Trump hands over Syria to Turkey then threatens to "totally destroy & obliterate" her economy if... - Page 12 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15042305
jimjam wrote:Yes I actually try to think for myself but ………….. on pofo I tend to distance myself from the rather excitable cadre of smug know it alls ….. hence I am immediately labeled something or other , usually a dirty dirty "liberal" and/or Democrat. WOW! you are one lucky young man ….. you know a LOT.


As we know, language evolves. I feel the young can be cut a little slack for a failure to recognise some of these discrepancies. During my pre-voting years, l saw liberals as embracing egalitarianism and social generosity. This morphed into notions of irresponsible spending, mercifully put to rest by President Clinton, but sadly, re-emerging as "wrong-thinking, bloody minded" during the Bush ĺl years.

Obese Donald created a big fucking mess in the world's tinderbox and left 50 nukes in the backyard of a Mid East Macho Idiot who just happens to be lobbing shells towards American soldiers. I bit sloppy i'd say


Indeed. I would have thought your goverment learnt it's lesson when gifting bin Laden with cash, arms, and training to combat the Soviets in Afganistan...
#15042306
Patrickov wrote:The previous POTUS, as well as the father-son pair before him, might be more "eligible" to take this blame than the current one.


While I agree that this issue has history, I disagree on President Trump's culpability. He should have sought advice instead of relying on his gut and/or his Big Mac fueled brain box. Hubris for which allies paid a grim price.
#15042310
That's quite hilarious, at1914 is neither young, nor naive, nor needs to be 'cut any slack'. He's explaining exactly how people follow popular trends of the day. Just like how lifelong labour voters suddenly turn to Brexit ..justlike that, and start kissing Trump and Bojo's backside, like self confessed liberaly types talking out of same; in their usual patronising tones, even though they're no better than those they criticise. The irony comes in when you get other so called commies (not at1914), following same narratives while deriding liberals and cons at the same time. :lol:
#15042313
Turkish Army is likely to kick off an operation against Assad militias too. Recent clashes between Syrian National Army and Assad militias are signals of what is coming.

Turkey's public supports military operation overhelmingly. Erdogan has almost %90 supporting rate on this. This also pressures him. He has to succeed.
#15042314
Poor @annatar1914 . He is in trouble with the Western ‘not liberal’ bourgeois.


Stormsmith wrote:
While I agree that this issue has history, I disagree on President Trump's culpability. He should have sought advice instead of relying on his gut and/or his Big Mac fueled brain box. Hubris for which allies paid a grim price.



Trump, and indeed @noemon , are right about Europe lacking he intestinal fortitude to deal with instability on their own frontier.

If the Europeans were to mobilise some of their military power and deploy it in Greece and Bulgaria, Erdogan and his generals would have to reassess their calculations and redeploy part of their force to the West. This would greatly reduce the Turks prospects of success in Syria and would likely result in Putin being able to implement his peace plan. Strong though the Turks might be, they can’t fight on two fronts.

Logistically this European deployment is feasible as the Europeans are using their internal lines of communications. As @Rugoz points out, it isn’t lack of capability, it is lack of will.

Unfortunately the only language Erdogan understands is those words that are backed with force.
#15042318
noemon wrote:These same countries (EU, France, Germany, Italy, the UK) bombed Syria, Libya, Iraq and Yugoslavia to smithereens

The Americans did the bulk of the job in each case, without the Americans taking the lead the Europeans wouldn't have done anything even in Yugoslavia perhaps. As far as I can remember only the French and the Americans did any bombing in Libya and Iraq wasn't Europe's war as well, like they only assisted the Americans in Syria too. The Americans lead the way in Ukraine either.

Sure, if the Americans take the lead and go to war, some Euros always follow them, but they hardly ever take military action on their own. So if the Greeks want some military action against Turkey, they should rather ask the Yanks first to do something. I really wonder what military action the Europeans would take if Turkey attacked the Balkans. None, probably.
#15042319
foxdemon wrote:Poor @annatar1914 . He is in trouble with the Western ‘not liberal’ bourgeois.

