Donald Trump 'orders immediate and full withdrawal of US troops from Syria'

You misinterpreted me. I'm not claiming that the West is especially bloody, though the argument can be made, I'm arguing that Muslims aren't "the enemy" of Western peoples, other Western peoples are.

The same is true for Muslims and the same is true for the Chinese. Cultural affinity is often a result of geographic proximity, which tends to breed conflict.

Over the last 1500 years more Westerners have killed each other than whichever Muslims dream of it could ever dream of.

So did our liberal ancestors, and so do our liberal contemporaries.

Idealists always want to control everything, that's the nature of it.

Some Muslims are idealists who want to bring about global Caliphate, but most are people with lesser ambitions and more mundane goals.

"The West" didn't do anything, Charles Martel did. And you can bet that at least a dozen other Germanic warlords were more preoccupied with Charles Martel than they were with Muslims in Spain.

What I'm trying to get you to see is how peculiar and arbitrary your viewpoint is. There have been people, and they have had enemies. Usually, those enemies have been people from within their cultural group. Sometimes, they're not.

Interesting. So is being Christian a prerequisite of being Western? Let's talk about France and Sweden, for example. Let's leave the Muslim issue aside and assume that the Swedes had disallowed any significant Muslim immigration, an alternate reality I'm sure you'd appreciate. Would the Swedes, who are, aside from their significant Muslim minority, extremely Atheistic, still be "Western?"

Further, the fact that art is appreciated in the West is enough to make one a Westerner? Japanese culture has, in recent decades, had a much more profound impact on Western culture than Russian culture has.

And this brings me to another interesting question. African-American culture has become a powerful cultural force not just in the West, but around the world. How "Western" do you think African-Americans are?

Curious. A Catholic, Spanish-speaking republic is not enough to make one "Western?"

What about mostly-white northern Mexico? Culturally, quite different from the old Aztec heartland or Mayan lands. Is that enough to make it "Western?"

Fair enough. They're Catholic, white, and fairly wealthy. Most people would consider this enough to put them in the "Western" camp, if they were to think about it.

Interesting. Why can't one look at "Mayan culture" as an "important facet" of Western civilization? Clearly, a foreign influence became an "important facet" once, why not twice?

In agricultural, culinary, and historical terms it seems clear to me that the peoples of Mexico (and the Americas in general) have had an enormous impact on the West.

 

A claim that you can't prove... not worth it to discuss, but to dismiss.

Of course you got it from some nazi site. They didn't give you the context that rips up your mantra completely.

 

Sure. But these Westerners were vying for mere political power. The Muslims want political and cultural power. They would extinguish Western Civilization to the extent of their abilities.

And those with lesser ambitions follow the lead of the idealists

I reiterate. The Germans were not interested in obliterating English culture when they fought the two world wars. The Muslims are interested in obliterating non-Islamic cultures. I do not find that an arbitrary distinction.

Being a Christian is certainly helpful. It connects you to a large cultural component of the West. Your question about the Swedes is interesting. Insofar as Christianity is dying everywhere in the West, I would not cast them out quite yet. The Swedes are dying as a people and the West is dying in general. The death of Christianity is sufficient to make the case.

You think so? I don't. I've tried to read a Japanese novel (in translation of course) and I found it bewildering and didn't finish. Japanese music is interesting to a point, but then seems all the same. The same with Japanese art. All the Japanese culture I have encountered has barely affected me. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, etc. have had profound impact.

Frankly, I am astonished at your statement. Are you referring to Japanese comic books?

Very Western. They are Christians, their music uses a diatonic, well-tempered scale.

Not from what I've seen in Mexican churches in New Mexico. The Catholicism is a veneer on a much older and alien sensibility.

I will defer to your judgment, then.

But not in literary, religious, musical or other artistic terms. We read and some of us revere the literary output of the Jews. Not so much the Mayans.

 

Let's poke some holes here. The Muslims, more than the Westerners, were typically willing to accept political power and nothing more. Under the Muslims Egypt remained mostly Coptic for nearly a millennia, and Spain was a mixture of Christians, Muslims, and Jews. So we can see that Muslims often were just after political power. But let's go further. European wars weren't always about dynastic struggles. From the 15th and especially 16th century onwards Western wars tended to take on a more ideological bent. Starting with Hussite-Catholic wars of the 14th Century and most recently ending in the Cold War "Western Civilization" was up for grabs. Even from a cultural point of view, Westerners have been their own worst enemies.

