The United States is not planning to wipe out Syrians but trying to subjugate them “under the banner of American capitalism and imperialism,” according to Myles Hoenig, an American political analyst and activist. 

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Hoenig said that US Defense Secretary James Mattis is blatantly lying about Syria because he knows the United States does not have media willing to challenge him.

Hoenig, a former Green Party candidate for Congress, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Thursday while commenting on a statement by Mattis in which he claimed the US is not deepening its role in war in Syria.

“We are not increasing our role in the Syrian civil war, but we will defend our troops,” Mattis said on Thursday, shortly after US warplanes bombed a convoy of pro-government fighters heading for a remote garrison to take on the foreign-backed militants there.

The Pentagon has admitted that it used depleted uranium (DU) ammunition in Syria, the controversial weaponry that causes serious health problems among the population.

According to weapons experts, the use of depleted uranium is a war crime, a crime against humanity, and an act of genocide, because the civilian population’s exposure to depleted uranium causes genetic damage, birth defects, cancer, immune system damage, and other serious health problems.

US policy not always based on genocide

Hoenig said, “I don’t believe it’s fair to say that the US and its allies are waging a genocidal war against the Syrian people. Nor the same can be said with regards to Iraq. Genocide takes planning and is the conscientious decision to destroy an entire population.”

“We have seen that in the US with its wars against the indigenous population. American cavalry had a single purpose in passing out blankets laced with smallpox to the native Americans. It was to eliminate the population. Growing up it was very common to hear, in the media especially, that the only good Indian was a dead Indian,” he said.

“If a military policy is to kill anything that moved than that should be construed as an intended genocide, as the US did in North Korea during the war in the ‘50s,” he stated.

“In both the above cases, the US establishment had no ‘use’ for these populations and to rid the land of them was policy. That’s genocide,” the activist emphasized.

“What we’ve done throughout the world with our mass murders are certainly war crimes and crimes against humanity but genocide is the systematic destruction of a people or a culture,” he continued.

US wants compliant leadership in Syria

“US policy in Vietnam, Iraq, Yemen and Syria wasn’t/isn’t intended to wipe out an entire population but to subjugate them under the banner of American capitalism and imperialism. We have no plans to re-populate these countries but to make sure that the leadership imposed by the Americans are compliant,” the analyst explained.

“Our role in Syria is not unique. We pretend we’re only supporting those fighting the Assad [government] but in reality we are getting deeper and deeper involved, with the ultimate goal of removing Assad and replacing him with someone eagerly willing to do the bidding of the oil industry,” he argued.

“Today the US military attacked a convoy heading to take on an anti-Assad base. Previously, the Russians had attacked this base. That we are attacking Syria, without Syrian permission, shows the extent that we are so contemptuous of international law,” he said.

“Using depleted uranium in Syria is just another example of the hubris we employ. We destroyed parts of Iraq for generations, notably Fallujah, with DU and are willing to do the same if the goals are met,” he observed.

“Clearly, it is US policy that the ends justify the means, when even the ends in itself defy international law. US Defense Secretary Mattis follows a long line of US policy makers who so blatantly lie because they know we have no media willing to challenge them,” Hoenig concluded.