Trump Faces Down CIA And Co-Opts Pentagon On Syria (For The Time Being)
From blackagendareport.com
By Glen Ford, www.blackagendareport.com
July 28th, 2017
Above Photo: From blackagendareport.com
The crazed, racist, stupid, boorish man in the White House "this summer
defied the War Party and its corporate media mouthpieces, negotiating a
cease-fire with the Russians in several regions of Syria, and possibly
ending the CIA's not-so-covert role as Grandmaster of Islamic Jihad." Which
makes him less dangerous to the human species than Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton.
"Donald Trump has taken the strangest, messiest route imaginable towards
fulfilling his campaign pledge to curtail Washington's urge to regime
change, and to ease tensions with Russia."
It's not like Donald Trump to "stifle" himself, as TV's Archie Bunker used
to say, but the president has been relatively subdued about his decision,
reportedly made last month, to terminate the CIA program that has armed,
trained, directed and protected jihadist fighters in Syria. Trump's
uncharacteristic reticence on the matter is understandable, given the
agency's homicidal culture and history.
It is also likely that Trump's gaggle of White House generals, led by
Secretary of Defense James "Mad Dog" Mattis and national security advisor
H.R. McMaster, have kept the Pentagon in check, preventing a reprise of the
mutiny that sabotaged President Obama's cease-fire and intelligence-sharing
agreement with Russian forces in Syria, on September 17 of last year. In a
blatant rebellion against civilian authority, U.S. warplanes killed 100
Syrian soldiers at Deir Ez-Zor, allowing ISIS to overrun half the city. The
next week, with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter at his side, Joint Chiefs of
Staff chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford told the Senate Armed Services Committee,
"The U.S. military role will not include intelligence sharing with the
Russians." The Pentagon had "punked" lame duck President Barack Obama and
his secretary of state, John Kerry.
Donald Trump took note, and surrounded himself with generals before setting
foot in the White House, perhaps to shield his presidency from falling prey
to its own "Seven Days In May"-type scenario. Or, maybe Trump the Bully just
likes the company of other crude and stupid men. At any rate, Trump this
summer defied the War Party and its corporate media mouthpieces, negotiating
a cease-fire with the Russians in several regions of Syria, to be followed
by additional truces, and ending the CIA's not-so-covert role as Grandmaster
of Islamic Jihad. It seemed.unreal.
Peace-loving people around the world held their breath, waiting for the War
Party's revenge. Trump seemed to hold his breath - and his tongue - too,
playing down the cease-fire arrangement, even as French President Emanuel
Macron stood at his side in Paris, July 13, telling the press: "No matter
who they are, we want to build an inclusive and sustainable political
solution. Against that background, I do not require Assad's departure. This
is no longer a prerequisite for France to work on that, because I can only
tell you that, for seven years, we did not have an embassy in Damascus, and
still we have no solution."
Trump was remarkably low-key in Paris: "We are working on a second ceasefire
in a very rough part of Syria," he said. "If we get that and a few more, all
of a sudden, you're going to have no bullets firing in Syria, and that is a
wonderful thing."
"People around the world held their breath, waiting for the War Party's
revenge."
Back in late March, the Trump administration had signaled its abandonment of
regime change, with both UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson indicating that Syrian President Assad's ouster was no longer
a priority for the United States. But, within a week, Trump was hurling
Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase, purportedly in retaliation for a
chemical weapons incident that only a fool or a U.S. corporate media hack
would blame on Syria.
Then, two months later, on June 26, in a bizarre episode even for Trump, the
administration charged the Syria military with preparing to launch another
chemical weapons attack, for which the Assad government would "pay a heavy
price." Strangely, the White House seemed to have failed to notify either
the Pentagon or the State Department about the Syria threat, or the proposed
retaliation.
Stranger still, Trump issued his weaponized rant during the same period when
his administration must have been deeply engaged in negotiations on a
cease-fire with the Russians. We at Black Agenda Report wondered whether
Trump had gone "play-crazy" - "acting like an unpredictable maniac in order
to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions
from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon."
"Neither paper is concerned that the CIA project violates international laws
against unprovoked attacks on sovereign nations, or that half a million
Syrians have died, as a result."
Or, maybe the outburst was prompted by an aborted attempt to scuttle the
talks with the Russians. Or, maybe Trump just had to shout the demons out of
his system. Who knows?
The demons at the Washington Post and the New York Times have only one
explanation for all earthly phenomena, including the termination of the
CIA's jihadist overseer duties in Syria: Trump is "colluding" with the
Russians. The Times moaned that "the decision is bound to be welcomed by the
Russians." The WP whined that "the Russian government had long opposed the
program, seeing it as an assault on its interests." Neither paper is
concerned that the CIA project violates international laws against
unprovoked attacks on sovereign nations, as well as U.S. laws against giving
material assistance to al Qaida, a prime beneficiary of CIA weapons, or that
half a million Syrians have died, as a result.
Despite his apparent vow of semi-silence on the CIA front, Trump could not
resist a Twitter retort. "The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on
my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels
fighting Assad," he wrote, effectively declassifying the now-defunct (are we
sure?) CIA terror campaign.
Donald Trump has taken the strangest, messiest, "play-crazy" (or just plain
crazy) route imaginable towards fulfilling his campaign pledge to curtail
Washington's urge to regime change, and to ease tensions with Russia. His
presidency has been six months of pain and confusion.
But, if Hillary Clinton had been elected, we might all be dead.