When Trump was elected in 2016, as a conservative I approached his term with guarded optimism. After all, maybe an outsider wouldn't be a bad thing, especially aided by some people whom I respected. Over the next two years, as these advisors peeled off, I said well, some of them are still on board, until they were all gone. I did cringe when Trump berated the departed, who all knew more than he would, ever.
Allowing Turkey to enter Syria, at the peril of the Kurds, is the deal breaker for me. While diehard justifiers might cite ending endless foreign missions, it was neither the time or the place for that. We are clearly serving Turkey's interests, not our own. Trump's ramble about the Kurds not being our allies in WW2 pretty much sums up his lack of any historical perspective.
Assuming Trump remains the Republican nominee in 2020, I may be forced to vote for the Democrat, whoever that may be. This experiment in outsider governance is over for me. I suspect that I may not be alone about this being a deal breaker. Many of his supporters consider themselves patriots, and the notion of abandoning an ally in the field is completely contrary to their values. One thing is certain, there are no new supporters coming forward to replace them. Trump may soon feel like the Kurdish fighters he abandoned.
photo of betrayed Kurdish fighters
Any Democrat you will vote for will be far worse than Trump on the middle east. It was that party that created the disaster that Trump is extracting America from. Put the Democrats back in power and they will destroy America as well, they were well on their way when Trump spoiled their plans three years ago. Mike, do you want the likes of Brennan, Clapper and Comey back in power, people and a party that will use the power of the state for extra constitutional partisan purposes to destroy their political opponents and corrupt the government?
ReplyDeleteYour post today reflects one of anger rather than rational. Anger isn't smart it is often vengeful as is your response.
Years ago I wrote that the Democrat will turn America into Allentown. They were well on their way. Now Mike is ready to vote Democrat.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing, Trump has been signaling for two years now his intentions to do exactly what he did. This was no surprise to anyone paying attention. He is also living up to another campaign promise. When all of Washington howls with one voice, one would be wise to be wary of such noise.
ReplyDeleteObama and the Democrats created ISIS, Trump entered Syria to end that scourge. He did. Now you want us to entangle us in an area soaked with endless tribal, religious, and ethnic disputes, that routinely lead to slaughters, hatred, tyrants, and retaliations? Although the elites in Washington and the media think that's a good idea, not sure average American's agree.
ReplyDeleteI share your concern about the Kurds, but I also think it's also fair to weigh that concern against "endless foreign missions" as you call it.
ReplyDeleteI believe the United States currently has a military presence in over 150 of the 193 countries on this planet. The total number of service members serving overseas is in the area of 170,000. Admittedly, not all of them are in harm’s way and there is an advantage for the US in having some troops forward deployed in other countries.
But many of our soldiers are in high-danger zones (Syria included), and have been in such situations for many years and numerous deployments. Couple that with the fact that only 0.5% of the US population serving in the military, and you have a very small group of people shouldering the burden of protecting the world. So they are a scarce and precious group of people.
I can live with putting our sons and daughters in dangerous situations if there is a clear reason (in OUR national interest) for being there, and a clear definition of what our objectives are in those situations (which will allow us to withdrawal when those objectives are met).
The problem with our involvement in many of our current conflicts is that we often don’t have clear reasons for being somewhere, and we certainly don’t have clear objectives. This causes OUR mission to creep beyond what we need, and OUR soldiers to pay the price for that lack of clarity.
Specific to this post, I may have known why we went into Syria initially, but I’m not certain what our objectives are now, since our initial objectives seem to have been accomplished. While I’m sympathetic to the plight of the Kurds, I don’t think that we went into Syria to protect the Kurds.
As much as we might like to think otherwise, many areas of the world are brutal places. I don’t know the Kurds are any worse off now than when we went into Syria, and we likely bought them time they wouldn’t have otherwise had.
I don’t know that there is a perfect time to end any of our foreign entanglements, but I do think it’s fair to remove our physical presence from certain battlefields when we no longer have a clear reason for being there. And while the press and the democrats will now wail about the plight of the Kurds, I doubt that they’ll give equal coverage and concern to the US soldiers injured and killed in that conflict.
Scott, I'm afraid that your partisanship is affecting your "rational" response. Republican leadership also opposes this particular shift in policy. Understand that the Kurdish zone was protected by only 50 US servicemen, who are not be removed from Syria, but rather just pulled back. Trump impulsively gave in to a phone call from Erdogen. I'm an independent conservative. As a Republican partisan, Trump is more your problem than mine...he is single handedly destroying your party.
