The Pentagon chief's warning of grim consequences for Moscow over its military campaign in Syria is not merely “chest thumping” and may be a prelude to a "frightening" military confrontation, says an American analyst and radio host in New York.

“One hopes that Ashton Carter is only thumping his chest, hoping to either back the Russians down or in any event look tough in front of the American electorate because of the recent moves by Russia,” Don DeBar said Friday.

“It is hard to feel confident that it is only chest thumping and not an indication of escalation planned by the United States including -- either by proxy or directly-- attacks on Russian aircraft and military assets in Syria,” he added.

DeBar made the comments in reaction to remarks by US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who has warned Russia over its air strikes against Daesh (ISIL) in Syria.


Russian pilots and technicians checking a Russian Sukhoi Su-30 jet fighter at an airbase in the Syrian province of Latakia, October 5, 2015 . (AFP Photo)
 

In a meeting with NATO defense ministers on Thursday, Carter warned Russians that their campaign against Daesh “will have consequences for Russia itself, which is rightly fearful of attacks.”

"In the coming days, the Russians will begin to suffer from casualties," the Pentagon chief claimed.

“They [Russians] have shot cruise missiles from a ship in the Caspian Sea without warning; they have come within just a few miles of one of our unmanned aerial vehicles,” he said.

The military forces of the US and Russia experienced a close encounter on Thursday, when American fighter jets were forced to reroute in order to maintain a safe distance from the Russian warplanes.

DeBar told Press TV that a military confrontation between Moscow and Washington would have been hard to even perceive a few years ago, but conditions have changed and there is “an actual threat of a faceoff between US military assets against Russian military assets in Syria.”

“That is a very frightening prospect because the possibility of escalation is obvious and the United States and NATO appear to be preparing for it,” the analyst said.


An F/A-18E Super Hornet launches from the flight deck aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) in the Persian Gulf, August 21, 2015. (AFP Photo)
 

Meanwhile, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov dismissed Carter’s warnings as "cynical."

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Moscow has struck more than 100 Takfiri targets in Syria since launching its airstrikes campaign in the Arab country on September 30.

Russian warships in the Caspian Sea also began to launch cruise missiles into Syria on Wednesday, firing 26 missiles against 11 militant targets.

US Russia On Verge Of Confrontation

The United States has pulled the USS Theodore Roosevelt out of the Persian Gulf, due to concerns in Washington over the Russian missile capability, says a military commentator. The warship was withdrawn from the Persian Gulf on Thursday, a day after Russia fired 26 long-range cruise missiles from its Caspian Flotilla against terrorists in Syria, Pentagon officials said. One of the reasons “impacting this decision is ...the unreliable ability of those Russian missiles,” said Michael Burns in an interview with Press TV on Saturday. “I don’t think those are battle tested and US policy makers are afraid. God forbids one of those things land near our carrier or near one of our fleet elements,” he added.

US military officials, however, claimed that the aircraft carrier, which houses about 5,000 sailors and 65 fighter jets, was withdrawn because it needed to undergo maintenance. For the first time since 2007, the US Navy has now no aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. Tensions between Washington and Moscow escalated after Russia launched its air campaign against Daesh Takfiri terrorists in Syria. The airstrikes began hours after Washington refused to comply with Moscow’s demand to take its warplanes out of Syria. The Associated Press reported last week that senior military leaders and defense officials are considering whether or not they should use military force against Russia if American-trained militants in Syria come under Russian fire. The report said weighing the risks of using force in response to a Russian attack was also among the department’s issues.

Russian Missiles Scared US Out Of Persian Gulf

The successful Russian air campaign against Daesh (ISIL) positions in Syria has exposed the bankrupt US policy towards the terrorist group, an American researcher says.Dennis Etler, a professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday while commenting on a report which says the CIA-trained militants in Syria are now under Russian missile strikes with little prospect of rescue by their US supporters.Russia has directed parts of its military campaign against US-backed terrorists and other extremist groups in an effort to weaken them, The Associated Press reported on Saturday, citing unnamed US officials.“Russia has shown the US policy to be totally bankrupt, because it’s accomplished basically in one week what the US could not accomplish in one year,” Etler said.“But, of course, the US never wanted to disarm, or dismantle ISIS [Daesh/ISIL]. They basically wanted to keep it there to implement its policy, and they were basically conducting a fake war, a phony war against ISIS,” he added.