Trump, and indeed @noemon , are right about Europe lacking he intestinal fortitude to deal with instability on their own frontier.

If the Europeans were to mobilise some of their military power and deploy it in Greece and Bulgaria, Erdogan and his generals would have to reassess their calculations and redeploy part of their force to the West. This would greatly reduce the Turks prospects of success in Syria and would likely result in Putin being able to implement his peace plan. Strong though the Turks might be, they can’t fight on two fronts.

Logistically this European deployment is feasible as the Europeans are using their internal lines of communications. As @Rugoz points out, it isn’t lack of capability, it is lack of will.

Unfortunately the only language Erdogan understands is those words that are backed with force.


Trump is right about nothing, and you're heinously reframing other people's posts and views to support your own, what about your own fortitude where catholics in NI are concerned, don't you feel sick with yourself? :roll:

But it's telling that you think Trump is right and Putin's "peace plan" is good... you've drunk the RT kool aid..
#15042323
Vanasalus wrote:What I am trying to say is: don’t fool yourselves. Proper antithesis of Islamic extremism is nothing but democratic and secular constitution and civil code. And rule of law.


I hope you are not referring to Turkey, where hundreds of journalists are sitting in jail for doing their job.

I have no illusions about the Kurds. Reports indicate that they are not adverse to a bit of ethnic cleansing in the villages they have captured. But all of this does not justify Turkish actions.

There can be no doubt that Turkey fueled the proxy war in Syria and that Turkey supports all kinds of rebels and thugs including Al Qaeda and ISIS fighters to do its dirty work in Syria.

Every people has the right to self-determination. That includes the Kurds. Erdogan has restarted the fight against the Kurds in Turkey on the pretext of a terror attack that was probably committed by some of Ergodan's Jihadist proxies. Terror is blind and Erdogan's Jihadist proxies will sooner or later turn against Turkey. If you have learned anything from the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan, as you claim, you should know that. If Turkey wasn't a Nato member, the PKK would be considered freedom fighters, while Turkey would be considered a major state supporter of terror. In fact, the German intelligence agency BND considers Turkey to be a hub of Sunni terror.

50 million Kurds in the ME and the diaspora aren't going to disappear into thin air. Turkish aggression and massacres of Kurds will eternalize the conflict. The only way to achieve security is for Turkey to make peace with the Kurds and allow them the autonomy they require. To let loose a bunch of hate-filled Jihadists and criminals on the population of Northern Syria is no way of achieving that.

Money and hatred for the Kurds drives Turkey’s Syrian fighters

BEIRUT — The Syrian fighters vowed to kill “pigs” and “infidels,” paraded their Kurdish captives in front of cameras and, in one graphic video, fired several rounds into a man lying on the side of a highway with his hands bound behind his back.

They are part of the self-styled Syrian National Army, the shock troops in Turkey’s offensive against U.S.-allied Kurdish forces who were abandoned last week after President Trump ordered the withdrawal of American troops from northern Syria.

The Syrian fighters, trained and funded by Turkey, present themselves as heirs to the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad. But while they include some Islamic extremists and past members of some Syrian rebel factions, many are Arab and Turkmen fighters from northern and eastern Syria who have an ax to grind against the Kurds and a reputation for violence and looting.

The main problem with these forces is their criminality,” said Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Research Institute who has interviewed dozens of the fighters and said they appeared to be driven by a desire for power and money rather than by any specific ideology.

Hatred of Kurds, a sense of Arab chauvinism, complete intolerance for any dissent, and just a desire to make a profit is what’s driving most of the abuses,” she said.

Since Turkey began funding the force in 2016, its fighters have yet to battle Assad’s troops.

Instead, they have mostly fought in Turkey’s cross-border offensives against Islamic State and the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia that had partnered with the United States and battled Islamic State extremists with far greater success.

In the latest offensive, the Turkish-led Syrian forces have pushed deep into northeastern Syria, an ethnically and religiously mixed region, raising fears of ethnic conflict and human rights abuses. Some of the factions allied with Turkey have been accused of banditry, and others include hard-line Islamic militants in their ranks.

