Graham boast to steal Syrian oil reprehensible

Every time the President takes a baby step to end America's perpetual Middle East wars, he does the right thing. Such is the case with his withdrawal of token forces on Syria's northeast border with Turkey. This will allow the Syrian government, with help from neighbor and ally Russia, to take back sovereignty from US backed and armed rebel forces used for US regime change in Syria. Trump's withdrawal essentially ends our illegal, immoral and senseless invasion of Syria six years ago using Islamic terrorists to do America's dirty work. Besides failing to oust Assad, we provided the weaponry that wound up expanding ISIS in Iraq, resulting in 11,000 dead Kurds forced to defend themselves, also with US weaponry. That's good for US munitions makers; bad for everyone in the region we're defiling.

Alas, the pushback from the largely pro war Congress, military and mainstream media was so ferocious Trump threw them a sop, 200 troops to guard Syrian oil fields controlled by our Kurdish mercenaries we sacrificed in the futile effort to remove Assad. As senseless as that is, the nation's most pro war Senator, Lindsey Graham, is ecstatic. His quote yesterday sums up the lunacy of US intervention in the region.

"By increasing the production of the oil fields, we will be helping our Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) allies who fought bravely to destroy ISIS Caliphate. We can use some of the revenues from future Syrian oil sales to pay our military commitment in Syria."

In one disgusting quote Graham applauds continued efforts for regime change while stealing Syrian oil to pay for our murder and mayhem.

DuPage Board not in 21st century on cannabis

Disappointed the DuPage County Board voted to prohibit cannabis sales in unincorporated DuPage. That gives DuPage the dubious distinction of being the first of 102 Illinois counties so doing. Yet, the same board voted to slap a 3% sales tax on cannabis sales in DuPage municipalities.Anyone detect a bit of hypocrisy in those contradictory resolutions?

The prohibition adds no value to the years' long effort to craft a sane, sensible, safe alternative to the 'moonshine' street cannabis from which all revenue goes to the bad guys. The only upside to a no vote is that member can tout his 'concern for the community' bonafides at election time.

One comment in the debate stands out. Hinsdale board member Greg Hart admonished "The state of Illinois has made a lot of bad choices over the years, but we in DuPage have made better choices". Legalization of recreational cannabis in Illinois is not one of the former...and sales prohibition of safe, regulated, revenue generating cannabis in unincorporated DuPage is not one of the latter.

Taliban, like American revolutionaries, will prevail

It took King George III nine years to figure out Britain couldn't control its American colonies. Though his controlling military was superior in firepower and personnel, the revolutionaries had a cause, self determination, that the Brits could never match. We denigrate King George III as nutty for staying so long in a hopeless war, but US leaders make him look quite sensible, doubling his US stay with their 18 year long failed effort to subjugate Afghanistan as an outpost of US world power. The 911 attacks were a trigger used to conquer Afghanistan, install a puppet government and staff gigantic military bases; all for endless control. Tho we vanquished the Afghan Taliban government in weeks, they rose from the near dead to reclaim over half the country with no end in sight.

A majority of Americans support withdrawal of US forces, knowing full well our puppet government there will eventually fall. They have learned the lesson taught them in school about the American Revolution, that people everywhere have the right to self determination; that a government suppressing self determination can be altered, even abolished. Our leaders choose to ignore that lesson, preferring perpetual war squandering trillions while killing untold thousands, all for inevitable defeat.

We're still wondering, as Pete Seeger wrote in 1955, "When will they ever learn...oh when will they ever learn?"

