Posted on 08/14/2018 9:18:20 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Friday, deep into the 17th year of America's longest war, Taliban forces overran Ghazni, a provincial capital that sits on the highway from Kabul to Kandahar.
The ferocity of the Taliban offensive brought U.S. advisers along with U.S. air power, including a B-1 bomber, into the battle.
"As the casualty toll in Ghazni appeared to soar on Sunday," The Wall Street Journal reported, "hospitals were spilling over with dead bodies, corpses lay in Ghazni's streets, and gunfire and shelling were preventing relatives from reaching cemeteries to bury their dead."
In Yemen Monday, a funeral was held in the town square of Saada for 40 children massacred in an air strike on a school bus by Saudis or the UAE, using U.S.-provided planes and bombs.
"A crime by America and its allies against the children of Yemen," said a Houthi rebel leader.
Yemen is among the worst humanitarian situations in the world, and in creating that human-rights tragedy, America has played an indispensable role.
The U.S. also has 2,000 troops in Syria. Our control, with our Kurd allies, of that quadrant of Syria east of the Euphrates is almost certain to bring us into eventual conflict with a regime and army insisting that we get out of their country.
As for our relations with Turkey, they have never been worse.
President Erdogan regards our Kurd allies in Syria as collaborators of his own Kurdish-terrorist PKK. He sees us as providing sanctuary for exile cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan says was behind the attempted coup in 2016 in which he and his family were targeted for assassination.
Last week, when the Turkish currency, the lira, went into a tailspin, President Trump piled on, ratcheting up U.S. tariffs on Turkish aluminum and steel. If the lira collapses and Turkey cannot meet its debt obligations, Erdogan will lay the blame at the feet of the Americans and Trump.
Which raises a question: How many quarrels, conflicts and wars, and with how many adversaries, can even the mighty United States sustain?
In November, the most severe of U.S. sanctions will be imposed on Iran. Among the purposes of this policy: Force as many nations as possible to boycott Iranian oil and gas, sink its economy, bring down the regime.
Iran has signaled a possible response to its oil and gas being denied access to world markets. This August, Iranian gunboats exercised in the Strait of Hormuz, backing up a regime warning that if Iranian oil cannot get out of the Gulf, the oil of Arab OPEC nations may be bottled up inside as well. Last week, Iran test-fired an anti-ship ballistic missile.
Iran has rejected Trump's offer of unconditional face-to-face talks, unless the U.S. first lifts the sanctions imposed after withdrawing from the nuclear deal.
With no talks, a U.S. propaganda offensive underway, the Iranian rial sinking and the economy sputtering, regular demonstrations against the regime, and new sanctions scheduled for November, it is hard to see how a U.S. collision with Tehran can be avoided.
This holds true as well for Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Last week, the U.S. imposed new sanctions on Russia for its alleged role in the nerve-agent poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the British town of Salisbury.
Though the U.S. had already expelled 60 Russian diplomats for the poisoning, and Russia vehemently denies responsibility -- and conclusive evidence has not been made public and the victims have not been heard from -- far more severe sanctions are to be added in November.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is warning that such a U.S. move would cross a red line: "If ... a ban on bank operations or currency use follows, it will amount to a declaration of economic war. ... And it will warrant a response with economic means, political means and, if necessary, other means."
That the sanctions are biting is undeniable. Like the Turkish lira and Iranian rial, the Russian ruble has been falling and the Russian people are feeling the pain.
Last week also, a U.S. Poseidon reconnaissance plane, observing China's construction of militarized islets in the South China Sea, was told to "leave immediately and keep out."
China claims the sea as its national territory.
And North Korea's Kim Jong Un apparently intends to hold onto his arsenal of nuclear weapons.
"We're waiting for the North Koreans to begin the process of denuclearization, which they committed to in Singapore and which they've not yet done," John Bolton told CNN last week.
A list of America's adversaries here would contain the Taliban, the Houthis of Yemen, Bashar Assad of Syria, Erdogan's Turkey, Iran, North Korea, Russia and China -- a pretty full plate.
Are we prepared to see these confrontations through, to assure the capitulation of our adversaries? What do we do if they continue to defy us?
