The hysterical bipartisan and media opposition to President Trump’s correct decision to withdraw less than 30 U.S. troops from northern Syria is an important learning opportunity not to be missed. What was the job that Obama’s administration and pliant U.S. general officers assigned to those troops? Well, they were there as what was called during the Cold War a “tripwire”. This is an obfuscating way of saying “they were there to die.” Those troops were there because both parties wanted a bigger war in the region, but they knew Americans wanted no part of such a thing.
How to turn that situation around? Simple, by basing a number of sacrificial U.S. service personnel in the middle of a war zone. Sooner or later, of course, such a small force’s number will come up, and some of the troops will die and or be wounded. With American blood spilled, the governing elite would exploit the citizenry’s deep patriotism and desire for retribution and launch the United States into another unnecessary and wasteful war. The elite’s best known con on the American people would have worked again.
Now the chance of the U.S. elite using this con to turn affairs in northern Syria into a large U.S.-led war has dissipated. President Trump rolled up the tripwire and brought it home, and the fighting in the area belongs to those who either live there or want to be there. Now is the time for Americans to make the governing elite abide by their own word by asking a few questions. Following are four that need to be answered in a manner that fully meets U.S. national security interests:
–Q: Who is fighting in northern Syria now?
–A: Syria, Russia, Turkey, and Syrian and Turkish Kurds.
–Q: What commonality can be found among these combatant entities?
–A: The U.S. government and military, the bipartisan governing elite, and the media have for decades identified four of them as enemies of the republic; Russia and Syria as nation-state enemies, and the Syrian and Turkish Kurds as terrorist enemies. They also identify Turkey as an enemy whenever it suits their political convenience.
–Q: Does that mean that four full-time and one part-time U.S. enemy are fighting and killing each other in a remote and landlocked region almost 6,000 miles from Washington D.C.?
–A: That is correct
–Q: Should Americans care about what goes on in the war there, or even about who wins?
–A: Only those who are more insane than the average Democrat presidential candidate.
A final word for Americans examining the situation along The Turkey-Syria border. The U.S. governing elite is claiming that the Islamic State (IS) fighters imprisoned in the region will be released by the Syrian Kurds, and that is true enough. But so what? U.S. and Russian air assets and Syrian and Russian ground forces destroyed the physical ISIS Caliphate, which was IS’s most important attraction for much of the Muslim world’s militant Islamist population. The released fighters will have the choice of going home, fighting with the largely Sunni Kurds against three IS enemies – Turkey, Syria, and Russia – or trying to move into Iraq, Afghanistan, or Yemen. U.S. forces are likely to be totally withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan before long, and so – for the United States – whatever those fighters decide to do will be no more than a temporary annoyance. If the released IS fighters decide to try to rebuild the caliphate where it once stood, it will be up to the Europeans, Turkey, Syria, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf tyrannies to defeat them.
No doubt the gang of U.S. war-mongers will shrilly claim that the released IS fighters will come to the United States and fight us here. This is a truly silly claim. IS has no navy or shipping, and floating across the Atlantic with their ordnance on inner tubes is problematic. In addition, President Trump and Secretary Pompeo appear to be eradicating the pro-Islamist rot from the State Department’s staff and so visas for terrorists – like those given to the San Bernardino shooters – will no longer be issued. Next, the construction of the southern border wall is progressing and will be completed before too much longer. That wall is today – as it was on 12 September 2001 – the single most important and effective U.S. anti-Islamist defense measure.
Finally, when all U.S. combat forces are out of Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the importance of the American target to ISIS and other Islamist insurgent groups will drop markedly. After all, they hate Americans today – as they did on 12 September 2001 – not for who we are or how we live and think in North America, but because they believe – with some reason – that the U.S. government has long tried to destroy their religion, culture, traditions, mores, and history and has sent its military forces to protect Israel and tyrannical Muslim governments, as well as to occupy Muslim territory. Getting out of the region may not make the Islamist heart grow fonder of the United States, but it surely will refocus the Islamist eye on the remaining host of enemies they must confront and defeat after we are gone.
