Posted on 10/09/2019 6:42:09 AM PDT by robowombat
Trump faces growing GOP revolt on Syria BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 10/09/19 06:00 AM EDT
Trump faces growing GOP revolt on Syria
Republicans are in a full-out revolt against President Trump over his decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria, a move broadly seen as putting the lives of Kurdish allies at risk.
The overwhelming opposition from GOP lawmakers is putting increasing pressure on Trump to reverse course. And it comes at a time when Democrats are moving full steam ahead with an impeachment inquiry.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s loudest congressional supporters, on Tuesday demanded a senators-only briefing on the Syria move, which he said betrayed the Kurds and would make it tougher for the U.S. to build alliances going forward.
“The President’s decision will have severe consequences for our strategic national interests and reduce American influence in the region while strengthening Turkey, Russia, and Iran,” Graham wrote in a letter also signed by Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.). “The decision also dramatically increases the threat to our Kurdish allies, who helped destroy ISIS’s territorial caliphate, and will impair our ability to build strategic alliances in the future.”
Trump’s decision, seen as enabling Turkey to go after Kurds in Syria, was lambasted by Trump loyalists such as Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the third-ranking House GOP leader, and Republicans who have differed with the president on policies, such as Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah).
Cheney called the decision a “catastrophic mistake” and Romney characterized it as a “betrayal” of Kurdish allies that would show “America is an unreliable ally.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), one of Trump’s most ardent defenders in the Senate, said he agrees with the president that the United States should not be the world’s policeman but warned that “abandoning the Kurds” would send a “terrible signal to America’s allies and adversaries” and would be “unconscionable.
The broad-based backlash left some in the GOP hoping Trump would reverse himself, something Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) on Tuesday raised as a possibility.
“I understand he’s reconsidering. I do not think we should abandon the Kurds,” he told a reporter for Politico.
Senate Republican sources said the Pentagon has warned Turkey not to advance into northern Syria, despite interpretations of Trump’s decision to pull back U.S. forces as a go-ahead signal.
Top Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman on Monday said the Defense Department has “made clear” that “we do not endorse a Turkish operation in Northern Syria.”
The following day, Hoffman disputed reports that Trump made his decision without consultating Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, adding that U.S. troops were repositioned in Syria to ensure their safety.
“Secretary Esper and Chairman Milley were consulted over the last several days by the President regarding the situation and efforts to protect U.S. forces in Northern Syria in the face of military action by Turkey,” Hoffman said in statement.
He said the Defense Department continues to hold the position that “establishing a safe zone in Northern Syria” is the best way to maintain stability.
“Unfortunately, Turkey has chosen to act unilaterally. As a result we have moved the U.S. forces in Northern Syria out of the path of potential Turkish incursion to ensure their safety,” Hoffman said. “We have made no changes to our force presence in Syria at this time.”
Trump, in a set of mixed messages conveyed via Twitter, threatened to retaliate against Turkey if the country goes too far. But he did not specify what kind of action would cross the line.
Expert panel says regime change in Iran is getting closer SPONSORED CONTENT Expert panel says regime change in Iran is getting closer
BY ORGANIZATION OF IRANIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES “If Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey,” Trump tweeted Monday.
The flurry of events left lawmakers befuddled about Trump’s plan.
“I think there’s a sense of waiting to see what the administration is actually going to do,” said a Senate Republican aide who called the situation “clear as mud.”
GOP aides said Trump’s announcement caught Capitol Hill by surprise and appeared to be made off the cuff after a phone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is now scheduled to visit the White House in mid-November.
Brett McGurk, a former member of Trump’s national security team, told NPR that the president’s sudden decision to withdraw from Syria appeared made “on a haphazard basis after a single call” and called it “almost unprecedented.”
Graham and Coons, in their letter to Senate leaders, raised concerns “that this was an abrupt decision taken in the face of reported opposition from military and diplomatic leaders.”
“We believe that it is imperative that the Department of Defense, State Department, and the Intelligence Community provide an all-members classified briefing on this decision as soon as possible,” they wrote.
