Yesterday, news broke that President Trump has ended the clandestine American program to provide arms and supplies to Syrian rebel groups, American officials said, a recognition that the effort was failing and that the administration has given up hope of helping to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
In other words, President Trump has ended a program through which the CIA has been arming terrorists in the Middle East. The CIA has used the program around the world, mostly in places where their leaders won’t let our corporations come in and control their resources, and the results have been constant: the rebels miraculously turn to terrorists at the end of the day. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, to mention a few, are examples. Yes, they always claim that they’re arming rebels, but these rebels have constantly turned into terrorists later. Either that, or the arms have inevitably found their way into the hands of terrorists.
We always hear stories about terrorists showing up to fight our troops with American made weapons. In fact, just two days ago, news broke that Taliban fighters in Afghanistan were decked out in US Special Forces gear. Usually when these things happen, everybody claims not to know how the terrorists got the weapons and gear, but it’s clear that they get them from these so called friendly rebels we arm. Also, when we arm these “rebels,” we meet with a few people who claim to be the leaders which means we don’t really know much about who the so called rebels are. For all we know, they could be the same people as the terrorists who later show up with our weapons.
The decision by Mr Trump came more than a month ago, officials said, by which time the effort to deliver the arms had slowed to a trickle. It was never publicly announced, just as the beginnings of the program four years ago were officially a secret, authorized by then President Barack Obama through a “finding” that permitted the C.I.A. to conduct a deniable program. News of the troublesome program soon leaked out.
It joins similar failed efforts to deliver arms and money to groups seeking to overthrow governments that Washington found noxious, most famously the Kennedy administration’s disastrous effort to do away with the government of Fidel Castro in Cuba.
The decision has been welcomed by the Syrians, as this will help end the conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians, and all peace loving people from around the world. Many ordinary Americans have also been speaking out in favor of it all over social media which appears to be the only avenue their voices can be heard. This and the recently agreed cease fire by Presidents Trump and Putin gives hope that Mr Trump might really be serious about actualizing his promise to end the quest to remove Assad from power.
It will be recalled that he was criticized for fear he would break that promise when he ordered a strike against the Syrian army after it was accused of using sarin gas on Syrian citizens. That fear reared its head again recently after the US government said it had intelligence that the Syrian army was once again planning to use sarin gas on its citizens. This decision has helped calm down those worries, however, and the feeling is more positive.
Of course, the war industrial complex and their agents in the corridors of our government are not happy, and are already beginning their dishonest attacks on President Trump by trying to tie this to the fake Russiagate story that is already making the rounds. These vultures who had been salivating over how they would have escalated the war in Syria if their war hawk candidate Hillary Clinton had won the presidency, are beyond disappointed and are trying to spin this positive anti war stance to mean that President Trump is dancing to the tune of Vladimir Putin.
The truth is that every effort that has unfolded in recent times of President Trump trying to wind down the war in Syria had been foreshadowed as early as April, when the Trump administration said that ousting Mr. Assad, whose government has fought a civil war that has taken roughly half a million lives, was no longer a priority. Instead, the United States and Russia have been discussing cease-fire zones in the country. The first of these cease fires has just gone into effect earlier this month which means that there are more coming.
The truth about the so called rebel arming program is that it failed on its mission of forcing President Assad to the bargaining table, which was the objective laid out when it began. Obama’s secretary of state at the time, John Kerry, was at the center of a series of negotiations that were supposed to bring cease fires, and deadlines for a political solution where an election would be held to transition Mr Assad out of office. These efforts failed, and Secretary Kerry actually blamed then President Obama for not ramping up the military pressure enough to force Assad to play ball.
The point is that whatever valid reason we may have had for this arming exercise had long failed, but we were still sending tens of millions of dollars worth of some of our most sophisticated military weapons into the hands of so called friendly rebels. The rebels were never able to make any headway against Assad’s army, and were actually driven out of Allepo last year. That clearly puts paid to any hopes that they could ever pose any serious threat to Mr Assad’s government.
In the end, it’s a good thing that we finally have a president who has the balls to say enough is enough, and end the madness while knowing how unpopular that will make him in the eyes of the establishment and the war machine that control our government. The only people with anything to gain from removing Bashir Assad from office are American corporations. Neither American nor Syrian citizens will gain anything despite what the propaganda says.
Mr Trump gets knocked for his so called “Muslim ban” but his actions so far in the Middle East are showing that he might end up helping the people stay home in a peaceful environment instead of running away and looking for asylum in other countries.
It’s best to end the senseless war and save lives and money that could be put to use for the good of the peoples of both countries.
