An Empire Without a Military Strategy for a Military Strategy Without an Empire
President Obama has stated his strategic doctrine at West Point. In his speech, he reiterated the military omnipotence of the United States, while it is technically surpassed by both Russia and China. Unable to cope with Moscow, he glossed over the loss of the Crimea in silence and instead designated the only worthy enemy: the tactics of terrorism.
While al-Qaeda camps are located in countries under occupation by NATO or NATO members, he announced a comprehensive program to combat them. Finally, he reiterated his support for the “Syrian opposition” and promised that he would not fail to bring them help… when he gets Congressional approval.
The United States is henceforth only an “indispensable nation” in President Obama’s discourse.
On May 28th, President Obama delivered an important speech stating his strategic doctrine on the occasion of the graduation of cadets of the Military Academy at West Point. [1]
Not surprisingly, the President recalled that he kept his promise to repatriate US troops deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to eliminate Osama bin Laden. But what he portrayed as a supposedly laudatory assessment is not one: the GIs returned exhausted from Afghanistan and have fled Iraq before being expelled by the popular resistance. The exorbitant cost of these expeditions, over 1,000 billion, has prevented the Pentagon from maintaining its arsenal. About the death of bin Laden, it is naught but a fairy tale: Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with the attacks of September 11th and died of illness and was buried in December 2001, as has well certified the British MI6. [2]
One can only admire the US ability to continue this narration of an imaginary reality, however contradicted by solid evidence, and to always be echoed by the Atlanticist media.
In his speech, the president described his country as “the indispensable nation”, both militarily and economically the most powerful. Yet neither of these assertions is still true. On May 14th, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged before the Atlantic Council that US armed forces would definitely be surpassed in 10 years if a huge upgrade effort were not made right away [3] ; an unlikely effort given budgetary restrictions. The Pentagon notes that the gap in military research is probably irreversible. Russian and Chinese Military technology are now more developed than those of the United States. It is too late to recover. The apparent superiority of Washington holds only because its troops are the only ones deployed worldwide. It therefore exists in certain theaters of operation, but not against Russia, nor against China, which would win in World War. As for the economy, the majority of consumer goods consumed in the U.S. is made in China.
On this spooky basis, in the words of the Washington Post refering only to the relative military weakness of the United States [4], President Obama announced that his country would not hesitate to intervene abroad when its direct interests are involved, but would use international coalitions to address more distant problems. He said that, unlike during the Cold War, Russia no longer posed an imminent danger, but that the main enemy is terrorism.
So the accession of the Crimea to Russia doesn’t matter. Washington will not fight against it though it describes it as an “annexation” and a grave breach of international law, not hesitating to compare President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler.
Especially after 13 years of “war against terrorism”, Washington claims to have eliminated a few fanatics who composed the international leadership of Al Qaeda, but must now face a more serious problem : many affiliated al-Qaeda groups which have formed almost everywhere in the world.
This “war without end” has the advantage of authorizing everything. Presenting itself since 2001 as acting in self-defense, Washington has authorized itself to violate the sovereignty of other states in order to remove or bombard them, using blackmail at will. To continue this war, President Obama announced the creation of a “counterterrorism partnerships fund,” of up to $ 5 billion. It will aim to train security forces in allied states. Who can believe in such a program? Currently terrorists are trained in the more permanent camps of Al Qaeda, located in the Libyan desert country occupied by NATO. Meanwhile three Al Qaeda camps are installed in Şanlıurfa, Osmaniye and Karaman, Turkey, a NATO member [5] country.
Syrians remember the televised confessions of the Emir of Al- Nosra Front (affiliated to Al-Qaeda) who transported chemical missiles from a Turkish military base to Damascus Ghouta. According to this man, not only were the weapons provided to him by a member of the NATO army, but the order to use them under “false- flag” to justify the bombing of Syria by the United States came from the US.
