In December, President Donald Trump said that he planned to withdraw the US troops from Syria, which number between 2,000 and 4,000. Trump’s claim was widely condemned in corporate media, demonstrating the commentariat’s shared belief in American benevolence toward other peoples, in Washington’s alleged right and duty to decide other countries’ fates, and in the forever war the US supposedly has to wage in the Middle East.
ISIS, Iran and Russia
One consistent theme in the coverage was the view that US troops need to stay in Syria because ISIS still exists. Another is that US forces must remain there because the governments of Russia, Syria and Iran want the US to leave.
A New York Times editorial (12/19/18) said it would be “dangerous” for the US to withdraw from Syria. “No one wants American troops deployed in a war zone longer than necessary,” the editors claimed. The paper endorsed the perspective that “the job” of fighting ISIS “is not yet done,” going on to write that
an American withdrawal would also be a gift to Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader…. Another beneficiary is Iran, which has also expanded its regional footprint.
According to this view, the US should get out of Syria once a US presence there is no longer “necessary,” but it’s “necessary” until some unspecified benchmark for annihilating ISIS has been reached, and never mind the costs to Syria: A US-led bombing ostensibly aimed at ISIS leveled Raqqa, a major Syrian city, killing and injuring civilians en masse in what former Defense Secretary James Mattis called a “war of annihilation.”
It’s also apparently “necessary” to stay until Syria has a government that is not allied with Russia or Iran, even though in practice this pursuit has contradicted the goal the editors just outlined, eliminating ISIS: US efforts to help bring down the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, as well as the US invasion of Iraq, helped create the conditions for the emergence of ISIS in Syria.
What the authors are suggesting is that the US should maintain an illegal presence in Syria until the Syrian government has been overthrown and replaced with one that has partnerships to which the US assents. Because all evidence suggests that Russia will fight to keep its Syrian partner in power, in practical terms the authors are arguing that it’s “necessary” for the US to occupy Syria forever, or until the US fights World War III with Russia.
David Leonhardt (New York Times, 12/20/18) frames a withdrawal of US troops from Syria as a “gift” to Vladimir Putin.
In an article headlined “Retreat Rhymes With Defeat,” the Times’ David Leonhardt (12/20/18) argued that the US needs to stay in Syria because Islamic State fighters are reportedly still in the country, and echoed the view that a US pullout of Syria would be “‘the greatest gift’ that Trump has so far given to Russia”—a reference to the conspiracy theory that Trump is a Russian tool—because a US drawdown would benefit the Russian-allied Syrian government. Like Times editors, Leonhardt argued the US should stay in Syria not only until there are no ISIS fighters left in the country, but also until the Syrian government is replaced with one that is not partnered with Russia.
But, again, US efforts to broker regime change in Syria were a cause of ISIS becoming a powerful force in the country: The UK-based Conflict Armament Research found that the US had been supplying arms to insurgents opposed to the Assad government since at least 2012, and when ISIS began rapidly seizing territory in 2013 and 2014, many US-armed rebel groups were either defeated by the incoming militants or joined them. As ISIS took nearly half of Syria, the US continued to train and equip Syrian rebels, using allies like Jordan and Turkey as intermediaries.
Similarly, a Washington Post editorial (12/19/18) headlined “This Is Not the Way to Leave Syria” complained that “the Syria withdrawal hands Tehran and its ally Russia a windfall.” This suggests that the editors believe “the way to leave Syria” is with a new government approved by the US in place, or at least with the current one ousted—a gambit that the US last pulled off in Libya, a country that now has slavery, with some slaves reportedly having their organs harvested and sold.
The Post’s Max Boot (12/19/18) claimed that Trump’s supposed plan to get US troops out of Syria amounted to “handing a Christmas present to the mullahs”—“the mullahs” being a lazy, orientalist shorthand for the Iranian government used by people who know little about the country. The author has so internalized imperialist ideology that he thinks the US has a right to indefinitely control one-third of Syria, including half of its energy resources and much of its best agricultural land, because it could benefit Iran if the US did not do that.
Israel & the Kurds
Max Boot (Washington Post, 12/19/18) complains that “when presidents normally ‘wag the dog,’ they start a war.”
