President Trump’s decision to leave roughly 900-1,000 U.S. troops [about a fourth of a brigade (BCT)] and an undetermined number of Bradley fighting vehicles to admittedly steal Syria’s oil is a reckless bridge too far.
Trump has said multiple times that the U.S. is “keeping the oil.” Here he says, “I like oil, we are keeping the oil”.
In fact at a Trumptard rally in Iowa as far back as 2015 he campaigned on stealing oil and “taking the oil” for Exxon Mobil.
The war hawks have played upon the president’s childlike fascination with using the military as an instrument of foreign plunder to manipulate him into keeping American troops in the region. If you’re promising an opportunity for theft and raw domination, Trojan Horse will listen.
This is a war crime, according to the Fourth Geneva Convention Articles 49 and 53:
“Occupying states are forbidden to drain the resources of occupied territories “
Article 53: “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.”
Trump’s plans are also a form of pillage under the Rome Statute and could result in charges by the International Criminal Court. Taking the oil is equivalent to destroying its value for the locals.
The sheer audacity of the clown world American sistema for evil and reckless behavior is on full display. Trump is literally bragging about committing war crimes in Syria, and there are no Congressional hearings on his plan to employ American troops to seize and guard oil fields for ExxonMobil. No push back from Democrats, and certainly no push back from the Republican Party.
Lindsey Graham is reportedly the one who talked Trump into this plan.
Even fully realizing that we’ve now entered clown world, why is nobody pushing back on this insane foreign policy?
The oil fields are expansive. U.S. troops could easily be spread thin and then be picked off. Incredibly a National Guard unit has been exposed as a pawn sacrifice. If, for example, Syrian government troops try to retake a portion of an oil facility, it’s unclear now how much force U.S. troops could use, if they aren’t acting in self-defense. I can easily visualized American troops being surrounded and forced into a humiliating surrender.
According to various reports in last several days US forces were spotted in the following locations in Syria, either patrolling near oil (Rmelan), deploying Bradleys (Deir Ezzor region) or on the road with trucks (i.e to Sarrin and back) pic.twitter.com/FJgQ6HoLNo
— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) November 4, 2019
The deployment of Bradley tanks and combat vehicles in the desert with only 900-1,000 troops to man them is especially bizarre military tactics. All these tanks could be taken by Syria/Russia/Iran or their proxies. Maybe some military folks here can weigh in on this. In my honest opinion, they’re sitting ducks.
The M2 Bradley holds a crew of three: a commander, a gunner, a driver and six fully equipped soldiers. The U.S. has 3,700 Bradleys in total so some could be lost or captured before the real trouble even starts.
What’s the 4-D chess here?
Then when the small U.S. force is rolled over, how will “keeping Syrian oil” be a justifiable position in world opinion, let alone the Geneva and Hague conventions?
No, there will be no coalition of the willing.
It could even be used by Russia to drive a big wedge into the weakening U.S.-NATO alliance.
The Iraqi government has given the U.S. a deadline to leave Iraq, but there doesn’t appear to be any sign that the U.S. is complying with the order. In fact the latest is a redeployment into western Iraq. The U.S. will have to deploy more troops to enforce its presence there, which is another bridge too far.
Like so much of Trojan horse Trump’s behavior, this “leaving troops in Syria and Iraq” as bait agenda is designed to fail.
If this is then used as a staged provocation for Trump to engage in full, outright conflict, it sets up a battle order for the U.S. to be licked. If large deployments of thinned-out American military head for the Middle East, Iran has already stated it will strike preemptively. Then we’ll see first hand just how effective their asymmetrical warfare really is, especially against paper tiger Saudi Arabia.
- “Houthis Write the Book on Asymmetrical Warfare“
- “The Van Riper Gambit: Iran Scores Against Expensive High-Tech US Gadgetry“
All readers — and especially Trumptards — are advised to read the top generals’ assessment of just how poor in terms of depth the U.S. military is.
It’s truly the primrose path. We covered this in part yesterday in “Is Military Recruiting the Canary in the Mine Shaft? America: Dumb, Fat, Sick, Criminal and Girlie Boy.”
The National Defense Strategy Commission put it clearly:
The United States now faces five credible challengers, including two major-power competitors, and three distinctly different geographic and operational environments. This being the case, a two-war force sizing construct makes more strategic sense today than at any previous point in the post-Cold War era. Instead, the NDS adopts what is functionally a one-war force sizing construct an approach that is likely to create severe strategic and operational vulnerabilities for the United States.
… they are likely to be insufficient to meet America’s strategic challenges. …
Simply put, the United States needs a larger force than it has today if it is to meet the objectives of the strategy.
This would be like Hitler ordering non-existent armies around the map after the Normandy break out and Operation Bagration in the East in 1944.
Given that America’s credible challengers will have the rationale of stopping war crimes, they will have the upper hand to form a multiple-force alliance on multiple fronts to police the isolated, rogue Americans.
Takeaway: Trojan Horse Trump will leave the country with few friends and a civil uprising at home.
Trumpanzee’s(an irrational and irritable assclownish beast that is completely immunized {hannitized magatized} to logic-or-reason, any-and-all negative facts-or-evidence concerning Trump, and remains a devout and mindless supporter of the buffoon.)are the reason I have totally broke with the so-called “Christian Right” and the Republican Party. They have proven to be every bit as stupid and gullible as Obamabots. War, it’s all we’re good for.
Same shit, different party and prez…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=z-sdO6pwVHQ
After spending trillions of dollars, we get about 6% of our oil imports from Iraq. Since imports are about 11% of our oil supply, Iraq accounts for less than 1% of our oil supply. Oil, like ISIL, is what they call in the film business as a McGuffin. Its purpose is to serve as the ostensible motivation for the plot rather than having any intrinsic importance. So while our military presence maintains chaos in Syria to benefit Israel, it also serves as bait for a potential wider conflict with Iran which also benefits Israel. Meanwhile, the opinion columns and street protestors are focused on oil or “betrayal of the Kurds”.
Agree, this makes no sense on a practical level when a 16oz bottle of Evian water costs more than the barrel of oil they hope to extract. I think these boys are sitting ducks and once the supply chain is disrupted those Bradley’s will be on Ebay.tr
It does make sense however, if chaos is the motivation and the American population can be outraged that those troops were unlawfully subject to gas attacks.
The problem with the US Military isn’t that there aren’t suitable troops to deploy, the real problem is the political make up of the flag grade officers..They are nothing but myopic politicians vying for (EXPERT) guest speaker rolls on CNN. And their disposition is contagious to the troops, just look at the photos of these special ops guys hamming it up in front of the camera..Everyone wants to be a reality TV star.
This is truly a mercenary operation
The Deir Azzor region is where the U.S. is building its two new bases in a country that it was not invited into and is not wanted to begin with. The arrogance! The State Department and the Pentagon are fused at the hip and the recent attempt to audit the Pentagon (if they really even put in a committed effort) shows just how much they are held accountable to begin with. Most of the poodles in Congress can’t even grasp what’s going on/are indifferent and just don’t realize how out of control things are!
So if the US leaves iraq, does the dinar get a revaluation? You can get a million Iraqi dinars for a couple thousand dollars right now, it’s historical value is around 1:1 with the dollar, I bet that Shylock Soros has got warehouses full of those things