© Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters
The US blame game with Russia is part of greater policy of always claiming political and moral righteousness, as well as sovereignty over entire states and even the skies, says Catherine Shakdam from the Shafaqna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies.
Representatives of the US Air Force offered apologies for an incident over Syria, in which US and Russian military jets were involved in a "near-miss" situation, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. The MoD was forced to comment on the incident, as officials "were surprised by yet another attempt from the American military command to shift the blame [to] the Russian Air Force."
RT: Russia says the incident was provoked by the US plane changing its planned flight path. Do you think it's the reason why the Pentagon sounded cautious in its description of the incident, calling it "unintentional" and even "not too dangerous?"
Catherine Shakdam: I think the US is trying to backpedal a little bit. Because it realizes that every day when it intervenes in Syria it's actually breaking international law. Because Damascus, I don't recall, actually invited anybody else except for Iran and Russia to actually engage in Syria against terrorists.
So whatever intervention the US is in fact enacting on the ground is illegal by international law standards. And I think it's something it's trying to distance itself from rather than actually trying to emphasize on this illegality that they have been, you know, going at for, it's been months now.
For me, it's just really undisputed in this culture that America has today, that it owns everything. America seems to own the sky, it seems to own countries' sovereignties. It's insanity today that whenever America does something, and if anyone has the courage, I would say, to criticize and to even challenge, then they become a criminal. And this is why I think today Russia is being targeted. It's not of course the only country to be targeted, but today it has become almost a joke, where everything from global warming to internet crashing or Hillary Clinton's emails - it's always Russia.
Comment: Obviously the investigation should never have been dropped, but for it to be reopened now shows that the PTB seem to be switching sides. Is Killary being thrown under the bus by the same establishment which supported her exclusively for this whole campaign?