Much of the coverage complained that the US pulling out of Syria would be bad for Israel, in that Iran will likely retain influence in Syria. “The American withdrawal worries Israel,” said the Times’ editorial. Trump “promised to protect Israel, but that nation will now be left to face alone the buildup by Iran and its proxies along its northern border,” the Post’s howled. “So much for Trump’s conceit that he is the most pro-Israel president ever,” Boot moaned, going on to write that
A US withdrawal from Syria will entrench the Islamic Republic of Iran on Israel’s doorstep. That damage vastly outweighs the empty symbolism of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.
Whatever these pundits’ delusions, the Israeli state is not some kind of vulnerable minority that needs to be protected from violence; it is a nuclear-armed perpetrator of extraordinary violence—against the Palestinians, of course, and also against states in the region, including Syria.
US media say they are concerned that Turkey will attack the Syrian Kurds, and that the US should stay in Syria to protect them. The Times wrote that “Among the biggest losers” of an American pullout
are likely to be the Kurdish troops that the United States has equipped and relied on to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, considers many of the Kurds to be terrorists bent on destroying his country.
For the Post, “The Syrian Kurdish forces . . . will be perhaps the foremost victims of Mr. Trump’s decision. Betrayed by Washington, they will now be subject to a military offensive by Turkey.” Boot said that “America’s Kurdish and Arab allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces will be hard-put to resist [ISIS] on their own, much less deal with the Turkish threat against the Kurds.”
It is true that Turkey poses a threat to Kurdish people, and the risks facing Kurds merit concern, but the analysts mislead readers by suggesting a US occupation of Syria is the answer. The US military’s function is not to protect civilians—just the opposite, in fact. And a US presence in Syria has not kept the Kurds safe from Turkey: Turkey, along with armed groups opposed to the Syrian government that the US supported, ransacked Afrin, a Kurdish-majority territory in northern Syria, plundering the area and driving out 220,000 civilians. Moreover, throughout the 1990s, the US directly participated in Turkey’s mass killing and oppression of Kurds in Turkey.
The prospect of the Syrian Kurds making alliances with local forces that could result in protecting them from Turkey, as the Kurds appear to have done with the Syrian government, is a part of the story these pundits don’t think their readers need to hear about. None of these commentators who are professing concern for the welfare of Kurdish people consider the possibility that the only long-term way to ensure the safety and prosperity of the Kurds, and every other ethnic and confessional group in West Asia, might be a comprehensive, region-wide solution that necessarily entails upending the US-dominated order, replacing it with local self-rule. At no point do any of these articles consider the radical notion that the US has no right to determine Syria’s affairs, or those of any other country.
Fear Not, Pundit Class
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me 900 times…you should be seriously concerned about me, to be honest. (CNN, 3/29/18)
There is ample reason to doubt that Trump will actually withdraw from Syria entirely. Trump said he would remove the troops in March 2018 (CNN, 3/29/18) and didn’t follow through, and the administration is again sending mixed signals. National Security Adviser John Bolton said that American forces will “eliminate what remains of ISIS before leaving,” “there is no fixed timetable for completing the drawdown,” and “some 200 US troops will remain in the vicinity of al-Tanf, in southern Syria, to counter growing Iranian activity in the region.” More recently, the military said that it moving ahead with plans to withdraw all troops, with one Pentagon official saying, “We don’t take orders from Bolton.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the “US will expel every last Iranian boot from Syria.” Trump himself won’t commit to a date for removing the troops, saying only that this will supposedly happen “over a period of time.” Subsequently, a spokesperson for the US-led coalition against ISIS said it has begun leaving, though it “will not discuss specific timelines,” and Reuters (1/11/19) noted that “residents near border crossings that are typically used by US forces going in and out of Syria from Iraq said they had seen no obvious or large-scale movement of US ground forces on Friday.”
Even if the US were to pull its troops out of Syria, it’s far from certain that this will mean the US will stop meddling. If the US holds on to its bases in Syria, continues to use Syrian air space, or fails to withdraw the more than 5,500 private contractors it has in the country, then that’s not a withdrawal from Syria.
Nor is there reason to believe that US allies will take their hands off Syria: For example, the day after Trump’s announcement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would increase its efforts against Iran in Syria “in a very decisive way and with support and backup from the US”; on Christmas Day, Israel bombed Damascus.
