Self-Defeating Shell Game:

The Trump Doctrine Kills Civilians, Protects Terrorists

Rasa - The Trump White House doctrine to escalate the war on Syria is really all about killing civilians and supporting terror proxy forces with global reach. It has also poisoned American political culture with various manifestations of xenophobia, Islamophobia, and other forms of racism and bigotry.

News ID: 429195

Date: 24 April 2017 - 23:51

RNA - The same is true about Trump’s administration reviewing the lifting of sanctions against Iran, leveling the allegation that Tehran remains a sponsor of terrorism, and not living up to the spirit of the JCPOA (the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). The appalling doctrine is intended to keep Iran too engaged with international diplomacy and threat of confrontation to help Syria in its war against foreign-backed terrorism and extremism. Notwithstanding, Iran is willing to stand by the Syrian government and people, and Iran can be counted upon steadfastly to back its ally in the war. In both Syria and Iraq, it has made itself part of the solution to Europe’s refugee crisis.

However, when it comes to targeting the Syrian government, Trump’s resistance to International Law is even more appalling. There are now several million children at risk of dying from the conflict, poverty, hunger, and disease. No one apparently has said anything to President Trump, or his cabinet members, about these at-risk children and their long-suffering families, in particular those in refugee camps. The US president is comfortably ignoring this statistic and escalating the conflict instead.

This is while the recent airstrikes by the US in Syria have caused more than the official number of civilian deaths, a tragedy that has provoked an international outpouring of grief and outrage. It masks another grim reality: Thousands of other civilians have also died in hundreds of US-led or US-backed airstrikes in Iraq and Yemen, and it appears likely that the vast majority of those deaths were never enough for the US military or its coalition partners to change course at least in the densely populated areas – far from it:

The Pentagon would like us to believe that the written rules of engagement in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen have not changed, and that they are doing everything to keep civilian populations out of harm’s way. But that’s just a fool’s rant.  There are signs and credible reports that military commanders on the ground are more empowered under President Trump to target everything and everyone on the ground. Here is the evidence:

The recent decision to drop the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat on Afghanistan was made by the top US commander on the ground without Trump’s approval. Gen. John Nicholson says he made the decision on his own to drop the so-called "mother of all bombs" - MOAB. Trump himself declines to say where the order came from, but stresses that he has given the military complete flexibility.

That “total authorization” is license for murder. It means more non-nuclear bombs are going to be dropped on civilian populations and there will be more civilian deaths on the ground – with no accountability. Make no mistake, as there are no mistakes here. They have all the technology, guided munitions, and intelligence to avoid civilian casualties. But they won’t. They refuse to release details about civilian casualties under review, and the reason is obvious; they are doing it deliberately.

This doctrine perfectly explains why there have been more civilian casualties than the US has ever reported in both Iraq and Syria. Strange enough, some of Washington’s coalition members have also acknowledged that this is likely true. According to the latest published numbers, US-led coalition warplanes have carried out over 20,000 strikes in Iraq and Syria since 2014, which the Pentagon claims have aided in the killing of more than 70,000 militants. Pentagon officials also claim to have killed just 229 civilians over that time, which is not true. Their indifference to the human-rights violations that are integral to their rule over the Muslim world has added to longstanding doubts about the sincerity of the American commitment to human rights and democracy, let alone its bogus “Iran threat” concerns.

In essence, the Trump doctrine is a shortsighted, cruel, and ultimately self-defeating shell game - subject to no effective oversight by anyone other than his own generals. In the region itself, these generals have produced more anarchy than order, more terror than tranquility, more oppression than democratization, and more blowback than security and peace.

At least in Syria and Iraq, they are targeting the besieged civilian populations and support terror proxies. But awareness is growing among the world community about the rising number of civilian casualties caused by this self-defeating shell game: doctrine. The world community has noticed marked changes in the cruel doctrine of Trump’s White House and its contribution to the failings of humankind and peace efforts. The world community is in the know that there is no military answer to these quandaries. It is a waste of human life and effort to pretend that US gifts of weapons and money to terror proxies can eventually provide one.

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