Posted on 11/16/2020 9:50:36 AM PST by Kaslin
A reprioritization of America’s strategic interests would cement the legacy of the first president in the era of great-power rivalry.
n a recent memo advocating a swift U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller gave shape to the fundamental political stand of the Trump administration—realism and restraint.
“We are not a people of perpetual war — it is the antithesis of everything for which we stand and for which our ancestors fought. All wars must end,” the memo read. This comes after a rapid purge in the last couple of weeks, in which President Trump dismissed Defense Secretary Mark Esper and replaced him with Miller in what was termed by the leftist media as a takeover of the Pentagon by the National Counterterrorism Center.
Trump also appointed Col. Douglas Macgregor to be a senior adviser at the Pentagon. Macgregor is a fierce opponent of endless wars, and previously nominated to be the ambassador to Germany, but was not yet confirmed.
This has the potential to conclude America’s longest and perhaps most pointless of military engagements. While the idea was to decimate al-Qaeda and punish the Taliban, that was over by 2005. By the time of the surge in 2007, the overall war had morphed into a nation-building process with a sunk cost fallacy.
The war proponents’ argument was circular. Put simply, they claim continuous U.S. engagement is needed so the Taliban doesn’t come to power, because the Taliban is terrible for Afghan women. Therefore Afghan civil society needs indefinite American troops and treasure.
Unfortunately, personnel is policy, and since President Trump was an outsider, he had to rely on insiders at odds with his policy, like John Bolton. His retrenchment instinct was constantly hampered by career insiders, which in an earlier era might have bordered on treacherous behavior.
Consider, for example, that a Washington Post journalist found amusing a career bureaucrat explaining on record how he simply lied about troop numbers in Syria to his commander in chief in order to stop a U.S. troop pullout, despite the fact that the majority of Americans oppose any U.S. involvement in the Middle East. Not only does that directly contravene the chain of command, but it is also a criminal offense. Electoral politics has no meaning in this context when unelected bureaucrats decide foreign policy regardless of public opinion or elections, like Roman Praetorian Guards.
The current Trump nominee for ambassador to Afghanistan, Will Ruger, understands that. As an insider and one of the foremost voices among conservative realist circles, he said what is now evident to a lot of observers, and will be a lesson for future conservative leadership: unless the administrative team is willing to follow through with the president’s policies, there’s zero value in conservative electoral wins.
In a New York Times interview, Ruger was quoted saying, “The president has had difficulty finding personnel who would faithfully execute on his preferences,” adding that now is the last chance for Trump to cement his legacy and stand for what he believed during his campaigning: ending fruitless wars.
But to purely blame hysterical public opinion is also not appropriate. For example, one of the most interesting related phenomena has been the transformation of former liberals into raging, mindless war hawks. That is partly due to the intense polarization of American politics, and partly due to the overwhelming majority of leftists in news media, that even bipartisan ideas like troop pullout get muddied.
Not just Republicans, but also a majority of Democrats desire a U.S. troop pullout from Afghanistan. But that is not reflected in the media’s loudest voices. So-called right-of-center voices in national media are also mostly neoconservatives like Max Boot and Jennifer Rubin. So the actual majority is practically unrepresented in the mainstream conversation.
The cumulative effect of this is observable on Twitter replies. The moment a U.S. troop pullout was announced, there were thousands of people, mostly middle-aged liberals, arguing that this must surely be because President Trump is under final orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to “weaken” the American hand in Afghanistan.
Politics is inherently surreal, but this must be one of the worst aspects of the last four years of resistance drama. A genuine bipartisan attempt to wind down massive wastage was resisted by an entrenched bureaucracy and cheered by media and a hapless social media mob whipped to the extremes of hysteria.
Taking U.S. troops out of the Middle East should have been done a while back, but is a politically prudent thing to do now anyway. That’s because, one, Trumpism is the future of conservatism. Whatever happens, the biggest long-term legacy of Trump is pushing neoconservatives to their former parent party, the Democrats. The future conservative party will be a party of realism and restraint. Meaningless wars will not be a vote winner.
The global balance of power also means other great powers will have more influence in other regions, like the Middle East. Conversely, there will be places where nothing will be in the American interest. Post-Trump conservatives will do good to internalize that. Pulling out troops from Afghanistan and the Middle East is only the logical endgame for that.
Second, this would put the burden for further deployment and conflicts on the shoulders of future Democrat presidents. What could be a sweeter parting gift to the “party of resistance”?
A war is typically fought by a country or group of countries against an opposing country or group with the aim of achieving an objective through the use of force. The objectives vary with the desired result. We fought in WW II because the Japanese were a nation developing faster than their capacity. So they stretched their control out and because of their fear of us, attacked us. We fought in Vietnam because of treaty requirements we had when the French pulled out. We fought in Iraq because of the threat of their leadership and their efforts to assist terrorism with weapons, funds, manpower and safe haven that had leaked over into our country. I could go on, but I displayed three different reasons for wars. There are more, but none are personal.
