{"id":389795,"date":"2018-12-19T23:19:54","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T22:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=389795"},"modified":"2018-12-20T01:52:42","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T00:52:42","slug":"does-trump-lie-to-say-we-have-defeated-isis-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/does-trump-lie-to-say-we-have-defeated-isis-in-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Trump Lie to Say \u2018We have defeated ISIS in Syria\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

At 11:52AM on Wednesday, December 19th, CBS News headlined “White House orders Pentagon to pull troops from Syria immediately\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that, \u201cRep. Adam Kinzinger, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and now serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it’s \u2018simply not true\u2019 [which Trump, had said there, that] ISIS is defeated in Syria.\u201d CBS News didn\u2019t indicate which political Party Kinzinger represents, but he is a Republican, and he represents the rural Illinois 16th Congressional District<\/span><\/a>, where Donald Trump had beaten Hillary Clinton by a 17% margin in 2016<\/span><\/a>. So, Kinzinger is an anti-Trump Republican on this matter. He\u2019s credible about that, not partisan about it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Who is telling the truth, Trump\u2019s \u201cWe have defeated ISIS in Syria\u201d or Kinzinger\u2019s contrary, and what explains the contradiction between the accounts by Trump and Kinzinger?<\/span><\/p>\n

As the CBS News report says, \u201cTwo weeks ago, Special Envoy Brett McGurk said the end of ISIS will be a long-term initiative, and \u201cnobody is declaring mission accomplished.\u201d CBS’s report, however, fails to note that McGurk is an Obama appointee and has been consistently dedicated to America\u2019s defeating Russia and replacing the leadership in all nations that are allied with (or even friendly toward) Russia, including, most especially, Syria and Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a deeper level, the question is: Which nations are primarily the cause of the considerable reduction in ISIS forces in Syria? If ISIS has been defeated in Syria, then, nonetheless, is it true for Trump to claim, \u201cWe have defeated ISIS in Syria,\u201d or is the United States not even the main force which has done that?<\/span><\/p>\n

On 30 September 2015, CNN headlined \u201cRussia launches first airstrikes in Syria\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that, \u201cClaiming to target ISIS, Russia conducted its first airstrikes in Syria, while U.S. officials expressed serious doubts Wednesday about what the true intentions behind the move may be.\u201d The next day, on October 1st, PBS bannered “Mike Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, talks about why Russia deployed airstrikes in Syria\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and Morell, who had always been speaking and writing against Russia and against any Government that is at all allied with Russia, said: \u201cPresident Putin believes that if President Assad were to depart the scene, there would be even more instability in Syria and, with that greater instability, ISIS would have more running room, and you could actually end up with ISIS in Damascus. So that is the primary reason he’s doing what he is doing. Now, the question is why doesn\u2019t he just attack [only] ISIS then because President Assad is under attack from a variety of different groups? ISIS is one, al-Nusra [Al Qaeda in Syria] is one, and the moderate opposition is another. So in order to prop up Assad to keep him in control, to make sure you don\u2019t have more instability, he wants to attack all of those groups, right. But his fundamental focus is on ISIS.\u201d But, then, he argued for U.S. President Barack Obama\u2019s position, against Russia\u2019s bombing campaign in Syria: \u201cIf we were to have a transition from Assad to another government that everybody can agree on, then we\u2019re actually going to have more stability in Syria. And I think the President probably argued that as long as Assad is around, he is a magnet for fighters to join ISIS, to join al-Nusra to fight Assad. And you can\u2019t ultimately defeat ISIS and defeat al-Nusra without getting rid of President Assad in the process.\u201d So: Morell acknowledged that Putin\u2019s main target was ISIS, but Morell said that Obama was correct to oppose Russia\u2019s bombing campaign there, because \u201cyou can’t ultimately defeat ISIS and defeat al-Nusra without getting rid of President Assad in the process.\u201d Then, he said, of Putin, \u201cthis guy is a thug. This guy is a bully.\u201d But he said that, unfortunately, America must deal with that \u201cbully\u201d: \u201cfirst thing we have to convince the Russians of is that you can\u2019t successfully deal with ISIS and al-Nusra without Assad going away. We have to be able to convince them of that. We really believe that. We really believe that. We really believe that he is a magnet for drawing people to ISIS and to al-Nusra.\u201d He was saying that Assad had caused ISIS, which was trying to overthrow and replace him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, on 9 October 2015, investigative journalist Tony Cartalucci bannered \u201cThe Mystery of ISIS\u2019 Toyota Army Solved\u201d<\/span><\/a> and he documented that ISIS had gotten its Toyota pickup trucks from the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army, whom Obama called moderate rebels. Whether the FSA had ever had those trucks wasn\u2019t known.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, on 14 October 2015, the Financial Times<\/i> bannered \u201dIsis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that, \u201cOil is the black gold that funds Isis\u2019 black flag \u2014 it fuels its war machine, provides electricity and gives the fanatical jihadis critical leverage against their neighbours. \u2026 Selling crude is Isis\u2019 biggest single source of revenue. \u2026 While al-Qaeda, the global terrorist network, depended on donations from wealthy foreign sponsors, Isis has derived its financial strength from its status as monopoly producer of an essential commodity consumed in vast quantities throughout the area it controls.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, on 16 November 2015, the New York Times<\/i> bannered \u201cU.S. Warplanes Strike ISIS Oil Trucks in Syria\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that, \u201cUnited States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group [ISIS] has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said. \u2026 Until Monday, the United States refrained from striking the fleet used to transport oil, believed to include more than 1,000 tanker trucks.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Two days later, on November 18th, the Pentagon said<\/span><\/a> at a press conference, that \u201cThis is our first strike against tanker trucks\u201d of ISIS.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, on November 24th, Zero Hedge bannered \u201c’Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away\u2019: US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that the U.S. Government were doing this oil-tanker-truck bombing only for show, because Russia had actually started the serious effort to conquer ISIS in Syria, and so the U.S. needed to do something, for PR purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, further evidence also exists that the U.S. Government supported ISIS against Syria\u2019s Government: <\/span><\/p>\n

