NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong
Will Trump agree to the Pentagon's permanent war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria?
The two top national security officials in the Trump administration – Secretary of Defence James Mattis and national security adviser HR McMaster - are trying to secure long-term US ground and air combat roles in the three long-running wars in the greater Middle East – Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Proposals for each of the three countries are still being developed, and there is no consensus, even between Mattis and McMaster, on the details of the plans. They will be submitted to Trump separately, with the plan for Afghanistan coming sometime before a NATO summit in Brussels on 25 May. But if this power play succeeds in one or more of the three, it could guarantee the extension of permanent US ground combat in the greater Middle East for many years to come - and would represent a culmination of the “generational war” first announced by the George W Bush administration. More
Arming the Kurds: Trump’s Syrian Gambit
President Trump’s decision to provide weapons to the Syrian Kurds, who are fighting Isis, potentially marks a crucial change in the political geography of the Middle East. In effect, the US is choosing to support its Kurdish ally in Syria, in defiance of Turkey, whose aim is to prevent the establishment of a quasi-independent Kurdish state there… Turkey has sought in vain to persuade the US to break its alliance with the Syrian Kurds, accusing the YPG of being the Syrian arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has been waging a guerrilla war against the Turkish state since 1984. “Both the PKK and the YPG are terrorist organizations and they are no different, apart from their names,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavasoglu on Tuesday. “Every weapon seized by them is a threat to Turkey.” … The public decision by Mr Trump to send heavier weapons to the YPG is important primarily as a sign that the US is ignoring Turkish threats and will stick to its military alliance with the Syrian Kurds, which has served it well. This makes it difficult for the Turkish army and air force to escalate its attacks on the YPG. More
ANDREW BACEVICH:
Key Issues That Neither the Washington Elite Nor the Media Consider Worth Their Bother
As practiced in the United States, with certain honorable (and hence unprofitable) exceptions, journalism remains superficial, voyeuristic, and governed by the attention span of a two year old. As a result, all those editors, reporters, columnists, and talking heads who characterize their labors as “now more important than ever” ill-serve the public they profess to inform and enlighten. Rather than clearing the air, they befog it further… How much damage Donald Trump’s presidency wreaks before it ends remains to be seen. Yet he himself is a transient phenomenon. To allow his pratfalls and shenanigans to divert attention from matters sure to persist when he finally departs the stage is to make a grievous error. It may well be that, as the Times insists, the truth is now more important than ever. If so, finding the truth requires looking in the right places and asking the right questions. More
There Is Growing Bipartisan Opposition to Trump’s Unauthorized Military Actions
There is an easy way to determine whether a member of Congress is bearing true faith and allegiance to their oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” If a they demand that presidents of both parties seek congressional approval for military action, the oath is being taken seriously. If they don’t, the oath is abandoned—and, with it, any sense of duty to defend the most basic premises of the American experiment. Under President Trump, the tests are coming on a regular basis as the administration rolls roughshod over a system of checks and balances that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are more than willing to sacrifice on the altar of party loyalty. Not all Republicans are willing to accept the Trump’s administration’s shredding of the Constitution, however, and that’s important — as there is an urgent humanitarian need for a bipartisan defense of the authority of Congress to check and balance the executive branch. More
THE SILENT SLAUGHTER OF THE US AIR WAR
When “Shock and Awe” was unleashed on Iraq in 2003, it dominated the news all over the world. But after eight years of “disguised, quiet, media-free” warunder President Obama, the U.S. mass media don’t even treat the daily slaughter from this heavier, more sustained bombardment of Iraq and Syria as news. They cover single mass casualty events for a few days, but quickly resume normal “Trump Show” programming… There is almost no political debate in the U.S. over the rights and wrongs of the U.S. bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria. Never mind that bombing Syria without authorization from its internationally recognized government is a crime of aggression and a violation of the U.N. Charter. The freedom of the United States to violate the U.N. Charter at will has already been politically (not legally!) normalized by 17 years of serial aggression, from the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, to drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. So who will enforce the Charter now to protect civilians in Syria, who already face violence and death from all sides in a bloody civil and proxy war, in which the U.S. was already deeply complicit well before it began bombing Syria in 2014? More
The War on Terror Is a War of Chaos
Here’s a footnote to America’s present wars that’s worth pondering for a few moments. The U.S. Air Force is running out of ordinary bombs, smart bombs, and in some cases missiles. No kidding. The air war over Syria and Iraq that began in August 2014 and is now two-and-a-half years old has eaten through America’s supply of bombs. The usual crew of weapons makers evidently can’t produce such munitions fast enough to keep up, so the U.S. military is, for instance, cutting into its stockpiles of smart bombs in Asia to send some to the Middle East and Africa simply to keep pace with demand -- and, according to recent reports, it may nonetheless be failing to do so. Consider this a longer term problem since, in the era of Donald Trump, the generals are increasingly running their own wars, which, if the daily drumbeat of news about them is accurate, are only ramping up further. More
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