Does anyone understand what's going on with US policy there?

I supposed it's no more chaotic than most other aspects of US foreign policy. But in some of those cases, one can discern a glimpse of method to the madness. Here, it seems to be only madness.

Just another catastrophic gaffe by our Moron in Chief.

(10-10-2019 02:37 PM)InterestedX Wrote:  Just another catastrophic gaffe by our Moron in Chief.

Always good to get an unbiased opinion.

I would say that both the current CIC and the preceding CIC had made Turkey and Syria the shitshow that it is.

Is our leaving and the resulting current Turkish incursion against the Kurds part of the fallout of the recent decision by Trump to leave Syria? No doubt.

But, the mangled involvement into Syria along with the absolute clownshow by his Holiness Obama preceding and into the Syrian intervention did a fantastic job of setting the stage for a situation with zero good end options. I am sure Interested either isnt aware of how the situation got started, or simply doesnt care.

That is the fun about blinded politics.

Contrary to what you lockstep Trumpkins believe, I really do know a lot about the situation. What this douche-in-chief has done is unforgivable, but that applies to a lot of his actions.

But hey, keep making excuses for him. He's your guy.

(10-10-2019 03:32 PM)InterestedX Wrote:  Contrary to what you lockstep Trumpkins believe, I really do know a lot about the situation. What this douche-in-chief has done is unforgivable, but that applies to a lot of his actions.

But hey, keep making excuses for him. He's your guy.

What excuses have I given him?

I am horribly sorry that your demigod Barry was noted as at least sharing in the Syria/Turkey shitshow. How terrible that is. But note the term used : "share".

And, I dont think you realize this, but I did not vote for the man.

Good grief. What a tool. Change that: a tool that leaps to unsubtantiated conclusions. Neat combo there....

Agreed. Obama's approach of "Russians are evil, so we'll take the other side," was not sound policy. Trump leaving the Kurds to their fate will certainly damage trust of the US in the region, but US policy in Syria was muddled to begin with.

(10-10-2019 03:32 PM)InterestedX Wrote:  Contrary to what you lockstep Trumpkins believe, I really do know a lot about the situation. What this douche-in-chief has done is unforgivable, but that applies to a lot of his actions.
But hey, keep making excuses for him. He's your guy.

So, what are the choices?

1) Stay there forever; or
2) Leave at some point, and at that point necessarily "abandon our allies" just as we did in Vietnam.

Do you have any other alternatives?

I do, as a matter of fact. Never fight a war that you don't intend to win. If you go in, go in to win. Wars end two ways--you win or you surrender. Fighting, without fighting to win, is fighting to surrender. So what do you do? If you go in at all, then go in full bore, guns blazing, without rules of engagement (ROE) that guarantee defeat. As Norman Schwarzkopf so eloquently said, armies are good for doing two tings--killing people and breaking things. So kill everybody who needs killing (which we still haven't done after 18 years in Afghanistan) until they get tired of dying, break everything that needs breaking, GTFO, and stay TFO, after making sure that the people you leave in charge understand that if they screw up, you'll be back to kill them.

The way I see it, if you're not going to do that, then you don't belong there at all. So if all you're going to do is fight not to win, then we are better off coming home. Whenever you pull out, you will be "abandoning your allies." There is no way to do otherwise. We abandoned our allies when we pulled out of Vietnam, but it was the right move. It was time to quit fighting a winless war with at least one hand tied behind our back.

Question, did you support Barack Obama's proposal to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan? Did you complain that he was "turning his back on our allies"? If not, why not? Because that is exactly what he was proposing.

(10-10-2019 05:46 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-10-2019 03:32 PM)InterestedX Wrote:  Contrary to what you lockstep Trumpkins believe, I really do know a lot about the situation. What this douche-in-chief has done is unforgivable, but that applies to a lot of his actions.
But hey, keep making excuses for him. He's your guy.

So, what are the choices?

1) Stay there forever; or
2) Leave at some point, and at that point necessarily "abandon our allies" just as we did in Vietnam.

Do you have any others alternatives?

I do, as a matter of fact. Never fight a war that you don't intend to win. If you go in, go in to win. Wars end two ways--you win or you surrender. Fighting, without fighting to win, is fighting to surrender. So what do you do? If you go in at all, then go in full bore, guns blazing, without rules of engagement (ROE) that guarantee defeat. As Norman Schwarzkopf so eloquently said, armies are good for doing two tings--killing people and breaking things. So kill everybody who needs killing (which we still haven't done after 18 years in Afghanistan), break everything that needs breaking, GTFO, and stay TFO, after making sure that the people you leave in charge understand that if they screw up, you'll be back to kill them.

The way I see it, if you're not going to do that, then you don't belong there at all. So if all you're going to do is fight not to win, then we are better off coming home. Whenever you pull out, you will be "abandoning your allies." There is no way to do otherwise. We abandoned our allies when we pulled out of Vietnam, but it was the right move. It was time to quit fighting a winless war with at least one hand tied behind our back.

Question, did you support Barack Obama's proposal to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan? Did you complain that he was "turning his back on our allies"? If not, why not? Because that is exactly what he was proposing.

+1!

(10-10-2019 05:45 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Agreed. Obama's approach of "Russians are evil, so we'll take the other side," was not sound policy. Trump leaving the Kurds to their fate will certainly damage trust of the US in the region, but US policy in Syria was muddled to begin with.

Obama constructed a fatally flawed Syria policy at the outset. Obama at the outset tried a 'red line' that shouldnt be crossed in Assad's quest to annihilate his opponents in the civil conflict and Assad's use of chemical warfare, and when Assad persisted in the gas warfare Obama slunk back to his couch.

It was only after the question of ISIS popped up that Obama committed the US to the conflict. And within that scope there was never a clear objective -- save one -- dont use our equipment to fight Assad. Which was promptly ignored.

Then it devolved into a proxy fight with Russia -- in which in one encounter somewhere near 200 Russian 'volunteers' died at the hands of US bombs. And it further devolved into a proxy fight with Iran.

I mean, the setting was obvious that the US could *not* simply focus on ISIS, by definition it was a multi-party shitshow at the outset.

On top of it, one of the major considerations of the Obama administration in the entire Syrian venture was how to do it and still be able to kowtow to Tehran. he found out he couldnt the hard way.

The manner of US involvment in Syria was a shitshow from the outset.

That is *not* support for Trump's current move to untie that Gordian knot. He is doing it in a manner that could be highly negative vis a vis the perception of the US to its friends and allies. But the predicate absolutely fked up manner in how the Syrian quagmire was initially engaged cannot be overlooked in any way, shape, or form.

Interested, I look forward to your thoughts on both the limited withdrawal and the implications of how this was initially put into play. That is, if you can avoid shoehorning everything into the predetermined myopic lens of 'Trumpkins' that you have already shown to the world.

The obvious answer for the OP is to ask who benefits from the move, and then follow their money trail back to the White House.

This gem was released today.