Posted on 04/11/2018 8:19:36 AM PDT by Simon Green
He inherited and then backed up the policy of no chemical weapons use.
Having supported and backed up that policy with force once already, he can't just change his mind because the Paulite tinfoil hat brigade here wants him to do so, particularly in light of the growing Iranian threat.
The most foolish thing Trump has done recently is to have it be publicly known that he wants to withdraw from Syria.
That's what driving this. Having engaged, you don't get to call a 'timeout' and then cancel the game and walk home: the enemy always gets a vote.
If we had just hung on a few more years backing South Vietnam, there's a good chance the country would have become something like SK now.
And there would not have been any Soviet Afghan invasion, and probably no overthrow of the Shah.
Think about that for a moment.
At the cost of thousands of American lives. I’m sorry but that just isn’t worth it. Show me the tangible American national interest in backing a radical islamist group and I’ll agree with you.
Not quite. The Maine’s explosion and sinking is a mystery to this day, but is doubtful Spain caused it. Most evidence points to a coal explosion or magazines exploding. It didn’t really cause the Spanish-American War. The American public was already angry at Spain and sympathetic to the Cuban cause before the Maine. The “yellow journalism” of the day played little role also as those publications were relatively few and had little readership. Few in the nation read them. Spain’s treatment of Cubans was horrible, regardless of sensational stories and the American public already supported intervention.
The Gulf of Tonkin situation was not a total lie. There was one attack by N. Vietnamese fast boats. The second “attack” is the suspect one. However, there was a lot of confusion about the facts. It is a legitimate criticism that our ships were there already, but it was clear that N. Vietnam was wanting to annex and conquer S. Vietnam. It was yet another aggressive Communist expansion into a non-Communist area. For the first few years, the American public supported the nation’s war effort. It was a conundrum and no one could know the catastrophe that would unfold later.
Unfair inacurrate half-truths are just as bad as yellow journalism.
Who “wants” a war in Syria? Nobody. The point is to wipe out ISIS, and MbS and the GCC are committed to doing that. We’ve pretty much turned that task over to them. That’s what different between now and the past.
Really? Apparently the neocons do. Think logically, you’re Assad and you have them on the ropes. So he does the one thing that would cause the entire world to turn on him? If he’s anything, he’s not stupid. No need to gas an already defeated enemy. So we are going to bomb regime targets, enabling ISIS to rebuild and resupply? Seriously? This is almost as bad as the Saddam harboring AQ bullshit.
Regarding the ME, I argued that if we had stuck it out in Vietnam by backing the South, the ME might have been much more stable than it is.
Having a great power bugger out on its responsibilities and commitments can have enormous, long term negative consequences. In the case of Vietnam, we are still paying for them in the Middle East.
There is zero evidence that the pullout in the RVN has anything to do with the situation in the Middle East. Other than those groups using the NVA and VC tactics against a superior force. The Middle East has always been about three things, tribal warfare, Israel and oil. Is Assad worse than the House of Saud? The Russians have a much bigger stake in Syria than we do.
they also lied about the Kuwaiti incubator babies
It's never the wrong time for DJT to learn a lesson from the blood soaked, failed Neocon foreign policy of #41, #42, #43 and #44. Those of us who packed the halls for candidate Trump weren't chanting, "Kill Assad"! and "REGIME CHANGE NOW"! Instead we cheered when he exposed NAFTA, mocked the WTO, ridiculed the failed Bush presidency and Crooked Hillary. I'm still not convinced he's going to recklessly attack Syria and I hope I'm right. Just like the WMD lie, this gas attack is a sham, a lie pushed forward by Neocons and their globalist imps.
Hell, it's better than S. Korea. It's a vessel slave state for the Fortune 50.
vessel = vassal
100% incorrect.
The defeat in Vietnam emboldened the Soviets all over the world, even to the point of invading Afghanistan: the first direct combat outside the Soviet Union's borders since WWII.
The defeat also helped propel the feckless idiot Carter into the White House, who did nothing to keep the Shah in power and the mullahs out.
So both schools of radical Islam were unleashed because of US stupidity in Vietnam.
I'm trying to imagine what the military death notification would sound like, “Sir, your government sent your son to fight and die in Vietnam in an effort to make it more like South Korea. Thank you and have a nice day.”
And they lost in Afghanistan, thanks to the CIA. When it comes to the Shah, you’re arguing my point. The difference between Vietnam and Syria, there are no good guys in Syria.
I never thought Trump was a "non-interventionist." I always took him to be a Jacksonian "kill them all and let God sort them out" kind of guy.
And please drop the "blood-soaked" histrionics. Our total casualties for 17 years of fighting are less than a bad afternoon in WWI.
Spare me the snark.
They P-8A PS246 circled at 9,500 feet just W of Tartus, then did a low level at 3,000 feet W of Beirut.
Mission complete E Med., 1847z - returning to Sigonella.
It is only a fallacy if the only reason for believing the authority is based on authority itself. In this case, it is a fact that any President has access to a vast array of intelligence materials, while the rest of us don't.
The real question: "Is Donald Trump now controlled by another entity in the form of some kind of blackmail or coercion?" I don't know the answer, but if it is "no", I believe Trump is doing his best to do right and further American goals. If the answer is "yes", then of course all bets are off.
I do find his current approach to Syria puzzling based on his past statements, and if he launches missiles against it again he is absolutely risking a major war with Russia. Such a war could easily result in nuclear detonations.
This video from “rebels’” held area in Syria is one of the reasons why you don’t rush into war based on YouTube videos
https://twitter.com/BBassem7/status/983677065844019200
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.