A tennis gem in DuPage County

Our 120 strong group of tennis players opened  the 55th season of the DuPage Winter Tennis Club ( DWTC) last week.  Playing at the pavilion in the DuPage County Fairgrounds, the DWTC is one of the best kept health and recreation secrets in DuPage County. Open to tennis players of all skill levels, the club has access to the pavilion most week days. On weekends the pavilion is home to a wide variety of hobbyist shows. Most of the thousands traversing the crowded floor don't notice the 3 tennis courts painted beneath their feet. But early Monday morning after weekend show debris is cleared, the tennis  nets go up and the players arrive, from 8 to 88 to get the best exercise and camaraderie around at a reasonable price even folks of modest means can afford, unlike that of the high priced private health clubs. The 'Winter' in our name doesn't quite do justice to our indoor tennis season which runs from early fall to late spring. Numerous clubs and hobby shows call the pavilion their home, but none come close to matching the six decade tenure of the DWTC. Every year we hear rumors of possible demise of the pavilion and with it our club and the events of the numerous hobbyists and charities that enjoy this splendid community resource. But every October so far, we march back in to enjoy a little slice of tennis heaven in DuPage. The DuPage Winter Tennis Club, a tennis gem in a DuPage gem that deserves the support of all of DuPage. 

Walt Zlotow

No sellout, no outrage…US Syria withdrawal long overdue

The Trib, like virtually the entire US political, military and media class, has gotten the US pullout out in Syria wrong (October 15, editorial 'Trump’s sellout of the Syrian Kurds is an outrage' ). It was not nearly as precipitous or outrageous as claimed. It’s been a year in the making since Islamic State in Syria has been rolled back. Our support of the Kurds has always been one way…to have them die fighting ISIS instead of US troops. And 11,000 did just that with US supplied weaponry and air support. They were willing to do that for two reasons. First to stave off the existential threat of ISIS in their neighborhood. Second, to gain US support for maintenance and expansion of their independent Kurdish area in northeast Syria free from Turkish interference.

We never intended or agreed to their second objective, so much so Syrian Kurds have been conducting back channel talks with Assad’s now ascendant government for a year to take over their security after the expected US pullout. Our biggest mistake with Syrian Kurds was not telling them months ago to strike their best deal with Syria and Russia because we are leaving. ISIS is gone and so are we. The agreement for Syria, along with Russian backing, to substitute for US protection was hammered out within a few days of Turkey's invasion. Syrian and Russian forces have already rolled in to the region to replace token US forces who were simply targets for an inevitable Turkish incursion against the Syrian Kurds they fear are aligned Turkish Kurds fighting for independence from Turkey.

It's too early to determine if the Syrian, Russian involvement, along with US and NATO efforts to restrain Turkey will prevent this limited military action from spiraling into a regional conflict. But it's not too early to note the decline of US influence in Syria and the wider region. The US had no business for its illegal and immoral Syrian involvement five years ago. We flooded Syria with weaponry, much of which wound up with extremists who funneled it to Islamic State, expanding the Syrian civil war far longer, with far greater casualties, than had we not intervened.

It's time for the US to get completely out of Syria, as well as Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and other nations we destabilize with our blank check to promote American exceptionalism. It doesn't work...never has, never will.

200 US troops left in Syria 200 too many

Getting our 1,000 troops out of harms way in northeast Syria was the most sensible US move in the region since before our senseless invasion of Afghanistan 18 years ago. That's because it represents the first real US pullback from perpetual war there. Those soldiers were on the flashpoint between Syrian Kurds seeking ast homeland of their own and Turkey, which will never let that happen if it involves a slice of Turkey. Conflict was inevitable there unless the US stayed on that firing line forever. Now the Kurds have embraced the involvement of the Syrian government and their Russian backers which will protect them from Turkish aggression while incorporating them into the sovereign Syrian government. Some power sharing and autonomy for the Kurds is likely. They are OK with this. Syrian Kurdish commander Mazloum Abdi publicly advised “We told Trump that we are contacting the Syrian regime and the Russians in order to protect our country and land. We are not against that."

The Kurds will be glad to see the US leave. We illegally and immorally intervened in the Syrian civil war in 2013, arming thousands of Sunni fighters who morphed into ISIS in Syria. They represented an existential threat to the Syrian Kurds who had to rely on US weapons to fight them off. Eleven thousand died doing just that, all resulting from US interference.

