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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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Marco Rubio who is the new foreign policy minister doesn't really represent something new.

If you look at Trump's appointments and their rhetoric it is more like he is putting a MAGA lipstick on the same old neocon zionist policy. I don't see any indication that Trump's agenda will be to abandon the middle east.

Also, Trump's rhetoric on Syria have been quite contradictory. Both talking about the red line and in the past blaming Obama for the rebels. The USA, turkey and Israel supported and are to blame for the civil war in Syria. The Turks did it to gain mercenary forces, to fight the Kurds and to gain more land. The Israelis did it to weaken Iran allies and to gain more land. There were also other parties involved like Quatar which also helped the rebels and coincently the Qatar Turkey pipeline that Assad rejected would pass through Syria.

So why is the USA doing regime change in the middle east? It is mainly in service of expanding the power and influence of Israel and maybe some part of it has to do with weakening Russia and possible friendly countries. At least with Syria. There has definitely been a march on institutions of Zionists and pro Israel extremists and the Jewish lobby which includes both donors and organizations is powerful and American politicians are even transparently ridiculously servile to Israel in their over the top rhetoric. In a manner that exceeds say the Reagan administration under which Netanyahou also thought the Israel lobby was powerful.

Trump is just rhetorically all over the place, but it seems that for the most part he aligns with the neocon agenda even if sometimes his rhetoric was against them when he criticized them. Now, I would prefer he wouldn't align with the neocons but I have to call it as I see it.

Suffice to say letting the Jihadis loose, allowing Erdogan to expand his empire, and use mercenaries which he also used on Armenia and might also use against other countries in the future, and all of Israel's conduct, new land grabs, and the whole Syria, Libya and Iraq policy, cannot at all be defended from an ethical point of view. Even from a sheer benefit point of view for the USA, it is significantly questionable. But American + others aligning with it involvement in the middle east has been one of the biggest crimes in the 21st century so far. What has transpired has destroyed very large number of lives, leads to significant reduction of Christian communities, has costed enormous amount of money and played its role in large migration waves that have been destructive to european countries.