Oh crap!

You had to know that at some point, Trump was going to want a war named after him.

Which leads us to today – after weeks of “Syria … attack” headlines, The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration has considered new military action against the Syrian government in response to reports of ongoing chemical weapons use, officials said, raising the prospect of a second U.S. strike on President Bashar al-Assad in less than a year.
The president reportedly requested options for punishing the Assad government following reported chlorine gas attacks – at least seven so far this year – and possibly other chemicals affecting civilians in opposition-controlled areas.
...Notably, WaPo reports that Mattis was “adamantly” against a military response to recent chlorine attacks, but McMaster “was for it.”

So the guy named "Mad Dog" thinks that bombing Syria is a bad idea.
However, it gets worse.

There were reports as recently as Friday that the Trump Administration wanted such attacks to be “equal to or greater than the one used last year,” and while that’s clearly not set in stone, such an attack is likely to further cement the US as being in open warfare against the Syrian government.

So it's going to be bigger than last time.
However, it gets worse.

Speaking to an estimated 18,000 pro-Israel activists on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised President Donald Trump for promising to counter threats to the Jewish state posed by Iran.
In Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and especially Syria, Iran is trying to build an empire that would threaten Israel's existence, Netanyahu told the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
"In addition to moving its army, its air force, its navy to Syria to be able to attack Israel from closer at hand, it’s also seeking to develop, to build precision-guided missile factories in Syria and Lebanon against Israel," Netanyahu said. "I will not let that happen."
He said Trump "has made it clear that his administration will not accept Iran’s aggression in the region.

So who exactly will we be bombing in Syria?
You know, that nation Trump claimed that we have the legal authority to keep U.S. forces in indefinitely (and Iraq too).

There's another difference this time. Our Kurdish allies won't be there for us.
No, literally. The Kurds simply won't be there.

Kurdish-allied Syrian Arab militias are redeploying 1,700 fighters from fronts against Islamic State to the Afrin region to help fend off a Turkish offensive, they said on Tuesday.
“We have taken out around 1,700 fighters ... to defend Afrin against terrorism,” said Abu Omar al-Edilbi, the spokesman for the militias, which have been fighting in eastern Syria as part of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The Kurds are very unhappy with the U.S.
So the next time our forces in Syria clash with Assad's forces we'll be one our own, because they'll be allies of Assad.

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karl pearson's picture

The problem Trump has is that some Republicans don't want another war, except politicians like Lindsey Graham and neocons, such as John Bolton. The Repubs that have a libertarian bent (e.g. Rand Paul) find such a war an anathema. Some of the Dem establishment like war, but how can they support Trump when they are kneecapping him because he beat Her? Trump's next moves will be as interesting as watching snippets of past European palace intrigue on the History Channel.

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CB's picture

@karl pearson
Only need to infer some atrocity or another and repeat it for several weeks ad nauseum. Everyone knows that Assad is the most evil man in the world. This has been proven time and again. Just when his army is at the point of defeating an Al Nusra terrorist group in a particular area, Assad will give the final coup de grâce by gassing all the Syrian children and babies in the area.

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karl pearson's picture

@CB A lot of people now know that they were lied to about the Iraq War, so I hope the MSM will have more difficulty convincing people that "we are under attack". IMO, after the 2016 election the media has lost considerable credibility.

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@CB
link

Yet even as U.S. forces clash with Russian mercenaries on the ground in Syria, a growing chorus is urging President Trump to intensify America’s lawfully dubious presence there—to move on from the fight against ISIS to one against Syria’s regime—not because they believe that the symbolic, unlawful cruise-missile strike that Trump launched last April actually stopped Bashar al-Assad from gassing his own people, or that further American intervention will end or even shorten Syria’s civil war, but because in their horror they believe that it is unacceptable to do nothing.

“It’s time for another red line …” say the editors at Bloomberg. “Trump should tell Assad and his Russian backers that any more proved use of any chemical weapon, including chlorine, will be met with even greater retaliation than what happened in April. It certainly won’t end the fighting, in Eastern Ghouta or across the country, but it may take away one of Assad’s most unconscionable methods of terrifying his citizens.”

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snoopydawg's picture

Mad Dawg Mattis admitted that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his citizens. But then he said that he would blame him anyway.

Who didn't see something like this coming after hearing that Bibi was in the country? Everything that he accused Iran of doing, we are doing it too. That's if Iran is doing what Bibi says.

I'm so sick of us doing Israel's bidding. It's caused so much misery and death. And of course, gobs of money that should be spent on us. You're aware that Israel has universal health care, right? Would they if they had spent trillions on the wars that they get us to fight for them?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

CB's picture

The insiders still want a war with Russia. They didn't get Hillary and her no-fly zone over Syria, so they immediately went to 'Russia Russia Russia, they attacked us', it was an act of war, like Pearl Harbor and 911 all rolled up into one!'
If Trump ain't bluffing, Tillerson might as well quit right now, because he'll never get those Russian sanctions removed and an oil deal cut with Russia and Exxon (i.e. the reason he took the job).
My biggest fear is that Trump will finally figure out that those who embrace the MIC are immune to justice (i.e. 'W', Hillary etc.). We'll get a war with Russia for sure if Trump ever figures that out.

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Mike Taylor

lotlizard's picture

@Mike Taylor  
will be complicit in that war, too.

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chemical weapons story yet? The media screaming for more war is scorching more brains than another leaking drum of Clorox.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

They have long memories and the ability to turn up military leaders of surprising brilliance. (Does the name "An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub" ring any bells? If it doesn't, try his Westernized short-name: "Saladin".)

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@TheOtherMaven an interesting development

The Turkish government took the extraordinary step on Wednesday of asking the United States to stop Kurdish commanders from diverting their forces from areas of eastern Syria to the fight in Afrin in the west.

The request followed an announcement from the Kurdish forces, which are allied with the United States in the fight against the Islamic State militant group, that they intended to send 1,700 fighters from the strategically important eastern province of Deir al-Zour to the fight against Turkey in Afrin, a Kurdish enclave.

Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, said his country had taken “the necessary steps” through official channels and “expected from the U.S. that it should absolutely step in” to prevent the movement of the Kurdish forces from Manbij to Afrin. “This is our most natural right,” Mr. Kalin added.

it's going to get bad

The big battles in Afrin are still to come and are likely to be as destructive and bloody as anything seen in Eastern Ghouta, Raqqa or East Aleppo. YPG fighters have battle experience stretching back to at least 2012, much of its gained against fanatical opponents like Isis. The likelihood is that, as in Ghouta, the Turkish generals will seek to avoid the heavy losses inevitable in street fighting and pound Afrin into ruins with air strikes and artillery fire. Civilian casualties are bound to be horrendous.

The Syrian Kurds believe they are facing an existential threat. They believe Turkey wants to eliminate not just the enclave of Afrin, but the 25 per cent of Syria that the Kurds have taken with US backing since 2015. Some think that defeat will mean the ethnic cleansing of Kurds from Afrin, which has traditionally been one of their core majority areas. They cite a speech by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the day after the start of the invasion started, claiming that “55 per cent of Afrin is Arab, 35 per cent are the Kurds ... and about 7 per cent are Turkmen. [We aim] to give Afrin back to its rightful owners.” There is a suspicion among Kurdish leaders that Erdogan plans to create a Sunni bloc of territory north and west of Aleppo which will be under direct or indirect Turkish control.

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