Thus, all of the media’s fretting about a possible scaling back of America’s empire may well have been over nothing.
Oh New York Times——–shame on you: “…no one wants American troops to be there longer than necessary.” What—-we shouldn’t even be there at all —when did Syria attack America—–I guess we all missed that. Of course some people want America to stay forever, like Israel, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamic. who did I miss—–oh the lobbyists, and all those generals who can’t win a war. Apparently our own military people have no concept of the world since the time of WW 2—–yes that’s when Europe was smashed to smithereens—-and America was not. We became a great power—–until the 1970s when everyone else caught up— so to have never ending ridiculous wars is insane , not only to human but also to the whole planet! Just Wondering—when will America come to its senses. Maybe if presidents had to go to war like the ancient kings did, maybe then there would be peace——yes, I can see it now—–like Richard the 3rd—–Trump will be discovered one day buried in a field in Syria—that became a car park!
It’s been a Big Lie since day one. They created the problem they pretend to solve (ISIS). What America did to Syria is a Crime Against Humanity, spearheaded by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Their CIA began shipping weapons to Syrian terrorists from Libya after the illegal regime change war there (Hersh).
By February 2012 Hillary Clinton was informed that Al Qaeda was “on our side” (Wikileaks). That made their policies treasonous aid and comfort to the declared enemy. These people scoff at the entire world, untouchable for their numerous war crimes.
Why ISIS Exists
http://intpolicydigest.org/2015/11/29/why-isis-exists-the-double-game/
U.S. “leadership” and the press have simply embraced the essentially “Nazi” ideology of “we’re a master race” by simply substituting the – “we’re the ‘exceptional’ nation” – ideological nonsense. The “exceptional nation” that can simply on our whim ignore international law and invade and kill whoever we chose, overthrow whomever we chose, whenever we want. In other words we can commit the most heinous of crimes under the Nuremberg principals – a “war of aggression.” Why? Because – “we’re special” – “exceptional” it would appear. Our “full spectrum dominance,” combined with our plan for an “American Century” also seem to disturbingly mirror the Nazi concept of creating a “Thousand year reich.” Apparently all those “former Nazis” that Allen Dulles brought into the CIA post-WWII have been put to use in our strategic planning departments and in training the MSM in the principals and methods of presenting non-stop war propaganda.
Quit being “politically correct!” The regime in Washington is not the one claiming racial superiority – it is the regime in Israel and it’s relatives in the US that control the US Goverment that claim racial superiority. They drove the US to war in Syria and across the Middle East. The world’s problems can not be solved without identifying the root cause and dealing with it directly. It can not be done by simply treating the symptoms.
The problem is America treats wars as a defacto national sport. It’s fine entertainment for the masses sitting on their couches back home. No one in generations has ever experienced war firsthand. It’s just some piddling abstract concept. Heck with the ever expanding drone war on everyone even today’s soldiers don’t have to get up close and personal anymore, they just press a button to unleash death from above thousands of miles away.
So really, in order for anything to change, everyday citizens, ‘experts’ blathering on TV, politicians, all the endless think tanks etc. need to start being on the receiving end of such destruction.
Sadly, the way the usual suspects are determined to goad the Russians and Chinese were that to happen this planet itself would not survive.
The american Nazionist regime will be crushed, as we did in 1945 to germany, we need a new Nuremberg trial for that criminals who ruled and rule now Usa, their owners (the zionist cabal and that militar-industrial-economic-banksters complex who both decides whatever happens to the whole planet !). We must create a new set of cards as we did for Iraqi regime that was better than the actual american, same for Lybian Gheddafi regime, in Lybia there was the best living conditions also of the american. it’s sure, same for what regard Iranian regime, there are a lor few poor people than in Usa.
In America we are assisting (same for Europe) at the middle class pulverzation thanks to the one hundred of billionaires that are not happy of their wealth, they needs to render all the people of the planet at thier services and ever more poorer.excuse for my lttle english, but this isn’t the problem, the problem is WE MUST CHANGE REGIME IN USA, after we assisted at the worst last twenty years of the whole world history ever seen for centuries.
Now it’s the moment that a new revolution change things. ASAP!!!!!