Passing The Baton: Trump Takes Over In The Race For Raqqa

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
March 16, 2017

The U.S. military has finally created its plan for “defeating ISIS” in Syria as ordered by President Trump earlier this year. Unfortunately, that plan is virtually a carbon copy of Obama’s plans to start World War 3 and cause a confrontation with Russia on Syrian soil. This is because the new plan involves the deployment of up to 1,000 American soldiers to Northern Syria for the purpose of shoring up the offensive to retake Raqqa.

As Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the Washington Post reports,

The deployment, if approved by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and President Trump, would potentially double the number of U.S. forces in Syria and increase the potential for direct U.S. combat involvement in a conflict that has been characterized by confusion and competing priorities among disparate forces.

Trump, who charged former president Barack Obama with being weak on Syria, gave the Pentagon 30 days to prepare a new plan to counter the Islamic State, and Mattis submitted a broad outline to the White House at the end of February. Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, has been filling in more details for that outline, including by how much to increase the U.S. ground presence in Syria. Votel is set to forward his recommendations to Mattis by the end of the month, and the Pentagon secretary is likely to sign off on them, according to a defense official familiar with the deliberations. 

. . . . .


About 500 U.S. Special Operations forces are already in Syria operating alongside the SDF, in addition to about 250 Rangers and 200 Marines. The new U.S. troops, if approved, would probably come from parts of both the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit — a flotilla of ships loaded with 2,200 Marines that is now steaming toward the region — and the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, from which 2,500 troops are headed to Kuwait. These conventional troops would supplement the Special Operations forces already on the ground and operate much like their counterparts fighting in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

On the campaign trail, Trump hinted around at the possibility of having a more rational approach to the Syrian crisis and Russian relations as well. He often accused Hillary Clinton’s plan for the region as dangerous and claimed that it had the potential to start World War Three. He was right. It did. But his new plan looks very much like Obama’s, a toned-down version of Bloody Hillary’s desire for world incineration.

Those claims were also contradicted by rhetoric that Obama was “weak on Syria.” But if overseeing the murder of 400,000 people, the destruction of a nation, and the attempted destruction of a culture is weak, what is Trump’s version of strong?

This new deployment is supposed to take place around the same time that another new Trump policy effectively comes in to place eliminating the troop caps that are a holdover from the Obama administration for forces operating in Iraq and Syria.

It should also be mentioned that Saudi Arabia has said for years that it would be open to contributing troops to Syria so long as the United States would do likewise and prove its own commitment to toppling Assad. Turkey has also stated that it is willing to take part in the operation to retake Raqqa, provided the United States ends its support of Kurdish fighters.

The Syrian military is quickly closing in on Raqqa, one of the last ISIS strongholds in the country, and is soon expected to reach the city.

The U.S. has been using the presence of ISIS in Syria as an excuse to bomb, send Special Forces, publicly support terrorists, and possibly invade since the Western-backed terror group appeared on the scene two years ago. Yet, despite its rhetoric, the United States and its coalition has yet to launch a sustained bombing campaign against terrorists in Raqqa and have largely abstained from bombing (see here and here) any other terrorist group. Instead, the U.S. has focused on bombing Syrian military targets, civilians and civilian infrastructure (see here also), and acting as a deterrent to the Syrian military’s movement in many “rebel-held” areas of the country. In cases where the U.S. has actually bombed terrorists, the bombing has been more of an act of death squad herding instead of an attack on actual terrorists.

So why the sudden interest in Raqqa? It’s fairly simple. The United States sees clearly that the Syrian military and its Russian allies are going to liberate Raqqa soon enough and the U.S. does not want to suffer another public relations setback. A defeat for ISIS is thus a humiliation for the United States. That fact alone should raise some eyebrows.

Regardless, the United States would like to have its own “victory” in Raqqa before the Syrians and the Russians can have theirs. If the SDF is able to “take” Raqqa, the U.S. will then be able to shout from the rooftops that America has liberated Raqqa and defeated ISIS in its own capital.

The U.S. also has another goal in Raqqa – the theft of more Syrian territory by using its proxy forces going by the name of the SDF. Whether or not ISIS proper is in control of Raqqa is merely a secondary concern for the United States. If the SDF succeeds in imposing control over the city and the province, then the West will have succeeded in cementing control over the area in the hands of its proxy terrorists once again, but with yet another incarnation of the same Western-backed jihadist fanaticism with a Kurdish element for the mix. The U.S. can then use the “moderate rebel” or “Kurd” label to keep Russia and Syria from bombing the fighters who merely assumed a position handed to them, albeit through some level of violence, by ISIS.

With the situation as it stands, there is now the very real possibility of some type of major confrontation taking place in Raqqa that could very well have international ramifications. On one hand, there is the Syrian military, backed by the Russian Air Force and Russian Special Forces heading North and East to Raqqa while, on the other side, there is the SDF, backed by the U.S. Air and Special Forces, heading South and West toward Raqqa. Both sides are in a race to gain control over the ISIS capital, gain territory, and declare a victory for the world to see. But what if they arrive in Raqqa at the same time?

In other words, there is a distinct potential that, in the race for Raqqa, the Syrian/Russian alliance might find itself face to face with the possibility of direct military conflict with the U.S./SDF (terrorist) alliance. At that point, the question will be who, if either, will back down? If both forces decide to push forward, the result could be devastating not only for Syria but for the rest of the world.

Regardless of what happens, it is important to remember that the Syrian military is acting entirely in self-defense both against the terrorists posing as “rebels” and the United States. Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah have all been invited in to Syria, acting legally and with the assent of the Syrian government, while the United States and its coalition are once again acting completely outside of international law in an attempt to shore up its terrorist proxies; and, once again, the United States and its coalition of the willing is pushing the patience of the rest of the world.


Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 andvolume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President, and Resisting The Empire: The Plan To Destroy Syria And How The Future Of The World Depends On The Outcome. Turbeville has published over 1000 articles on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST atUCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

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