{"id":180855,"date":"2016-12-10T21:17:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-11T02:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/12\/10\/so-not-a-surprise-23\/"},"modified":"2016-12-10T21:17:00","modified_gmt":"2016-12-11T02:17:00","slug":"so-not-a-surprise-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/12\/10\/so-not-a-surprise-23\/","title":{"rendered":"So Not a Surprise\u2026\u2026\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Those &#8220;accidental&#8221; airstrikes on Syrian troops that sabotaged the cease fire negotiated between Russia and the United states in Syria <a href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2016\/12\/08\/us-airstrikes-on-syrian-troops-report-data-undermine-claim-of-mistake\/\">was no mistake<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centcom.mil\/Portals\/6\/media\/REDACTED_FINAL_XSUM_Memorandum__29_Nov_16___CLEAR.pdf\">summary report on an investigation<\/a> into  US and allied air strikes on Syrian government troops has revealed  irregularities in decision-making consistent with a deliberate targeting  of Syrian forces.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The report, released by US Central Command on 29 November, shows that  senior US Air Force officers at the Combined Air Operations Center  (CAOC) at al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar, who were responsible for the  decision to carry out the September airstrike at Deir Ezzor:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">misled the Russians about where the US intended to strike so Russia could not warn that it was targeting Syrian troops<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">ignored information and intelligence analysis warning that the  positions to be struck were Syrian government rather than Islamic State<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">shifted abruptly from a deliberate targeting process to an immediate strike in violation of normal Air Force procedures<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Last week Brig. Gen. Richard Coe, the lead US official on the  investigating team, told reporters that US air strikes in Deir Ezzor on  17 September, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/news\/us-led-coalition-air-raid-strikes-syrian-army-truce-wavers-russia-says-333433742\">which killed at least 62<\/a> \u2013 and possibly more than 100 \u2013 Syrian army troops, was the unintentional result of \u201chuman error\u201d.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The report itself says that the investigators found \u201cno evidence of  misconduct\u201d \u2013 but it is highly critical of the decision process and does  not offer any explanations for that series of irregularities.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\"><b>How the strikes killed off ceasefire deal<\/b><\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The strikes against two Syrian army positions were the pivotal event in the breakdown of the Syrian ceasefire agreement reached between the United States and Russia in September. Both Moscow and Damascus denounced the strikes as a deliberate move by the Obama administration to support the Islamic State group and cited the attacks as the reason for declaring an end to the ceasefire on 19 September.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think that this shows very little doubt that the US military establishment, up to at least the commander in the theater, and probably up to the office of the Secretary of Defense, were actively sabotaging a decision of the President.<\/p>\n<p>Heads should roll, but they won&#8217;t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those &#8220;accidental&#8221; airstrikes on Syrian troops that sabotaged the cease fire negotiated between Russia and the United states in Syria was no mistake: The summary report on an investigation into US and allied air strikes on Syrian government troops has revealed irregularities in decision-making consistent with a deliberate targeting of Syrian forces.The report, released by &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[841,761,815,820,840],"class_list":["post-180855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-civil-war","tag-corruption","tag-foreign-relations","tag-military","tag-syria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180855"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}