An ISIS suicide bombing in Syria’s Manbij killed four US troops. This
caused a minor redesign in the narrative from hawkish US politicians and
media pundits who were opposed to the US withdrawal from Syria. They’re
exactly as opposed as before, only now Manbij is the excuse.
So after weeks of centering their talking points on saving the Kurds from Turkey, the focus now is on the idea that ISIS is emboldened by the announced US pullout, and that continuing the pullout will only make the withdrawing soldiers a target.
Their solution is to keep US troops in Syria, which ironically is also
ISIS’ solution. Having lost their caliphate and become a desert-centric
insurgency with little territory, the US pullout would be a big blow to
ISIS’ already crumbling relevance as an international movement.
The easiest way for ISIS to stay relevant is to keep US troops close-by
to occasional fight and attack. This would keep anti-US recruits flowing
in, and international funding for their leadership.
In a way, this isn’t dissimilar to the hawks’ desire to keep US forces
in Syria, as it is another chance for the advocates of the war to remain
relevant, and to keep the money flowing on the American side of the
war.
It may well be that the increasingly plodding US pullout does make
itself into a bigger target for ISIS, and ISIS is likely to try to get
what they want with further attacks. While the easiest solution to this
would have been a fast withdrawal, as initially announced, instead of an
ever-slowing one, ending the pullout entirely is no solution at all,
and only ensures that ISIS and the hawks all get what they want.
So conclusive proof that our soldiers are in a deadly desert is actually reason for them to stay in that deadly risk to, what, make sure there’s not a single IS terrorist left in the ME? Just HOW are these idiots not laughed out of town?
Is it not final proof of the utter and complete mendacity of msn that arguments like this are respected and amplified.
They would be laughed out of any SANE town.
DC isn’t sane.
If “the troops” weren’t illegally in Syria, they wouldn’t get killed there.
I’m sure there are more than a few jarheads trapped in Syria who feel the same way. They need to send Trump a message by fragging their insane commanding officers. It worked in Vietnam. Otherwise we’d still be in that hellhole too. Desperate times….
False Flag?
Just, no. Once you go through that looking glass, everything becomes a part of the Conspiracy. Unless you enjoy worrying about chemtrails.
But many of us expected just that sort of thing – after Trump slowed down the withdrawal under pressure and Bolton embarrassed himself with his peregrinations in search of way to stop the withdrawal.
It is easy to predict the past – but in this case many of us predicted the future. The idea must be treated not as a certainty – that would be a mistake but it remains a likely hypothesis at the moment. It would be just as foolish to discard it as to insist on it.
Let us keep an open mind on this
Exactly.
It could be a “false flag.”
But it could also just be a plain old attack, made successful due to the lazy repetition of “routine patrols” over the same routes.
BUT there are compelling reasons to think it a false flag. Not proof. And there is unlikely to be proof one way or the other. But let us see.
The only compelling reason to think it a false flag is that those who want the US to remain in Syria are treating it as a reason to remain in Syria (I argue to the contrary in a column I just wrote — it may show up on Antiwar.com).
Other than that, I’m unaware of any evidence either way.
There’s a war on. In wars, the forces fighting against each other do in fact attack each other. And the longer one force focuses its patrols in particular areas and uses particular routes, the easier it gets to successfully attack that force because their opponents have a good idea where they’re going to go and when they’re going to go there, and because the attacked force gets complacent.
I’m sure there are in fact “false flag” attacks. I suspect there are a lot more of them in the last 20-odd years since the media started “embedding with” the US armed forces and getting fed one side of every story on pain of murder for going out to get the truth (per Donald Rumsfeld in 2003).
But that doesn’t make every attack that one side of a political argument exploits a “false flag.” Every side of every political argument exploits every event. And, for that matter, every non-event. If US forces in Syria had gone for two weeks without an attack, the same people claiming the attack justifies staying would be saying “see, we’ve stabilized the situation, if we withdraw it will go to shit.”
There’s no way to be sure, but not likely a classic false flag. Things were very quiet up till then, though.
The bomb went off at a popular restaurant frequented by U.S. troops, Palace of the Princes. That it was never attacked before, suggests U.S. personnel were allowed to think they were somehow safe at that location, and it was (with others?) strategically reserved till such an attack could have maximum impact. Or security was usually just that good.
Any number of players on the ground outside ‘false flag’ territory could have made the attack, given that some IS-DAESH-SDF seem to have a revolving door relationship.
At the same time, anyone putatively on the U.S. side, might decide to turn a blind eye to a potential attack, hoping for favourable fallout, but that is short of a false flag.
only ensures that ISIS and the hawks all get what they want. More money & more dead American infidels… & more prestige for the tisk tisk talking heads.
“the hawks’ desire to keep US forces in Syria, as it is another chance for the advocates of the war to remain relevant, and to keep the money flowing”
Sure they want those things too, but their big reason is their hope to get a war with Iran. The Syria position is a piece of that plan.
The cowardly attack smells of a CIA/Pro war false flag
Biggest reason it’s a false flag is past history. Please explain why the only place ISIS is in Syria is where the US is? All the bombing and money spent just killed a bunch of civilians and leveled towns but ISIS flourished. Its a bad business model to kill your employees or proxy army.
