10 good things about 2018

The New Year has come and this is a great time to think about some of the events that took place during the past 12 months. “10 good things about 2018” is the title of an article published by Fars news agency. Now we have more about the story:

Despite US President Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban, anti-migrant policies, moving US embassy from Tel Aviv to Al-Quds, off-the-cuff “fire and fury” threat to North Korea, and withdrawal from a host of international agreements, there are still some rousing points of light from 2018.

Here are the top ten events for 2018 – other important developments were left out, such as the new ceasefire agreement in Yemen et al.

1. Victory over terrorist group of Daesh in Iraq and Syria.

Few months before, former Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared final victory over Daesh after Iraqi forces drove its last remnants from the country; it was the allied forces of Iran, Syria, Russia and Hezbollah that announced the defeat of the foreign-backed goons in neighboring Syria. The Syrian army and its allies are still fighting Daesh in desert areas, but the capture of all terror-held territories ends Daesh’s era of territorial rule over the so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across Iraq and Syria and in which millions suffered under its reign of terror.
2. Trump orders US troops out of Syria.
On December 19, Trump called for a US withdrawal from Syria over the apparent objections of military advisers and a bipartisan group of lawmakers. The withdrawal of the more than 2,000 troops is based on Trump’s decision that the mission against Daesh is complete! US military leaders, including former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, disagree. They don’t think the US has actually defeated Daes.

3. The end of a terrible alliance.

The tragic murder of Khashoggi at the US consulate in Istanbul shook Riyadh’s Western allies. It was a turning point for the US-Saudi alliance. With three years of relentless Saudi bombing of Yemen leading to the world’s greatest human catastrophe and the barbaric murder of Khashoggi, Congress and business leaders finally began to question their relationship with this retrograde regime and its brutal de facto leader Mohammad bin Salman. In an unprecedented vote, the Senate approved a measure to halt US support to the Saudis in Yemen. Some European governments stopped arms sales to Saudi Arabia as well.
4. In 2018, Trump orders US military to start withdrawing 7,000 troops from Afghanistan.

The effort to curb Trump’s support for the Saudi war on Yemen comes at the same time that Trump announced a halving of US troops in Afghanistan. This was an abrupt shift in the 17-year-old war there and it’s good news. It came hours after Jim Mattis, the former secretary of defense, said he would resign from his position after disagreeing with Trump over his approach to policy in the Middle East.

5. World leaders react to US withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal.

Following Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, there was an immediate reaction by world leaders, including the other parties to the landmark deal. France, Germany and the UK regretted the US decision to leave the JCPOA, pledging to work collectively to keep Iran under the deal by providing it with the merits promised under the agreement. China and Russia also reiterated they want to uphold the deal, arguing that "the deal makes the world safer", and that they could find no legitimate reason for pulling out of the deal.
6. World condemns Trump’s decision to move US embassy.

The embassy move from Tel Aviv to Al-Quds infuriated Palestinians and sparked international condemnation, arguing that the city's final status should first be resolved through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. From the UN and European allies to global rivals like China and Russia, from Iran to the Vatican, his move was denounced. The Cairo-based Arab League urged the international community to oppose what it considered an "unjust decision" and the ongoing "Israeli occupation" of Al-Quds.

7. Trump's Muslim travel ban and anti-immigrant policies condemned.

Trump’s immigration policies drew international condemnation as religious discrimination from allies and religious leaders, including Pope Francis, who took aim on moral grounds at the administration’s practice of separating migrant children from their parents at the US-Mexico border. Leaders from London to Ottawa and to Tehran described the separations as unjust and cruel. The pope, who has placed the issues facing migrants at the center of his papacy, stepped into the issue, saying he agreed with statements by US Catholic bishops, who called the separations “immoral” and “contrary to our Catholic values.”
8. A trade war that united the world.

Trump became the bully of the global economy, using the immense leverage of the US market and the close to $3 trillion of foreign goods and services Americans buy every year to bludgeon allies and foes alike into rewriting trade pacts and offering favorable concessions. For the most part, the rest of the world stood firm, either granting minor compromises or simply fighting back. The EU, Canada, and Mexico all retaliated against Trump’s metal tariffs by slapping duties on US products, all while clearing a path for the very thing that Trump claims to be striving to prevent: a dominant China and a diminished US.

9. More than 460 rockets were fired at the occupied lands called Israel.

Last November was a turning point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, when the usurper regime of Israel faced the most intense rocket barrage from Gaza since the 2014 war, as Palestinian resistant groups opened fire in response to a botched Israeli commando raid inside the besieged Strip. The rockets and mortars filled the skies with explosions and sent thousands of illegal Israeli settlers fleeing to bomb shelters. The fighting forced Tel Aviv to head towards a ceasefire deal. Palestine’s Islamic Jihad movement said after the deal, “The occupation and its supporters must understand that unless Palestinians live in peace, they won’t live in peace. Playing with the lives of Palestinians can’t be without a price”.
10. America is isolated and the world is doing great.

Trump's vision for US foreign policy of "America First" has led to "America Isolated." The US is standing alone on more key global issues than ever before. And America's seductive sheen of "soft power" has been diminished. On balance, the tectonic plates of global power are shifting toward a multilateral system of global governance and cooperation.

So there you have it. Despite Trump in the White House and the rise of right-wing movements around the globe, 2018 was still full of good things. Who knows, this might even mark the winding down of the disastrous wars that the US has waged on itself and the rest of the world for so many years.

