One More Wrinkle in Turkey Chaos: 50 US Nukes | Newser


https://www.newser.com/story/281706/one-more-wrinkle-in-turkey-chaos-50-us-nukes.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.newser.com/story/281706/one-more-wrinkle-in-turkey-chaos-50-us-nukes.html

So now there are reports that the 1000 military personnel that were to be leaving Syria have been cut off from their exit and may have to be airlifted as the Turks have shut the road they were using. *** is going on and where are the people who make sure that our soldiers are safe as they exit Syria? This is why an experienced leader is needed. Someone who is smart enough to know that they don't know it all. In less than a week we have found out that the Idiot in Chief's incompetence has risen to new heights and is awe inspiring in its cluelessness.

Pelosi and Graham team up to oppose Trump's Syria decision and sanction Turkey - Axios


https://www.axios.com/nancy-pelosi-lindsey-graham-turkey-sanctions-syria-22a342e7-1de1-4439-82a2-feeb534fb3ef.html



Russian shadow falls over Syria as Kurds open door for Assad


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/14/russian-shadow-falls-over-syria-as-kurds-open-door-for-assad?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Re: Fiona Hill, first impressions matter, absolutely. Oh and BTW, Hill is considered a Russian hardliner. Otherwise, Karma...always the b*tch.

Quote:

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As The Washington Post reported in 2017, Hill's hiring was "a reassuring selection among Russia hard-liners." But as the Post continues, Hill's "relationship with Trump, however, was strained from the start."

Quote:

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In one of her first encounters with the president, an Oval Office meeting in preparation for a call with Putin on Syria, Trump appeared to mistake Hill for a member of the clerical staff, handing her a memo he had marked up and instructing her to rewrite it. When Hill responded with a perplexed look, Trump became irritated with what he interpreted as insubordination, according to officials who witnessed the exchange. As she walked away in confusion, Trump exploded and motioned for McMaster to intervene. [The Washington Post]

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https://theweek.com/speedreads/871650/paragraph-could-suggest-trumps-russia-adviser-isnt-giving-flattering-testimony-congress

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[url=https://theweek.com/speedreads/871650/paragraph-could-suggest-trumps-russia-adviser-isnt-giving-flattering-testimony-congress][/url]

Pence describes the president's level of arousal while speaking to the dictator.

bearister said:

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Trump and Erdogan 'Just Got Played' by Putin says Terrorism Expert

https://apple.news/AKZA-GDfdTYalAgr5WieAmw


This is what happens when a failed game show host plays POTUS.

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Or this is what happens when a career businessman and entertainer doesn't listen to his military advisers.

AunBear89 said:

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golden sloth said:

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bearister said:

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Trump and Erdogan 'Just Got Played' by Putin says Terrorism Expert

https://apple.news/AKZA-GDfdTYalAgr5WieAmw


This is what happens when a failed game show host plays POTUS.

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Or this is what happens when a career businessman and entertainer doesn't listen to his military advisers.

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This is what happens when under educated slack jaws in trailer parks vote for a guy they seen on the movin' picture box cuz he tells it like it is and he's lookin' out for the common folk like us!

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These under-educated slack jaws in trailer parks are tired of sending their sons and daughters to die in Endless Wars in the mideast, and to pay the $7 trillion tab for those wars with nothing to show for.

The brouhaha about Kurdish genocide and ISIS breakout is bunk, the same MSM narrative was used in other phases of the Syrian conflict where the Syrian Army defeated the jihadi rebels, in eastern Aleppo and the Damascus suburbs. ISIS is a direct result of US intervention in the region. They are no match to the Syrian army, which won't stand

The real craziness here is not what happened this week, it was the notion that we were going to carve out one third of Syria and turn it into a Kurdish state. Kurds form 9% of the Syrian population, and many, like the family of Alan Kurdi, the unfortunate child who drowned on a Greek beach and became the poster child of Syrian refugees, are well integrated citizens in one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse countries in the world, Syria. The Kurdish militias there have been ethnically cleansing Syrian Arabs, most notably Assyrian Christians, taking over their homes and lands and preventing refugees from returning after ISIS filed out.

There is no way the Kurdish militias/SDF could have held on that region without continued US military presence. There was no exit strategy in that plan, it was unsustainable without US boots on the ground and air support. As well, an independent Kurdistan along the Turkish southern border was a non-starter for Turkey, a key NATO member.

The US under Obama was making the same mistakes France did in Syria exactly 100 years ago, after that part of the Levant was carved out from the Ottoman Empire under the Sykes-Picot secret agreement with the UK. France tried to carve out Syria into 4 ethnostates, in a classic divide and conquer colonial approach. The Syrians, who wanted a united country were brutally repressed in the 1920s, much like the Brits under Churchill repressed the Iraqis. The Kerry/Obama plan, like the French Syrian Mandate plan, was also about carving out Syria into warring ethnostates, starting with "Rojava", a Kurdish socialist utopia taking up the oil and wheat belt of Syria.

