Mind-boggling surrealism is the order of the day.
By now you will have already seen the news “Trump Administration Announces Rapid Withdrawal From Syria” – it’s going to be a yuge withdrawal, one of the best. Does that mean that the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of secret bases are going to be abandoned, or are they going to have a flag-raising ceremony and turn them over to the Russians, or what?
Reading between the lines, it appears that the US has sufficient hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bases in Iraq, and are consolidating them. But who ever heard of The Pentagon downsizing anything unless it was a preparatory move for upsizing it massively? There’s got to be much more going on here than meets the eye. But, since it’s been announced without a cloud of trial balloons, I’m willing to bet that it’s a tremendous surprise for someone. Probably the Syrian Government, for starters. (“Hi, we are un-invading you. Kthxbai.”) I have to pause for a moment as I imagine that scenario, where Assad is informed that he’s been un-invaded in an unexpected early morning tweet-storm. Putin gets woken up by an aide, “What!? He was supposed to wait until Christmas! That blockhead!”
Here’s where the story gets even more surreal, for me:
[cnn]
Naturally, I wondered who was speaking for The Coalition, and I took that phrase and punched it into Google:
Does it look to you like the media took a press release from someplace and handed it to an AI that changed a few words here and there – like Chris Hedges plagiarizing from Hemingway – and published it? All of those “articles” are practically word-for-word.
It makes me, seriously, wonder if some hacker is having fun with the Reuters newsfeeds, and has just dropped a bunch of disinformation in to see what happens. Wouldn’t it be funny if the US actually did pack up and leave Syria?
my mad photoshop skills
This story is either going to evolve, or vanish in a puff of bullshit-scented forgetfulness. Remember this?
[cnn]
The “deep state” Trump is so worried about is the momentum of the establishment that is ignoring Trump’s bizarre attempts to grab the steering wheel and aim the ship of state for a lighthouse. I no longer believe claims of withdrawing troops (or stopping support for the Saudi war in Yemen) – this is …
“Any reports indicating a change in the US position with respect” to the US military presence in Syria “is false and designed to sow confusion and chaos”
Well, that fucking worked.
Do I file this under “art”? Or “We’re all fucked”? I don’t even know. This is a surrealist masterpiece. It’s like Kafka dropped mushrooms with Alfred Jarry and they both went to a Sisters of Mercy concert and came home and crashed on Edgar Allen Poe’s couch, woke up in the morning, and started to write.
It would be funny if the troops just said “screw this” and started coming home. Except we can’t expect authoritarian goons to suddenly smarten up and do the right thing. That would make a great art project: a video, professionally produced, of soldiers saying “you know what? this is bullshit! I am going home.” and they all start car-pooling to the airport, “let’s get out of here.” “Yeah, first round of beers is on me when we get home.” Seriously, why not? Then the video ends with a message: “It’s a volunteer army. You can un-volunteer.” Hey, Vladimir? If you want to underwrite it, have one of your underground mole-agents contact me the usual way and let’s make this happen.
All this story tells me, I’m afraid, is that the US Military controls the government, not the other way around.
Nope, Kafka’s writings are way better than this copy-pasted press release. Unlike most of the people who earn their salary by writing press releases, Kafka actually knew how to write well. My favorite among his work is definitely “In the Penal Colony.”
But, other than that, I do agree that these news look surreal; to paraphrase your words, “It’s like some unnamed employee got bored of his day work writing press releases, dropped mushrooms, etc.”
Some talking head expert was interviewed on the bbcs pm programme this evening. He observed that “surprisingly, or rather for this administration unsurprisingly, this plays right into Russia’s hands”. There was then three or four agonising seconds of dead air as the presenter struggled to work out how to respond to someone basically saying “Trump is obviously a Russian stooge” live on the BBC at teatime. Priceless
44 minutes in…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0001l8c
@sonofrojblake:
(Long silence) ” OK we’re going to leave it there.”
Priceless.
