US deployment to Syria ‘largely symbolic’

US deployment of 250 troops to Syria is “largely symbolic,” says a political activist, arguing that Washington wants to portray itself at the vanguard of war on the Daesh Takfiri terror group instead of bringing down the government in Damascus.

Speaking in Hannover, Germany, US President Barack Obama announced Monday that an additional 250 US Special Operations Forces (SOF) troops would be sent to the war-ravaged country in the coming weeks. 

According to Boston-based political commentator, Daniel Patrick Welch, the announcement is both “alarming and revealing.”

On the one hand, Obama had promised not to put any boots on the ground there, while on the other, the US seems to be “taking advantage” of the situation in Syria, gripped with a “rupture” in the ceasefire, Welch told Press TV in a Tuesday interview.

“It’s not that many troops when you think of it… And it’s largely symbolic and the symbolism is to counter the reality that the US was -- and is -- in the forefront of trying to oust the legitimate government of Syria by coup, by a foreign-backed force,” he said. “They’re there to kind of imply the opposite that they’re there to help counter ISIL (Daesh), which is the baby… of a group funded by the West.”

Death disguised as democracy

Welch further indicated that such a “hypocritical policy” was no surprise as Washington pursues similar ends elsewhere in the world.

“You arm and train the head choppers and the death squads while you pretend to be on the side of peace,” said the American activist in reference to the US, concluding “The real problem is the US has nothing to export… so they export death.”

And they do this, pretending they are backing democracy and human rights, noted the writer.

“They’re preaching this abroad; exporting democracy by destroying countries,” while “at home, we have this absolute sham of a democracy,” he said, referring to the 2016 presidential election with the “worst voting system in the world.”

“It’s really difficult to overstate how awful it is. It can’t even be monitored by international monitoring agencies because it’s so awful it doesn’t rise to the minimum standard of an actual election.”

Meanwhile, US cops keep walking free after shooting African Americans “with complete impunity” while the US uses human rights issue in other countries as a “loophole to drive a bunch of tanks through and drop a lot of bombs through.”

US wants Syrian Presiden Bashar Assad to step down while Damascus argues the president’s fate can only be determined through the will of the Syrian nation, suffering from the foreign-backed militancy since 2011.

This is while negotiations, aimed at finding a political solution to the crisis, continued in Geneva Tuesday.

A ceasefire went into effect on February 27 across Syria, which initially reduced violence, but since fighting has picked up again the truce remains shaky.

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