{"id":10374,"date":"2017-06-26T08:38:13","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T12:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=10374"},"modified":"2017-06-26T17:36:06","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T21:36:06","slug":"usa-today-syria-is-trumps-biggest-foreign-folly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/26\/usa-today-syria-is-trumps-biggest-foreign-folly\/","title":{"rendered":"USA Today: Syria is Trump’s Biggest Foreign Folly"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

USA Today, June 26, 2017<\/h1>\n

Donald Trump is reckless on Syria. It’s his most dangerous foreign policy folly.<\/a><\/h1>\n<\/section>\n
\n
by James Bovard, Opinion columnist\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n
<\/section>\n
<\/section>\n
\n
\n

Trump said Obama’s ‘horrendous leadership’ on Syria could start World War III. He’s made things even worse.<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Last year on the campaign trail, crowds roared when Donald Trump denounced his opponent as “trigger-happy<\/a>” Hillary. But President Trump is rapidly incarnating the vice he condemned. Nowhere is this more evident than in Syria, where Trump\u2019s recklessness risks dragging America into a major war.<\/p>\n

U.S. policy toward\u00a0Syria has been a tangle of absurdities since 2012. President Obama promised 16 times<\/a> that he would never put U.S. “boots on the ground” in the four-sided Syrian civil war. He quietly abandoned that pledge<\/a> and, starting in 2014, launched more more than 5,000 airstrikes<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0dropped\u00a0<\/a>more than 15,000\u00a0bombs<\/a> on terrorist groups in Syria.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, Trump warned in a tweet<\/a>: “If the U.S. attacks Syria and hits the wrong targets, killing civilians, there will be worldwide hell to pay.” But the Trump administration has sharply increased U.S. bombing<\/a>\u00a0while curtailing restrictions that sought to protect innocents. A British-based human rights monitoring group estimated Friday that U.S.-led coalition strikes had killed almost 500 civilians<\/a> in the past month \u2014\u00a0more than any month since U.S. bombing began. A United Nations commission of inquiry<\/a> concluded that coalition airstrikes have caused a “staggering loss of civilian life.”<\/p>\n

The carnage is sufficiently embarrassing that “the Pentagon will no longer acknowledge when its own aircraft are responsible for civilian casualty incidents,” Micah Zenko of the Council of Foreign Relations<\/a>\u00a0recently noted.<\/p>\n

U.S.-led forces are reportedly bombarding the besieged city of Raqqa with white phosphorous, a munition that burns intensely and is prohibited by international law from use against civilians. Deploying\u00a0white phosphorous to attack Raqqa could\u00a0be a war crime, Amnesty International<\/a> warns.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s most dangerous innovation involves direct attacks on Syrian government forces, including last week\u2019s shootdown of a Syrian jet fighter. The Russian government, which is backing Syrian President Bashar Assad, responded by threatening to shoot down any aircraft<\/a> over much of Syria.<\/p>\n

After the Syrian government was accused of killing at least 70 civilians<\/a> with sarin gas in April, Trump speedily ordered the launch of 59 cruise missiles<\/a> against a Syrian military airfield. Much of the American\u00a0news media<\/a> hailed the Syrian missile attack as Trump\u2019s finest hour. When he gave the commencement address at Liberty University<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0May, the audience cheered when Trump was introduced as the man who “bombed those in the\u00a0Middle East who were persecuting and killing Christians.” But America could pay a harsh price for Trump\u2019s “virtue signalling” with bombs and missiles.<\/p>\n

The biggest delusion driving U.S. policy is the quest for viable “moderate rebels” \u2014 which apparently means groups who oppose Assad but refrain from making grisly videos of beheadings. America\u00a0has spent billions aiding and training Syrian forces who either quickly collapsed on the battlefield or teamed up with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria<\/a>,\u00a0or al-Qaeda-linked forces. Policy is so muddled that Pentagon-backed Syrian rebels<\/a> have openly battled CIA-backed rebels.<\/p>\n

The United States\u00a0has armed and aided al-Qaeda-linked groups<\/a> in Syria despite federal law prohibiting providing material support to terrorist groups. A prominent Assad opponent who organized a conference of anti-Assad groups financed by the CIA was recently denied political asylum<\/a>. The Department of Homeland Security notified Radwan Ziadeh that\u00a0because he provided “material support” to the Free Syrian Army, he has “engaged in terrorist activity.”<\/p>\n

By the same standard, thousands of CIA, State Department, Pentagon\u00a0and White House officials should be jailed. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii,\u00a0has introduced The Stop Arming Terrorists Act<\/a>\u00a0to prohibit any funding, support\u00a0or weapons for al-Qaeda, ISIS and allied terrorist groups.<\/p>\n

Every side in the Syrian conflict has committed atrocities, often with approval of their foreign patrons. Former CIA officer\u00a0Phil Giraldi<\/a> observed, “The Saudis, Qataris, Turks and Israelis are all currently (or have been recently) in bed with terrorist groups (in Syria)\u00a0that the United States is pledged to destroy.” The Wall Street Journal <\/em>reported this month that “Israel has been regularly supplying Syrian rebels<\/a> near its border with cash as well as food, fuel and medical supplies for years.”<\/p>\n

The Syrian government has never threatened the United States, and Congress has not approved attacking it. White House spokesman\u00a0Sean Spicer<\/a> justified Trump\u2019s cruise missile attack because “when it\u2019s in the national interest of the country, the president has the full authority to act.” But this is a recipe for unlimited power \u2014\u00a0warring limited solely by self-serving presidential proclamations.<\/p>\n

Sen. Tim Kaine<\/a>, D-Va.,\u00a0condemned Trump\u2019s attacks on Syrian government forces as “unconstitutional” and a “completely unlawful use of power<\/a>.” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., concurs: “This is illegal war<\/a> at this point.”<\/p>\n

Killing vast numbers of innocent civilians sows the seeds of future terrorist attacks on America. There are no good options for continuing U.S. intervention in Syria. The only question is whether Trump\u2019s blundering will turn that war into a catastrophe for Americans as well as Syrians. As Trump tweeted<\/a>\u00a0about\u00a0Obama\u2019s Syria policy in 2013: “Be prepared, there is a small chance that our horrendous leadership could unknowingly lead us into World War III.”<\/p>\n

James Bovard,\u00a0author of\u00a0<\/em>Public Policy Hooligan<\/a>,\u00a0is\u00a0a member of USA TODAY\u2019s\u00a0Board of Contributors<\/a>. Follow him on Twitter\u00a0@JimBovard<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks to Canva.com<\/a>\u00a0for the layout of the quote jpegs<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

USA Today, June 26, 2017 Donald Trump is reckless on Syria. It’s his most dangerous foreign policy folly. by James Bovard, Opinion columnist\u00a0 Trump said Obama’s ‘horrendous leadership’ on Syria could start World War III. He’s made things even worse. Last year on the campaign trail, crowds roared when Donald Trump denounced his opponent as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[464,887,347,753,1079,1025,923,262,1080,41,1081],"class_list":["post-10374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atrocities","tag-barack-obama","tag-cia","tag-donald-trump","tag-moderate-rebels","tag-pentagon","tag-russia","tag-syria","tag-virtue-signaling","tag-war-crimes","tag-world-war-iii"],"yoast_head":"\nUSA Today: Syria is Trump's Biggest Foreign Folly - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/26\/usa-today-syria-is-trumps-biggest-foreign-folly\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"USA Today: Syria is Trump's Biggest Foreign Folly - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"USA Today, June 26, 2017 Donald Trump is reckless on Syria. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10374"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10382,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10374\/revisions\/10382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}