While I would be the last person to claim Trump was invariably telling the truth, I have seen in the last couple days reports that the MIC seems to have gained some kind of increased control over him lately, and Shipp's talk which you link clearly indicates that Trump has but limited power over that organization.

All I mean by this comment is to imply that none of this might be his intentional, willful action, but rather policies forced on him which he has no choice about at all.

It is unclear to me whether he has any free agency left presently.

Sadly, my gut feeling is that the contrast between this current arming of terrorists indicates a sharp divergence from policies previously undertaken by the Trump administration, and thus that he has been sucked into the swamp and is now just another of it's drones (if he ever wasn't, as I once hoped).

I am sure the panopticon wielded by the deep state/shadow government has plenty of existential dirt on Trump, just as it has on almost everyone else, and he might well be simply a wholly owned deep state puppet now, if, as I stated, there was a time when he wasn't.

Whatever the case regarding Trump is, this new resurgence of arming terrorists is bad for Syria, bad for the USA, and ominous indeed.

Thanks for your report. I wish you had better news, but I'll take the truth over happy fantasies every time.