First it was Syria, now it’s Afghanistan. President Donald Trump has finally gotten his sweet taste of war, but will he know when to stop? Without the consent of Congress, Trump unleashed his wrath upon both Syria and Afghanistan in the form of missiles and a non-nuclear bomb.
On April 6, Trump ordered a release of 59 Tomahawk missiles fired from American vessels in the eastern Mediterranean at Al Shayrat airfield. Trump’s goal was to retaliate against Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, after he conducted a chemical attack that killed 80 civilians.
According to Trump, Assad’s attack in Syria was “very barbaric” and said his decision would “prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.” The Syrian Army reported that six people died in the U.S. attack on the base.
Only a week later, Trump released America’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb on ISIS targets in Afghanistan. The bomb is called a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), nicknamed the “mother of all bombs.” April 13 was the first time this type of weapon has been used in battle, according to U.S. officials.
U.S. Press Secretary Sean Spicer addressed the public about the Afghanistan attack and said, “The United States takes the fight against ISIS very seriously and in order to defeat the group we must deny them operational space, which we did.”
According to Spicer, the strike “targeted a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters use to move around freely.” Later that day, Trump called the attack “another successful job.” Some Republican officials are voicing their appraisals of the attack; however, California Democrat Rep. Jackie Speier voiced concerns about Trump potentially increasing U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.
“We are escalating in an area I think we should be deescalating in,” she said to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “Coupled with what happened in Yemen, what happened in Syria, these are efforts that are made to suggest that we will be engaging in wars in three different countries simultaneously.”
My question is what happened to putting America first. Developing an aggressive foreign policy based on the frequent use of force was a policy he often criticized as a presidential candidate.
Although his campaign was already shifty, citizens must wonder what happened to his anti-interventionism attitude. Sure, he wanted to “bomb the shit out of ISIS,” but the Syrian government does not fall under that category. Neither of these countries present any immediate threats to United States national security; in fact, the U.S. is not even technically at war with either of these territories. If anything, using brute force is leading the way to the declaration of war.
The bomb dropped in the mountains of Afghanistan is absurd in its own name, but it is also ironic because the beneficiary of the bomb is the local enemies of its alleged ISIS victims, the rebel Taliban.
I am also confused about Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin. Although the Russian military was notified of the Syria attack before it occurred, American officials did not personally inform Putin.
His relationship, if at all real, with Russia has been severed. Trump willingly confessed that the reasoning behind the latest bombing in Syria was “to send an important signal to North Korea.”
Simon Jenkins from The Guardian said in his article about the topic that, with any bombing, “targeting is often inexact, but the political aim is precise.”
Trump is using publicity of the death and destruction of warfare to terrify the world from using warfare of their own. Not his first decision that reeks of irony and power hunger.
So far, Trump has chosen to fight fire with fire. Will we all burn?