go, thanks to an over-reliance on the huckster Ahmed Chalabi for the justification to war.
All this US complicity in ethnic cleansing ties into the Syrians being forcibly removed from their country, land and homes to make way for the much desired by NATO and company "Kurdistan"