Stop the Hand-Wringing About Aleppo

Foreign Policy ^ | Dec. 19, 2019 | Emile Simpson

[BobL]

Political leaders across the West piously lined up last week to identify the fall of Aleppo as a stain on our collective conscience. The West, they have said, should have done more to stop the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Syria.

At a purely humanitarian level, this is obviously true. States can always do more to deliver humanitarian aid to people on the ground. But in a military sense, the notion that the West should have “done more” is fantastical and learns exactly the wrong lesson from this carnival of carnage.

If there is a lesson for the West from the post-Cold War era of liberal interventionism, it is this: Either intervene decisively and be invested for the long term — or stay out.

[BobL]

This is an excellent piece explaining why 'nation-building' in the Third World is stupid. The author basically says: "Either put up, or shut up" to the warmongering Obama/Hillary/McCain bunch. In other words, you three (actually now 2, soon to be 1 person, LOL) explain how you're going to justify boots on the ground, and with that, Americans coming home in body bags, for a country like Syria that hasn't done squat to us. I think it pretty well sums up what us Trump voters think - which is sending troops overseas to fight is fine, as long as there's a damn good reason to do so.

[Tallguy]

And this is the reason that Obama and his Turkish-buddy are playing footsie with all these ISIS-related groups — they are the ersatz infantry force that provides the “boots on the ground” while western aircraft are flying air support missions against the Russian-Iranian-backed Syrian government.

3rd world infantry is a joke tactically and they basically can’t move forward or take a position like Allepo without gobs of artillery & air support. Obama is basically playing a very weak hand here (surprise), and about the best he can do is bleed the Syrians and their backers. No pipelines are getting built this decade.

[a fool in paradise]

A co-worker is ranting that Trump is going to take us to war, neglecting to express ANY outrage over Obama’s own juvenile outrage at “Russia” to appeal to his Rat base and neglecting to express ANY outage over Obama’s own wars with Syria, Egypt, Libya, Iraq...

Hillary certainly wasn’t headed for peace.

[Fhios]

Not only a good reason, but with Trump it’s a safe bet that you know at that point the gloves are off. Oh and we’re so sorry about the civilian casualties.

My feeling is if a terrorist surrounds himself with civilians shields, there’s going to be a lot of civilian casualties. To the terrorists, civilians are the target. Our innocent and their not so innocent.

[umgud]

My personal views on the middle east is this; No matter what we do for or to a muslim, at the end of the day, we are still the infidel and the muslim will still hate us.

I’m not inclined to spill US blood to help anybody that has a 1400 year declaration of war against us.

I am afraid that we wlll soon see the need for another crusade to reign them in.

[ETL]

Here's Trump's VP, Mike Pence, on the subject of Syria and KGB Putin, from the Oct 5th 2016 VP debate. He certainly gets what Putin is...

“When Donald Trump and I observe that, as I’ve said, in Syria, in Iran, in Ukraine, that the small and bullying leader of Russia has been stronger on the world stage than this administration, that’s stating painful facts. That’s not an endorsement of Vladimir Putin — that’s an indictment of the weak and feckless leadership of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.”

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Also from the debate...

QUIJANO (Moderator): I want to turn now to Syria. Two hundred fifty thousand people, 100,000 of them children, are under siege in Aleppo, Syria. Bunker buster bombs, cluster munitions, and incendiary weapons are being dropped on them by Russian and Syrian militaries. Does the U.S. have a responsibility to protect civilians and prevent mass casualties on this scale, Governor Pence?

PENCE: The United States of America needs to begin to exercise strong leadership to protect the vulnerable citizens and over 100,000 children in Aleppo. Hillary Clinton’s top priority when she became secretary of state was the Russian reset, the Russians reset. After the Russian reset, the Russians invaded Ukraine and took over Crimea.

And the small and bullying leader of Russia is now dictating terms to the United States to the point where all the United States of America — the greatest nation on Earth — just withdraws from talks about a cease-fire while Vladimir Putin puts a missile defense system in Syria while he marshals the forces and begins — look, we have got to begin to lean into this with strong, broad-shouldered American leadership.

It begins by rebuilding our military. And the Russians and the Chinese have been making enormous investments in the military. We have the smallest Navy since 1916. We have the lowest number of troops since the end of the Second World War. We’ve got to work with Congress, and Donald Trump will, to rebuild our military and project American strength in the world.

But about Aleppo and about Syria, I truly do believe that what America ought to do right now is immediately establish safe zones, so that families and vulnerable families with children can move out of those areas, work with our Arab partners, real time, right now, to make that happen.