Turkey views the Kurdish militia that forms the core of the SDF as a terrorist group because of its links to Kurdish fighters who have waged a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey. After threatening for months to invade northeastern Syria and carve out a “safe zone” along the border, Turkey launched an offensive last week after Trump cleared the way for it by moving U.S. troops out of the way.

As the situation on the ground descends into chaos and Syrian government troops move north to lend support to their former foes, the Kurds, Turkey’s Syrian fighters are pouring across the border from Turkey, posting videos in which they threaten Kurdish “pigs” and “atheists.”

Backed by Turkish airstrikes and artillery, the fighters have provided the bulk of the ground forces and taken the most casualties. At least 16 Syrian fighters have been killed compared to four Turkish soldiers since the operation began last week.

Over the weekend they captured a major highway that runs across northern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the Turkey-backed fighters shot and killed six civilians along the road, including Hevreen Khalaf, a woman who led a Kurdish political party.

A U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational details, said “extremist Turkish proxies” had advanced along the highway, setting up checkpoints where they posed as Kurdish fighters and killed civilians.

In a series of tweets, one of the Turkey-backed groups, known as Ahrar al-Sharqiya, posted pictures of two supposed Kurdish fighters it said it had captured. Another video posted online showed the Syrian fighters screaming “God is greatest!” as they fired several rounds into a bound prisoner who resembled one of the captured men in the previous video.

A spokesman for Ahrar al-Sharqiya, Al-Harith Rabah, said his force had set up a checkpoint on the highway and fired at those who refused to stop. He said the man killed in the video was a Kurdish fighter in civilian clothes who had fought until he ran out of ammunition. He said the Turkey-backed force is investigating the shooting and had summoned the gunmen for questioning.

“We provided proof they were armed men,” Rabah told the Associated Press. “Anyone on the battlefield, when there is resistance, one is obligated to react and deal with those who resist.”

Turkish officials did not respond to a request for comment on the Syrian forces, some of whom are heard using religious language in some of the videos, even borrowing slogans from Islamic State.

At least some of the factions include Islamic extremists. The Rojava Information Center, an activist collective in the Kurdish-held areas, has identified at least 40 former Islamic State militants among the Turkey-backed fighters. Tsurkov said one faction is made up of fighters from Idlib, a stronghold for an Al Qaeda-linked group, who are “less prone to criminality and just straight-up extremists.”

That bodes ill for northeastern Syria, home to a patchwork of Kurdish, Christian and other minority communities that have already suffered throughout the rise of Islamic State and the devastating war that dismantled its self-styled caliphate.

The U.N. said more than 130,000 people have fled since the Turkish operation began. As Syrian Kurdish forces fall back, there are fears that those who remain will end up like the residents of Afrin, a Kurdish enclave in northwestern Syria seized by Turkey and its Syrian allies early last year.

Rights groups say the Turkish-backed fighters looted and destroyed the property of Kurdish civilians in Afrin. Last month, a U.N. commission said the overall security situation in and around Afrin “remained dire " as armed groups carved out their own fiefdoms. The Rojava Information Center said some factions have imposed a strict form of Islamic law.

“There is a general absence of rule of law and repeated incidents of kidnappings, torture, extortion and assassination,” the U.N. commission said, adding that victims were “often of Kurdish origin as well as civilians perceived as being prosperous, including doctors, businessmen and merchants.”


Erdogan is reaping what he sowed when he tried to expand Turkish influence on the back of the Arab Spring. The future harvest could be very bitter for Turkey.

If the US Congress follows European countries in their arms embargo next week, Turkish military capability will be severely hampered.

Congress to launch sanctions on Turkey as Trump measures deemed ineffective

The bottom line is that Turkey needs to come to terms with its Kurdish population or cease to exist as a country.

Istanbuller wrote:Russia and Iran's move today was very stupid. This may lead Turkey to cancel arm sales. Turkey may also get closer to US on Iran issue. This is a major game changer.


