'In March, Trump carried out a drone strike every 1.8 days, compared to
every 5.4 days under Obama.' (photo: Senior Airman Matthew Bruch/AFP/Getty
Images)
It's Not Just Syria. Trump Is Ratcheting Up Wars Across the World
By Trevor Timm, Guardian UK
12 April 17
From the expansion of official US war zones in Yemen and Somalia to a spike
in drone strikes, conflicts are heating up on several fronts
Donald Trump's missile strikes on Syria have attracted worldwide attention
(and disgraceful plaudits) in recent days. But much less airtime is being
given to his administration's risky and increasingly barbaric military
escalations on several other fronts across the world.
Let's put aside, for the time being, that the Trump administration openly
admits it has no clue what it is going to do in Syria next. Or that key
members of Congress and in the administration are clearly eager for "regime
change" in Syria with no plan for the aftermath. And the fact that hardly
anyone seems to care that Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev said
over the weekend that Syrian strikes put the US "on the verge of a military
clash with Russia" - a nuclear power with thousands of warheads.
As troubling as these developments are, we should be just as concerned about
the explosion of civilian deaths - more than 1,000 in March alone - that
have come directly as the result of the Trump administration's other
reckless military campaigns across the Middle East over the past few weeks.
Recently, US airstrikes have claimed the lives of 200 civilians in Iraq,
dozens were killed in separate strikes supposedly aimed at Islamic State in
Syria and several more women and children died in a raid gone awry in Yemen.
Those are just a few examples of the many attacks - launched under the
pretext of defeating Isis - that wreaked havoc on civilian populations as
the US military ramps up its bombing campaigns in multiple counties.
At the same time, the Trump administration has been expanding official US
"war zones" in Somalia and Yemen, while working to "make it easier for the
Pentagon to launch counterterrorism strikes anywhere in the world" and
loosening restrictions on preventing civilian deaths that were put in place
by the Obama administration, as the Washington Post reported a few weeks
ago.
Drone strikes, already accelerated under the Obama administration, have
increased even more under Trump. Micah Zenko, who tracks the numbers at the
Council on Foreign Relations, noted in March that Trump was carrying out a
drone strike every 1.8 days, compared to every 5.4 days under Obama.
On the other side of the world, the Trump administration is responding to
North Korea's nuclear program with even more saber rattling, sending in US
ships over the weekend to the region as some vague "show of force".
This comes just as NBC News reported, "the National Security Council has
presented President Donald Trump with options to respond to North Korea's
nuclear program - including putting American nukes in South Korea or killing
dictator Kim Jong-un". Pressure is mounting from the outside too, as the
Wall Street Journal's right wing neocon-in-residence Brett Stephens loudly
called for "regime change" in North Korea two weeks ago.
And then there's Iran, which the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol is once
again saying is the ultimate "prize" for regime change, now that Trump is
directly bombing Assad's forces.
Weeks ago, Trump's defense secretary James Mattis was reportedly planning a
brazen and incredibly dangerous operation to board Iranian ships in
international waters. This would have effectively been an act of war.
Apparently, the only reason the Trump administration didn't carry it out was
because the plan leaked and they were forced to scuttle it - at least
temporarily. But that hasn't stopped the ratcheting up of tensions towards
Iran ever since he took office.
On top of all this madness, 16 years after America's longest war in history
started, a top general has already testified to Congress that the military
wants more troops in Afghanistan to break the "stalemate" there. Well before
the end of the Trump administration, there will be troops fighting and dying
in Afghanistan who weren't even born when the 9/11 attacks occurred.
To further shield the public from these decisions, the Trump administration
indicated a couple weeks ago they have stopped disclosing even the amount of
additional troops that they are sending overseas to fight. The numbers were
already being downplayed by the Obama administration and received little
attention as the numbers continually creeped up over the last two years.
Now, the public will have virtually no insight into what its military is
doing in those countries.
It should go without saying that Bashar al-Assad is a monster and a butcher
and the people of Syria have suffered incredibly over the past five years.
North Korea is potentially dangerous and unpredictable, and Iran is far from
innocent on the world stage. But the idea that starting or expanding wars
against these countries is going to solve anything belies the last 15 years
of history, where the US has intervened and overthrown leaders in country
after country, only to cause even more chaos and destruction, with trillions
of dollars and millions of lives lost.
With several conflicts likely brewing with countries that have significant
military power, the Trump administration is putting the US - and the world -
on a potentially catastrophic collision course. And so far, pushback from
politicians, the media and anyone else with influence in Washington has
barely been seen.
e-max.it: your social media marketing partner