What Russia achieved in 1 week in Syria, US could not in 1 year

The United States is not interested in fighting terrorist groups in Syria and has attempted to find ways to support extremist militants in the country, a political activist in Damascus says.Senior US officials are not sincere in their public statements and say one thing while doing the opposite, Afraa Dagher told Press TV on Thursday.The US is also not serious in cooperating with Russia to end the 4-year-long conflict in Syria, Dagher said.“The USA has been trying to destabilize Syria and topple our president since 2011,” she noted.Russia launched its air campaign against terrorists in Syria on September 30. The US has also been carrying out its own airstrikes in Syria, allegedly pounding Daesh positions inside the country.However, observers have long said that while the US and its allies claim they are fighting against terrorist groups like Daesh (ISIL), they in fact helped create and train those organizations to advance their policies in the Middle East.The CIA began its covert operation in 2013 to arm, fund and train terrorists to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.However, the covert program has floundered for years, so much so that some lawmakers in Congress proposed cutting its budget.Since 2013, the CIA has trained approximately 10,000 terrorists. The effort was separate from a failed US military program to train “moderate” militants to supposedly fight the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group.That $500 million Pentagon program is widely considered a failure, and on Friday, the US Defense Department announced it was abandoning those efforts and instead opting to arm existing groups to fight Daesh.On Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter threatened Russia, saying the US will take all necessary steps to counter Moscow's “malign influence” in Syria.

Live @ http://www.presstv.ir/live.html
Twitter       @ http://twitter.com/PressTV
LiveLeak  @ http://www.liveleak.com/c/PressTV
Facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/PRESSTV
Google+   @ http://plus.google.com/+VideosPTV
Instagram @ http://instagram.com/presstvchannel

‘US not serious in fighting terrorism’

The United States has airdropped nearly 50 tones of ammunition to its trained rebels in Syria in response to Russia’s involvement in fight against the Daesh militants in the Arab country, says political analyst Ralph Schoenman.

An anonymous official said Monday that US C-17 transport aircraft, accompanied by fighter escorts, dropped pallets of supplies overnight in Hassakeh province for those “moderate” militant groups whose leaders were "appropriately vetted by the United States and have been fighting to remove ISIL from northern Syria."

The move “is a response to the support of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin for the government of (Bashar al-)Assad and the bombing that has been waged by them against the Islamic militants (Daesh) who are nominally the target of these American efforts,” Schoenman told Press TV  on Tuesday.

“Nothing about the independence of the people is going to result from this, nothing about their national rights, nothing about their dignity, nothing about their survival; only bad things arise from this because the intent is malicious, evil and basically an imperial depredation that never stops,” the author of the Hidden History of Zionism added.

The surprise military aid by the US came as Russia’s military campaign against terrorists fighting the Syrian government entered its second week. Russia has carried out scores of airstrikes and naval attacks against Daesh (ISIL) and other terrorist groups in Syria since September 30, killing hundreds of them.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Schoenman said the US has waged “a permanent war against people, who seek to obtain for themselves the right to determine their own affairs, to control their own resources, to develop their own societies and to have a life that is independent of colonial domination.”

He said the American imperialism wants to create a chaos in the Middle East “that will prevent any coherent defense of the national interests of subject people in the region.”

Schoenman further noted that destruction of the social fabric of these countries and devastation of their economies through brutal force are the underlying objectives behind such measures.

US Airdrop In Syria A Response To Russia

Russians have "far superior" military technologies than the Americans, and the US military’s latest missile test was a “bluff” to make people think otherwise, says an American counter-terrorism analyst. “The United States typically does that, its military brass is so hell-bent on communicating to its Russian adversaries in particular, that its missile technology is the absolute end-all technology that can determine any war,” Scott Bennett, a former US Army psychological warfare officer, told Press TV on Monday. On Sunday, the US military conducted a $230 million test involving Lockheed Martin’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems and the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) on-board the USS John Paul Jones destroyer.

The missile systems were able to successfully hit their targets in all but one of the tests.During the test, a THAAD system and the Aegis destroyer both engaged a medium-range ballistic missile, launched by C-17 aircraft.The SM-3 missile fired by the warship failed early in its flight and missed the target. However, the THAAD, which was now practically the last line of defense, was able to take it out. However, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) hailed the test as a success. “From a psychological warfare perspective, I see this as a massive bluff, as just a lot of feather puffing, and [it] really doesn’t have a lot of substance because the technology is not there and the Russian technology as we know is far superior,” Bennett noted.