So last week you cozied up to Putin for pissing the Yanks against the leg, and this week you cozy up to Trump for pissing the Russians against the leg. What will it be next week?

Remember Yanukovich? He tried that game before. In the end he had to run for his life in the shade of darkness.

A wannabe empire trying to fuck with two real empires ... that can't end well.
#15042338
https://abcnews.go.com/International/russia-prevent-clash-syrian-government-turkey/story?id=66284725


The Russians are patrolling around Manbij. Erdogan still insists he will take the town. The Americans are supposed to have pulled out but some are saying their are still packing their bags.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/world/middleeast/turkey-syria-kurds-troops.html
#15042367
An Unfaithful Servant of Imperialism: The Real Reason Trump Is Facing Impeachment

For the neocons and the “liberal” right-to-protect “humanitarian imperialists,” Trump’s lurches in the direction of non-intervention and rapprochement are only venial sins.


The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE.”

— Tweet, Donald J. Trump, October 9, 2019.

Granted Trump may arguably be more corrupt than Biden. But that’s splitting hairs over which crook is more crooked. Bullying vassal states and “doing well by doing good” are indicators of finesse in Washington. Inside the beltway, corruption is not a liability for holding high political office, but a requirement. The key to membership in the power elite club is carrying water for the imperial state, and most club members must go through an elaborate vetting process to prove that they are reliable. Some such as Trump slip through.

[...]

Unfaithful Servant of Imperialism

Defying even the Las Vegas bookies’ predictions, Trump became the 45th President of the US. He had kvetched about the plight of US workers and made some noise about ending unending wars, but was he for real? After all, Obama had promised to get out of Gitmo and NAFTA, but ended up doing neither. Obama, the former critic of Bush’s Iraq war, continued Bush’s wars and started a handful of his own.

Upon occupying the Oval Office, Trump not unexpectedly threw the working class under the bus with his tax cut for the rich and similar actions, which must have won him some brownie points from the owning class. But to date he has failed to start a new war. The last US president with a similar failing was the one-term Jimmy Carter. And now Trump is showing insufficient enthusiasm for continuing the war in Syria and possibly even a closet aversion to starting World War III with nuclear-armed Russia. These may be impeachable offenses in the estimation of parts of the ruling class.

David R. Sanger, writing in the October 7 New York Times, represents “liberal” establishment views in support of US imperialism: “Mr. Trump’s sudden abandonment of the Kurds was another example of the independent, parallel foreign policy he has run from the White House, which has largely abandoned the elaborate systems created since President Harry Truman’s day to think ahead about the potential costs and benefits of presidential decisions.”

There you have it. Trump is accused of having an “independent” foreign policy, emanating out of his office of all places, even though he is the elected President of the US and the one charged with executing foreign policy.

Who is Trump “independent” from? It’s not the US citizenry according to the Times. As the article points out: “Mr. Trump sensed that many Americans share his view – and polls show he is right… Mr. Trump has correctly read the American people who, after Iraq and Afghanistan, also have a deep distaste for forever wars.”

So, who might Trump have betrayed? According to the article, it’s “circumventing the American generals and diplomats who sing the praises of maintaining the traditional American forward presence around the world.” This is who his alleged crime of independence is against. They fear Trump could “abandon” the post-war imperial consensus.

Note that the Times, as reflective of current ruling class ideology, no longer bothers to justify the dictates of the world’s sole hegemon as a crusade against the current evil, be it communism or terrorism. Simply, the imperial state must be supported. Hence, Trump’s view that “acting as the world’s policeman was too expensive” or his tweet, “time for us to get out,” have become grounds for impeachment.

The article favorably cites Republican majority leader Senator Mitch McConnell, who called on Trump “to exercise American leadership” by capitulating to the dictates of the imperial state, while contrasting it to that glory day “not even three months after his inauguration, [when] he ordered the first military strike of his presidency.”

The Times article continues: “That system is badly broken today. Mr. Trump is so suspicious of the professional staff – many drawn from the State Department and the C.I.A. – and so dismissive of the ‘deep state’ foreign policy establishment, that he usually announces decisions first, and forces the staff to deal with them later.”

