These Days US Is Killing More ‘Syrian Rebels’ Than the Russians

February 3rd bombs slammed into a building in rebel-held Syria killing 10 fighters. The next day another mysterious strike followed killing a rebel commander.

At first nobody took responsibility but a few days ago Pentagon stepped forward. It was American planes which had carried out the strikes.

The reason? Well, the targeted guys were not only in rebellion against the Syrian government, they were also members of al-Qaeda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fgw3I6ttlo

You can understand why US would want al-Qaeda people dead but these strikes are highly ironic. Until yesterday US was a massive backer of the rebellion against Assad supplying battlefield allies of al-Qaeda with huge quantities of weapons and money.

Meanwhile the US mainstream press and liberal and neocon activists were condemning the Syrian-Russian campaigns against al-Qaeda for example in Aleppo.

Fast forward to 2017. Before leaving office Obama sent the massive B-52 bombers against al-Qaeda rebels killing one hundred of them in a single carpet bombing. The policy obviously continues under Trump.

The situation is such now that when an airstrike is reported in rebel-held Syria the media is at a loss to explain whether it was carried out by Syria, Russia or the US. This is BBC reporting on a strike last week:

At least 23 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in air strikes on a rebel-held city in north-western Syria, activists say.

It was not clear whether the air strikes were carried out by Syria’s government, its ally Russia, or a US-led coalition that has also bombed JFS.

In fact, the Russians maintain they have not carried a single strike against the rebels in 2017. All their attention right now is focused on ongoing battles with ISIS around al-Bab, Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra.

So we have the highly ironic situation now where the US is bombing the rebellion it once nurtured more frequently than Russia which stepped in in 2015 to thwart it.

Of course, if the US is now at war with people who until yesterday it was doing its best to see march on Damascus it goes to show how insane that policy had been.

Not that the current policy is a good one either. For one thing it is blatantly illegal under international law. Moreover it certainly results in the loss civilian life. And finally the Syrian government is at war with these guys because they’re in rebellion against it but what is America’s excuse?

How does the US possibly justify taking an innocent civilian life in an illegal bombing in Syria against al-Qaeda rebels who until yesterday were such a non-threat to Americans that the US government rooted for their battlefield victories against Bashar al-Assad?