Blinded by Anti-Trumpism

By Finian Cunningham

December 22, 2018 "Information Clearing House" -     As the old saying goes, even a broken clock gets the time right twice a day. It could apply to US President Donald Trump. For all his flaws - and they are abundant - the White House occupant can surely get at least one or two things correct.

But the way critics of The Donald tell it, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, redeemable about the 45th president. The Democrats and their supportive news media outlets never give him a break.

Watching the likes of CNN is insufferable. It is so predictable. Bash Trump, slam Trump, carp, carp, carp. There is relentless negativity, to the point where his critics lose any credibility because they are coming from a doctrinaire anti-Trumpism. There is no interaction with facts or objective conditions. It's relentless prejudice and limpet-like adherence to a preconceived agenda.

Take Trump's latest order to pull US troops out of Syria. The president's decision this week was lambasted by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Democrats and Republicans were in unison, decrying the withdrawal of US forces from the Arab country as a "strategic blunder". It was said to be a "gift" to adversaries, either the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad, or Russian President Vladimir Putin, or Iran, or to ISIS terrorists.

Admittedly, Trump's declaration of "victory" over ISIS [Daesh*] in Syria and his celebratory news via Twitter of "our boys coming home" was cheesy grandstanding for his electoral supporters. Only days before Christmas, Trump was posing as Santa Claus with a shiny big present for the nation.

Nevertheless, the pullout of US forces from Syria has to be seen as a good and proper thing. For a start, the 2,000 American troops and squadrons of warplanes have been illegally present in that country for the past four years. They are an occupying army in violation of Syria's sovereignty since the US neither has a UN Security Council mandate for its operations nor of course authorization from the Syrian government.

Moreover, tens of thousands of Syrian civilians have been killed by US forces. The destruction of the city of Raqqa last year with thousands of women and children obliterated by US air strikes stands out as a monumental war crime.

Washington's claims of "fighting terrorists" in Syria does not justify the de facto invasion of the country. Besides, anyone who has honestly researched the conflict, instead of relying on Western news media, knows that the "war on terror" claim is a cynical cover for US forces to destabilize Syria and foment regime change against the Assad government. Assad's alliance with Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, and his staunch anti-Israeli, anti-US imperialism is why Washington targeted his nation.

Tragically, before the war erupted in March 2011, Syrians had a proud and ancient history of peaceful coexistence between religious faiths.

Far from combating terrorism in Syria, the US has systematically weaponized and covertly directed the jihadists as proxies for its criminal regime-change objective. The supposed "popular uprising" in Syria against Assad was always a carefully contrived Western propaganda narrative to conceal the real agenda of regime change that Washington and its NATO allies and regional client regimes wanted.

In moments of clarity, Trump knows that. During his 2016 election campaign, he stated correctly that the Obama administration "created ISIS". And he said the war in Syria was pointless. That's not Trump being "conspiratorial" and "making stuff up". There is ample documented evidence that the American CIA and other NATO military intelligence orchestrated the jihadist proxies, along with billions of dollars from the Saudis and other Gulf Arab dictatorships.

Trump's self-congratulations this week for "winning the war against ISIS" are, to be sure, laughable. It was the Syrian army and its Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah allies that defeated ISIS and the US-sponsored covert war for regime change.

Nevertheless, Trump's decision to pull troops and warplanes out of Syria — regardless of his spurious claims — is the right decision. The anti-government militants have largely been defeated. Withdrawing US forces from Syria can only expedite the eradication by the Syrian army and its allies of remnant terrorist holdouts.

Critics of Trump say there are up to 30,000 terrorist fighters scattered over Syria. These domestic critics, as well as European allies, have castigated Trump for walking away from the mission to destroy terror groups in Syria, and therefore allegedly putting the security of Western states at risk from future attacks. That view is ignorant or deluded about the real heroes in Syria — the Syrian army and its Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah allies. Those forces are more than capable of continuing to finally eliminate the terrorists. The presence of the US and other NATO forces is only an impediment to that task.

The US-backed war for regime change in Syria has been defeated. It took eight years, but the Syrian people have won a historic war.

It is indeed time to get US military out of Syria as well as all NATO forces, which are illegally present in the country. American, British and French military and their political leaders should be indicted for war crimes due to their covert aggression and violation of Syria's sovereignty.

Strangely, politicians, pundits and Hollywood celebrities who claim to be "liberal" or "leftwing" — and who therefore might be expected to be anti-war — are queuing up to pillory Trump for his order to withdraw from Syria. Ironically, these critics are in effect endorsing war, illegal occupation and war crimes.

That curious contradiction tends to prove the superficiality and meaninglessness of Western "liberals". The seemingly only principle such people have is being "anti-Trump" no matter what the issue is.

Trump certainly deserves censure and opposition over his racist dog-whistling politics, his fascistic tendencies and his pro-rich oligarchic policies. But the mainstream US and European "liberals" never seem to oppose Trump on those issues. They are too concerned with irrelevant nonsense about "Russian collusion" and "Russian interference".

When the anti-Trump "liberals" can't see that ending American militarism overseas is the right thing to do, then you know their moral and political compass is defunct. Unlike Trump's broken clock which gets the time right twice a day, the anti-Trump brigade are too blind to see any viable direction at all.

*Daesh, also known as ISIS, ISIL, IS — a terrorist group banned in numerous countries, including Russia

Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent.