President Trump has ordered the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, which is reportedly expected to take 60-100 days or 30 days depending on who you ask. According to Kurdish forces in eastern Syria the withdrawal of American as well as French troops is already underway, though France is saying it's staying. The number of troops to be withdrawn which keeps getting repeated in the news is 2,000, but there've been reports that the actual number of US ground troops in Syria is closer to 4,000. The US-led airstrike campaign against Islamic State will reportedly continue.
Trump says the withdrawal is because ISIS has been defeated in Syria, but others are pointing to the conspicuous timing of his recent chat with Turkey's President Tayyip Erdoğan, who has announced a coming military operation against Kurdish forces in Syria east of the Euphrates in the near future, as the more likely reason. An anonymous senior US official has told Reuters that the two leaders didn't discuss a US withdrawal from Syria, but the timing of the conversation as well as a recent $3.5 billion arms deal with Turkey indicates the the US withdrawal and Erdoğan's planned military assault could very well be related. The Kurds put all their eggs in the basket of US support out of a desire to create their own nation, and a US withdrawal means they'll be forced to either court an alliance with Damascus, as some analysts believe will happen, or risk being trapped between hostile Turkish forces and hostile Syrian coalition forces as the Assad government races to reclaim Syrian territory.
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ReplyDeleteThree thoughts . . .
[1] France says it will stay in Syria.
Since the US government can create infinite dollars out of thin air, and since US dollars are negotiable worldwide, the US government can easily pay for 800 military bases abroad.
Not so with the French government, which cannot create any euros out of thin air. And since France has a trade deficit, France must borrow all its euros. Therefore France goes further into debt each day. Every euro spent on eleven French military bases abroad (10,800 military personnel) is a euro stolen from French workers. Those eleven bases do not include the French presence in Syria.
[2] Caitlin Johnstone: ”I’ll be astonished if there is an actual US withdrawal from Syria without any residual or proxy forces left behind, and it remains extremely possible that US troops won’t leave at all, especially if another conveniently timed ‘chemical weapons attack’ gets attributed to Damascus.”
Everyone is thinking the same thing. U.S. withdrawal? Yeah right, ha, ha, ha.
[3] Caitlin Johnstone spends the rest of her blog post noting how liberals are attacking Trump for seeking peace. “It’s a gift to Putin and Iran!” “Trump is only doing this to distract from the latest bombshell!” (Oh those endless non-existent “bombshells.”)
As you see, America’s wars are perpetual because war is lucrative for everyone involved in waging war, and also because American liberals and “pacifists” love war even more than conservatives do.
If Trump devised a magical cure for all forms of cancer, liberals would attack him for it.
“Hollywood celebrities like Bette Midler, Mia Farrow and Cher burst out of their dust pods of irrelevance to scream at everyone that limitless US military expansionism is glorious and desirable.”
Those ancient and mummified hags are still alive???
Who knew?
For Hollywood has-beens, the only way they can remain relevant is to continually attack Trump, plus "homophobes," "anti-Semites," "white privilege," etc etc.