“Please explain why the only place ISIS is in Syria is where the US is?”
Sure, I can explain that:
Afghanistan, Libya, Nigeria, Egypt, Yemen, Somalia, Congo, Algeria, Iraq, Pakistan, Tunisia, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia, where ISIS is also active, are not part of Syria.
Any questions?
“The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the U.S.” —
Robin Cook, former British Foreign Secretary (Died of ‘heart attack’ whilst running on his own.)
There is no F*ing ISIS. It is a BS term for CIA proxies.
Anywhere that US wants a war they call it ISIS, used to be Al Qaeda, or Commies or Socialists or any other BS flavour of the month.
I predicted that there would be some sort of false flag to keep the US in Syria. And so it has come to pass. I am sure many others predicted the same.
So far Trump is showing resolve in sticking to the drawdown.
Good for him. Soon all the faux progressives will jump in to tell us that the withdrawal is all a big fake anyway and nothing really has changed – which makes the opposition of Bolton, the neocons, Israel and perhaps ISIS if this was ISIS very, very strange. But Trump Derangement Syndrome must prevail in the “minds” of these characters.
There was also news on RT – not carried anywhere in the US MSM so far as I know – that the Iraqi PM announced that the withdrawal of US forces brought the number down to 6000 from about 7700 in 2018 and that in the last couple months there was a reduction of 1000 US troops, indicating an acceleration of the drawdown!! See: https://www.rt.com/newsline/448972-foreign-troops-iraq-mahdi/
Other foreign trooops in the “coalition” have also been declining according to this.
Of course the faux progressives will ignore this and claim nothing has really changed.
False flag?
Maybe. Or maybe not.
It’s certainly being exploited — weirdly — for that purpose.
But in case you didn’t notice, there is in fact a war on there. An attack? During a war? In a war zone? Whodathunkit?
True, one cannot be sure. But, Cui Bono?
Certainly not ISIS unless it is trying to keep US troops in Syria when they are in the process of moving out.
Israel? Yes, it wants troops in Syria.
The neocons, Bolton, the Dem hawks (or do I repeat myself on that one), the MIC, the generals,etc.? Yes – fer sher.
And this attack was amazingly effective, more so than any other since Obama committed troops there, secretly at first.
So let us say, that while we cannot be certain, it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck….
Trump himself said we could re-enter Syria from our bases in Iraq, if need be. So we will still have the same capability as we did with the troops still in Syria. In that respect, nothing has changed. Also having 6000 instead 7700 troops in Iraq doesn’t limit our capability. As long as we have a presence there, nothing changes.
Right on cue, enter the faux progressive -and using the precise words I suggested above.
So predictable. Definitely a bad case of TDS.
Weren’t you trolling for that? And no, it’s not TDS. Unlike you, I listen to everything Trump says. I was also happy that he said we were withdrawing the troops from Syria but I wasn’t happy about his surprise visit to our colony of Iraq where he said we could re-enter Syria, if need be, from there. No different then him saying he wants to get along with Russia while his administration outdoes Obama’s hardline stance towards them by ratcheting up support for Ukraine. So I’m happy about him wanting to get along with Russia but his support of Ukraine makes that almost impossible. I could go on about his wild swings but you’d still say I suffer from TDS. That seems to be the most important issue with you and you like to slap that on anyone who has a different perspective of Trump than you do.
False Flag?
Perhaps ISIS leaders are intelligent enough to realize how to bait the USA into staying longer in Syria, giving them recruiting ammunition. When the USA leaves, who will be their big bugaboo? In this respect, they mirror neocons, who also need a Big Bad Enemy, only to justify insane Pentagon budgets and a base in every sovereign nation.
Just because something occurs which helps out the neocons and hawks doesn’t mean it’s a “false flag.”
We should let Russia finish off ISIS. All we ever did was to enable and aid ISIS and the rebels in our desire to take out Assad and split up Syria.
Meh. Let Turkey have some fun.
I doubt ISIS was involved in this for many reasons.
I think the prime candidate would be the Kurdish groups working with the US. They fear being left to face Turkey. Many likely view the US as letting them down once again, the US in the past having treated some of the Kurds terribly for geo-political reasons, as under Henry Kissinger.
A second possibility would be Israel. It views the US withdrawal very darkly and indeed the main reason for the US occupation of northeast Syria is as a consolation prize to Israel with the failure of the Syrian War.
The Syrian War has been engineered by the US, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Britain, France, and, earlier, Turkey. It is not a civil war, and groups like ISIS and al Nusra are essentially paid mercenaries posing as jihadi types.
Readers may enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/22/john-chuckman-comment-can-trump-remain-firm-in-his-syria-decision-apart-from-forces-against-him-we-do-have-even-some-possibility-of-a-hoax-two-powerful-washington-forces-at-work-here-and-trump-i/
Wouldn’t matter; there are enough foreign hands behind IS/DAESH as to be indistinguishable.
Great article, sound observations.
IS needs the U.S. in Syria just as much as the chickenhawks.