Freedom Rider: Trump, Obama and Syria
“The unipolar world is no more.”
Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist
Whether by mistake or design, Donald Trump is presiding over the – agonizingly slow – demise of Barack Obama’s illegal and immoral scheme to overthrow the government of Syria using jihadist terror armies.
Donald Trump presents more contradictions than perhaps any president in modern history. He is woefully unprepared for this or any other job, having been far less successful as a real estate developer than he claimed. He excels only at promoting himself and identifying with the dark underbelly of white America. Those traits combined with Democratic Party corruption and incompetence to bring him to the presidency.
But he may have inadvertently undone a crime perpetrated by more well regarded predecessor. The complications present in Syria are the direct result of Barack Obama’s regime change attempt. Using the canard of humanitarian intervention Obama and his cohort in NATO, the gulf monarch states, and Israel conspired to overthrow the Syrian government with the indispensable help of jihadist proxies. The result was the death of half a million people and the displacement of millions more as refugees.
It is always difficult to determine what Trump intends to do and what he achieves by accident. His promise to “put America first” resonated with white voters. His election is proof that their connection with the Republican Party has little to do with support for intervention and endless war. His claim that he was taking U.S. troops out of Syria was opposed by the war party duopoly and their friends in corporate media and not by the lumpen masses often referred to as his “base.”
“The complications present in Syria are the direct result of Barack Obama’s regime change attempt.”
The people who gave Obama direct or tacit approval to bring about the destruction of a sovereign nation now claim that Trump needs permission before giving Turkey the green light to invade northern Syria. The furor over his impulsively made decision exposes the Democrats’ hypocrisy and may have put Syria on the road to peace.
The story of the Kurds is a complicated one and even people who consider themselves knowledgeable are playing catch up with their history. But the corporate media assist in keeping the public uninformed by parroting claims that Trump is mistreating allies or giving a gift to Vladimir Putin. Turkey is a member of NATO and very much an American ally. The Kurds bet on the wrong horse and now are forced to accept help from the Syrian government, the only entity with any rights under international law to determine what happens there.
This controversy proves not just that the tweeting president doesn’t know what he is doing, but that United States conniving in the region no longer brings about a desired result. Military power can invade Iraq and willing proxies can always be found. But Bashar al-Assad is still the Syrian president and Russia, Iran and China are forces to be reckoned with and are closer than they have ever been before. The unipolar world is no more.
“The Kurds bet on the wrong horse and now are forced to accept help from the Syrian government.
Pointing out that the Trump team is particularly inept is only part of the story. The Democrats’ crocodile tears shed over the Kurds are part of their effort to undermine Trump while continuing to engage in the same criminality which both parties practice. Not one Democratic Party critic has questioned the premise of U.S. imperialism which brought the Kurds and the Syrians to this point. Barack Obama had better manners, greater intelligence and an in with all the right people. He won a Nobel Peace Prize and then proceeded to kill thousands of people and years later very few are willing to point out his wrong doing. Of course his wrong doing is also theirs and the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC and Democratic presidential candidates would be hard pressed to point out when they ever spoke out against U.S. war making.
While the Democrats pantomime concern for the Kurds, an anniversary that ought to live in infamy was commemorated. On October 14, 2011, a fifteen year old American citizen named Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was assassinated via drone strike on orders of president Obama. His American citizen father Anwar al-Awlaki had suffered the same fate two weeks earlier. Trump’s rages, bigotry, incompetence, and crazed twitter posts are of far less consequence than the actions of a president with a kill list.
“Not one Democratic Party critic has questioned the premise of U.S. imperialism which brought the Kurds and the Syrians to this point.”
Trump may be truthful when he says he wants to remove U.S. troops from the region but his opponents will thwart him at every turn. He can’t be praised because he is devoted to the concept of America being “first” and therefore in control of the rest of the planet.
His critics may be right in one regard. Russian diplomacy is slowly but surely winning over American pig headishness. Of course none of the Trump haters are hating him for the right reasons. For now America is first in nothing more than waging acts of aggression.
About the author
Black Agenda report’s Senior Editor and Columnist Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly at the Black Agenda Report. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley (at) BlackAgendaReport.com. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. 
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