nine years is not a short period, it's similar to the period of a child who was born and is now a couple of years into school, or teenager who is now admitted to university, or a student who has graduated, is married and is now likely expecting his first child, and so that's the way i preferred to look at the passing of nine years.

'but in syria i couldn't look the way i wanted to at the passing of nine years as i passed the streets, alleyways and buildings. i could only keep myself composed to some extent, as opposed to many others who were in shock and ore when they encountered these scenes, especially when i saw all of those factories and workshops that used to be full of workers, engineers'. and technicians nine

years ago, people who are no longer in their workplaces, many people who are no longer with us, there's not enough space in the ground to hide their bodies, sometimes a park in the street becomes their burial place. i felt that in syria i didn't have the right to speak of anything other than the war for the past nine years, however, i decided to at least look for answers to why all of this happened in syria, why syria?

in the united states people are not very political, therefore it really doesn't matter to them what happens in the rest of the world, so thank you for your service and thank you what you do for this country. you know, we uh, we talk about sacrifice, we talk about all the things that soldiers do for this great country, and i'm always privileged to be here in this role and stand in front of a formation like. this and you put all of that aside when our country calls and you answer the call and you go and serve our country an incredible way and you make incredible sacrifices for the safety of this country. on the national level we have these components of national power, a couple of them are diplomacy, another one is economics, you hear people talk about we're going to give this country lot of money or with going to withhold a lot of money from this country all in the hopes that we can press forward with. we think is oklahomans or americans are

important to our country, but every once in a while diplomacy fails. you're a finite, small group of americans that will say, i will take that charge, i will take that responsibility, of i will raise my hand and go into harm's way for our country, and for that we should all be grateful. i'm sure most of the people watching this ceremony were asking themselves, which frontline will they fight to defend the united states? where are these soldiers going? the answer is west asia, somewhere in jordan, specifically the al-azrak airbase.

but this is not their final destination, they will actually be deployed to tanf, which is a us military base in syria. the arrival of so many forces and so much military hardware comes a time when the us

has officially announced that it intends to draw down its troops in syria and then withdraw from the country, which is a bit strange. even stranger is that the americans have set up base in the middle of the desert and have enlarged and equipped it to this extent within two years.

cbs news came to this place called atonf with general frank mckenzie, commander of us forces in the middle east. david, we're standing on the damascus, baghdad highway, just inside uh, just inside. syria and what we're doing here is supporting our partners in the fight against isis. however, not all the people here are american. some members of syria's opposition visit the tanf base regularly. apart from their looks and uniforms, they can be recognized by their arabic language and their toyota vans. it appears they are opposed to the syrian government and have come together to fight the syrian army, but it appears that their main mission after protecting the american base is. controlling the roads that pass through tanv هذه الكتيبه من جيش مقاول الثوره تقوم بتجهيز عداتها للذهاب الى منطقه الزقف

وتبديل نقاط الرباط في المنطقه. of course, that's how they describe their mission, but the images of damaged trailers and trucks suggest their main aim is disrupting the traffic on this trade route so that nothing passes through it, especially trucks carrying goods.

the americans have repeatedly threatened to destroy anything that enters the 50 km radius the base. what's strange is that this base is built exactly a route which is the commercial and economic lifeline of syria. let's take a look at the map one more time. tanf is exactly here, and these red lines leading to the base are the roads used for transporting goods from the east to syria. by east, i don't just mean iraq and iran, but i mean all countries to the east of syria, including

india, pakistan, afghanistan, and most importantly china. for centuries, the chinese would use what's called the silk road to do trade with... the silk road passes through syria and leads to the mediterranean sea and the black sea. this way people in the east could reach the ports of europe and africa in the mediterranean for trade. in fact, compared to shipping by sea, the road can get our good several times faster and cheaper to 22. with 100 ports.

