The war in Syria was originally orchestrated by Saudi Arabia and their ally Israel. Both got the US to get involved to. Saudi Arabia is the only one of the three that realizes that they lost. The US still has forces on the ground there and Israel still uses their air force to conduct raids. When we got caught in the war, we used the excuse of “ISIS”. Well, ISIS is destroyed now, yet we’re still there and still arming forces.

I don’t know if this is true. We’ve been seeing this talked about all over the web. Our link is to the original story where it broke. They do point out that it is more likely that the intel didn’t come from Israel, but more likely Jordan. The real dynamic here is not where the intel came from, but more importantly that it has been shared.

ISIS in Syria and Iraq are virtually destroyed, despite our best efforts. We had a chance when we first invaded Iraq to use the former military leaders of Iraq to stabilize the country. Well, it looks like we did use them again to run ISIS. Note the picture with "John al-McCain" with the new and future leader of ISIS.

A few months ago, as Syria started to achieve success against ISIS, there was a story going around that the US had actually rescued ISIS leaders and their families and transported them to safety. I kept an eye on the story because it sounded like something that we would do, but found little to support or dispel the story. Well, today the BBC dropped the bombshell that it was a true story. This should both enlighten and disgust you. "John al-McCain" should be having a bad day.

The other day we reported on the Department of Defense’s study dubbed the “Estimated Cost to Each Taxpayer for the Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.” The DoD places the total authorized war spending on those conflicts between 2001 and 2018 at $1.5 trillion. They claimed $250 million a day for the wars. Of course the DoD ignored the trillions in conflict-linked spending appropriated mainly through the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, State, Defense, and Veteran Affairs. A new study conducted by Brown University shows that the costs are almost four times what the Pentagon shared with us. They also came to conclusion that their higher numbers are probably too low.

The middle east has more intrigue than most places. Folks that should be enemies sometimes aren’t. Folks that should be allies sometimes aren’t. The three big players for many decades have been Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Other countries in the region have always been played by these three. Despite these three being enemies, all of them are smart enough to make temporary alliances in order to go after the one. It looks like Israel and Saudi Arabia are continuing the alliance they made to eliminate Syria. This time the target is Iran. And we’re falling for it again.

The “war” in Syria has roots in our invasion of Iraq. We created millions of refugees who went to Syria. As happens all over the world where lots of refugees settle in a foreign country, it did not go well for Syria. Their attempts to crack down on problems led to the civil unrest. Saudi Arabia saw this as an opportunity to overthrow Assad, and supported forces with money and aid to start a civil war in Syria. The US at the behest of the Saudis (and eventually Israel) created ISIS and supported the efforts to topple Assad. Of course it didn’t work out the way we planned. Russia came to Syria in support of a long term ally and Assad remains in power. President Trump directed the CIA to stop supporting the Syrian rebels. It appears that our CIA and military are willingly ignoring the Commander in Chief and still supporting the rebels.

One of the most famous quote from the Vietnam War was a statement attributed to an unnamed U.S. officer by AP correspondent Peter Arnett in his writing about Bến Tre city on 7 February 1968:
'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it', a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong.
It appears that those tactics still exist in the US military. The campaign to free Raqqa from ISIS finally ended with the total destruction of the city! Comparing the battle to the one that the Syrian government backed by the Russians did to free Aleppo from ISIS shows some stark differences. Raqqa was destroyed by the Syrian Kurds, backed by US air strikes. Aleppo exists, is rebuilding and has become an economic center again. The battle there was with the Syrian army, backed by Russian air strikes. As Syria goes back to normal, which foreign country will be seen as an ally and which will be seen as an enemy?  

The US involvement is Syria never made any sense from a pure “what is our National Interest” in spending money and risking American lives perspective. It just looked like meddling. Over time, it became obvious that this was an effort on behalf of our allies Saudi Arabia and Israel. Imagine the alarms that should have gone off when Saudi Arabia and Israel agree on something, but obviously they didn’t. Our military supported some groups and our CIA supported others and there were even times when both of these groups actively fought against each other. We’ve bombed civilians, dropped chemical weapons and other war efforts that most folks would find wrong. And again, for what national interest? Well, in spite of our efforts, Syria with the help of Russia has won. Even Saudi Arabia concedes that this was a failed effort. President Trump publicly directed the CIA to stop their efforts in Syria. Yet, our involvement continues. Our forces even took Russian soldiers hostage. This one makes no sense and in light of the fact that Russia’s foreign aid support has been very popular with the Syrian people, just makes us look stupid.…