Posted on 10/14/2019 7:52:37 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
President Trump isn’t the first American leader to turn his back on foreign friends who were counting on U.S. assistance: President Dwight D. Eisenhower did it in Hungary in 1956; President John F. Kennedy in Cuba in 1961; and President Gerald Ford in South Vietnam in 1975. But no previous chief executive has ever sold out the United States’ allies as nonchalantly and unnecessarily as Trump has done with the Syrian Kurds.
At least with Eisenhower, Kennedy and Ford, there was a good reason they failed to come to the aid of freedom fighters: Doing so would have embroiled the United States in costly conflicts. Trump and his apologists would like to pretend that’s also the case today — that Trump pulled U.S. troops out of northern Syria to avoid a war with Turkey. But there is scant chance that Turkish troops would have invaded northern Syria if U.S. troops were standing in the way. That is why President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked Trump to move the U.S. forces — and Trump, for reasons that remain mysterious, obliged. (Trump himself admitted in 2015 that “I have a little conflict of interest” because of two Trump Towers in Istanbul.)
The consequences of the American pullout are proving to be every bit as catastrophic as most observers — and Trump’s own aides — had feared. On “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said that ever since coming to office about two months ago, he had been urging the Turks not to invade Syria. “We cited all the reasons that are now playing out,” he said. “The biggest being the likely release of ISIS fighters from these camps and prisons, not just that we see a humanitarian crisis emerging.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Might as well give the problem to the Russians. They can keep a lid on the Kurds, they have an incentive to keep ISIS out, and Turkey is not going to want to get into a conflict with Russia.
Max Boot on john bolton
Quick correction: our book says “Do not murder.” There are situations in which killing is regrettably necessary (self-defense, just war).
Cool. I supported, as most people here, the Bush doctrine of regime change and encouraging the growth of democracy in Muslim countries.
It did not turn out well. It was a costly mistake.
I’m not an isolationist, and I think we should honor our commitments, but are we supposed to open fire on the Turks? Technically they are our allies.
Getting involved in a land war in Asia is one of the two major blunders.
Very happy here!
The Kurds are an ethnic group made up of various clans,tribes and factions. They cannot agree among themselves and there is constant conflict. This is a major reason why they have never been able to for a nation of their own. We are best to cut our losses and leave.
Considering they scr**** us during the Gulf War.
So we have Turkey and the Kurds and the Russians and the Syrian rebels and the Syrian government and NATO and a prison filled with ISIS. And we are supposed to leave those 50 guys there. While everyone hates each other.
The CIA and weapon dealers love this war. And the US can only prolong it. We can’t stop it. We can’t make these people like each other. We need to let it play out. The CIA has to stop screwing with other countries. And the US weapon dealers need to stop providing weapons to every tribe they find. (By the way the US gives the tribes money to buy the weapons from our weapons makers).
To hell with ‘War, Inc.” Americans are done with profiteering pols and their slimey families profiting off their children dying and getting maimed in endless, pointless, overseas meat grinders.
I hope the Middle East fights amongst themselves until there is nobody left to fight.
Let’s see, we have a treaty with NATO and no treaty with Kurds. Turkey is not attacking the Iraqi Kurds. Some idiot said we should provide air cover. From where? Our airbase in Turkey?
For 8 years of Bush the DemocRATS screamed about getting us out of wars. 8 years of Obama and he promised to get us out of wars, but never did. He kept his base happy though.
Now Trump wants to finally bring our boys home, and the world is butt hurt.
What the hell do they want?
Never should have been there in the first place.
They are Muslims.
It would have only been a matter of time before they turned on us.................................
63 or 64 million supporters were his 2016 number. I have a feeling that number will grow exponentially in 2020. I’m sure we’ll have a prediction thread but here’s my early call: Trump wins 47 states.
Max Boot was Romney’s foreign policy advisor in the 2012 campaign
I am so proud that I didn’t vote for Romney
I am glad Obama beat Romney. If Romney has won, he might still be president - makes me almost hurl just thinking about it
To answer the question - yes.
I will be even happier when all our troops (and support) is out of the Middle East.
The Middle East is ruled by tribalism. Every individual belongs to a group and there is no mixing of the groups.
Add to that how quickly they are offended and are willingly to kill over those offenses, it is a no win situation for anyone to get involved.
The only way to bring “peace” to the middle east is by use of overwhelming military force and pretty much kill any male between the age of 14 and 65. If you are not willing to do that then stay out and let them go ahead and fight it out. Sooner or later they will all be dead or a strongman will rule over all of them.
Max is not RINO. He’s the face of standard Republican foreign policy since George W Bush. He was the foreign policy advisor to McCAin and Romney when they were the GOP nominees for president
And people ask me why I didn’t vote Republican for president between 2000 and 2016.
The Kurds are not always nice people but I have more sympathy for them than most anyone else in the region. I would like to see them get a homeland. I have a hard time believing that anything that the Turks, Iranians, Iraqis, and Syrians oppose can be a bad thing. However, it is not our fight. If the Turks attempt another Armenian genocide, this time on the Kurds, then maybe, but not just when they are warring factions.
You were, in that regard, slightly ahead of me.
64+ million was posted because his support has grown massively since his 2016 election. 64+ million is a low estimate.
Every demographic, every one of them is swinging into the Trump movement. They get it.
Notice how no one is mentioning that quite a few of those Kurds aligned with Syria are PPK and supported by Russia.
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