On 24 March 2013, the New York Times<\/i> bannered \u201cArms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and reported that \u201cFrom offices at secret locations, American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons,\u201d and that \u201c\u2018A conservative estimate of the payload of these flights would be 3,500 tons of military equipment,\u2019 said Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, who monitors illicit arms transfers.\u201d The U.S. Government tried to hide its involvement in this, by doing it through allied \u201cArab governments,\u201d which were named in this news-report: \u201cQatar and Saudi Arabia had been shipping military materials via Turkey,\u201d and all four of these Governments (U.S., Sauds, Turkey, and Qatar) were trying to overthrow Syria\u2019s Government. Then, on 8 September 2014, AFP headlined \u201cIslamic State fighters using US arms: study\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and they reported that the U.S. Government was supplying ISIS. On 1 September 2017, Russian Television reported<\/span><\/a> that the U.S. Government was secretly supplying weapons to ISIS and that an anti-Assad fighter had even quit the CIA-backed New Syrian Army because of that.<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S. President Barack Obama started the U.S. policy to arm ISIS, and it was continued under the current U.S. President.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is considerable other evidence that the U.S. Government has invaded, and been occupying, parts of Syria, solely in order to replace Syria\u2019s Government by one that would be controlled by the Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is definitely a lie for Trump to say: \u201cWe have defeated ISIS in Syria.\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

A big turn in these events had been the failed 15 July 2015 coup-attempt, to overthrow Turkey\u2019s Government, and which Turkey\u2019s President, Tayyip Erdogan, says was engineered by the Gulen organization headquartered in the U.S., which is connected to and protected by the CIA<\/span><\/a>. After July 15th, Turkey increasingly has allied with Russia\u2019s Government, against America\u2019s Government.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later on December 19th, Reuters headlined \u201cU.S. State Department personnel being evacuated from Syria \u2014 U.S. official\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that, \u201cAll U.S. State Department personnel are being evacuated from Syria within 24 hours, a U.S. official told Reuters.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The present withdrawal of the U.S. Government from Syria is actually due to the success of Vladimir Putin\u2019s and Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s plan (which I described on 10 September 2018<\/span><\/a>, and which they jointly announced a week later, on September 17th<\/span><\/a>) for Turkey to handle the military task of conquering the jihadists in Syria\u2019s Idlib province and of Turkey\u2019s forces then moving eastward from Idlib to compel the U.S. Government to end its occupation of northeastern Syria \u2014 that nation\u2019s crucial oil-producing region. If Russia\u2019s troops, instead of Turkey\u2019s, were to do that task, killing U.S. troops, it would risk bringing on a U.S.-Russia war, but, since Turkey is still in NATO, that danger doesn\u2019t exist when Turkish troops and armor (backed by Russian air-power) do that highly sensitive job. Turkey\u2019s forces would likely have needed to kill at least some U.S. troops if Trump didn\u2019t take this decision now to evacuate them; so, he did what he had to do, in order to avoid an extremely embarrassing U.S. military defeat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of \u201cWe have defeated ISIS in Syria,\u201d the truth, from the U.S. Government, would be \u201cWe have been defeated in Syria,\u201d or (more precisely) \u201cWe have surrendered in Syria.\u201d However, Putin (and Erdogan, and maybe even Assad) will not be crowing about their victory. (Erdogan, however, already is<\/span><\/a>.) In any case, Syria\u2019s Government has successfully resisted the U.S. Government\u2019s effort, since 2009<\/span><\/a>, to replace Syria\u2019s Government by one that would be controlled by the Sauds<\/span><\/a>. When Russia entered that war on 30 September 2015, at the invitation of Syria\u2019s Government, in order to kill ISIS and all of the other jihadist forces in Syria (including al-Nusra and America\u2019s other proxy-forces who were America\u2019s boots-on-the-ground fighters killing and dying there), Obama\u2019s dream, of handing Syria as a vassal-state to the Sauds, was doomed to failure. Trump\u2019s effort to win what Obama could not, has now likewise finally failed. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse At 11:52AM on Wednesday, December 19th, CBS News headlined “White House orders Pentagon to pull troops from Syria immediately\u201d and reported that, \u201cRep. Adam Kinzinger, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and now serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it’s \u2018simply not true\u2019 [which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":389796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,519],"tags":[1036,3604,907,524,1143,20344,754,92,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-389795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-newswire","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-isis","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-saudi-arabia","14":"tag-sauds","15":"tag-syria","16":"tag-terrorism","17":"tag-white-house","18":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389795"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":389805,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389795\/revisions\/389805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}