13 years after the events of September 11, 2001, who can still believe that Al-Qaeda is the main enemy of the “indispensable nation”, when even Barack Obama described the elements affiliated with Al-Qaeda as “less capable” than their parent organisation in his speech at the national Defense University, May 28, 2013 ? [6]. He said that the danger had become relative and that the United States should no longer make it the priority.
About Syria, President Obama continued at West Point by stating intentions to “help the Syrian people stand up against a dictator who bombs and starves his own people” ( sic). That is why Washington will help “those who fight for the right of all Syrians to choose their own future” (read: not the Syrians themselves who vote to elect their president, but only those who are willing to collaborate with a colonial government made in NATO).
Moreover, why intervene only in Syria? Because “As the Syrian civil war spills across borders, the capacity of battle-hardened extremist groups to come after us only increases. ” In other words, after burning Syria, the United States could be affected by the fire they have lit.
“We will step up our efforts to support Syria’s neighbors — Jordan and Lebanon; Turkey and Iraq — as they contend with refugees and confront terrorists working across Syria’s borders. I will work with Congress to ramp up support for those in the Syrian opposition who offer the best alternative to terrorists and brutal dictators. And we will continue to coordinate with our friends and allies in Europe and the Arab World to push for a political resolution of this crisis, and to make sure that those countries and not just the United States are contributing their fair share to support the Syrian people,” he said.
In other words, the White House is having talks with Congress on how to support the personal ambitions of members of the National Coalition. According to press reports, Washington could provide military training in neighboring states and distribute better weapons. Only here’s the rub:
If Washington starts to train and arm Syrian collaborators, it will have to admit to not having done so on a large scale before and having used primarily foreign mercenaries as part of Al-Qaeda.
If 250,000 mercenary jihadists were unable to overthrow the Syrian government over the past three years, how will a few thousand Employees of Western colonization succeed?
Why would neighboring states, already engaged in a secret war, enter into an open war against Syria, with the risks involved for them?
Which more sophisticated weapons could be delivered to the employees of colonialism without the risk of their being used someday against other targets, including Israeli air superiority?
And last, but not least, knowing that all this has been discussed over the past three years, what new factor could lead one to believe that these isuues could find a solution today?
Obama’s speech is one of impotence : he boasts of having withdrawn his troops from Afghanistan and Iraq and killing a ghost that, for the past decade, still existed only in the tapes of Al-Jazeera. He announces he would fight the terrorism that everywhere he protects. He declares he will support the “Syrian opposition” more effectively, but immediately tunes into Congress – which could not see bombing the country during the chemical weapons crisis -, confident that it will limit itself to the minimum.
The new West Point Military Academy graduates did not give a standing ovation to President Obama.
This speech is only a facade of verbiage trying to hide an irreversible decline. He stunned the audience which understood dreams of conquest are at an end. Against all odds, less than a quarter of the 1064 graduates of the Military Academy at West Point applauded the president, while the majority remained unmoved. The Empire is slowly dying.
Translation
Roger Lagassé
Source
Al-Watan (Syria)
[1] “Remarks by Barack Obama at West Point Academy”, by Barack Obama, Voltaire Network, 28 May 2014.
[2] “Reflections on the official announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden”, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 8 May 2011.
[3] “The Pentagon adopts the “2, 2, 2, 1”” Alfredo Jalife – Rahme, Translation Arnaud Bréart , La Jornada/Voltaire Network, 27 May 2014.
[4] “President Obama ’s foreign policy is based on fantasy“, editorial writing in the Washington Post, March 2, 2014.
[5] “Israeli general says al Qaeda ’s Syria fighters set up in Turkey,” by Dan Williams, Reuters, January 29, 2014. « Lettre ouverte aux Européens coincés derrière le rideau de fer israélo-US », par Hassan Hamadé, Réseau Voltaire, 21 mai 2014.
[6] “Barack Obama on the Future of Fight Against Terrorism”, by Barack Obama, Voltaire Network, 23 May 2013.