Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Freedom Rider: Trump, Obama and Syria
Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist
16 Oct 2019
🖨️ Print Article
Freedom Rider: Trump, Obama and Syria
Freedom Rider: Trump, Obama and Syria

Whether by mistake or design, Donald Trump is presiding over the – agonizing slow – demise of Barack Obama’s illegal and immoral scheme to overthrow the government of Syria using jihadist terror armies.

“The unipolar world is no more.”

Donald Trump presents more contradictions than perhaps any president in modern history. He is woefully unprepared for this or any other job, having been far less successful as a real estate developer than he claimed. He excels only at promoting himself and identifying with the dark underbelly of white America. Those traits combined with Democratic Party corruption and incompetence to bring him to the presidency. 

But he may have inadvertently undone a crime perpetrated by more well regarded predecessor. The complications present in Syria are the direct result of Barack Obama’s regime change attempt. Using the canard of humanitarian intervention Obama and his cohort in NATO, the gulf monarch states, and Israel conspired to overthrow the Syrian government with the indispensable help of jihadist proxies. The result was the death of half a million people and the displacement of millions more as refugees.

It is always difficult to determine what Trump intends to do and what he achieves by accident. His promise to “put America first” resonated with white voters. His election is proof that their connection with the Republican Party has little to do with support for intervention and endless war. His claim that he was taking U.S. troops out of Syria was opposed by the war party duopoly and their friends in corporate media and not by the lumpen masses often referred to as his “base.”

“The complications present in Syria are the direct result of Barack Obama’s regime change attempt.”

The people who gave Obama direct or tacit approval to bring about the destruction of a sovereign nation now claim that Trump needs permission before giving Turkey the green light to invade northern Syria. The furor over his impulsively made decision exposes the Democrats’ hypocrisy and may have put Syria on the road to peace. 

The story of the Kurds is a complicated one and even people who consider themselves knowledgeable are playing catch up with their history. But the corporate media assist in keeping the public uninformed by parroting claims that Trump is mistreating allies or giving a gift to Vladimir Putin. Turkey is a member of NATO and very much an American ally. The Kurds bet on the wrong horse and now are forced to accept help from the Syrian government, the only entity with any rights under international law to determine what happens there. 

This controversy proves not just that the tweeting president doesn’t know what he is doing, but that United States conniving in the region no longer brings about a desired result. Military power can invade Iraq and willing proxies can always be found. But Bashar al-Assad is still the Syrian president and Russia, Iran and China are forces to be reckoned with and are closer than they have ever been before. The unipolar world is no more. 

“The Kurds bet on the wrong horse and now are forced to accept help from the Syrian government.

Pointing out that the Trump team is particularly inept is only part of the story. The Democrats’ crocodile tears shed over the Kurds are part of their effort to undermine Trump while continuing to engage in the same criminality which both parties practice. Not one Democratic Party critic has questioned the premise of U.S. imperialism which brought the Kurds and the Syrians to this point. Barack Obama had better manners, greater intelligence and an in with all the right people. He won a Nobel Peace Prize and then proceeded to kill thousands of people and years later very few are willing to point out his wrong doing. Of course his wrong doing is also theirs and the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC and Democratic presidential candidates would be hard pressed to point out when they ever spoke out against U.S. war making.

While the Democrats pantomime concern for the Kurds, an anniversary that ought to live in infamy was commemorated. On October 14, 2011, a fifteen year old American citizen named Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was assassinated via drone strike on orders of president Obama. His American citizen father Anwar al-Awlaki had suffered the same fate two weeks earlier. Trump’s rages, bigotry, incompetence, and crazed twitter posts are of far less consequence than the actions of a president with a kill list.

“Not one Democratic Party critic has questioned the premise of U.S. imperialism which brought the Kurds and the Syrians to this point.”

Trump may be truthful when he says he wants to remove U.S. troops from the region but his opponents will thwart him at every turn. He can’t be praised because he is devoted to the concept of America being “first” and therefore in control of the rest of the planet. 

His critics may be right in one regard. Russian diplomacy is slowly but surely winning over American pig headishness. Of course none of the Trump haters are hating him for the right reasons. For now America is first in nothing more than waging acts of aggression.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com . Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.       

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at comments@blackagendareport.com

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Ryan S.
    Elon Musk and DOGE Slash Funding for Major Black Kansas City Neighborhood Councils
    26 Feb 2025
    Elon Musk & DOGE are targeting one of Kansas City’s most prominent Black-led neighborhood councils—slashing a federal grant and threatening a vital food sovereignty movement.
  • Chuck Squatriglia
    Feds Lend Tesla $465 Million to Build Model S
    26 Feb 2025
    Elon Musk is Donald Trump's right-hand man and viewed as an evil incarnate, but it was Barack Obama's administration which bailed out Tesla with a $465 million loan in 2009. Both wings of the duopoly…
  • Tamara Nassar
    Palestinians Forced to Flee US-Armed Israeli Military in West Bank
    26 Feb 2025
    Israel initiated a massive assault against the West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of people. As the terror and destruction go on, settlers continue to steal land as part of Israel's expansionist…
  • Kit Klarenberg
    USAID Exported CIA Balkan Terror to Haiti
    26 Feb 2025
    After the CIA orchestrated the 2004 coup in Haiti, the U.S. ushered in a genocidal paramilitary organization from the Balkans to violently remove all resistance to regime change efforts.
  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio February 21, 2025
    21 Feb 2025
    In this week’s segment, we hear about US policy towards Somalia, which is again the target of US policies of destabilization and military attack. But first, we talk to an organizer about the…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us