Trump orders American troops to retreat

Perhaps the most shameful American foreign policy decision in my lifetime.

 

Not even close. The decision to arm and support Al Qaeda/ISIS and other extremist Islamist Jihadist groups in Syria led to the death of over 400,000 people.

That started in 2011 .. were you not alive then ?

 

You're dreaming...some weapons undoubtedly found their way into ISIS and Al Qaeda hands as a result of the various out revolutions in the region, but there was no U.S. policy dictating such. If you have evidence...show it. And, yes, I was alive then and in 1956, when the Republican right-wing urged a revolution in Hungry, promising to support it, then did nothing as Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest and crushed the Hungarian freedom fighters.

 

Absolutely there was a policy dictating support for the Syrian Rebels - What side of the war did you think we were on ? Assad ?

 

Trump's entire platform has been embraced by DP leadership in the recent, but apparently forgotten past. This proves that Trump's most rabid critics are either disingenuous or very detached from political reality.

I suppose too much MSM Fake News can do that to anyone.

 

There were a lot of different factions fighting in Syria. One of those factions supposedly favored a western-style democratic state. Israel, McCain, Lindsey Graham and others supported them and supported arming them. Obama and the CIA were skeptical. They limited weapon support to small arms. It is believed by some that that was the CIA mission in Benghazi...buying back small arms supplied to the rebels there and recirculating them to the Syrian rebels.
Assad's primary battle was against those rebels. ISIS, apparently, morphed out of the remnants of Al Qaeda fleeing from Iraq.

 

I'm watching all the former leftist doves pulling 180-degree bootlegger turns and becoming bloodthirsty warhawks. Lots of whiplash. Necks are gonna be sore.

 

Not at all...but we understand loyalty to our friends...this could have been negotiated, both with Turkey, the Kurds and inside of our own government. It was not.

 

They've been at each others throats for over a thousand years, but yeah, we should've waited for a lull in the action to pull out.

Look, let's not pretend there's a smooth, diplomatic way to ease ourselves out of that viper's nest, because that's just silly.

Trump was the leader that had the balls to just rip off the band-aid.

 

Powerful political factions encourage group think.

"But we may also defer to someone else's version, although we believe it to be false, because it pays us to do so. Galileo recanted because those who wanted him to admit that the sun went around the earth were powerful, thus demonstrating that this traffic in different versions of reality is, at least to some extent, regulated by power."
THE PREVALENCE OF DECEIT, F. G. Bailey, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY 1991. p 99.

 

No...he is the one that has proven the United States cannot be trusted under his administration. He used the Kurds to claim he's defeated ISIS and now is throwing them under the bus.

 

That's not true, gifte.

Syria was a wreck from 2006 on with drought, inflation, unemployment and the collapse of Agriculture and their Oil sector. In early 2011 when Assad arrested the schoolboys and killed some of them protests erupted all over the country. Neither Iran nor Russia did anything to help Syria.. .. Now Syria is destroyed. 6-7 million have fled the country and Assad want money to rebuild Syria.

Blaming Obama is completely ridiculous and dishonest.

 

Your false analogies notwithstanding, please give me a documented example of Dems advocating a sudden, unexpected reversal in foreign policy leading to the betrayal of an ally putting their lives in immediate danger.

 

Apparently, the White House just announced that Trump believes the Turkish invasion is a bad idea...i.e. an admission that he backed down to Erdogan's demands.

 

They're not. They're going with the fairytale of a "slow, diplomatic withdrawal".

Which is just another way of saying forever-war quagmire.

 

Nonsense, the Kurds have been betrayed consistently by every government that they have ever had to deal with. Their near autonomy in Northern Iraq has given them time and resources to prepare for their own defense. There is no excuse for the Kurds to ever rely on any nation to protect them.

What did our government promise Ukraine in exchange for giving up their nukes?

 

There is a lot of wisdom in those words, "They are not like us."

But we live in an age that doesn't believe in the concept of foreigners, so that's a difficult sell.

 

Has the House voted to declare war on Turkey?

 

Not sure we did. I believe that deal was between Russia and Ukraine. We supported Russian nuclear weapon scientists to the tune of around $300M/year, for years...not sure that's still continuing. And, the deal was part of the break-up of the USSR...i.e. return our nukes and you may go your own way.

 

They never voted to send troops to Syria in the first place, why would they start doing it by the book now?

