Quagmire Accomplished, 15 Years Later

What's left after 15 years since George W. Bush had the not-very-bright idea of invading Iraq in 2003?  One MILLION people dead in total, thousands of American servicemembers dead and many times that number wounded, trillions of dollars in the hole, the horrific scourge of ISIL that would not otherwise have even existed, and no one held accountable at all.  Add the 16+ year long Afghanistan quagmire to the mix, and the more recent incursion into Syria, and the death toll and total costs rise even higher still.

The moral of the story:  Wars have consequences, often serious and far-reaching ones.  So going to war should NEVER be done unless absolutely necessary, and certainly not willy-nilly.  Unnecessary wars of choice create terrorists faster than we can kill them.  And whether it's a "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" sort of war like Libya or a decade(s)-long quagmire like Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, the end result is ultimately the same sort of disastrous failed state that becomes a magnet for extremists.  And once it becomes Quagmire Accomplished, whether we leave now, a year from now, ten years from now, or 100 years from now, the result on the affected nation(s) we invade and subsequently leave is basically the same.  Quick withdrawal is thus the lesser evil.

In fact, Tom Englehardt (Tom Dispatch) and Peter van Buren had the best idea of all--quick withdrawal, after getting ISIL where it really hurts by taking out their OIL.  Such targets--wellheads and oil trucks--are not at all hard to find, and are fairly easy to take out from the air.  And put diplomatic and economic pressure on Turkey and other so-called "allies" to stem the flow of Daesh oil as well.  Because oil is their primary source of funding, and removing that will cause them to quickly collapse of their own weight, and when they are seen as a failure then few would want to join them.  And once we take it out, then GTFO and let Daesh fall on their own sword.  (And apparently, we ended up doing a modest version of exactly that sort of oil campaign, with a fair amount of success, albeit late in the game and minus the withdrawal.)

The TSAP agrees with that idea, and we would also like to add to that.  Before withdrawing, we should give every *woman* over there an AK-47 and tell them to take over their country and mow down anyone who stands in their way. Let Allah sort it out. Problem solved. But of course, the mostly-male powers that be would not be too keen on that idea. After all, they wouldn't want women in THIS country getting any ideas, now would they?  (Of course, the TSAP believes that women should indeed take over the world in order to save it, so that wouldn't really be a bad idea, come to think of it.)

Honestly, it is certainly a better idea than arming questionable male "rebels" who end up turning traitor.  VIVE LA FEMME! 

Trump Just Bombed Syria, Because Syria Bombed Syria. Or Something.

Well, it finally happened.  Trump ordered an airstrike of 59 Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian Air Force base on the night of April 6, 2017.  Ostensibly in retaliation for the horrific sarin gas attack by the Assad regime against their own civilians, this marks the first time the United States directly attacked any targets of the Assad regime, as prior to this, we were solely attacking ISIL and al-Qaeda affiliates' targets, effectively as grudging and uneasy "co-belligerents" with the regime as well as Russia.  So unless this is just a one-off for show, this marks a major shift in foreign policy and military strategy in the region.

Of course, this may very well just be a way of "wagging the dog", distracting us from the ever-growing Russiagate scandal.  And while the Putin regime predictably condemned the airstrike, it is very telling that Trump told Russia about his plan before he even told Congress.  And it's not like the attack was particularly effective:  it didn't really do much damage to Syria's Air Force, and in fact the very next morning they launched another poison gas attack (this time with chlorine gas) against civilians in another town.   And even the initial sarin attack came just days after the Trump administration gave what can be interpreted as a not-so-subtle green light of sorts for the Assad regime to do as they please with impunity--kinda like Trump appeared to do with Putin just before the final Aleppo massacre in November.

Oh, and did you know that those same Tomahawk missiles used in the airstrike were manufactured by Raytheon, whose stock price jumped dramatically the day after the attack?  And which plutocratic potentate owns stock in that exact same company?  You guessed it.  As Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler once famously said, "War is a Racket".  And his 1935 book of the same name should be required reading for everyone.

It is funny how Trump supporters who voted for him because they feared Hillary would attack Syria, now have face the fact that Trump just did exactly that.  And yes, Hillary most likely would have done so.  Not to condone Hillary's plan for Syria, but at least Putin was afraid of her, and she could have used such leverage to keep Russia and Syria from getting too out of control.  And we all would have seen big, tough, macho Putin begging a powerful Woman for mercy.  And that would have been priceless in itself.  Of course, Bernie would have been better, but alas that was not to be.

While the TSAP unequivocally condemns the brutal chemical (and conventional) attacks on civilians by the evil and genocidal Assad regime, we do not belive that Trump is taking the right path in his reckless and impulsive unilateral attack on Syria.  If we do intervene, we must do so along with the international community, and pursue diplomatic measures to bring the Syrian civil war to as quick an end as possible.  History has shown that, military action, should we even pursue it at all, should be a very last resort and should be well-planned and coordinated with our allies, with a clear exit strategy and a plan to actually win the peace.  Otherwise, we risk WWIII, or at the very least another Middle Eastern quagmire akin to the worst of Libya and Iraq combined, on steroids.

We ignore history at our own peril.  The song "2 Minutes to Midnight" by Iron Maiden comes to mind.  Which is basically where the Doomsday Clock is set now, thanks primarily to the drunken Darth Vader wannabe and his orange ventriloquist dummy in the White House.