The United States is playing both ends against the middle in Syria, promising to protect ISIS and al-Qaeda from attacks from the Syrian government, while claiming that the two organizations are the greatest threats to the safety of the “homeland.”
Here’s a summary of the senseless strategy as reported by the Ron Paul Institute:
The Syrian government and its Russian ally plan to clean up the southwest region of Syria around the city of Daraa. The move should open the M5 highway, Syria’s lifeline, between Damascus and Jordan and secure the border with Jordan as well as the demarcation line with the Israel occupied Golan Heights.
The operation was supposed to start in a day or two, but the US has now threatened to intervene. As the southwest Daraa governorate is infested with a large Islamic State (ISIS) group as well as al-Qaeda and associated groups the US move must be interpreted as protection for these terrorists.
Here’s the wording of the warning published May 25 by the U.S. State Department:
The United States is concerned by reports of an impending Assad regime operation in southwest Syria within the boundaries of the de-escalation zone negotiated between the United States, Jordan, and the Russian Federation last year and reaffirmed between Presidents Trump and Putin in Da Nang, Vietnam in November. The United States remains committed to maintaining the stability of the southwest de-escalation zone and to the ceasefire underpinning it. We also caution the Syrian regime against any actions that risk broadening the conflict or jeopardize the ceasefire. As a guarantor of this de-escalation area with Russia and Jordan, the United States will take firm and appropriate measures in response to Assad regime violations.
Taken out of context, this statement sounds similar to those made previously by the Trump administration and its predecessors.
Savvy readers, however, will recognize that if the United States uses its military might to “force de-escalation” then the thus far successful strikes launched by the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Asad will stop and ISIS and al-Qaeda will have the calm and the cover they need to re-assert themselves in the area.
The State Department memo demands that the de-escalation commitments made at the Da Nang conference by U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin be “respected.”
One wonders how the White House and the State Department would react to a Russian threat to “take firm and appropriate measures” to force the United States to “de-escalate” the war on drugs, for example.
Would we sit by idly were Russian drones firing missiles inside the United States, defending drug kingpins against attacks by federal agents? Would we stand silently as Syrian fighter planes pounded BATF agents preparing to raid a marijuana farm?
Are Syria and Russia somehow less sovereign than the United States? Does the United States possess some power over the domestic decisions of other countries that other countries don’t have over us?
No. No, we don’t. And we don’t care. The United States are (the plural verb is used on purpose) powerful, and when it comes to expanding the American Empire, it seems that might makes right.
The fact is that for over a decade now, consecutive presidents have assumed the monarchical prerogative of ordering the military might of the United States to build up puppet governments, break down those reluctant to recognize the rule of an American emperor, and to create then crush new regimes.
Our Founders warned of this situation and its effect on liberty. “The same causes which have rendered the old world the theatre of incessant wars, and have banished liberty from the face of it, would soon produce the same effects here. A standing military force, with an overgrown executive will not long be safe companions to liberty,” said James Madison during the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
Some eight years later, Madison’s stance on war’s power to eviscerate freedom had not softened:
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
George Washington, a man who personally felt the bite of the dog of war, counseled his countrymen that if they were to pursue the path of peace and prosperity, they must — at all cost — avoid global military ventures. “Every true friend to this country must see and feel that the policy of it is not to embroil ourselves with any nation whatever, but to avoid their disputes and their politics, and if they harass one another, to avail ourselves of the neutral conduct we have adopted,” said the Father of His Country and its first executive after the ratification of the Constitution of 1787.
Finally, although not a Founding Father, consider this counsel and statement of principles proclaimed by John Quincy Adams in 1821:
[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force…. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit…. [America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty.
Photo: U.S. Army