And secondly, I just have to tell you that the provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength. And if Russia chooses to be involved and continue, I should say, to be involved in this barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime to prevent them from this humanitarian crisis that is taking place in Aleppo.

There’s a broad range of other things that we ought to do, as well. We ought to deploy a missile defense shield to the Czech Republic and Poland which Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pulled back on out of not wanting to offend the Russians back in 2009.

QUIJANO: Governor, your two minutes are up.

PENCE: We’ve just got to have American strength on the world stage. When Donald Trump becomes president of the United States, the Russians and other countries in the world will know they’re dealing with a strong American president.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/us/politics/vice-president-transcript.html

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Again, from the Oct 5, 2016 VP debate...

PENCE: What we’re dealing with is the — you know, there’s an old proverb that says the Russian bear never dies, it just hibernates.

And the truth of the matter is, the weak and feckless foreign policy of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has awakened an aggression in Russia that first appeared a few years ago with their move in Georgia, now their move into Crimea, now their move into the wider Middle East.

And all the while, all we do is fold our arms and say we’re not having talks anymore.

To answer your question, we just need American strength. We need to — we need to marshal the resources of our allies in the region, and in the immediate, we need to act and act now to get people out of harm’s way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/us/politics/vice-president-transcript.html

[BobL]

You attack your opponents in debates...which is what Pence was doing. I don’t expect any of this “stand up to Russia stuff” to exist once Trump takes office. But I did fully expect a nuclear confrontation had Hillary won...and we are in no position militarily for that.

[stormhill]

Our fight against Syria is wrong-headed on so many levels it's impossible to adequately critique. First off, we're actually backing "ISIS-related" groups. That alone should have earned Obama a swift kick in the nads; but beyond that, Assad is a positive good. Not denying he's a dictator; perhaps even a tyrant. Just that the Christian minority thrived for generations under his family's protection and as soon as our "allies" gained control of an area, they got wiped out.

So, it's not just that we're fighting the war incompetently, we're on the wrong side.

[ETL]

I don’t expect any of this “stand up to Russia stuff” to exist once Trump takes office. But I did fully expect a nuclear confrontation had Hillary won

BS. It was the Soros-supported Obama-Hillary admin who helped strengthened Russia with the dangerous missile defense and nuke deals they made with Putin. This while they practically crippled our defenses! No way in hell would an aggressive, expansionist thug like Putin want a strong-on-defense team like Trump-Pence running the ship, especially at this critical time for them, when they're in the process of basically restoring the evil empire that was the Soviet Union. You shouldn't so quickly believe the smoke and mirrors BS being put out by the treasonous dems and the Russians.

[Alberta's Child]

It's really sad when I think of all the people who are no longer here on FreeRepublic because they said precisely the same thing back in 2003 before the U.S. invaded Iraq.

Donald Trump showed us that "conservatives" are no smarter than anyone else, I guess.

[stormhill]

Thanks.
About time someone said it

[bert]

In the end, Aleppo will be the eastern end of the Sunni nation straddling the Euphrates valley. Once ISIS is destroyed, normal destruction of the synthetic nations crafted by France and Britain will resume.

[ETL]

I don’t expect any of this “stand up to Russia stuff” to exist once Trump takes office.

Donald Trump: 'Putin has eaten Obama's lunch' on Ukraine

Mar 13, 2014
Eun Kyung Kim: TODAY

Donald Trump slammed President Obama Thursday on TODAY for failing to take a stronger line against President Vladimir Putin in dealing with Ukraine, saying he feared Obama would now make up for lost time with imprudent moves to "show his manhood."

The real estate mogul and reality-TV star, who has criticized Putin for sending military troops into Crimea, said Obama must now take fierce steps to prevent the situation from escalating further.

"We should definitely do sanctions and we have to show some strengths. I mean, Putin has eaten Obama's lunch, therefore our lunch, for a long period of time," Trump said. ..."

http://www.today.com/news/donald-trump-putin-has-eaten-obamas-lunch-ukraine-2D79372098

[ETL]

From 2014

Yushchenko, hero of Ukraine's Orange Revolution warns Europe that Putin won't stop at Crimea

by Matthew Schofield - McClatchy Foreign Staff
March 27, 2014

Many Ukrainians believe you need look no further than the face of Viktor Yushchenko to understand Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

Once smooth and ruggedly handsome, it still bears the scars from an assassination attempt when someone slipped dioxin into Yushchenko's food. ..."

