Why US harassed Iranian Mahan Air Flight 1152

By Mark Dankof

Iran is entirely justified in taking the actions that it is, because basically first of all the United States has absolutely no legal standing to be in Syria whatsoever.

People need to understand that there has been no UN Security Council resolution passed that authorizes the United States to be in Syria. There is no action of the United States Congress either in terms of a declaration of war against Syria, or even a flimsy authorization to use military force that has ever been passed by the Congress in regard to authorizing anything that the US is doing in that country, including their presence with CENTCOM at the al-Tanf base.

Basically, the United States has been in that country illegally and has been supporting Wahhabi terrorism in that country as a means of trying to overthrow the dually constituted sovereign government of that country. This is the first thing that needs to be emphasized.

The second thing is that there are at least three incidents that have happened.

One of the distant past, two more recently that underscore how outrageous this latest action is by these US F15s. In the first place we go all the way back to the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the United States supposedly mistakenly in which approximately 300 civilians were killed. And then Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush, who was running for president at that time, said that he would never apologize for the United States of America, despite the fact that the US had shot down deliberately or mistakenly a civilian aircraft that had killed all of these innocent people.

Then two years ago as your Press Television has reported accurately 15 Russian servicemen lost their lives because Israel was violating Syrian airspace. It was basically hiding behind an aircraft that proved to be a Russian aircraft that was mistakenly shot down by Syrian anti-aircraft fire that was being tricked deliberately so by the Israelis costing these 15 Russians their lives emphasizing that the Russians have a legal standing to be in that country because the sovereign government of that country has invited them to be there.

And then of course on January 3 the President of the United States outrageously is openly admitting that the United States engaged in an extrajudicial assassination of General Soleimani, an act which of course was a violation of American law, as well as international law because the United States is not at war with Iran at least officially so, and the United States committed this heinous act in a third country Iraq, which is not at war with the United States either.

So it's in the context of all of these things, illegal presence of the United States in Syria period, United States support of Wahhabi terror in that country as a means of attempting to overthrow the Assad regime. We add to that Iran Air Flight 655, we added that the erroneous shoot down to this Russian aircraft that cost 15 Russian servicemen their lives because of the duplicity of Israel in violating Syrian airspace.

And then of course now we add to that the utilization of these American F15s to harass a civilian Iranian jetliner, which had every right to be in the airspace that it was occupying the same time that these American F15s had no standing in international law to be in that airspace.

So this is all outlandish behavior on the part of the United States government.

Basically what you have is a situation where as Business Insider has reported, Israel is trying to get US war started with Iran with these systems of the United States, and according to Business Insider is trying to do it while Donald Trump is still in office because Israel sees Trump's presence in the White House as an absolute guarantee that an American Israeli war with Iran would have absolute support.

So this is where we are. This is the context in which we need to understand this harassment of this Iranian civilian jetliner, and it all adds up to nothing good.

Intl. outcry continues after US warplanes' harassment of Iranian airliner

Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen join international outcry against two American warplanes’ harassment of an Iranian airliner.

Mark Dankof, a former US Senate candidate, is a broadcaster and pastor in San Antonio, Texas. He recorded this article for the Press TV website.

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