Donald Trump’s Syrian oil war

This Voice of America video says about itself:

US Patrols Deployed Near Syrian Oil Wells

Footage broadcast online, Friday, November 1, seems to show U.S. patrols being deployed to oil wells in northeast Syria.

Video posted by Kurdistan 24 shows armored vehicles bearing U.S. flags stationed at oil wells in Al Qahtaniyah.

On Thursday, October 31, U.S. armored vehicles were seen near the Syria-Turkey border in a part of northeastern Syria where they had not been observed since early October, when Washington announced the withdrawal of American forces, according to witness video footage.

Translated from Dutch daily Trouw, 4 November 2019:

President Trump is willing to wage war in order to appropriate Syrian oil. Not only is that illegal, the military top brass has no idea what Trump expects from the military.

By Ghassan Dahhan

With the same speed at which American armored vehicles left Syria last month, the US Americans are now returning in the opposite direction. United States soldiers occupy some of their old positions, but mainly have an eye for one type of location: oil fields.

The situation in Northern Syria has thus become even more chaotic than it already was, because many places where the Americans used to be have since been taken over by Russian, Syrian and Turkish troops. The Americans accept the risk of conflicts and try to squeeze themselves in despite the international crowds.

This situation is confusing not only for the Syrians, Russians and Turks: there is also a lot of confusion within the American armed forces. The military top brass has no idea what the plan in Syria is and are still waiting for clear instructions from the political leadership, CNN reported Saturday. The American presence in Syria is illegal because the US does not have permission from the Syrian government to stay there. The military is only instructed to “protect” the oil fields in Syria, but it is unclear against whom, how and where exactly. …

For more information, the military should go to the public speeches of US President Donald Trump. He not only wants to keep the Americans on Syrian soil, but also wants to take what is underground. With a loud applause from his supporters, Trump said on Friday at a party meeting what he expects of his soldiers: “We did keep the [Syrian] oil, if you don’t mind. We kept the oil. … We will also help ourselves.”

Trump said last week that he is willing to go to war with other countries to gain access to oil in Syria, and that he would like to send the American oil corporation ExxonMobil to the country to get it off the ground and sell it. International law says that what Trump does and wants is prohibited. The taking of oil can in some cases even be described as a war crime. In the meantime, images of American soldiers and vehicles in Northeast Syria, with a pumpjack pumping Syrian oil out of the ground in the background, travel the world. …

Defense Minister Mark Esper said last week that the Americans are also there to prevent any “Russian and Syrian troops” from gaining access to the oil.