The Pentagon Is Out of US Government Control: Opinion
By Karl Pomeroy
Quemado Institute
February 21, 2016
US F-15’s bomb ISIS, Sabratha, Libya. 2-19-16 (–USAF)
The Pentagon has usurped control of United States military operations abroad, and no longer takes direction from the executive or legislative branches of the American government. Current acting US President Barack Obama, a vaporous-minded charlatan incapable of leadership, retains no capacity as Commander-in-Chief, but is wholly under the dictates of military decision-makers.
The Pentagon is thus free to ravage the world at will. It has seized executive power to become, in the foreign arena, a de facto military dictatorship.
The urgency of reining in a Pentagon-on-the-rampage has reached unprecedented proportions. Will the world as we know it survive the President’s current term of office?
Two articles presented below illustrate this paradigm in the war theaters of Libya and Syria:
Libya Slams US Airstrike on Sabratha as Flagrant Violation of Sovereignty
Strategic Culture Foundation
Original source: RT
February 21, 2016
Sabratha, Libya, Feb 19 2016 (-AP/Mohamed Ben Khalifa)
The Libyan interim government has condemned the US airstrike on a suspected Islamic State training camp in Sabratha in which two abducted Serbian embassy staff were killed, calling the unsanctioned bombardment a grave violation of its sovereignty.
Libya’s interim government issued a statement saying that it “strongly condemns the airstrikes carried out by the US Air Force at certain positions in the town of Sabratha on Friday morning, February 19, 2016, without any coordination or consultation with the interim Libyan government.”
“Any interference, similar to the one that has taken place, will be considered an open and flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the Libyan state and international law,” the statement said. The interim government said that it values the foreign assistance it receives in the war on terror, but added that “any military or political interference into Libyan affairs should be performed in a legal way through parliament and the newly formed government.”
In the statement, the government also said it “places the responsibility for the worsening of the domestic economic and social situation, as well as the security situation that contributed to the spread of these organizations (Islamic State) in our country, on the international community.”
The Friday airstrike carried out by the US in western Libya reportedly killed more than 40 people and was hailed as a major success by the Pentagon. However, two Serbian hostages—embassy communications chief Sladjana Stankovic and her driver Jovica Stepic—also died in the bombardment, which came just as ransom negotiations had gotten underway with the kidnappers. Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said that Belgrade “demanded explanations from the US about whether they knew that foreigners were present at the site. They said they didn’t.”
Stankovic and Stepic were abducted in the northwestern coastal city of Sabratha on November 8, 2015, when their car was hijacked by gunmen after becoming separated from a convoy carrying Serbia’s ambassador to Libya. The circumstances of the two Serbs’ alleged deaths are reminiscent of those of Italian Giovanni Lo Porto and American Warren Weinstein, who were killed by an alleged US drone strike on a Taliban compound in January, 2015.
The US has failed to address the real problems that Libya faces and creates even more problems by carrying out aerial bombardments and “other types of operations” inside Libya, Abayomi Azikiwe, an editor of the Pan-African News Wire, told RT, commenting on the incident.
New US Syria Strategy Aims to Con Russia
By Stephen Lendman
Global Research
February 21, 2016
Russian airstrike on ISIS, Syria (–Telegraph)
Months of Russian air power and rejuvenated Syrian ground forces making significant gains against ISIS and other terrorist groups got Washington to change strategy. Wanting to avoid direct confrontation with Russia, it relies on deception – conning Moscow to cease bombing terrorist infested northern Syrian areas where US special forces are deployed, claiming they’re supporting are “moderates.”
On the phony pretext of modestly increasing military-to-military communication and cooperation beyond last October’s “memorandum of understanding,” relating to safety protocols for Russian and US warplanes operating in Syrian airspace, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s spokesman Peter Cook said: [The Pentagon] “provided a geographical area that we asked (Moscow) to stay out of because of the risk to US forces” on the ground—to protect their safety “in a dangerous situation.” So far, Russia “honored this request,” he explained.
It’s a thinly veiled con, a ruse Moscow will see through and reject. Washington wants to give terrorist elements it supports (falsely called “moderates”) breathing space, a chance to rearm, regroup and add new fighters to their ranks. Turkey provides them safe haven, aids their movement cross-border into Syria while continuing to shell northern Syrian-based anti-terrorist Kurdish YPG forces, OK’d by Washington.
Fact: US policymakers pretend to want peace. They intend endless war to accomplish their objective—eliminating sovereign Syria, replacing it with US-controlled puppet governance.
Fact: Diplomatically negotiating with Washington assures disaster. Terms agreed on are systematically breached, negotiating partners irresponsibly blamed.
Fact: US imperial aims are pure evil, wanting all independent governments eliminated, especially Russia and China.
Fact: Its aim for dominion over planet earth depends on it.
Fact: Its strategy relies on endless wars, raping and destroying one country after another—Syria in the eye of the storm.
If Putin goes along with the Pentagon’s request to cease bombing areas infested with US-supported terrorists, everything Russian air power and Syrian ground forces accomplished so far will be jeopardized. Washington will be in a stronger position to turn things around in its favor—perhaps able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Establishing a safe zone in northern Syria will become a platform for US-supported continued war while talking peace—strengthening terrorist forces, aiding their advance into other areas.
The most fundamental rule to follow in dealing with Washington is knowing it can’t be trusted—not ever. Hegemons yield nothing. They want things entirely their way, letting nothing interfere with their imperial aims.
Hopefully Putin and other Russian officials are too smart to fall for America’s ruse. Continuing their anti-terrorism campaign nationwide is vital to have any hope for eventually liberating Syria.
Washington doesn’t negotiate. It demands. Hoping bilateral or multi-lateral talks will gain important concessions is a major mistake. A military solution alone can save Syria. US rhetorical support for cessation of hostilities and resumption of peace talks is pure subterfuge—aiming solely to undermine Russia’s effective war on terrorism, essential to continue unobstructed.
Michel Chossudovsky explained Washington’s strategy, saying it’s “to protect remaining US sponsored terrorist positions in Northern Syria including those of the ISIS from Russian airstrikes.” He cited a “Secret Pentagon document. (T)he ultimate objective ‘was’ (and likely remains) to create an Islamic State Caliphate (Salafist Principality) in Northern Syria.”
Defeating America’s objective depends on Russian air power and Syrian ground forces maintaining unrelenting pressure, continuing their effective campaign, rejecting the Pentagon’s thinly veiled scheme to undermine it. Preserving Syrian sovereignty depends on it, along with foiling Washington’s Middle East agenda, part of its grand plan to rule the world unchallenged.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Conclusion
By Karl Pomeroy
In the unlikely event of her election, neocon H.R. Clinton would confer unchecked power on the Pentagon in its ongoing campaign of global terror and hegemony. Future President Donald Trump, upholding a policy of US nonintervention abroad, will have the Pentagon saluting him.
Elect Donald Trump, US President 2016
South Carolina Acceptance Speech, February 20, 2016
Quemado Institute 
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