Oh, that’s probably us. Or the French. As a Brit I mostly blame the French. They probably mostly blame us. That’s the way it is.
Hmm. Checking google maps…
Syria isn’t directly connected to Russian territory, but it does have a Mediterranean coast, which is probably a bit more convenient than a Black Sea coast. Not a permanent naval port, but potentially quite useful as a US-style “not one of ours, honestly guv” port. Then there’s Turkey to the north where Erdoğan is trying his hardest to alienate anyone who isn’t Trump, so they could then flip. Which brings Cyprus into play… (hey, it’s smaller than Crimea…)
I’m willing to bet that he didn’t consult with anybody other than his brilliant gut on this withdrawal — it sounds as if the military and all our allies were caught entirely flat-footed. Apparently most of what goes on at the White House these days is aides trying unsuccessfully to keep Trump from tweeting things.
brucegee1962@#7:
Apparently most of what goes on at the White House these days is aides trying unsuccessfully to keep Trump from tweeting things.
All he has to do now is keel over with a heart attack and the conspiracy theories will never end.
Marcus ranum @#8
Which he’s not going to do, because Ivanka makes sure he eats Organic because it’s sooo healthy /s
That’s just how the media works these days. Even “top tier” news sources just scrape the AP feed, run it through some light AI retouching, and republish it, all without any human intervention. Why pay a “journalist” to regurgitate a government press release when you can automate the whole process in Azure or AWS?
Dunc@#10:
That’s just how the media works these days. Even “top tier” news sources just scrape the AP feed, run it through some light AI retouching, and republish it, all without any human intervention. Why pay a “journalist” to regurgitate a government press release when you can automate the whole process in Azure or AWS?
Yeah. I think that what this trend is going to do is re-establish the value of real journalism. For example, the only thing I read nowadays that is anything like well-written and analyzed seems to be The Intercept. I know that it’s a rich man’s toy but he seems to completely have his hands off of it, which is great.
For decades, we’ve used prizes as a substitute for meta-analysis. “Ah, that won a Pulitzer! I’ll read it!” which means that I expect the enemies of authenticity to go after suborning the prizes, next.
@ 2
He observed that “surprisingly, or rather for this administration unsurprisingly, this plays right into Russia’s hands”
The BBC is becoming more inane every day.
The basic points are that Assad and Russia have won and the USA, Saudi Arabia (UAE?) has lost. Hanging around any longer just means more casualties, more costs with people like getting increasingly annoyed at you as your troops sit amid a shooting war. I tend to believe Erdoğan when he says he is attacking in Eastern Syria.
Anything Russia was going to gain, it already has gained. I suspect most readers here will not agree with me, but I have always seen the Russian intervention in Syria based on one main principle. Russia, and Putin in particular, does not want another failed state in the region and the US strategy, as much as it had one, looked likely to produce one.
Have a look at a map of the region. Russian borders are not that far away and Russia has a sizable Muslim population. A failed state more or less run by a set of mad salafi fanatics such as ISIS is not something that one wants that close to one’s borders and NATO, kindly, gave Putin and his Cabinet a preview of what to expect in Syria when they bombed Libya back to the stone age.
On the plus side Russia has even picked up a second ice-free port at Tartus, one outside the Black Sea, sort of in passing. If there is any other unconsidered trifle to be snapped up I am sure the Russians will but they have gotten their main objective: Syria is not a balkanized or failed state. Anything else is frosting on the cake.
Always with the ice-free ports, for Russia. Now, with global warming, all their ports are going to be ice-free, so win-win!
@ 13 brucegee1962
I had not really thought of that. True but it is still going take a few years even for Vladivostok to be really ice free. Of course by that time rising sea levels may mean that Vladivostok is not only an ice-free port but an under-water port.
I have been expecting great things of Churchill, Manitoba as a port for us but, suddenly the term Hudson Bay Lowlands sounds a trifle ominous. I better check its elevation.