(This is from the centrist, corporate-supported Century Fund. . .)
America Had Already Lost Its Covert War in Syria—Now It’s Official
Trump’s decision is, on some level, an admission of defeat. But it is also a concession to reality, and an acknowledgement that America’s covert military program in Syria was misconceived from the start. The covert arms program was going to end—this was inevitable, even if its precise timing was a surprise, and its execution appears haphazard. By the time Trump took office, the program no longer made sense, if it ever did. The United States couldn’t just keep fueling a war that had no definable end and feeding a rebel host body from which al-Qaeda could suck blood… The idea that the U.S. covert arms program in north Syria and CIA-backed FSA factions were somehow a bulwark against al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front was a fiction. Northern FSA were not competing with the Nusra Front. The program was fueling an insurgency in which Nusra had firmly ensconced itself and from which Nusra was drawing strength. More
Burning Raqqa: The U.S. War Against Civilians in Syria
The Islamic State’s brutal treatment of civilians in Syria has been well reported and publicized. And according to Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the commander of the U.S.-led war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the battle to "liberate" these regions from ISIS is the "most precise campaign in the history of warfare." But reports and photographs from Syrian journalists and activists, as well as first-person accounts from those with family members living in areas under U.S. bombardment, detail a strikingly different tale of the American offensive -- one that looks a lot less like a battle against the Islamic State and a lot more like a war on civilians… The United States has launched nearly 95% of all coalition airstrikes in Syria in recent months, meaning the campaign is, in fact, almost exclusively an American affair. More
But US intervention in Syria is not over.
US support for “anti-ISIS” armed groups, together with US bombing in Syria (illegal under international and US law) and Iraq (technically “legal” but unwise and immoral) is on-going -- with horrific civilian casualties.
The U.S. is also risking a catastrophic military clash with Russia or Iran in Syria. There is no legal or moral basis for the United States to be waging war in Syria, risking conflict with Russia and nuclear apocalypse for us all. ISIS is retreating in Syria and Iraq, but the US is not. The Trump administration has not made secret its hostility to Iran -- and the drumbeats for war are building.
Is This What ‘Liberation’ Looks Like? U.S. Airstrikes Have Devastated Mosul.
Thousands of civilians have been killed — no one knows exactly how many people have died, how many bodies remain crushed under the rubble of the once-vibrant city, how many whole families have been lost, how many children have been orphaned. A million or so were displaced from their homes; hundreds of thousands of weakened, malnourished Moslawis, many of them psychologically devastated from years under ISIS rule, are still languishing in ill-equipped camps in the desert outside the city, where temperatures routinely soar to 120 degrees… A real solution to terrorism — not a fake military answer — requires something very different… It means creating a real negotiating process aimed at diplomatic rather than military solutions. It means pressuring U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and others to stop arming and financing ISIS and other extremist fighters directly or indirectly. More
North and South Korea Want a Peace Treaty: The US Must Join Them
Clearly, the missing piece in this puzzle is the United States, where Trump has only surrounded himself with white men, mostly military generals, with the exception of Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, whose statements on North Korea -- as well as virtually every other country -- have set back international diplomatic efforts… The US government divided the Korean Peninsula (with the former Soviet Union) and signed the armistice agreement promising to return to talks in 90 days to negotiate a permanent peace settlement. The US government has a moral and legal responsibility to end the Korean War with a peace treaty.
With Moon in power in South Korea and pro-diplomacy women in key foreign ministry posts in the region, the prospects for reaching a peace agreement are hopeful. Now, US peace movements must push for an end to the Obama administration's failed policy of Strategic Patience -- and push back against the Trump administration's threats of military escalation. More
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