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Trump Syria Concerns Expressed

By Chris Freind

Dear President Trump:

On behalf of many Americans, I am passing along my hope that you make America’s economy great again – really quickly. Otherwise, the Treasury will have to print trillions more in “funny money” to fund your surprising new interventionism – a “quantitative easing” for foreign policy.

After all, it appears that you, in direct contradiction of your crystal-clear campaign promise, are hell-bent on playing policeman to the world. Given what Secretary of State Rex Tillerson just said – “We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world” – that’s going to be an expensive proposition, and an unprecedented political quagmire.

But before America’s global gun-slinging commences, I respectfully ask that you consider the following:

1. Where will you start? So you aren’t accused of “continent-bias,” I suggest simultaneously tackling Venezuela, Myanmar, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Chad, Nigeria, Qatar, and Libya. France, too – just because it’s France.

And that’s just on Day One.

Given that around, oh … 80 percent of the world’s nations have people committing crimes against innocents – including not-so-insignificant China and Russia – the initial engagements against those abusers should be wrapped up by June. That’s the “easy” part. It’s American troops being stationed indefinitely “in-country” for nation-building and regime change where things get really complicated.

Caveat: I often implore people to “look in the mirror.” So, in truth, that list of offenders also applies to us. One look at our cities – Chicago, Philadelphia, even your hometowns of New York and Washington – shows the staggering number of innocents slaughtered daily in what are, without question, war zones. The atrocities, including the murder of babies and young children, continue unabated, leading to unimaginable suffering.

Tomahawks won’t work. However, Americans just voted for “regime change,” believing you to be the leader who instills order. Perhaps the president’s time would be better spent solving those escalating domestic problems, rather than creating more quandaries overseas.

2. We’ll have to build a lot more Tomahawk cruise missiles. But at nearly $2 million a pop, they get very expensive. Here’s something to consider: The Syrian attack was more than 1 percent of the cost to build your border wall, so your funding dilemma on that initiative will likely get even dicier.

But when the bombs don’t achieve the objective – actually, what is the objective? – we’ll send military “advisers” into Syria. And of course, troops to defend them. But it won’t end there, because it never does. Never. That’s not speculation, but hard fact. Then come bases, deployed troops, and air wings. (Even more concerning, what happens when we engage the Ruskies in a firefight, shoot down one of their aircraft, or vice versa?)

Mr. President, that strategy hasn’t worked too well for us. As Einstein said, insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly yet expecting a different result.

Further intervention in the world’s most ignitable powder keg, where Mother Russia is firmly entrenched and standing opposed, is insanity.

3. After we further destabilize Syria, culminating in regime change by toppling President Bashar Assad (as some in your administration are advocating), is that when we “declare victory?” And what will that mean? If it’s anything like Iraq and Libya, when America deposed two secular dictators, only to see massive instability and new governments comprised of even worse people, there will be a lot of scratching our derrieres. Being clueless about next steps after creating a dangerous power vacuum is not the path to the presidential Hall of Fame. Just ask W.

4. When will we learn that interventionism and regime change, especially in the Middle East, always produces catastrophic results?

Saddam Hussein was no angel, but an iron-fisted secular leader. He kept extremists at bay; maintained a regional balance of power; was an American ally during the Iran-Iraq war; and, most noteworthy, was a bitter enemy of Osama bin Laden. But we took him out anyway.

Since ousting Hussein, there have been thousands of car bombs in Iraq; yet while he was leader, there were none. Deposing Hussein, the only man capable of maintaining order, was possibly the greatest blunder in a very long list of American mistakes in the Middle East.

Then America took out the non-fundamentalist Moammar Gadhafi, who had been working with U.S. intelligence against terrorists. Alarmingly, it didn’t dawn on us that the rebels we assisted were the same folks who comprised the largest foreign fighting force battling Americans in Iraq. Libya devolved into chaos (remember Benghazi?) after America’s handiwork allowed thugs to gain power.

And now, we are blindly supporting rebels in Syria. True, Assad is a ruthless dictator, but as an avowed secularist, he provided stability by keeping fundamentalists in check. His drawn-out battle with the rebels has provided a safe haven for terrorists in areas captured from the Syrian government. The biggest irony: ISIS fighters in Syria (and Iraq) are using American weapons.

The United States keeps trying to impose its will in the Middle East, and it keeps blowing up in our faces, literally.

5. Not to appear conspiratorial, but what do we really know about the chemical attack? Could a conventional bomb have hit a rebel chemical weapons factory? Definitely plausible. Was it your “Deep State” nemesis, where agents arranged for the attack as a way to drive a wedge between yourself and Vladimir Putin? Or was it Occam’s Razor – the simplest explanation? Were chemical weapons loaded by accident?

Who knows? But clearly, the deliberate use of chemical weapons makes no sense from Assad’s perspective. Just days after the U.S. said it wouldn’t hold him accountable for war crimes, and that the Syrian people would determine their own fate, Assad is then going to gas people and incur the wrath of the world, with amplified calls for his ouster? Seems highly unlikely.

6. Not to insinuate that your military hierarchy and intelligence “experts” are off-target, but A) you have made criticizing them an art form, and B) their trustworthiness leave much to be desired. Many experts think that we actually sunk the USS Maine to spark hostilities with Spain (which in fact led to the Spanish-American War). The Gulf of Tonkin incident, the catalyst for our engagement in Vietnam, was faked. And more recently, the guaranteed claims of yellowcake uranium and WMDs in Iraq – our “justification” for invasion – were totally bogus.

The American people’s healthy skepticism of the intel community’s “findings” is well justified, especially since America has not won a war since 1945.

Minding our own business and not engaging in regime change is not isolationist. It’s common sense.

Americans don’t want another war. Sure, chemical weapons killing 70 are horrifying, but is that worse than conventional bombs killing thousands? Are we, already perceived as “crusaders,” really engaging yet another Middle Eastern country? And after the fact, just as in Iraq and Afghanistan, will we build state-of-the-art infrastructure for another country, while Americans continue to see their bridges collapse, roads crumble and water mains break?

Mr. President, it would be wise to heed the words of Sir Edmund Burke in formulating an exit strategy for Syria before ever entering it: “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”

Trump Syria Concerns Expressed