“That system,” cited above, is the post-WWII permanent state. Trump is chastised in the Times for being “so dismissive of the ‘deep state’ foreign policy establishment.” Trump instead, according to the article, has the temerity to make his own decisions and then he expects the agencies of government to follow his instructions. For some, having the elected representative formulate policy and the unelected state apparatus follow it would be democratic. But not so for the cheerleaders of US imperialism.


The Dark Knight Rises

Trump’s habitual corruption and bullying have now been outed by a whistleblower. Unlike Ellsberg, Manning, and Snowden, who sought to correct US imperial policy, this whistleblower comes from the very gatekeeper of imperialism, the CIA. According to his lawyers, there is not a lone whistleblower but a whole cabal of well-placed spooks in the secret US security apparatus. The deep state (I would prefer the term “permanent” state) is more than a conspiracy theory.

The impeachment imbroglio is bigger than Trump. That the outing of Trump was done by a current employee of a US agency shrouded in secrecy, who is unaccountable and unknown, should be a subject of enormous concern for all small-d democrats and not just anti-imperialists. The CIA has the means and mission to overthrow regimes, and now ours may be one of them, however undesirable the current president may be.

We, the people, should take no solace that Trump, in his careening about, may stumble in the direction of anti-imperialism. Trump is just as much an imperialist as the rest. Only he is not as reliably consistent and that is what has gotten leading segments of the ruling class into a hissy fit. The ruling class is not always unified on policy. Here we are, witness, to an intra-class struggle. But we needn’t take sides, because the ruling class is always unified in serving their class interests, which are not ours.

A policy conflict, some have speculated, is raging within the ruling class between Trump’s “isolationist” and a more “globalist” imperialism. Rest assured the ruling class has institutions to adjudicate these disputes such as the Council on Foreign Relations. For the neocons and the “liberal” right-to-protect “humanitarian imperialists,” Trump’s lurches in the direction of non-intervention and rapprochement are only venial sins. The mortal sin would be if the erratic Trump fails to listen to what the Times delicately calls the “professionals.”

A corollary fear is if the “populist” (note how the ruling class thinks of this is a pejorative) Trump listens to the people’s desire for peace. Unlike the first fear, the latter is unwarranted. That is, unwarranted unless and until the people rebuild an independent peace movement to check the rising tide of US militarism.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/unfaithfu ... nt/262275/
#15042415
skinster wrote:The war on Syria broke everyone's brains, it seems.


You can't break the brains of people that don't have any to start with.

The neocon undertaking in the ME will break the imperialists' back. They will tear each other to pieces limb by limb and bone by bone. All we have to do is sit back to enjoy the Tao of non-action with a tranquil mind.
#15042443
annatar1914 wrote::lol:

I think that I'll survive. I'm an Anvil that has outworn or broken many Hammers.



For tolerant, open minded people, those progressive Westerners sure are one eyed. Mistaking you for a Trump supporter is quite funny. Oh well, I guess it is important to have a sense of humour. Still, it shows they prefer to shoot the messenger rather than receive the message.


Anyway, Trump is right about the Europeans needing to look to their own security. They refuse to even secure the EU’s frontiers. Where is the buffer zone going to be between rich, plump Western Europe and the big bad world outside? Is the buffer zone the Eastern European member states? Should someone explain their role to them? Or would Russia and Turkey be preferable as the buffer states? If so, how will the Europeans bring them to heal?

As it is, Russia and Turkey look like barbarian warlords waiting just beyond a crumbling frontier, ready to plunder the riches in the soft, decadent interior. The Europeans refusal to demonstrate any resolve on their frontier only confirms the warlord’s contempt for the Westerners and encourages their ambitions.

I guess the Western Europeans remain safe enough while the Americans continue to be willing to provide for their defense. Hmm, maybe that is why the Europeans don’t like Trump. Their favourite foederati legion has an isolationist leader.
#15042470
@Presvias

RE:
jimjam wrote:WOW! you are one lucky young man ….. you know a LOT.