Read more here:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24765781.html#storylink=cpy
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Russia Deploying Tactical Nuclear Arms in Crimea

Obama backing indirect talks with Moscow aimed at cutting U.S. non-strategic nukes in Europe

BY: Bill Gertz
October 10, 2014

Russia is moving tactical nuclear weapons systems into recently-annexed Crimea while the Obama administration is backing informal talks aimed at cutting U.S. tactical nuclear deployments in Europe. ..."

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-deploying-tactical-nuclear-arms-in-crimea/
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Ignore the red and orange lines. They were already on the map when I downloaded it.
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[zaxtres]

I enjoyed watching and listening to Orsen Wells. I grew up watching his that he both directed and acted in. One of his movies that he narrated for was called The Man of Tomorrow or it titled something like that. It was on HBO around the mid-1980’s and was about Nostradamus. Whether you believe in Nostradamus is not the point and not something I am going to discuss with you. For me, this movie was a guiding factor into why I took a history of the ME class in high school and one of the reasons I had enlisted in the military in 1987 to become a pilot. Unfortunately, I went into Aircrew school and had a life changing accident. I believe had I stayed in and completed my training I would have been in during the first Gulf War. I was medically discharged in March 1988. I digress.

One of the Nostradamus’ Quatrains depicts how after a 27 year conflict two world superpowers will have to come together to defeat whatever the ME is throwing at us. Over the years I have paid attention to the ME. After 9/11 I delved into studying Islam because I wanted to understand why they did what they did. Before 9/11 I believed the crap spewed by mooslimes. Islime was the only religion never changed, blah blah. Stuff like this I found out to later be so untrue it would make the Exorcist movie look like a day at the park. The ongoing Iraq conflict will be continuing under Trump and 2018 will mark the 27th year of the USA being part of this ongoing conflict.

I understand that we have been involved in the ME before the Iraqi war. However the first Gulf War was the trigger point for the 27 year countdown. As things have been shifting in the ME, due the incompetence of zero’s regime, I have been watching. I am not a person who believe the end of the world is nigh, I do believe we need Russia as much as they need us in the ME. The Cold War has biased people against Russia for good reason. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR, our relations with Russia have always been guarded and tenuous at best. However I will posit that Russia has been a better ally to us, even if they are not technically an ally, than Saudi Arabia has ever been. Trust does not occur over night. It took the USA generations before we became good friends with England.

Let’s face it and I have always thought this, we cannot keep losing our troops and spending our money on the problems of the world. Others do need to get involved and what is better than two enemies coming together under a common cause - Islam. Russia has been plagued by Islime as much if not more than we have. Mooslimes have been a threat to Eastern Europe almost since the conception of Islime due to locale. In other words, Russia has as much to loose as we do. Why not join in the eradication of this theo-political way of life called ISlime. If any correlation of the Nazis during WWII it would be to Islime. As both are extreme ideologies bent on the perpetual pursuit of dominating the world and committing genocide on large scale.

Russia may be a threat to us however, I believe it is a threat that can be negated when united under a common cause to eradicate Islime and its ideologies based off one man’s perversions of Christianity and Judaism. The Angel of Light is Lucifer and it was the Angel of Light who claimed God spoke through him to begin Islime. It will take the Light of God to put out the Angel of Light.

[blackbetty59]

I agree 1000%. We can’t civilize that bunch of crazies who have been fighting for centuries over who Allah loves more. I wouldn’t send one of MY kids to die for those Allah/Mohammed worshipers. Let Allah sort ‘em out, and let’s stay out of it.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

The punks plan after his red line was breached was to train locals to stabilize Syria. Recall that we spent hundreds of million of dollars and only graduated 5 recruits.

Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and to some extent Egypt are failed states without the rule of law. A gigantic cluster. I honestly don’t know what President Trump can do to improve the Mideast, but agree the US cannot “nation build”. These hell holes either have their own Jefferson, Madison, and Adams to shape their future, or they rot away on their own.

[Valentine Michael Smith]

Spot on. The whole middle east is not worth one drop of American blood.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Allepo is a predominantly Alawite city. The Alawites are a Shiite offshoot considered apostates by both the Sunni and Shiites. Assad is an Alawite and his family is from Allepo. The rebels holed up there are mostly Sunnis who have been ravaging the Alawites since the start of the Syrian civil war.

When Robert E. Lee crossed into Pennsylvania early in the summer of 1863, the inhabitants said you could not have asked for more polite and considerate invaders. Ansar al-Sharia, not so much. The Syrian Civil War will not end well, There will be no Appomattox, just a series of Stalingrads, with men women and children, and the wealth stored up for generations ground into dust.

[thoughtomator]

There are two types of people concerned about Aleppo:

1) Syrians and those who sympathize with them

2) International terrorists

There are no other applicable categories.