Obama oversaw largest US military budget since World War ll: Activist
The United States and its allies have fueled the violent conflict in Syria by backing the terrorist networks operating in the country, an anti-war activist in Europe says.
“With US support for instance, Qatar spent $3 billion and flew 70 plane loads of weapons toTurkeyto support its proxies in Syria,” said Dirk Adriaensens, a member of the BRussells Tribunal in Leuven, Belgium.
“[US] President Obama was elected on a peace platform and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but many of the people in the USA and around the world are very disappointed because Mr. Obama has overseen the largest budget since World War ll,” Adriaensens told Press TV on Tuesday.
Obama also ordered “an eightfold increase in drone strikes, special forces operations in at least 134 countries, twice as many as under [US President George] Bush, and a massive increase in the special forces night raids or manhunts that were launched in Iraq” and Afghanistan,” he added.
The peace activist blasted US Republican Senator John McCain for criticizing the Obama administration’s foreign policy that allowed Russia to bolster its military presence in Syria.
McCain, a vocal critic of the Obama administration's foreign policy, said on Monday that Russia’s assistance to the Syrian government is "yet another example of how this administration’s feckless foreign policy has emboldened our adversaries and diminished our standing in the world,"
Adriaensens said Russia’s military deployment to Syria was carried out with the permission of Damascus, and is “completely legal and legitimate under international law.”
“The difference with Russian presence and presence of all these special forces that are now operating in Syria is that the US was not asked by the legitimate Syrian government to interfere and they were in breach of Syrian sovereignty,” he argued.
American officials have disclosed that Russia is using the airspace over Iran and Iraq to fly military equipment and personnel to a new air field in Syria, escalating tensions with the US.
At least seven giant Russian Antonov An-124 military transport aircrafts have taken off from a base in Russia during the past week to transport equipment to Syria, using Iranian and Iraqi air corridors, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing US officials.
With the use of the new air corridors, Moscow is openly defying Washington’s efforts to block the shipments and significantly increasing tensions with the US.
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