Last month President Biden told Congress, "Next week, I will be the first president to visit the Middle East since 9/11 without U.S. troops engaged in a combat mission there. It’s my aim to keep it that way."
Tell that to the 3 US troops wounded Wednesday in an attack on the 900 US troops illegally engaged in our decade long combat mission of regime change in Syria.
The troops were wounded in revenge rocketing for previous US bombing of suspected bad guys opposed to US presence in Syria. US response to that attack was….more bombings. The recent string of bombings killed at least 14, all bad guys deserving of being blown up, according to the US.
We claim claim our bombings are strictly defensive, authorized under the Constitution to protect US troops and interests in Syria. They don’t mention our troops are there illegally as correctly pointed out by the Syrian government. Several years back, President Trump made one of the most cynical defenses of our troops defiling another country when he declared they would stay to ‘steal Syrian oil.’
Just like with our endless bombings of suspected bad guys in Somalia, the US conducts endless bombings in Syria….because we can.
Walt Zlotow became involved in antiwar activities upon entering University of Chicago in 1963. He is current president of the West Suburban Peace Coalition based in the Chicago western suburbs. He blogs daily on antiwar and other issues at www.heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com.
These oil fields and who they belong to is an interesting question. If they do belong to the Kurdish squatters, who currently get to pump the oil and sell it, who’s responsibility is it to clean this environmental wasteland up? Do the leases still belong to Conoco? And if so, will they pay to clean this up? Does Syria want this area back and if so, it still brings up the question of who will pay to clean up this mess. They don’t have the resources to do it.
How much oil is left in the fields and is it worth the money it would cost to clean up and rebuild these fields? Right now they don’t pump that much oil and much of it is sold to Syria itself or the Kurds pay what amounts to a tax per barrel when they sell it elsewhere.
Right now it appears the main mission of our troops is to keep anyone else from moving into this area other than the Kurds and that includes the Sunni who lived there but were forced into refugee camps in Turkey. What about their right to return? The problem with that is the cities they built, primarily to house workers for these fields, have been destroyed and the reason for living there is as well. The Kurds destroyed the villages of the Sunni, so they wouldn’t have a place to come back to. And the Sunni only moved to this part of the country in the first place because they were needed for the fields, if nobody invests in rebuilding them and cleaning them up, then what will they do, even if they return? Live off of grubs? No, they will kick the Kurds out and do the same thing the Kurds are doing. Then where do the Kurds go? It’s a catch 22 in a way. You help one group but hurt another and in reality the Kurds won’t go easily, which means more war if the government of Syria tries to kick the Kurds out to make room for the Sunni.
And although I know that Syria makes some noise from time to time about how our troop presence is a violation of international law, which it is, they don’t seem to really mind all that much because if it’s not the US making sure this area doesn’t become a war zone again, they will have to do it themselves because there are no simple answers to this area. What they need is investment to clean it up and get it going again but as far as I know nobody knows if it’s even worth doing. It could easily cost more than exploring for oil someplace else and developing that, especially if these fields are half depleted already and it will cost a ton to clean up.
What is interesting is the silence of the US Media. We are occupying a country, stealing their oil and the media criticizes the Russians.