President Trump has been taking a lot of heat from his recent decision to pull US troops from Northern Syria. It has notably pissed off a lot of Republicans. Now, I’ve been a big supporter of President Trump, but I’ve also called him out when I think it’s warranted. And that brings me to his current decision about Syria.
Once again, Donald Trump is right and everyone disagreeing with him on this decision, which is pretty much everyone, is wrong.
Democrats (remember those anti-foreign military intervention Democrats?) are against his decision for the same reason they are against every other decision he’s made, starting with his decision to run for president. There’s nothing new there. To the Democrat apparatchiks, being Trump and being wrong are synonymous.
Republicans, on the other hand, are fulminating over the choice to leave Northern Syria because the Kurds have had our back against ISIS; because it is sending a message to the world that the American Military is only supportive when it suits our agenda.
Well, no shit. It’s a stupid approach, but not because it leaves the Kurds alone to continue a conflict with the Turks that was happening a long time before America strolled in with weapons and training. We’re talking weapons, of course, that are supplied by American defense contractors. That fact is lost on Republicans, who are too busy licking the boots of said contractors.*
Remember the Mujahideen? What’s that? No, you say? Well, perhaps you will remember them by another name. Al Qaeda. Yes, the terrorist group that took down the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. They were called the Mujahideen when our CIA was helping Osama Bin Laden train them in the weapons of war.
The Mujahideen, created in large part by the United States inserting itself into Afghanistan the same way we have in Syria, also splintered into another more popularly known group. The Taliban. I’m sure you’ve heard of them. You should have, since your tax dollars created them.
We conducted similar foolishness when our CIA overthrew the legitimate, democratic government of Iran and installed the Shah, who maintained control with secret police, torture chambers and mass graves. That turned out well, didn’t it?
At this point, American involvement in the middle east has been nothing short of an unremitting nightmare of death, destruction and loss of national treasure. We’d be better off (and so would the rest of the world) if we just exited quietly, minding our own business and hopefully without bombing any more civilians and arming more radical lunatics in the name of good commerce democracy.
The problem is that exiting something quietly gets complicated when there’s money to be made by not exiting at all, which is where we are today. Or at least it was where we were till we elected Donald Trump to put a stop to all this bloody nonsense; to drain the swamp as it were. And make no mistake, when it comes to the swamp our defense contractors are swimming in the deep end.
It pays to be mindful of all this. When phone calls to the Ukraine and Matt Lauer being accused of rape again dominate the news cycle, it’s easy to lose sight of the war being waged right in front of you. In this case, it’s Donald Trump vs everyone in Washington.
My guess is that makes him almost certainly in the right.
*In the interest of fairness it must be stated that Bernie Sanders, an independent, is the top beneficiary from defense contractor donations in the senate.
