Trump has said he will withdraw troops from Syria……CoS Bolton said not so fast….Military generals say they will follow the order of the president to draw down troops…it has been fun watching this story play out…..who will win?
Will the president bow to the Neocon warmongers and keep troops in Syria or will he, Trump, do what he promised on the campaign?
The war industry is pulling all punches and rolling out why the US should stay in Syria…..
The warmongers are using the deaths of 4 Americans in Syria by suicide bomber as reason to stay the course…..
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Wednesday that a suicide attack in the Syrian town of Manbij against American troops in the city, might have aimed to affect the U.S. administration’s decision to pullout forces in Syria.
Four U.S. soldiers were killed and three wounded in the attack on Wednesday, a U.S. official told Reuters
A suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria has reportedly killed 19 people including four Americans, two of whom were US soldiers and two of whom worked with the US military. ISIS, which has an extensive history of falsely claiming responsibility for attacks it had nothing to do with, has claimed responsibilityfor the attack. Despite the fact that ISIS would claim responsibility for a housewife stepping on a Lego block, and despite the complete absence of evidence that it had anything to do with the deadly explosion, all the usual cheerleaders of endless war are pointing to the Manbij suicide bombing and shrieking “See?? Trump said ISIS is defeated and it’s not!”
“ISIS is still a very real threat here,” CNN international corespondent Clarissa Ward told Jake Tapper from northern Syria. “And the real concern that we are hearing over and over again on the ground, Jake, is that when US troops withdraw, a power vacuum is created, and that only gives them more strength.”
Virulent Syria war pundit Charles Lister, who is notorious for praising Al Qaeda and is a senior fellow at the Gulf state-funded neoconservative think tank Middle East Institute, told AFP that this attack invalidates Donald Trump’s order last month to withdraw troops from Syria.
https://theantimedia.com/syria-attack-means-troops-must-remain/
All the back and forth in DC means little….the Army chief has made his choice……
For the first time, a senior U.S. military official has commented on President Trump’s late-December decision to quit Syria, confirming publicly that American troops are planning to leave once ISIS is defeated on the ground.
“We are determined to finish that off and then hand the battle off to our indigenous partners,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said on Wednesday.
His comments came hours after a suicide bomber killed four people in Manbij, Syria, including two U.S. troops, a Defense Department civilian, and one contractor. Three more were injured in the blast, for which ISIS declared responsibility.
https://www.defenseone.com/news/2019/01/army-chief-confirms-us-will-hand-isis-fight-syria/154237/
Some groups see the pull-out as a good thing for it will give the US more wiggle room in the Middle East…..
On December 29, Russia and Turkey agreed to coordinate their ground operations in Syria after high-level consultations. The move related to Turkey’s declared intention of invading Rojava. At this stage, the U.S., Russia, Turkey and President Assad all agreed that Daesh must be completely eradicated, but their assessments of the organization’s strength and its chances of making a comeback varied widely.
Russia’s interest was to back Mr. Assad. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared before meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Moscow would consider Turkish military intervention “in the perspective of protection for Syria’s territorial integrity.”
All the tit for tat in DC about the move to leave Syria but the American people are okay with the policy…..
The long life of the Afghan war makes it hard to remember how popular it was when it began. As the fighting began, 80 percent of America supported it. Nobody in Congress except Rep. Barbara Lee (D–Calif.) was prescient enough to vote against the Authorization for Use of Military Force and its open-ended-enough-to-attack-a-dozen-more-countries wording. Not until 2014 did a majority of Americans begin to regret that the war ever started.
Now some polls suggest it’s nearly as unpopular as the wildly unpopular ill-fated war in Iraq.
http://reason.com/archives/2019/01/11/americans-ok-with-leaving-syria-and-afgh
Syria is still a point for argument…..but if the “war whores” (I love that title) get all their ducks in a row then we will stay engaged in Syria. The attack gave these people the ammo they need to make a case for staying……
An ISIS suicide bombing in Syria’s Manbij killed four US troops. This caused a minor redesign in the narrative from hawkish US politicians and media pundits who were opposed to the US withdrawal from Syria. They’re exactly as opposed as before, only now Manbij is the excuse.
So after weeks of centering their talking points on saving the Kurds from Turkey, the focus now is on the idea that ISIS is emboldened by the announced US pullout, and that continuing the pullout will only make the withdrawing soldiers a target.
Their solution is to keep US troops in Syria, which ironically is also ISIS’ solution. Having lost their caliphate and become a desert-centric insurgency with little territory, the US pullout would be a big blow to ISIS’ already crumbling relevance as an international movement.
The easiest way for ISIS to stay relevant is to keep US troops close-by to occasional fight and attack. This would keep anti-US recruits flowing in, and international funding for their leadership.
In a way, this isn’t dissimilar to the hawks’ desire to keep US forces in Syria, as it is another chance for the advocates of the war to remain relevant, and to keep the money flowing on the American side of the war.(antiwar.com)
The “Syria Saga” is far from over.