We cannot understate the significance of the US pullback as a first step to end perpetual war; but only if it can be maintained and expanded. As a sop to the war party, Trump moved the soldiers to Western Iraq. But just as they crossed the border the Iraqi government kicked them out, extending their withdrawal 6,000 miles to the homeland. In another sop to the war party, Trump announced that 200 soldiers will stay in Syria to protect oil fields. That is as ludicrous and incomprehensible as it sounds.

The US is finished as a major player in the Middle East though it still can't accept that reality. Eighteen years of senseless war, millions of dead, wounded and dispossessed from our meddling is enough.

Time to retire war party's MacGuffin ISIS

Opponents of the US withdrawal from northeast Syria cite several reasons but none so silly as their claim our absence will allow Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to re-constitute itself, threatening our homeland. For the US war party, ISIS nothing more than a MacGuffin offered to maintain perpetual war. Movie buffs, especially fans of thriller director Alfred Hitchcock, know what a MacGuffin is: an object, device or event necessary to the plot and motivation of the characters but insignificant or irrelevant in itself. For Hitchcock it might be airplane engine plans (39 Steps), or uranium ore stored in vintage wine bottles (Notorious). Everyone knows the most famous MacGuffin in filmdom, the black bird in John Huston's Maltese Falcon. But neither Huston nor Hitchcock have come up with a better MacGuffin for America's endless real life drama of perpetual war than ISIS. This rag tag assortment of Sunni Islamic extremists, which had some success in acquiring land in those countries from their arch rival Shi'ite Muslim brethren, are the prime motivator which allows the war party to wage perpetual war all over the Middle East and Africa. Virtually every president, congressman, military guru, media talking head says we can't bring out our token forces in numerous countries and stop dropping tens of thousands of bombs annually because ISIS will grow and threaten our homeland. That is utter nonsense fed to a public that isn't listening and doesn't care, allowing perpetual war to rage on. 

Up in Celluloid Heaven Hitchcock might say: "Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I've created 57 MacGuffins for my 57 films, but none compares to the Mother of All MacGuffins....ISIS."

Dems missing chance to be anti war party

The US has waged perpetual war for over 18 years, since the October, 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. This policy is maintained through bi-partisan support from both parties; debating perpetual war rarely figures in ongoing policy discussion or presidential elections. A rare chance to debate US war policy occurred when the President withdrew US forces from Syria. As crudely as Trump handled the pullout, catching the political elites flatfooted, it should have been used to debate America's forever wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Niger, and others on the horizon such as Iran and Venezuela. Instead, nearly all Democrats joined many Republicans in attacking Trump from the right, claiming he was abandoning crucially needed US presence in the region and empowering our imagined enemies Russia, Syria and Iran. Instead of pointing out Trump's ratcheting up US bombing in Afghanistan, continued support the ghastly Saudi slaughter in Yemen and adding more troops to Iraq and Saudi Arabia, they're focused on being even more interventionist than Trump.

That is a huge mistake. The American people are fed up with America's perpetual wars. More importantly, withdrawing militarily from the region will remove the nation most responsible for hundreds of thousands of needless deaths and millions of refugees, destabilizing the entire region. But Dems are foolishly promoting US exceptionalism to oust Trump instead of doing the right thing of demanding US military withdrawal from the region to focus on cooperative diplomacy. Tulsi Gabbard, the most anti war of 19 Democratic presidential contenders, is being trashed by her rivals as an isolationist and another Putin, Assad tool for simply expressing the sensible approach of abandoning perpetual war. Mainstream media goes along with this charade by denying airtime to virtually any anti war spokesperson.

Trump's foreign policy may be an utter mess, but his biggest sin to the interventionist wing making up the vast majority of our political elite, is calling for an end to endless wars. Rather than attacking that position, Democrats must call out his hypocrisy, contradictions and refusal to make truly meaningful disengagement in the Middle East and Africa. Besides being a winning strategy to regain the White House, it will be doing the right thing for humanity.