While jimjam made the observation to a particular individual, my remark was intended to be on youth in general. Hope that helps.
#15042482
foxdemon wrote:For tolerant, open minded people, those progressive Westerners sure are one eyed. Mistaking you for a Trump supporter is quite funny. Oh well, I guess it is important to have a sense of humour. Still, it shows they prefer to shoot the messenger rather than receive the message.


Anyway, Trump is right about the Europeans needing to look to their own security. They refuse to even secure the EU’s frontiers. Where is the buffer zone going to be between rich, plump Western Europe and the big bad world outside? Is the buffer zone the Eastern European member states? Should someone explain their role to them? Or would Russia and Turkey be preferable as the buffer states? If so, how will the Europeans bring them to heal?

As it is, Russia and Turkey look like barbarian warlords waiting just beyond a crumbling frontier, ready to plunder the riches in the soft, decadent interior. The Europeans refusal to demonstrate any resolve on their frontier only confirms the warlord’s contempt for the Westerners and encourages their ambitions.

I guess the Western Europeans remain safe enough while the Americans continue to be willing to provide for their defense. Hmm, maybe that is why the Europeans don’t like Trump. Their favourite foederati legion has an isolationist leader.


Some excellent historical analogies, by the way, which are far closer to the exact truth than many realize. This is the way of the world, which ''everybody'' forgot with the ''End of History'' which allegedly occurred with the (engineered) Collapse of Communism and the end of the Cold War era. History promptly resumed where it had stopped in 1945, back with the 1990-91 First Gulf War/Invasion of Kuwait, with Saddam Hussein's ''Mother of all battles'' that he promised if the US got involved... He seemed like a ridiculous braggart then, but here it is in 2019 AD, and there's been no stop to the bloodshed, has there? And it all started with one country doing the historically common and time-honored thing of invading and annexing another country...

Should be obvious that the immediate Post-WW II interval is over, (a period of complete exhaustion disguised as bellicose watchfulness), and that that particular time period so many of us grew up in offers little wisdom in dealing with the world we live in now, which is the real world as it is.

The soft people aren't going to do well in this time, they and the younger people who look to them for guidance, they have become delusional and their shrill raging only shows just how weak and out of touch with reality they are. It falls to the people in the ''buffer zones'' as you call them, to take control over the whole lot or civilization won't exist at all for very much longer. One look at the wars in Syria/Middle East and the Donbass can tell anyone with eyes to see the truth of that.
#15042486
Sivad wrote:Granted Trump may arguably be more corrupt than Biden.

How so? Trump's demeanor is gruff, but nobody has been able to demonstrate a shred of official corruption from what I can see. By contrast, Washington pols are well-mannered, but it's a den of thieves. Are you sure you aren't falling prey to Washington's "sensibilities"? Corruption is okay provided you have the right table manners, but if you have bad manners people will assume you are corrupt?

Sivad wrote:Bullying vassal states and “doing well by doing good” are indicators of finesse in Washington. Inside the beltway, corruption is not a liability for holding high political office, but a requirement. The key to membership in the power elite club is carrying water for the imperial state, and most club members must go through an elaborate vetting process to prove that they are reliable. Some such as Trump slip through.

Trump was never a member of that club. Those defying the president and testifying in star chamber proceedings to Schiff as part of the latest coup attempt orchestrated by John Bolton are the ones proving their loyalty for later rewards.

Sivad wrote:Upon occupying the Oval Office, Trump not unexpectedly threw the working class under the bus with his tax cut for the rich and similar actions, which must have won him some brownie points from the owning class.

Trump ran on his tax cut plan, and it was helpful to the working class. It has squeezed upper classes in blue states with the limitations on SALT deductions, but buoyed their capital gains.

Sivad wrote:But to date he has failed to start a new war. The last US president with a similar failing was the one-term Jimmy Carter. And now Trump is showing insufficient enthusiasm for continuing the war in Syria and possibly even a closet aversion to starting World War III with nuclear-armed Russia. These may be impeachable offenses in the estimation of parts of the ruling class.