ReplyDeleteYou are becoming very Democrat in your responses Mike. Note how you start your rebuttal with what is clearly meant to be an insult and convenient tool impugn my argument and credibility.
DeleteThis said, once past the insult sentence you undo your first by pointing out the criticism of Trump's pullout decision is bipartisan. You should have started your response with your third sentence which contains facts that intelligent people could disagree on. In sentence five you state that Trump's action was impulsive even though it clearly wasn't as I pointed out( one can find reputable article to prove this). The fact that he did it after conferring with the president of Turkey merely demonstrates he did it in coordination with Erdogen. Few would believe Trump caved in to that tyrant, his actions routinely prove the opposite.
To your final point, I will gladly deal with the "problem" of Trump as the leader of the party I belong to rather than have the problems of the party you have pledged to support.
They have twenty lousy and truly radical candidates running for president. They support open borders, free health care, education, and benefits for anyone and everyone who crosses. When that happens Mike how do you think that will work out? Are you fine supporting the party of Brennan, Comey, and Clapper? Socialized medicine, sky high taxes on everyone with a job, a flat economy at best, reparations, free higher education, forgiveness of student loans...Apparently all of this is a wiser choice than four more years of Donald Trump.
Glad you have laid this all out for us Mr. Conservative.
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ReplyDeleteMM said:
ReplyDelete"Understand that the Kurdish zone was protected by only 50 US servicemen"
So in essence we're talking about keeping a small group of US servicemen in place to serve as human shield to protect the Kurds from Turkish (or other) aggression.
Let's assume that Turkey was going to roll and couldn't guarantee the safety of those US servicemen. Let's play that out a bit:
Was/is protecting the Kurds part of our mission and in our national interest?
If a US servicemember would have been killed or wounded, what would have been our response? More troops to Syria? Start a new conflict with Turkey?
I think it's obvious that Kurdish protection isn't in our national interest or part of the mission in Syria. I definitely don't want to increase our involvement in Syria or expand it to Turkey. So I certainly don't think keeping the troops in place was worth the risk of harm to a single US serviceman.
I do find it interesting that many of the same people in Washington who are now crying the loudest about Trump's decision to pull back were also the loudest critics when we became directly involved in Syria. Had Trump kept our troops in place, and our troops gotten injured or killed, I'm certain those critics would all be saying how much it was worth it [sarcasm intended]
How could any Commander In Chief keep a small contingent of troops in Northern Syria to face an invading army.The U.N. and N.A.T.O. could stop Turkey.how could we allow our troops to remain.This is the result of the impeachment process,government comes to a halt,nothing can get done.
ReplyDeleteTrump entered Syria to end that scourge. He did.
ReplyDeleteNo he didn't. Some 10,000 remain in jails across Syria that were guarded by the Kurds. Thousands more remain scattered. What happens when Kurds no longer are able to control the situation?
...you state that Trump's action was impulsive even though it clearly wasn't as I pointed out( one can find reputable article to prove this). The fact that he did it after conferring with the president of Turkey merely demonstrates he did it in coordination with Erdogen.
Sure would have been nice if he would have at the very least consulted with a few at the state dept. and pentagon as well.
I couldn't agree more that we should get out of there and many other places. Look there's a way to go about it and this ain't it. You don't pull out the rug and abandon those who fought alongside of us completely with zero notification.
A better way: (1) Force Erdogen to agree not to invade killing Syria's Kurds. (2) Layout in the strongest possible terms what penalties Turkey faces if they do. (2 Speak to the Kurds explaining what we expect of them for their part and exactly when we would be withdrawing our support. So too what will happen to them if they don't live up to our expectations either.
People can argue all they like but this sends a clear message to future allies supporting us. Your toast when we no longer need you. Trump did this to Afghans who were informants for our troops that were promised a path to the United States. Did the same to immigrants who were told they also have a path towards citizenship if they joined our military. We (through Trump's presidency) have broken our trade agreements. Tore up our peace agreement with Iran. I can't help but imagine most countries consider us liars and a country which breaks our promises.
DeleteI had no problem with Trump conducting his own past businesses this way. He's known for throwing people under the bus. That's on him. But now he's speaking for the reputation of the United States citizens both present and going into the future long after he's gone.