“So this claim that an elaborate $230 million missile test was conducted with state-of-the-art technology really doesn’t cut the mustard,” he noted. “It seems to be really just a standard test and they are inflating it to make it look a lot more lethal than it potentially is.” Bennett described the test as a bid by Washington to gain the upper hand in the Middle East and especially in Syria, which falls in line with US President Barack Obama’s decision to send Special Operation forces to the Arab country. Russia needs to “call the bluff” and let the US know that if they send American troops to Syria “the Russian coalition will not be held responsible for any deaths that may result,” he said. “That is a potential trap,” he said of Obama’s plan. “It is an attempt to try and goad Russia, I think, into maneuvers and bombings that can kill a lot of American troops for the purposes of triggering a larger US action.” Bennett also suggested that there might be a relationship between the timing of the US drill and the recent Russian plane crash over Egypt’s Sinai desert that killed all of its 224 passengers.

Russian military superior to US

The US deployment of Special Operations forces to Syria is part of a “confused policy” to overthrow the Syrian government, a writer and political analyst in Boston says.

‘US sends special forces to oust Assad’

#Press #TV,#presstv,#News,presstv,iran,news,Television (Invention),News Broadcasting (TV Genre),washington,ashtan carter,ashton carter,washington,US defense secretary,moscow,russians

"Carter's rhetoric aimed at diverting attention away from domestic problems"

The deadly Paris attacks were likely carried out by professional commandos, not by a group of ragtag Takfiri fighters, American researcher and historian Dr. Randy Short says.Dr. Short made the remarks in phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday after bombers and gunmen launched coordinated attacks in and around the French capital on Friday night, killing at least 129 people and injuring more than 350 others.Daesh (ISIL) terrorists, who control parts of Syria and Iraq, have claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks, but independent analysts have questioned the credibility of their assertion.“This looks like a commando operation from professionals,” Dr. Short said. “Who knows more about the assassination teams and commando squads than the French, British and the Americans and the Israelis?” CIA Director John Brennan said on Monday the spy agency “knew” Daesh terrorists were planning to attack “Europe in particular.”The CIA chief said the Paris massacre was “not a surprise” as "we knew that plans or plotting by ISIL was underway looking at Europe in particular as a venue for carrying out these attacks."Dr. Short called Brennan’s announcement not “surprising” at all.“Daesh, or ISIS or ISIL, whatever new name they are gonna come up for this group, is basically a bastard stepchild of al-Qaeda and other foreign intrigues by the secret services of the Israelis, the British, French, Turks and others,” he said.“I want to remind anyone who is listening that there is a thing called Operation Gladio that ran from the late 1940s all the way into the ‘80s until it was exposed where the United States and NATO partners had deliberately covert operations to kill, terrorize, maim and frighten the citizens of the central west, northern and southern Europe into being willing to vote away their rights in order to be protected from communist or nationalistic terrorism,” he stated.The analyst said the Paris incident “is very reminiscent of attacks made on airports in Italy and other places [during the Operation Gladio].”Dr. Short said he faces difficulty in “believing that France [that] has such an effective secret service along with the other countries of Europe that they can’t tract these people.”“They know the specific number of French nationals that are fighting, either stationed in Turkey, or in Syria. Why these people be readmitted into the country, were allowed to come in with weapons and arms and training. I don’t buy it,” he stated.“I do not know believe that these rag tag, new to the battle field, who are misguided in this false CIA/Mossad/MI6 version of perverted Islam, know anything to do these kinds of coordinated attacks,” Dr. Short observed. 

Professional commandos carried out Paris attacks: Historian

The US government’s policies regarding the conflict in eastern Ukraine might lead to a third world war, an American political analyst says.

“I’m very distressed to hear this new assumed role of the American government, with the Pentagon spending almost $250 million dollars to further aggression, to train Ukraine forces to fight against the Russians,” Tim King told Press TV on Tuesday.

US policies on Ukraine conflict might lead to WWIII: Analyst



Press TV takes revolutionary steps as the first Iranian international news network, broadcasting in English on a round-the-clock basis. Our global Tehran-based headquarters is staffed with outstanding Iranian and foreign media professionals.
Press TV is extensively networked with bureaus located in the world's most strategic cities.

VISION

Heeding the often neglected voices and perspectives of a great portion of the world; Embracing and building bridges of cultural understanding; Encouraging human beings of different nationalities, races and creeds to identify with one another;
Bringing to light untold and overlooked stories of individuals who have experienced the vitality and versatility of political and cultural divides firsthand.


PressTV

Popular tracks