nowadays, the silk road is not what it used to be in the past, and much of it is destroyed or replaced. of course, the chinese, in cooperation with many other asian countries like iran, intend to revive the silk road. this is decision which is not secret, as they have talked about it openly on many occasions. till then, the road linking baghdad to damascus and from there to the mediterranean coast is still considered as the silk road. now the americans have established bases in tanth right on the main baghdad damascus road cutting off the silk road and their allied militants don't even

allow anyone to enter the bases 35 mile radius. for this reason when the iraqies who were in pursuit of isis forces entered syria at the syrian government's request and unknowingly approached this area, us warplanes would attack them. yeah, i want to go back to the t of operation that have took place yesterday, could you... confirm that the targeted shiah militias were iranians or hizbullah and you see any

interest, any vital interest interest to the us and the coalition to control the whole syrian iraqi border? yeah, let me take a stab at this, it add tompf is what you're referring to, the force that moved near ad tomp, is that what you're referring to? that was again as the chairman pointed out, self-defense of our forces, uh, it was necessity.

thus a us aircraft dropped leaflets over the area, warning against approaching the base. that's the reason why american troops came here from more than 9 and a half thous kilometers away. these are the same heroes that were given a warm sendoff ceremony by the american people to protect their dignity and interests and have come here as if they are defending us borders. although in some way they were right. tanf is where the us defends its undisputed dominance over the west. "a good thing about trump is that we don't need to try hard to prove many of our claims about the us anymore, people want

economic freedom, iran's a different place, is it true that theyran is no longer thinking about the mediterranean and going through, trump mentions iran because he knows many people among syria's armed opposition rely on the us to counter iran's regional influence, but it's obvious what trump means is cutting off eastern economies." all right, we said all this to show that the war in syria is not just about ideology and religion. that's just one reason among many. but before we switch to another puzzle, this question comes to mind. when did they exactly decide to wage a war on syria?

let's listen to what wesley clark has to say. during those years, clark was the commander of us forces in nato. he has also run for president several times. i went through the pentagon 10 days after 9/11. i couldn't stay away from mother army. i went back. there to see don rumsfeld, i went downstairs, i was leaving the pentagon and an officer from the joint staff called me into his office and said, i want you to know, he said, sir, we're going to attack iraq, and i said, why, he said, we don't know, he said, uh, i said, well, did they tye saddam to 9/11, he said, uh, no, he said, but um, i guess it's they

don't know what to do about terrorism, and so, uh, the, they think... they can attack states and they want to look strong and so i walked out of there pretty upset and then um we attacked afghanistan i was pretty happy about that we should have and then i came back to the pentagon about six weeks later i saw the same officer i said why uh why haven't we attacked iraq we still going to attack iraq he said oh sir he says it's worse than that he said um he pull up a piece of paper off his desk cuz i just got this memo from the secretary of defense office that says we're going to attack and destroy the governments in in seven countries in five years. we're going to start with iraq and then we're going to move to syria, lebanon, libya, somalia, sudan, and iran. i seven, seven countries in five years. i said, is that a classified memo? he said, yes sir. i said, well, don't show it to me. he was about to show it to me, because i want to talk about it. wesley clark is not the only person

who believes the war in syria was planned. long before it started, many others like robert f kennedy jr. also share this belief, he is the nephew of the former president of the united states. robert f kennedy jr. who is both a lawyer and author, published an article in 2016 in politico magazine entitled, why arabs don't want us in syria, the article stunned many. he writes, in their view, our war against bashar assad did not begin with the peaceful civil protests of the arab spring in 2011. in their view, our war against bashar assad did not begin with the peaceful civil protests of the arab spring in

2011, instead it began in 2000 when qatar proposed to construct a 10 billion, $1 and a half thousand kilometer pipeline through saudi arabia, jordan, syria and turkey. to see whether kennedy's claims are true or false, we go back to the year 2000. as you are aware, russia is the biggest producer and exporter of natural gas with europe being its biggest customer. the russians export 70% of their produced natural gas to europe. this means a steady source of income for the russians. russia has been using this as a tool to put pressure on europe. for example, when european countries in 2009 sided with ukraine in its price dispute with russia's

gas company gasprom, the russians turned off the gas taps in response.