Trump Announces US Troop Withdrawal From Syria — Military Industrial Complex & Corporate Media Loses Its Shit And Has Meltdown
By now you will be aware that the unpredictable and capricious Donald Trump has gone rogue yet again and announced complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria and a troop reduction in Afghanistan.
This is obviously the kind of thing that gets you in deep trouble with the deep state.
My advice to the Donald would be to avoid open motorcades and grassy knolls! Although of course he is mired in a Watergate style investigation that could ultimately end his presidency so they will probably get to him one way or the other. However, more on the motivation behind this shock policy announcement later.
In coming to this decision, Trump has gone against the wishes of his advisors some of whom he has fired. Predictably, there has been a chorus of unanimous criticism in Washington from Democrats and Republicans alike (who said bipartisanship was dead?), commentators and of course the corporate media. In fact, when Trump authorised missile strikes against Syria, he was suddenly lauded as worthy of being the occupant of the Oval Office and showered with gushing praise from a Washington establishment unified in its adoration of bombs, missiles and hellfire.
You would have thunk that withdrawing troops might be a good idea? Think again. The military industrial complex and the mainstream media are addicted to destructive mayhem.
Here is what David Sanger wrote in the New York Times:-
This is remarkable double-think. US troops preventing terrorism when in fact the exact opposite has occurred as a result of the war on terror. At the time of 9/11, there were a few hundred Islamist fighters hiding out in the Hindu Kush mountains. At present, there are at least 100,000 Islamist terrorists globally.
As for keeping the world safe, you might want to poll the world’s citizenry. Oh wait a minute someone already did and the results are in. Apparently, many people across the world view the United States unfavourably.
Of course, what Sanger is really referring to is the US as the guarantor of a US led free market global capitalist system or rules-based international order backed up by their military indomitability. This is one reason why the neoliberals are terrified of America-First, ethno-nationalist, protectionist policies.
Now if I were a cynic I might even wonder if this is a deliberate strategy for perpetual war both for geopolitical reasons, imperialist divide and rule as well as massive profits. Or as Lockheed Martin’s CEO put it in 2015, “ “A lot of volatility, a lot of instability, a lot of things that are happening” in both the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region means both are “growth areas” for Lockheed Martin.
In The Guardian, Simon Tisdall added:-
Tisdall’s analysis is that this withdrawal will weaken the Kurds and hand ISIS the initiative.
Unsurprisingly, Putin has applauded the move.
This will undoubtedly be spun — along the lines of Russiagate — as yet more evidence of Trump as the puppet or bitch of Putin.
In reality, I suspect that not the entire establishment is against Trump’s move. We know that Kissinger has been involved in advising the Trump administration and that he would like to peel Russia away from China in order to weaken any Sino-Russian alliance that might provide a bulwark against US interests in Asia.
The concession in Syria, of critical geopolitical significance to Russia, would therefore appear to be a pragmatic rather than idealistic move.
Although Trump has a track record over many years of being opposed to foreign interventions ( admittedly he has supported them too). But it is worth giving credit where it is due in that he has uttered words that could never have escaped the mouth of an Obama or Clinton.
Never — even in my wildest dreams ( such as the ones that involve orgiastic, riotous hedonism at a Victoria’s Secret after-show party for example)
— did I ever envisage a future or current Republican POTUS overtly critical of the WMD fiasco, CIA, Bush dynasty and the genocidal Iraq War….
Or warning against intervening in Syria……
Or threatening to dismantle NATO. If only we could take away all the bad stuff about Trump……
The Pentagon has already undermined Trump’s move by announcing that the troops will be relocated to Iraq and that Special Ops will still carry out cross-border incursions into Syria. This is their way of telling the Donald to go fuck himself.
Now it may well be that all of this is simply politically expedient in that it plays very well with Trump’s base and the alt-right. Nevertheless it makes for damn good entertainment to watch the corporate media and the military-industrial complex having an apopleptic convulsion as Trump throws them yet another curve-ball.