The shouldn't be a Republican or Democrat problem. They're both not as far apart as Trump makes them out to be. He's thrown them both under the bus. He's a master at making everything about him by pitting them both against each other. He could care less about either one.
Don't you get it yet?
TRUMP ONLY CARES ABOUT TRUMP.. PERIOD.
Scott, to clarify, I have not pledged to support the Democratic candidate. It is my remote hope that the Republicans nominate someone other than Trump.
ReplyDeleteLVCI, Matis quit because Trump wasn't going to reverse course on his plans to eventually completely withdraw from Syria. So he has been in discussion with the Pentagon. As he is the president he has the right to pursue courses of action that he promised as a candidate. No one was actually surprised by what Trump did, and if they honestly were, they weren't paying attention.
ReplyDeleteIt should be noted that Trump has not removed troops from Syria, rather he just moved them farther back, to make Turkey's excursion into Syria more legitimate. Those American troops were not previously in harm's way from Turkey, because they would have never invaded without Trump's consent.
ReplyDeleteThat was their apparent agreement. Trump has promised economic sanctions against Turkey if they go after the Kurds. Lord knows what line they would have to cross for that to happen.
ReplyDeleteThe middle east chaos was started under Bush 1, Republican, it was stoked by Bush 2 Republican, It was escalated under Obama, democrat who instigated regime change in Syria, Egypt, Libya, Ukraine, and attempted to do the same in Israel and Russia. It is evident that our foreign policy has been controlled by others than our presidents. It has been a disaster, the chaos in the middle east and Europe are all products of our intervention. Whether you like Trump or not, He is the first to question our foreign policy of the last 3 decades. We are not supposed to question, we are supposed to continue on the same failed path. Those who have controlled our foreign policy have been mis-informing and putting all our presidents in positions that give them few options. Whether weapons of mass destruction or protecting an ethic group. The plan that is being implemented is to remove all foreign Troops from Syria, including Russia, Iran and Turkey. Turkey needs to repatriate over 3 million refuges back to Syria. Our foreign policy experts still endorse regime change in Syria and a permanent presence in the Middle east. The present plan has been negotiated with Russia, Turkey, Iran, Syria Israel and some gulf countries. Hopefully it will be successful. Do we want our children and grand children to be perpetual targets .
ReplyDeleteI never understood the original American policy in Syria. At first is was supporting and arming rebels attempting to over-throw the Syrian government.I remember Senator McCain saying the U.S. was supporting "The Good Rebels' whoever they were.Now these'Good Rebels' turned out to be I.S.I.S., who-ever they are.If America did not start arming these rebels the Syrian conflict would have been crushed years ago
ReplyDeleteThere are only three permanent dynamics to remember when evaluating American foreign policy decisions in the Middle East:
ReplyDelete1. Oil....who has it, and who needs it. Saudi Arabia, Iraq & Iran have it; we need to be able to purchase it, either directly via OPEC, or indirectly, via shell companies distributing Iranian oil.
2. We need to be able to sell our arms to the largest purchasers of same there......Saudi Arabia & Israel, and to our own military stationed there.
3. Israel, because of our domestic political pressures/realities/need for contributions to elected officials.
Balancing these factors requires skill and luck and strategic planning. Bush Jr. wrecked the paridgam by the invasion of Iraqi because it destabilized the region and made Iran the dominant power by essentially turning Iraqi, Syria & Lebbanon into Iranian proxies. Trump now is losing the region back to ISIS since the Kurds were the only force capable of defeating them (Europe & the US not willing to take causalities to fight them on the ground). In the end, everybody always betrays the Kurds because they are more expendable, while the oil rich countries in the region, and Turkey & Israel are less so.
I am happy to see your eyes have finally been opened.
ReplyDeleteWell all---We do not live in a perfect world. PRES Obama ignored Ethnic cleansing by Isis. Nuns hiding orphans in caves etc to avoid their slaughter. Kurdish girls being sold into slavery etc. Now the Isis caliphate is out of business thanks to us.
ReplyDeleteChristians in Africa being slaughtered daily. Here in the good ole USA hundreds of black Americans being slaughtered weekly in our Democratic controlled cities. There's a world full of Bad Shit evey day every which way unimaginable.
I don't see ANY presidential candidate that would be any better than Pres Trump in addressing Bad Shit. Actually I don't see ANY that would come close to Trump.
Hope someone can share a better candidate.