I read a headline today claiming that “Pentagon Claims US Authority to Shoot Any Syrian Govt Official Who Tries to Take Control of Syrian Oil”, but I know that can’t possibly be right because we all know the US is the guarantor of the “rules-based liberal international order”. That’s the whole point of its benevolent global hegemony.
No, that can’t be right. That is fake news for sure.
If anyone is saying they have the right to sit on the part of another country, and kill members of that country’s national army when they try to enter, it must be that “revisionist” Russia that we keep hearing about that is always trying to undermine, defy, disrupt and skirt the “rules-based order”, and just plain going out of its way to try and crash it.
Yes for sure, the “Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman and Navy Rear Admiral William D. Byrne Jr.” must be Russians:
Pentagon officials asserted Thursday U.S. military authority over Syrian oil fields because U.S. forces are acting under the goal of “protecting Americans from terrorist activity” and would be within their rights to shoot a representative of the Syrian government who attempted to retake control over that country’s national resource.
The comments came from Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman and Navy Rear Admiral William D. Byrne Jr. during a press briefing in which the two men were asked repeatedly about the legal basis the U.S. is claiming to control Syrian oil fields.
Typically Russian of them they claim a mere attempt to enter the oil fields would be interpreted as “hostile intent” towards the occupying troops, because the latter of course are under orders to keep control of the fields:
The officials were reminded by a reporter that “the government of Syria is still, based on international law… [the] recognized legitimate government.” Hoffman said, “Everyone in the region knows where American forces are. We’re very clear with anyone in the region in working to deconflict where our forces are. If anyone—we work to ensure that… no one approaches or has—shows hostile intent to our forces, and if they do, our commanders maintain the right of self-defense.”
Good thing we have the good ole liberal America to stand up for international law 101 and tell the might-makes-rish Russians what’s what:
“This, what Washington is doing now — capturing and maintaining control through the use of arms over oil fields in eastern Syria — that is, to put it simply, international, state-sponsored banditry,” said Russian General Igor Konashenkov.
See also: Russia Is the World’s Preeminent Defender of the Classically Liberal International Order