Washington, DC. Doubts are growing that the march to war between Russia and the USA can be contained.The tensions in Syria erupted May 18 and carried through to June 20. In this month, the Trump administration carried out three attacks on Syrian government-allied forces, destroyed two Iran-made drones and shot down a Syrian army warplane, the U.S. Air Force’s first air-to-air engagement in 18 years.
The escalation in hostilities came in the aftermath of the American launching of 59 Tomahawk missiles at Syria’s Shayrat airbase on April 6, which destroyed some 20 percent of the government’s planes, according to the Pentagon.
After the Trump administration downed a Syrian aircraft on June 19, Russia warned it will begin to consider US planes as “targets.” The next day, US officials accused a Russian aircraft of “provocatively” and “rapidly” flying toward an American spy plane and buzzing it within just five feet. The Russian defense ministry denied the claims and said it was the US spy plane that made “a provocative turn toward” its aircraft.
The US has quietly deployed more troops to southeast Syria, where it has also for the first time sent long-range rocket launchers known as high mobility artillery rocket systems, or HIMARS, which can fire missiles up to nearly 200 miles away. Though the US claims to be operating within a “deconfliction zone,” where it is training a band of rebels, it is reportedly operating more than 100 miles from its de facto base.
The President has effectively handed over power to the Department of Defense to set his foreign policy and carry out major operations without his approval. “What I do is I authorize my military,” Trump declared in April. “We have given them total authorization, and that’s what they’re doing.”
America’s war loving generals are in charge of the nation, while Trump golfs at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Secretary of Defense James Mattis (known by the moniker “Mad Dog,” which he earned while presiding over the razing of the Iraqi city of Fallujah) and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, another former four-star general, are calling the shots. They are supplemented by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, an ex-general, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford.
The generals are presently moving to send 3,000 to 5,000 new troops to Afghanistan, where the US has been waging a war for 16 years that has brought only misery, destruction and death to the country’s weary people.
At this point it will only take one wrong move for all to spiral out of control. All courtesy of an electorate that elected a President, but did not stand by him once the man was in office.