On January 2, 2020, Trump apparently ordered a drone airstrike near Baghdad, Iraq, that killed Iran's top general, Qassim Soleimani. This assassination was of very, very questionable legality given that Trump did not notify Congress (or really anyone else, for that matter) before giving the orders. And now Iran is openly threatening (unspecified) revenge and retaliation for this foolish and reckless act of bravado and hubris by the Manchild Who Would Be King.
We are well aware that General Soleimani was not a good person by any stretch of the imagination, nor is his own Revolutionary Guard Quds Force particularly cuddly either. They have in fact been officially designated as a terrorist organization by the United States Department of State years ago due to their notoriously rogue activities in the region, including their support for violent militias in Iraq. But when the "leader" of the USA decides to go rogue himself and arbitrarily assassinate a leader of a sovereign nation that we are NOT actually at war with, that is a dangerous and irresponsible escalation that threatens to unleash a conflagration across the whole region, if not even further. At the very least, it will delay any hope for peace in the region by at least a generation, and at worst can perhaps even trigger World War III.
And of course we can kiss goodbye practically forever any chance of reviving the Iran nuclear deal that, while imperfect, was in fact working to keep Iran from getting their hands on The Bomb for the foreseeable future--before Trump pulled out of it of course. If Iran didn't have a reason to want nukes in the past, well they sure do now! This latest stunt thus clearly does FAR more harm than good, and we at the TSAP condemn his reckless and irresponsible actions.
(As for motives, can you say, "Wag the Dog"?)
Showing posts with label WWIII. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WWIII. Show all posts
Friday, January 3, 2020
Friday, April 7, 2017
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.
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.
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