But another one of Trump’s closest allies, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), defended the president’s action and criticized fellow Republicans for rebelling.
“They always want to stay at war. They think it’s the best answer,” Paul said of what he called the “neocon war caucus of the Senate.”
“President Trump recognizes what President Reagan recognized, unfortunately too late, in Beirut. Leaving 300 or 400 people in an area that are vulnerable could lead to catastrophe,” Paul said Monday on Fox News.
In the House, Democrats said they were looking at several options to push back against Trump’s latest foreign policy move, which caught leaders of both parties by surprise.
“Multiple committees are looking at possible legislative efforts to put the House on record against the president’s outrageous decision,” said a Democratic leadership aide.
While House Republicans have not sided with Democrats on many measures critical of Trump, it seemed possible that the Syria decision could be an exception.
The Senate voted 70-26 in February to advance a resolution authored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) expressing strong opposition to the precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria or Afghanistan.
McConnell reminded Trump of that in a statement Monday, urging him “to exercise American leadership to keep our multinational coalition to defeat ISIS and prevent significant conflict between our NATO ally Turkey and our local Syrian counterterrorism partners,” referring to Kurdish forces.
A second Senate Republican aide said there could be language added to the annual National Defense Authorization Act to influence Trump’s Syria policy.
But a Republican spokeswoman for the Senate Armed Services Committee noted the bill is still under negotiation and declined to speculate on what might be included in the final version.
The House version of the legislation limits military spending until the secretary of Defense submits to the congressional committees a detailed report on the military mission to combat Islamic militants in Syria and Iraq.
The House bill also requires the secretaries of Defense and State to submit to Congress plans for providing assistance to vetted Syrian opposition forces.
Aside from the defense authorization bill, Congress could pass other measures, from ratcheting up sanctions on Syria to sanctioning foreign individuals who provide support to the Syrian government.
None of those bills, however, would reverse Trump’s decision on Syria.
But Graham on Tuesday endorsed the threat of sanctions against Turkey to safeguard against a military strike against Kurdish forces.
“If Turkey moves into northern Syria, sanctions from hell – by Congress – will follow. Wide, deep, and devastating sanctions,” he tweeted.
President Trump understands the Rules of Engagement with Muslims.
1) If infidels are present, Sunni and Shiite Muslims will unite to convert, enslave, or annihilate the infidels
2) if no infidels present, then Sunni and Shiite will turn against each other until annihilation
Are you an infidel?
Turkey can be dealt with using non-military means.
All Trump has to is exercise his Twitter finger.
The few that President Trump is removing merely takes them out of harms way - resources are still available to be called in if/as needed.
Turkey is a NATO “ally” - the president is tired of trading our blood for causes we have decided aren’t worth all-out war.
Frankly until Trump announced that he was pulling out the Troops in Syria, I didn’t know we had troops there.
Bush started the process of tearing Iraq apart and handing the South to Shia Iran. Obama/Clinton went whole hog and nearly finished the job with their "Arab Spring." But Putin stepped in b****-slapped the whole plan. The deep state, CIA wanted Trump to continue the stupidity, but he rightly is against it.
ISIS is a Saudis strategic tool. They don't have a proper Army that can go abroad and they only have oil as a modern strategic tool. So what else do they have? Their position as center of orthodox, Wahabbist Islam. They create Jihad groups to do their international dirty-work. They helped birth ISIS to take out Assad and check Iran and Hezbollah's power. Their opinion is - wants the job is done, they (and the their blue-eyed mercenaries in the USA) can clean up ISIS
These retards can hold a vote to order US troops there like they are supposed to.
Otherwise these d*ckless wonders are just expecting Trump to make the decision for them.
That link is way too long, try -
https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/10/09/what-you-need-to-know-about-trumps-syria-move
“Turkey can be dealt with using non-military means.”
—
Besides, we’re talkin’ a presence of 50 men that are removed, not battle-hardened battalions dug in for trench warfare. We got enuf problems without taking care of everyone else’s.