And if it comes to a fight, how many allies will we have in the battles and wars that follow?
Was this the foreign policy America voted for?
I guess it’s beyond Pat’s pay grade to understand there is a regional conflict between Shia and Sunni, and the last thing the world needs is for Shia Iran to come out on top.
Typical Pat....
500+ words and never mentions our best friends in the Middle East, Israel.
No one seems to ever ask him about that either.
I’m sure he is not an Anti-Semite but he is for sure not a friend of Israel.
Sure is a ton of crap Bush and Obama left Trump to clean up, eh Pat? Or should he just bury his head in the sand like politicians do, kicking the can down the road for someone else?
I think he’s useful for illustrating a different approach. But in many of the cases he cites, America has good reasons and good assets to deploy. Hard to argue against destabilizing the current regimes in Iran and Turkey.
“Was this the foreign policy America voted for?”
Yes. It’s called ripping off the band-aid.
These conflicts have always existed. They were ignored, swept under the rug, or appeased with billions of our dollars, property, and resources, to the detriment of the American people. Should we also discuss the trillions (?) sent to Africa to feed people who continue to kill each other with machetes?
To deny their previous existence, or to claim this is “Trump’s fault”, is to be utterly disconnected with reality.
“Last week, the U.S. imposed new sanctions on Russia for its alleged role in the nerve-agent poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the British town of Salisbury.”
Trump was forced to do this.
Badabump-tish!
Back Israel to the hilt.
Get the hell out.
The entire ME is not worth the blood of one soldier or one taxpayer dollar.
Sunni- Shia, let ‘em kill each other all they want. Crips and Bloods; just whack any that mess with us.
Not my business who runs Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan.
Pat is very good at ignoring realities he does not want to address.
The Houthis are backed up by Iran. Iran has been our sworn enemy since the fall of the Shaw. Iran is attempting to make Yemen into a client state, flanking Saudi Arabia.
Yes, the U.S. is on the side of the Saudis, and has attacked ISIS targets in Yemen. ISIS has attacked Houthi targets.
The idea that the U.S. started the conflict, or is the main supporter of it is laughable.
Yes, there are a lot of conflicts in the world. Most of them were exacerbated by the Obama administration, where our adversaries realisticly saw the U.S. government as weak and vulnerable.
President Donald Trump is cleaning up the messes left by the Obama administration.
Yeah, that list looks pretty good to me. I don't want to see war with Iran, but come on Pat, pull up your skirt and stop complaining about sanctions. That's how we avoid war.
RE: Not my business who runs Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan.
When Osama Bin Ladin planned the attack on the New York Twin Towers and the Pentagon, and the Taliban who then ran Afghanistan sheltered him, is it still our business? Or do we just let him be?
Pat, were relations with Turkey good under Obama?
Obama wasn't the enemy of Turkey. He'd bend over for just about any nation other than the U. S., and Israel.
Surely you jest, when you use Turkey to bash Trump as if he caused relations to be bad.
RE: I’m sure he is not an Anti-Semite but he is for sure not a friend of Israel.
You got that right. He is like Ron Paul, an isolationist.
He also believes that defending Israel will get us involved in conflicts he does not want America to be embroiled in.
Yes Pat, this is exactly the foreign policy I voted for! These people need to cut off from State department funding and put the screws to indefinitely! Besides...they've got Allah LOL!
Pat, I understand and agree with your general principle of 'America First', with limited foreign entanglements and conflicts. That said, I have a very fundamental question for you.
Does avoiding disagreements with enemies make them lesser enemies?
I say make a deal with the Israelis and move Incirlik to Israel! Great weapons testing ground!
If Trump’s presidency goes anywhere near that of Bush jr, namely the precipitation of more wars, then everything we worked for will go kaput.
Wars of extreme necessity need to be the rule of the day. The case for “little wars to prevent bigger wars” are gonna fall on deaf ears here in the States. We’ve been doing that for ages and Americans will take it out on him and the Repubs at the polls.
That is not accurate. The indian wars were scattered and fairly distinct. There were long periods with no activity at all.
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