 

No...but it will launch another investigation into why Trump told Erdogan that we wouldn't stand in his way...and whether that decision had any connection to Trump's business deal on the Twin Trump Towers in Istanbul.

 

I am opposed to Trump's retreat because he is betraying a key ally who sacrificed much to do the fighting for us.

That was the focus of that article, the defeat of the ISIS caliphate, which was accomplished by the Kurds, and now Trump is abandoning them.

In the aftermath of the Iraq war and a decade of fighting in Afghanistan, there was talk of sending American troops to deal with ISIS. Since only Muslims nations can defeat Muslim terrorists that was the focus of that article.

The circumstances are different today. Trump and the Pentagon followed my advice. The U.S. supported the Kurds in destroying the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq, not American combat troops. Now Trump is sacrificing the Kurds to help Russia.

Seth, you should pay less attention to issues from three years ago, and more attention to what is happening now. Of course, this is diversion from Trump's dishonorable decision. That post was written in October 2016. Trump had not been elected yet, and Hillary was expected to be elected.

If anything, at the time, I was offering advice to Hillary, not Trump.

Talk about taking a report out of context.

 

The modern incarnation of ISIS - contrary to the propaganda narrative - (as is the case with a whole lot of MSM reporting on Syria) did not morph out of the remnants of ISIS/Al Qaeda (but they had split by this time) in Iraq.

IS was formed after the Islamist Jihadists groups (and there were many but Al Nusra/Al Qaeda in Syria - and various other groups of the same Ilk such as the Islamic Front and foreign Jihadists) took over near all of Syria.

The reporting during this time - with respect to the character of the "resistance" was not completely horrible. Strict Sharia courts were set up in every city - complete with Gov't and an economy.

https://mideastshuffle.com/2014/10/04/biden-turks-saudis-uae-funded-and-armed-al-nusra-and-al-qaeda/

The first part of Biden's comment is correct - there were no moderate rebels of any significance - This was not a "civil war" - it was an extremist Islamist insurgency. (the second part is also correct - but Joe omits US involvement which we will get to later)

This is from a 2013 report from the NY-Times ( and you can find hundreds of others that say the same thing)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/w...-create-dilemma-for-us.html?pagewanted=all&_r=

ISIS was formed in Late 2013 - It was in 2014 that ISIS went into Iraq. This created a problem as we were on the same side as ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria ... but fighting against them in Iraq.

This necessitated Obama's "Moderate Rebel Lie" The NY -Times then quickly forgot its previous reporting and went along with the Establishment false narrative.

You would not find this stuff as the leading story on any major networks .. and not much in the major print either. There were however a number in congress speaking out.

This was Rand Paul - on CNN's Sunday Morning Program "State of the Union".

http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2...-my-son-into-that-mess-on-the-crisis-in-iraq/

So no - I am not Dreaming - and neither is Paul - but hey - lets assume Paul was "dreaming". The dude has just accused the Obama Administration of Arming Al Qaeda (aka the 911 terrorist group).

Is this not news ? Every major newspaper and network should have had " Congressman Paul accuses Obama Administration of Arming the 911 terrorists" - as the lead story .. in Bold across the front page.

What we got was silence .... crickets. The Media in this nation knows better than to go against the Establishment narrative.

You are correct about Benghazi - and enough time has passed that this actually was included in a documentary I watched not long ago. Fox also did a report on weapons moving from Benghazi to Syria in the early part of the war .... facilitated by the CIA.

As per our policy at the time - we have declassified Defense Intelligence Agency Documents just after the outbreak of armed insurgency.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-con...12-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf

ISIS hadn't formed yet or they would have been included in the groups we were supporting.

13 Bipartisan in Congress cosponsored the "Stop Arming Terrorist Act" --

https://gabbard.house.gov/news/StopArmingTerrorists

A whole lot of people must be having the same dream as me ! .. amazing

Your reaction is actually no surprise - this bill got next to zero media coverage and certainly there were no "discussions" of any kind that played out in the MSM - which further investigated and detailed these claims.

With respect to actual arms shipments and supply chains - this link gives some details of the tens of thousands of tons of sophisticated military equipment - including shoulder launched surface to air missiles (perfect for taking out civilian airliners) - given to the Al Qaeda

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-america-armed-terrorists-in-syria/

 

Dirty Donald repaying his debts to his boss Vlad the bad and mother Russia.

 

You lost me with the mention of "Rand Paul." He's a nut, as was his father.