And I don't understand how one can trace "Western" civilization from very different Jewish, Greco-Roman, and Germanic roots but be unable to imagine a Western world that was Muslim. The Turks have always straddled that line, and as far as I'm concerned Muslims in the Balkans are just as much "Western" as the Serbs.

No, that's usually not the case. Revolutions get co-opted by moderates every single time. In France (several times), in Russia, in Mexico, in the US, on and on, the moderates tend to take the reins. That's why in Muslim Indian the Muslims took the step of considering Hinduism as a "religion of the book" despite the fact that it's very obviously not. Ultimately, they needed to get along with the Hindus to at least some extent, so they moderated.

I very much think that you don't understand Nazism. They wanted to change everything about Western culture. World War 1 is a different case, more of a naked power struggle.

Why can't Western culture morph away from Christianity? It certainly has morphed away from the medieval conception of it. If Western culture can become Christian, and remain "Western," I don't understand why it can't become non-Christian and remain "Western."

It's not a matter of what I think. I have practically no knowledge of contemporary Japanese culture, about as much as I know about contemporary Russian culture, which is to say very little. It's a matter of what is. Asians in general and the Japanese in particular are having a profound impact on the West, more and more.

Comic books, television shows, movies, video games, electronic technology in general, etc. etc.

You've been? Me too. I'm from New Mexico, and there is a difference between Hispanos and Mexicans. Hispanos are more akin to their Northern Mexican brethren, very Spanish in cultural origins, moreso than more recent Latino immigrants into the US who tend to come from southern Mexico or Central America.

Mmm, and what Romanian literature are you versed in? Any Serbian songs you enjoy?

Like Slavs and Germanics, the peoples of Mexico became inhabitants of the Western world, and Westernized.

 

Yah. Gotta watch out for Dr Oz.

 

The modern Islamist movement is very much a cultural one. Islamists are afraid (quite rightly, imo) that Western culture will take over from an Islamic one. And Syria and Anatolia used to be entirely Christian. They no longer are and the Copts are being erased from Egypt.

Muslims are iconoclasts. I visited a museum of Islamic art in Copenhagen and with very few exceptions the art was all decorative patterns. Quite different than Western Museums. I can certainly imagine Europe becoming Muslim. But I don't like it.

In Russia and especially China the revolutionaries did their level best to destroy the culture and succeeded fairly well.

What were the Nazis intending to replace Western culture with?

Well, Christianity wasn't a civilization in the first millennium. It was a religion. It inherited its philosophy and aesthetics from the Pagans and a fair amount of theology from the Jews. So we can consider Christendom as a continuation of Pagan civilization. Islam is a mature civilization which does not need or want any aspect of civilization from the West.

It is an impact that I personally have not noticed. I would venture that the West is having a much greater impact on the East. Comic books and video games are a Western thing.

I spent a week in Santa Fe. I was impressed by the difference in the Catholic churches there than back East.

The only Romanian influence I can attest to is Dracula. And Serbia is not renowned for their composers, just their tennis players. So you have me there.

If you insist.

 

Russia / Putin is happy as a pig in schiest!

 

Why would the US want a long term relationship with the Kurds?

One needs to examine who the Kurds are and what they have been up to for the last few centuries.
Kurds historically and still consider themselves Iranians.
Kurds refuse to assimilate with the people of any country they occupy.
The Kurds have instigated numerous armed insurrections in every country they occupy.

The Kurds are hoping to take advantage of all the turmoil in this area to form their own country. This always has been and always will be their number one agenda. They are no friend of the US.

 

Kurdish support if efforts to erradicate Islamic extremists was sought and obtained by the US military prior to Trump’s election and maintained since. As the Islamic extremists have been decimated, the need for Kurdish support has diminished.

The Kurds want their own sovereign state, they’ve received lots of US military equipment and acquitted themselves well in battle. Trump doesn’t want to confront Syria, Russia, Turkey and Iran to create a Kurdish state.

With US withdrawal, the Kurds need to adjust to the new situation. The Russians might prefer to prevent Turkey from coming in to slaughter Kurds, Iran might appreciate Kurdish help fighting decimated extremists, Assad probably lacks the capacity to confront them on his own. The interests of Russia, Iran and Assad regarding the Kurds don’t mesh and these three may use the Kurds to advance their differing aims in Syria.

