Seymour Hersh “Horrified” by Obama’s Announcement to Send More U.S. Troops to Syria

American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said he was “horrified” by President Barack Obama’s plan to send more US special forces to Syria allegedly to help “local militia” fight Deash (ISIS).

Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, told “Democracy Now” Program three days ago that he doesn’t understand why Obama has decided to jump into a war that is being won right now by the Syrian army and its allies, including Russia.

 “I can just speculate that our anti-Putin, anti-Russian instinct in America continues apace. That’s all”, he said.

 The US journalist hailed Russia’s anti-terror operation in Syria, noting that the Russian airstrikes against terrorists were effective

According to Democracy Now, Hersh, who has just published a new book titled “The Killing of Osama bin Laden,” writes in the introduction of his book: “It’s now evident, fifteen years after the 9/11 attacks, that Obama’s foreign policy has maintained many of the core elements of the Global War on Terror initiated by his predecessor—assassinations, drone attacks, heavy reliance on special forces, covert operations and, in the case of Afghanistan, the continued use of American ground forces in combat. And, as in the years of Bush and Cheney, there has been no progress, let alone victory, in the fight against terrorism.”

The Plan is part of a “series of US experiments“

In the same context, Sputnik news agency reported yesterday that former UN Assistant Secretary-General Hans-Christof von Sponeck referred to Obama’s decision to deploy up to 250 additional US troops including Special Forces to Syria as a “tragic development” that could hamper the Geneva Intra-Syrian dialogue.

He said that the move was part of a “series of experiments” that Washington has conducted in Syria and neighboring Iraq.

Von Sponeck offered a different explanation of Obama’s plan, which is ostensibly aimed at helping “local forces” to fight Daesh, saying “Obama is entering his last six months and he wants to leave a legacy that shows some sign of success.”

“If so, these experiments will hardly help to achieve this goal, but could instead contribute to ruining a country plagued by a foreign-sponsored terrorism for more than five years,” he added.

“The Americans are never short of an experiment, never short of trying something new,” von Sponeck asserted, pointing out that Washington “is jumping from one laboratory test to another, according to Sputnik.

Hamda Mustafa