Col. Lang wants to know how Trump gets his ideas about Syria

Writing at his blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis, Pat Lang asked on September 6:

Why does Donald Trump say the things he does about Syria and its government?

He insists that the SAG [Syrian Arab govenment] attacks its people with chemical weapons when such attacks have never been proven.  They have only been asserted by opponents of the government and in fact there exists a lot of evidence that these attacks have been staged by information operations projects like the White Helmets film production group with the surreptitious backing of a network of covert-action people within the UK government and money from USAID.

He insists that the jihadi defenders of their lodgement in Idlib Province are somehow worthy of American protection when in fact they are the same breed of Salafi takfiri fanatics that he boasts of having defeated in the "caliphate."

He insists that the SAA [Syrian Arab Army] and its allies are in the process of massacring the civilian population of Idlib Province when in fact the opposite is true.  Is it not clear that the usual blizzard of anti-government propaganda has been generated solely because the SAA is winning the day in Idlib Province?

He seems oblivious or indifferent to the fact that the Syrian Government is the protector of the Christian and other minorities in the country.  Is he not a Christian?

His positions seem to imitate precisely the attitude of the Israeli Likud-run government and its closest US supporters like Sheldon Adelson, the casino man.  These forces have made it clear that they prefer that Syria be made into a Hobbesian maelstrom in which many small groups fight among themselves forever, rather than the present multi-confessional government.

Where does Trump get such ideas?  Is it from his addiction to Fox News personalities like Jack Keane, Lou Dobbs, Brian Kilmeade, and Sean Hannity?  These are people who collectively have no real understanding of the realities of the Middle East but they all have a lot of opinions seemingly based on free-floating hostility toward anything in the world that does not serve their hyper-nationalism.

Is it the Turks who tell him such self-serving untruths?  Is it not clear that Erdogan and company are intent on splitting off parts of Syria for future annexation?

Do CIA, DIA, State INR [U.S. State Department's intelligence bureau] and the rest of the IC [U.S. intelligence community] also feed him such nonsense?  The analysts must know the truth if they are not swept up in massive group-think.  Perhaps their leaders are simply afraid to tell him the truth in the face of the opposition of people like Jared Kushner and his allies in Bolton's NSC staff.

I support many of Trump's positions with regard to the economy, immigration and his trade struggle with China.  I may even vote for him considering the choices likely to be advanced by the Democrats but I am at a loss to understand why he claims to believe his own foolish statements about Syria.  pl

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I'd say that Putin set Trump straight about Assad and Syria's government the first time they spoke in private. So, since then Trump has known very well that he's been repeating trash talk about Syria.  He's also known that if he challenges the trash talk, that makes him ipso facto a pawn of the Kremlin at best and at worst, a collaborator.

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