Trump orders American troops to retreat

yeah, Trump he has no military or foreign policy expertise or acumen. And this is the wrong way to get us out, but I rather get out the wrong way than stay the right way.

 

ISIS claimed to be a caliphate. It was a real dud too.

 

You might hate Trump, but he's signing your tune:

President Trump said,

"The hardest thing I have to do, by far, much harder than the witch hunt, is signing letters to parents of soldiers that have been killed. And it’s not only that — in areas where there’s not a lot of upside, if there’s any upside at all, and in many cases, it’s only downside.​

"And especially when that solider was killed in a Blue-on-Green attack. You know what that is, right? That’s where a solider being trained or whatever turns his gun on an American solider. 'Here, son. Take your gun. You know how to use it.' And he takes the gun and he turns it. And he shoots one — we have many of them in Afghanistan — in particular, in Afghanistan.​

"The hardest thing I have to do is signing those letters. That’s the hardest thing I have to do. And each letter is different. We make each letter different. And last week, I signed five of them for Afghanistan; one in Iraq; one in Syria, from two weeks ago. And sometimes I call the parents. Sometimes I see the parents. I go to Dover, when I can, but it’s — it’s so devastating for the parents that — you know. It’s so devastating when they bring that boy or young woman out of the back of those big, powerful planes in a coffin, and the parents are there."​

The neocons say we are abandoning the Kurds. We're not. But where was their concern about abandoning our soldiers in Syria to die for a cause that is not ours?

I can see Trump's point on this, as well as your point on Tulsi.

 

The problem I have is we greenlighted an ally to massacre the Kurds. That is not OK.

 

There are different Kurds. These Kurds are on our official terrorist listing and Turkey is a NATO ally. We always knew that Turkey was not going to allow Kurds to occupy their border region. They have ALWAYS been very clear about that. This is always how this was going to end. You want US troops to take on Turkey in order to nation-build a Kurdish homeland, and on the order of the President rather than by Congressional authorization?

 

No I want I want to tell our allies that actions like these are not ok as our ALLY. If they don't accept, then bye, get out of NATO.

Either that or we should actually leave. That includes leaving Saudi Arabia and Syria, both of which we still have troops in. And we just sent EVEN MORE TROOPS to Saudi Arabia. What is this ****

 

You want Turkey out of NATO? Have you looked at a globe lately, noted Russia's only warm water ports are on the Black Sea and that Turkey sits on the Straits and has the 9th ranked military in the world?

That's the exit plan, to actually leave Syria. Congress never authorized our presence there. If they want us to stay they should pass a declaration so stating.

 

No it is not ok, Trump messed up on how he is pulling out, but the end game is what I am more concerned about and that is getting our kids back home safe to their families.

 

Turkey has a right to protect their borders. Now the Kurds have a legitimate beef with how they are treated in turkey, but Turkey as a autonomous country has a need to protect that border with this new zone to stop kurdish rebels from fighting on Turkish soil. They wish to have the fight in the kurdish homeland in syria and not the kurdish homeland in Turkey. Now when Syria gets back on thier feet and they can prevent Kurdish excursions from that sector of Syria into Turkey, They may pressure Turkey to extract themselves from Syrian territory.

 

If ISIS wasn't so deadly they would be a joke.

 

Consider, Syria is in a key location for oil delivery to the European countries. It has an estimate 2.5 billion barrels
It’s not about ISIS. It’s about oil wealth, as usual. That’s why we are there. It’s no different then anyother oil rich nation that everyone engages in a proxy war over.

 

It’s a fight over oil, 2.5 billion barrels worth.
Always has been.

 

Do you think Turkey or the Kurds should pay for what Assad has done?

Nope.. Syria has never had much oil and what they did have peaked in 94. Its the worst quality as well. very sour and heavy.. really only fit for asphalt.

 

Syria's has no oil to speak of.. and they are a bad risk for pipeline transit. That has been tried and with a pipeline to Sidon from Ghawar. They do have gas but the gas market is completely flat in Europe.. The market is in Asia. Russia and Iran are rivals .. They have been scheming about pipelines since 2002, but there's no market so they won't be built.

Russia announced last year they'd be taking control of the oil areas. If Syria is lucky they may produce enough to meet domestic need.

 

You certainly do. That leftist sound bubble you inhabit is bad for your mental health,

 

I have no idea of what you are trying to say here. What has Assad done besides be a brutal dictator to his own people. Now the Kurds are rebels in Iraq, Syria and Turkey seeking to carve out a homeland which would include a piece of each of these three countries. Do I think it is the best interests of the American people's national security to keep Turkey as an "ally" to bottle up the southern Russian Fleet and for Iraq to be a buffer against Iran (or at least it was before Haliburton and the rest of the defense industry saw an opportunity to make trillions). Since he took over for his father the relationship with Israel was much improved from his side.

 

I don't think either should pay for what Assad and the Russians have done. But I also don't see how the hell we are going to avoid that. As I have said many times before the Middle East is the land of no good choices. No matter what you do people die and it's been that way for 1400 years, All you can do is try to stop the madness from spreading. By the way issues between the Turks and Kurds go back a long time although the French and Brits shattering of the Ottoman Empire mainly out of peak seems to have exacerbated those issues.

 

Wrong, it was a cultural clash in which religion played a fairly small part almost none in fact by the time the thirty years war ended in 1648.

 

The US and Russia could tell Assad that if he wants any financial help rebuilding Syria he needs to give Eastern Syria to the Kurds. Then they could also tell Erdogan to go home and shut up.

 

First word of the first sentence...

 

Look at what Turkey has REALLY done.. The were swamped with Iraqi refugees in Gulf War 1 and 3.. Now they are swamped with Syrian refugees and desperate to keep ISIS from spilling across their borders. Now they are in a no win situation with the Kurds.

What are you talking about "trillions and Haliburton"? Syria hasn't enough oil to even meet their domestic consumption.

Israel's complaint about Syria is their lawlessness and drug smuggling which Assad ignores.

 

That indeed would be about as good as you could hope for. But it would still leave the third of the Kurdish population still living in Turkey in harms way. And then there is an expansionist Iran to consider.

 

Yeah and the people with the expertise and knowledge are the one's that created this **** storm... Not only is The Middle East the land of no Good choices it is also the land of unintended consequences. Trying to destabilized the Russian back Assad Regime all but guaranteed some sort of Turkish intervention. Assad's a jackass, Putin's a Jackass, Al queada and Isis are jackasses so is erdogan. When a pack of braying jackasses go at it you have two choices, get the hell out of the way wait till the **** storm ends and then clean up the ensuing mess as best you can or pick up the biggest stick you've got and wade in amongst them but you should realize before hand that the likelihood is that you're almost certainly going to come out a good bit bruised and battered as well. Oh and in this case fifty soldiers is no where near a big enough stick and neither is a thousand.

 

Point taken.. Iran and Syria want a Shia corridor all the way to Sidon. In fact, Assad complained of over population in 2012 because the Syrians reject birth control.

Iran has been settling Shia from Lebanon and Iraq in Syria.. Its a lot like ethnic cleansing.

Iran wouldn't like the Kurds to have a small country in Eastern Syria.. Most Kurds are Sunni.

 

But they are also among the more religiously diverse ethnic groups in the ME which likely doesn't set well with the crazier Sunni groups like Al Queada and ISIS, or the Ayatollahs.