That's exactly what's going on. That's what Clinton's impeachment was about too. He had to sign off on "regime change" for Iraq and then start attacking Al Qaeda.

Sivad wrote:David R. Sanger, writing in the October 7 New York Times, represents “liberal” establishment views in support of US imperialism: “Mr. Trump’s sudden abandonment of the Kurds was another example of the independent, parallel foreign policy he has run from the White House, which has largely abandoned the elaborate systems created since President Harry Truman’s day to think ahead about the potential costs and benefits of presidential decisions.”

Independent, parallel foreign policy? This is what voters asked for--basically, an end to figure head presidents that do what people behind the scenes want done. The president sets foreign policy, not the deep state. Deep state foreign policy made America more predictable on the world stage, but it also made US policy unresponsive to voters.

Sivad wrote:There you have it. Trump is accused of having an “independent” foreign policy, emanating out of his office of all places, even though he is the elected President of the US and the one charged with executing foreign policy.

Who is Trump “independent” from? It’s not the US citizenry according to the Times. As the article points out: “Mr. Trump sensed that many Americans share his view – and polls show he is right… Mr. Trump has correctly read the American people who, after Iraq and Afghanistan, also have a deep distaste for forever wars.”

That's exactly it. That's the failure of the Ukrainegate narrative too. Biden is obviously corrupt, but who would investigate it if not his political adversary? Obviously, Obama didn't do anything to stop Biden or Hillary's corruption. If anything, his inaction and Trump's action is showing Obama's presidency to be potentially the most corrupt in US history.

Sivad wrote:So, who might Trump have betrayed? According to the article, it’s “circumventing the American generals and diplomats who sing the praises of maintaining the traditional American forward presence around the world.” This is who his alleged crime of independence is against. They fear Trump could “abandon” the post-war imperial consensus.

The American people are abandoning it. When I was a Republican, I signed up to advocate for the Iraq War. While I'm leery of it now, because we've all been lied to, much of my reasoning remains the same: people argued that invading Iraq would destabilize things. My counter argument was that if states like Iraq were going to use stability to develop weapons of mass destruction, maintaining peace and stability was no longer in the American interest.

So there is some benefit to having seen to the end of the governments of Saddam Hussein and Mohamar Qaddafi: they don't have the capacity to build WMDs. The major problem with it is that leftists and NGOs have used it to flood Europe with refugees and have destabilized Europe--I'm assuming unwittingly, because leftists are pretty thick from ideological poisoning when you get right down to it.

However, as I had contended back then, it's not in our interest, for example, to maintain Saudi Arabia's energy supplies to China if China wants to use those resources both economically and militarily against the US. It's not in our interest to maintain them to Europe if Europe wants to do the same and to displace the US dollar as a reserve currency. Let them fight their own battles.

Sivad wrote:Simply, the imperial state must be supported. Hence, Trump’s view that “acting as the world’s policeman was too expensive” or his tweet, “time for us to get out,” have become grounds for impeachment.

Well, it has also led to ludicrous assertions that the Kurds are US allies. The Kurds are an ethnic group seeking an ethnic state, which the same establishment tells us is racist if we oppose illegal immigration for example. Their lies are so many and so inconsistent that they no longer have the moral force to rule.

Sivad wrote:The Times article continues: “That system is badly broken today. Mr. Trump is so suspicious of the professional staff – many drawn from the State Department and the C.I.A. – and so dismissive of the ‘deep state’ foreign policy establishment, that he usually announces decisions first, and forces the staff to deal with them later.”

Understandably too. This is so much the case that Trump has not nominated a replacement for Secretary of Defense. The establishment simply cannot be trusted, and with good cause.

Atlantis wrote:The neocon undertaking in the ME will break the imperialists' back. They will tear each other to pieces limb by limb and bone by bone. All we have to do is sit back to enjoy the Tao of non-action with a tranquil mind.

Well, they are trying to tear Trump to pieces first. As an American, I can afford to sit back and watch. As a European, can you really say the same? As noemon laments, are you really cool with Turkish warships patrolling in EU waters?
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