Not really. The US is quite divided and there is no great pacifistic mood at all. And I imagine those who have been fighting there as advisors as well as their families will not be pleased if it turns out like Obama’s premature and idiotic withdrawal from Iraq. Having family who fought over there we felt betrayed by Obama and to this day despise the ‘antiwar’ crowd because it is actually a bunch of socialist ‘right’and socialist ‘left’ and far left communist factions in the US trying to support the Russian, Chinese, North Korean, Cuban, Venezuelan, Iranian and French objective of dethroning the US so one of them can fill the void...a squabble they’ll have later if they can rid themselves of the common threat to their ambitions.
I suspect though, that Trump’s move is not pacifistic but may have to do with increased instability in Iran [and its ally China] as well as a possible angle of making this temporary gesture to prevent US ‘pacifists-in-name-only’ from jumping enthusiastically back onto the Democrat bandwagon before the election. He has employed this sleight of hand before. It may be he is using the Turks to force the squabbling Kurds to unify...with ISIS weakened they will fracture, lacking a common enemy, unless they have a reason to overlook their differences and stick together. In a way it is having a similar effect on a squabbling US congress...all I know is Trump is not always doing what everyone thinks he is doing.
“Multiple committees are looking at possible legislative efforts to put the House on record against the president’s outrageous decision,...”
In other words they intend to pass a resolution saying “Orange man bad”....again.
Why doesn’t Congress simply revoke the War Powers Act which gives a president the full authority to do exactly what he is doing?
It’s a rhetorical question, we all know they’d rather whine then actually take action they would be countable for at some point down the road. They are a bunch of sanctimonious twats.
But I know nothing about that site.
For over a hundred years every major world power has made one f**ked up decision after another in that region of the globe! We’re cleaning up the mess Europe created and which we made worse with our “brilliant” international policy “experts”! It is a problem that policy wonks will be dealing with two to three hundred years from now, and far beyond that!
If you had done your research you’d know the PKK is a communist faction and is not representative of the Kurds in general... if anything they have been a Russian ally used against the Turks for generations. It’s the Russians not the US that have been arming the PKK.
“The President’s decision...”
VERSUS
“...The Congress shall have Power... To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;...” - United States Constitution.
So 50 soldiers is supposed to be a major pullout ?
This to me is as much about supporting military suppliers who are in the pockets of congress critters as it is about protecting...
People are just outraged out when it comes to how crappy people in the middle-east treat one another.
Our involvement has largely be one of an exterminator doing pest control - now we just want them to bug off. Is it realistic - probably not. Do we feed the dragon by being there probably. Its a messed situation either way so how about less American's be involved and lets enjoy the fruits of energy independence while the natives sort out their own sandbox.
U.K. Settles $1.6 Billion Damages Claim Brought by Iranian Bank
There are at least 6 local players in this region. Removing our policing military allows them to work out their own salvation. Turkey’s incursion guarantees Assad and Russia will not dominate. The Kurds have persisted for a thousand years. Trump has committed to economic sanctions if they are attacked beyond reasonable measures. THAT is a bigger stick than a few hundred policing forces. This will work out as it should. We are not the world’s police force.
Trump faces growing GOP revolt on Syria
I no longer believe what is passed off as “news”. At best this is an opinion based on ... well who knows anymore.
However there are some that still believe especially if the press is reporting what they want to hear.
As a child I thought it was the cape that allowed superman to fly, and so one day I made a cape (well really an old towel) climbed up on the shed in our backyard and jumped.
A quick trip to the ER and a few stitches went a long way in teaching me the difference between reality and fantasy. Believing in a fantasy can hurt you.
Those that get their information from the media are living in a fantasy world. TDS is the direct result of some believing that Hillary could not lose the election and they have yet come to terms with that loss.
Believing that the GOP is in revolt over moving 50 troops out of Syria is a fantasy that will just cause more disappointment when the President is not removed from office until he loses the 2020 election or his term expires in 2025.
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.