The US has never fought a war because we didn’t like or dislike the people we were engaged with. It was always over land, the illusion of power, property, and trade. that’s one of the reasons our current war is so different. We are engaged with people that just flat don’t like us because of our religions and what they are trying to do to everyone. And we are their biggest and most powerful opponent willing to stand up to them...kinda.
So pulling out of a conflict now is just an indication to our enemies of our weakness and will prompt a greater amount of further attacks until our way of life will be disengaged. We have problems like this now, but no one is talking about it.
Therefore, as long as we engage them until they are defeated, and I don’t see it as they have been at it since the 7th century, it just doesn’t end with the throwing of a switch. And walking away from it is going to increase it. But doing it for political reasons when many people have died or worse would be an insult to our people and a full embarrassment for why we went in to begin with to protect ourselves.
Remember...you are working against people who gladly die for their God with nothing to gain. And you thought our kids were being programed by public education?
rwood
I’d settle for my CHECK!
Where is my CHECK they promised?
Where is my $1200 CHECK?!?!?!?!
Final act? He’s got 4 years 9 weeks left in office unless the people are going to sit idly by and allow a taxpayer financed career criminal steal the election.
Biden promised to continue forever war. The Pentagon will just ignore Trump
The writer of this piece sounds like a communist marxist socialist putinist.
Endless wars is a communist worded terminology much like “working class” is.
Russia-China axis alliance together with their proxy surrogates, and Islamic fascist terrorist jihadists are out for global dominance/governance they’re not and won’t back down from that just because Trump pulls out from “endless wars” won’t happen. President Trump’s last official acts among other things should be resorting the very freedoms and liberties he took away when he signed off on the national emergency federal state disaster declaration order that ushered in tyranny.
That’s way more important than pandering catering to putinist conspiracy anti-war isolationist peacenik basement dwellers.
I sure hope he pulls all troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. I understand that Biden wants to get us back into the Paris Climate accords. Is there anything trump can do before January 20th to preclude that or defund anything to do with that?
LOL!
Too funny
It is a bit of a trap. Order all troops in Syria, Iraq, Kurdish territories and Afghanistan home by 22 December. Then if on 22 DEC some General disobeys a lawful order, force them into retirement. Do not bring charges, write a Presidential disciplinary letter to their records, write adverse reports and take a good look at their fitness. You should see all the fat ass Colonels and Generals running around since the war has been winding down. I knew a few diabetic senior officers and some with TBI and PTSD. Easily causes for dismissal. Do not bring charges that can take years to come to trial.
FR doesn’t have enough storage space for THAT list.
So pulling out of a conflict now is just an indication to our enemies of our weakness......So,God Damn it, QUIT calling it a conflict and name it war! Attack and screw the miscellaneous deaths, kill them all and let GOD sort them out. Kill until these Muslim bastards need to start over as civilized people. Sheesh! What do these civilian politicians of ours NOT understand???? This began with the Democrats at Mi Lai.
I’m up for a 50 megaton device planted in D.C. set to go off the moment the New Usurper takes his “oath”.
What do you mean, if? People here were arrogantly stated that there is no way Biden will be POTUS next year. Why back-peddle now? I’ve stuck with mt stance that the DEMs and the Deep State were *never* going to allow Trump to be re-elected. You can talk all you want about the election being stolen, but that will mean spit once Biden is sworn in.
So a slap on the wrist, which can be expunged and a retirement order which does nothing is a trap?
Don’t think so.
We all expected them to cheat, no one ever expected they would take it to such extremes. If Biden gets sworn in we are all screwed, and the U.S. will fall.
Until then we need to see if we can overcome this coup attempt. Until then, I suggest that all here should turn to the Lord and prayer and leave their cynicism and sarcasm at the door. Cynicism and sarcasm are no help whatsoever.
ou should see all the fat ass Colonels and Generals running around since the war has been winding down. I knew a few diabetic senior officers and some with TBI and PTSD.
That pudgy dork Vindman comes to mind.
Why would someone guaranteed to be re-elected do that?! /s
Don't you have a litter box or 20 to clean? You give off a stench.
It sure is.
He should bomb Iran and kill the leaders and destroy the nuclear weapons program.
.
I’d like to see Trump do exactly that. Pull our troops out of ALL foreign wars. Order them home, not a “plan” to bring them home some day. The Pentagon lied to Trump about how many troops are in Syria. He should order that number to zero. No exceptions. There isn’t time to bring them home from Korea and Germany, but it would be nice for the next patriotic president to bring those troops home too. Everyone else (other than naval bases and small deployments that are approved individually) should come home now.
I’d also like to see massive pardons from President Trump. Nonviolent offenders with no gang affiliation should be pardoned/commuted and let go. A side bonus is that will help Trumpism with black voters. More important, incarcerating nonviolent people forever is not a good use of our money.
Throw in pardons for ALL nonviolent gun “crimes”. Unless there was an associated gang connection or violent crime, all convictions for violations of the National Firearms Act and of all subsequent gun laws should receive a pardon. Let’s make decades of ATF work disappear.
Obama did 1715 clemency and 212 pardons.
Bush did 189 and 11.
I’d like to see Trump do tens of thousands - seriously!
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