In the latest reality TV episode of Trump Goes to Washington the President made a curious admission. On more than one occasion in the last few days President Trump has repeated in one context or another, “we’re there for the oil” when asked about troops in Syria.  At a press conference with Turkish president Erdoğan Trump declared “We’re keeping the oil, we have the oil, the oil is secure, we left troops behind only for the oil.”

The big irony of this president is that he tends to tell the truth rarely but when he does, he wasn’t supposed to. The fact that the U.S. is in the Middle East and Africa solely for the natural resources is the worst kept secret in Washington. Of course they keep up the facade that our troops are there to for a number of honorable reasons, for this they maintain a grab bag of deceptive go-to talking points. The first one is the term “national interests”, which is of course a euphemism for financial interests. Other misleading items in the bag include national security, American freedom, the Constitution, democracy (home or abroad), human rights, and fighting terrorism among others.

The Pentagon is doing it’s duty by pushing back on the presidents blunder by going out of it’s way to clarify the U.S. position that we’re actually there to fight ISIS. That’s only a partial truth. They want us to believe the fight against ISIS is a stand alone issue because…we just don’t like terrorism. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We fight terrorism in the region because they tend to disrupt our extraction of resources. We’re there for the oil, folks.

Even far right talking head and Trump cheerleader Laura Ingraham tried to rein in the president during an exchange on The Ingraham Angle, she sounded more like she was coaching him.

“Not taking the oil, they’re not taking the oil,” Ingraham said.

“Well, maybe we will. Maybe we won’t,” Trump said.

“They’re protecting the facility,” Ingraham said.

“I don’t know. Maybe we should take it, but we have the oil. Right now, the United States has the oil. So they say he left troops in Syria. No. I got rid of all of them other than we’re protecting the oil. We have the oil,” Trump said.

This president can’t take a hint. Much like targeting and destroying cultural sites, another thing Trump threatens to do, outwardly plundering resources with the military is a war crime. Trump doesn’t know enough about foreign policy or international law to even be involved; after three years as POTUS he’s still grossly unqualified to be president.

Bottom line, Trump mistakenly let the cat out of the bag. Our freedom and the integrity of the U.S. Constitution in no way hinges on our presence in the Middle East or Africa. We aren’t there for human rights, or to encourage democracy. Quite the opposite. It’s far more common for the U.S. to prop up and coddle dictators who will in exchange allow our oil companies carte blanche within the borders of their country.

“We’re keeping the oil, we have the oil, the oil is secure, we left troops behind only for the oil.” — A rare truth escapes the lips of President Trump.