 

We have a few reasons and, eventually, we will.

No, they ARE Iranians. To say that they consider themselves Iranians is like saying that Americans consider themselves Germanic. We are Germanic in the same sense that Kurds are Iranian. But, like the Kurds, being Germanic isn't integral to American identity.

HAH! Okay, the current nations in the Middle East have only existed for something like 100 years. How long were the Poles under German and Russian influence? Should those dastardly Poles have integrated sooner? Silly.

Yes, of course they have. Just like the Poles. That's what conquered nations do.

This anti-Kurdish bent you're on is rather strange.

 

Nothing peculiar about this period.

But one cannot get around what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When
they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
https://www.city-journal.org/html/jefferson-versus-muslim-pirates-13013.html

 

So, suddenly you are admitting the Kurds are our allies. Good. One down, few more are still denying it.

Being an ally is a promise to cover each others backs. Or do you have some other idea of what being an ally means? Perhaps you think an ally is someone you expect to take a bullet for you, but you'll never consider doing the same for him. I ask, because that is EXACTLY how Trump treats our allies.

 

Our allies will think twice before trusting the US again. There is a good chance we'll cut and run and leave our allies to die in the fox-holes.

 

They were our allies last week, and then Trump flipped them the finger, so now they will likely go from being an ally to becoming an enemy.

You are arguing it is no longer in out interest to fight terrorism, and you may well be correct, because it sure seems like Trump admin policy is to ignore terrorists.

When you say "our interests" you mean the interests of Trump admin, and his loyalists, not the interests of the American citizens.

 

How do you define victory in a military conflict? Victory is reaching your goals.

We failed to reach our goals in this fight, so we lost the war. There are still 30 000 terrorists in the area, and we managed to train only 20% of the local fighters we which we had determined were needed to keep ISIS from regrouping, and reorganizing. We lost the war.

 

Now the moron in chief flew to Iraq for a photo-op and exposed the location and identities of a SEAL team to the whole world, including our enemies.

 

The Kurds have enough enemies without looking for more. But if we aren't around, they can't attack us. The Taliban used to be our allies, too. Then they flipped us the finger. When it comes to finger flipping it is probably better to flip first.

It doesn't seem like that to me. In any case, my strategy is to permit the terrorists and other Islamic forces to fight each other. That argues for a hands off approach. What don't you like about this strategy?

As an American citizen, I get a say in what the interests of American citizens are.

 

I thought our goal was to depose Assad, not that I ever understood why we should want this. ISIS, too, wanted to depose Assad so we could have considered them allies. This war was just another of baffling neocon foreign adventures which always turn out badly.

 

If deposing Assad was Trumps goal then it is obvious we failed to reach that goal.

 

That was Obama and Hillary's goal. It was a stupid goal. It is wise to quit fighting for a stupid goal.

 

So, Trump did not have any goals? He just kept the troops there with no goals? That would be incredibly stupid, and yet not surprising knowing who we are talking about. Of course not having any goals in a war makes it easier to declare victory, even if nothing was accomplished.

The military says they had goals, like training an X number of Kurds to keep ISIS from resurfacing. They said they were 20% done to reach that goal. They also said ISIS is still not defeated, since there are sill 30 000 fighters in the area.

Either way, we have not reached any goals, so the pull-out means we lost the war.

 

And that is fine by me. Not accomplishing Obama's goals is better than accomplishing them.

 

We don’t know there are 30,000 terrorists in Syria like Pro Line says, as Reagan showed us, one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.

It is undeniable Obama’s intervention in Syria was focused on helping overthrow Assad. Obama ridiculed the significance of ISIS. Gradually these extremists became a greater problem and it became evident Putin wasn’t going to allow Assad’s ouster. There were “red lines”, Russian duplicity erradicating chemical weapons and both devastating and ineffective responses to their unconscionable use.

Trump refocused on ISIS, they’ve been literally decimated and lost their caliphate, I don’t know how many are still around, but they certainly aren’t the threat they once were.

I believe the notion of taking Tartus from the Russians by supporting an insurgency against Assad was a mistake. It made sense to support that insurgency because Assad is a brutal tyrant, but as is often the case, particularly in the Muslim world, brutal tyrants also keep worse things from happening.

 

They'll be fine with making the demand as long as it isn't taken seriously.

 

Them why on earth did he keep the troops there for two years?