People
are natural story-tellers, and they tell stories that provoke all kinds of
emotional effects in their audiences, even when they don't mean to. The effects
range from continuous laughter at one extreme, to uncontrolled weeping at the
other extreme. An effect you'll find between the two extremes, is a kind of
glum feeling that mixes sadness and bewilderment. It could be called morose.
This
is the feeling you'll get when reading the article that came under the title:
“Trump's Syria withdrawal snatches defeat from the jaws of victory,” written by
David Ignatius and published on January 3, 2019 in the Washington Post. The
story itself is a byzantine melodrama that's full of Elizabethan sort of twists
and turns. But it is lacking the Shakespearean edge that would have made it a
great tragedy. In addition, the apparent reason why David Ignatius wrote this
story in the first place, is what renders it morose.
Navigating
a labyrinthine path around the large number of characters mentioned in the
story — as you try to determine what might be the author's point of view — you
won't find the answer till you reach the end of the article. That's when David
Ignatius expects you to believe this: The Kurdish fighters do what they promise
to do, said one US official. The same cannot be said of the Trump
administration.
That
is, in a typically Jewish fashion, David Ignatius has created a situation in
which an unnamed US official mouthed off the Jewish habit of painting all
Jewish lackeys as saints, and all rivals as demons. Because Israel seeks to
establish an artificial nation called Kurdistan — as fervently as misery seeks
company — the Jewish propaganda machine has been polishing the image of the
Kurds, making it glow more brightly than a Supernova.
As
hard as it is to believe, David Ignatius saw fit to help the Israelis
accomplish their goal by insulting the occupants of the highest office in his
own country. He did it by comparing them unfavorably against members of a
foreign gang, considered to be a terrorist organization in America not long
ago. Ignatius did it to stand on the side of Israel, another foreign entity
that is esteemed in some quarters in America more highly than America herself.
How astounding! How morose!
In
keeping with the tradition that's well known to observers since the Vietnam
War, and carrying through the Afghan and Iraq Wars, Ignatius started telling
the Syria War story in the style known as Pentagon-speak. Here is his version
of a famous paraphrase: “US-backed forces were on the verge of eliminating the
[enemy]” when the politicians intervened and put an end to what could have been
a decisive military victory. But the fact is that victory was achieved ... but
not by the Americans. It was achieved by Russia, and by Iran that worked
together with its militia allies.
After
inventing an unnamed US official to mouth off words that embellished the image
of the Kurds; after denigrating the occupants of the White House for not
embracing the Kurdish terrorists; and after repeating the Pentagon standard
justification for explaining America's failure to win a serious battle, David
Ignatius came up with a long story that is supposed to explain why Donald Trump
decided to pull American troops out of Syria, and why he (Ignatius) considers
the move to be a bad decision.
He
began by saying that Trump decided to leave Syria and let Turkey take care of
the final mop-up operation according to which the Turkish military will finish
off the ISIS terrorists. Alas, Ignatius went on to explain that the Turkish
military resources were so “threadbare” they could not do the job. But if the
Turks could not do the job, who could? Well, the standard answer has been that
the Kurds could. They are, after all, the superheroes who can move mountains by
the force of their will. Well, good and dandy. If that's how powerful the Kurds
are, let them blow the Turkish army into orbit if it tried to advance on Syria.
And let the show begin.
No,
no, no, cried the storytellers of the David Ignatius kind. It is unfair to
leave the Kurds at the mercy of the Turkish Goliath, considered to be the
strongest military in the NATO alliance after the United States.
Well
then, which is it? Can the Turks do the job, which means it is a good idea for America
to leave? Or can they not do the job, in which case America may be forced to
stay and fight a threadbare but stubborn NATO ally?