To put the Syrian quandary in perspective, a conflict which very few posters here understand, using the better known conflict of Vietnam, the Kurds are very much like the Hmongs and other tribal minorities which were armed and used to fight the Vietnamese. It didn't end well for them once we had to leave, and it wouldn't have ended well for the Kurds had we stayed for 5, 10 or 20 years and boosted them against all their neighbors and against the plurality of Syrians north of the Euphrates. This type of colonial divide and rule policy is the root of actual genocides, like the recent one in Rwanda.

This is actually the best outcome for the Kurds in the long term, they've brokered a deal under the gun to rejoin the Syrian fold and work with Assad to push the Turks back to their border. In the long term it's a win-win denouement across the board.

Trump is now the non-interventionist, peace presidential candidate. That's what he campaigned on, and to his credit, that's what he just did, all but ending active US involvement in the Syrian regime change project, started by neocons, who have been driving US foreign policy for the last two decades.

You're basically either siding with Trump or with the Cheneys here... At some point you have to look at this with more lucidity and less partisanship. Unfortunately very few Americans really know or understand what Syria is about, know any Syrians personally, or could place Aleppo on a map before 2011. The perception of the general public boils down to cliches of badass teenage Kurdettes in fatigues, classic good guys/bad guys colonial propaganda.


Ron Paul with an excellent summary of the situation:



At the 3:23 mark, dramatic footage of US troops leaving the Manbij area, while Syrian troops entering on the other side of the road, it's not quite the disorderly situation of the Saigon rooftop evacuation:

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, Rand Paul answers most of the questions raised in this thread:

dajo9 said:

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dajo9 said:

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What this thread needs is for Putin's agent, Cal88, to come in and explain why abandoning U.S. allies to their doom is good for the country.

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. . . And scene

Good night everybody. Thanks for coming to the Putin Propaganda Show.

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Thanks for the low IQ aggro non-argument, par for the course.

Stanford prof telling it like it is.

BBC: excerpts from Russian papers read in English.

...and now how Pat Buchanan views it:

Is Trump At Last Ending Our 'Endless Wars'? Patrick J. Buchanan Official Website


https://buchanan.org/blog/is-trump-at-last-ending-our-endless-wars-137583


Is the Interventionists' Era Over for Good? Patrick J. Buchanan Official Website


https://buchanan.org/blog/is-the-interventionists-era-over-for-good-137617

Counterpoint:

Trump Ignored Syria Exit Options that Could Have Kept Russia at Bay, NSC Official Says


https://www.newsweek.com/trump-ignored-syria-exit-options-russia-takeover-nsc-official-1465731


Leaving Syria is 'knife in the back' for Kurdish forces, Panetta says | PBS NewsHour


https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/leaving-syria-is-knife-in-the-back-for-kurdish-forces-panetta-says

bearister said:

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The Kurds will have a long memory. tRump's kiddos might want to watch their six down the road.

" But, if we don't care about our values, if we don't care about duty and honor, if we don't help the weak and stand up against oppression and injustice what will happen to the Kurds, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, the Rohingyas, the South Sudanese and the millions of people under the boot of tyranny or left abandoned by their failing states?

If our promises are meaningless, how will our allies ever trust us? If we can't have faith in our nation's principles, why would the men and women of this nation join the military? And if they don't join, who will protect us? If we are not the champions of the good and the right, then who will follow us? And if no one follows us where will the world end up?

President Trump seems to believe that these qualities are unimportant or show weakness. He is wrong. These are the virtues that have sustained this nation for the past 243 years. If we hope to continue to lead the world and inspire a new generation of young men and women to our cause, then we must embrace these values now more than ever.

And if this president doesn't understand their importance, if this president doesn't demonstrate the leadership that America needs, both domestically and abroad, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office Republican, Democrat or independent the sooner, the better. The fate of our Republic depends upon it."

William H. McRaven, a retired Navy admiral, is a former commander of the United States Special Operations Command and former chancellor of the University of Texas system.


Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter

Cal Junkie said:

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bearister said:

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The Kurds will have a long memory. tRump's kiddos might want to watch their six down the road.

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Trouble is other nationalities, like the Armenians didn't support The Grump before; he should avoid campaign stops in Fresno.

St. Donald of tRumpus, Savior of the Kurds and Smiter of the Turks

I know it's been going on for numerous days, now, but I can scarcely believe that this is happening. Just when you think the Idiot in Chief can't sink any lower, he lowers the bar significantly. The US is simply a disgrace, thanks to people like Cal88. What's worse: Being a smart person that ignores the plight of his country (so long as that person's pockets are fat) or being an uneducated fool? I say the Cal88s are the true deplorables.

I didn't think it could ever be possible but the Idiot in Chief's attempts at foreign policy in the Middle East astounds me at the increasing level of incompetence day after day after day. There is no acceptable excuse for what has occurred and what will happen as a result of his unimaginable level of stupidity and criminality. He has put our country and its military at risk to pay a debt to Russia and Putin, and it appears that the Kurds who lost 11,000 lives fighting against U.S. enemies (ISIS and Asaad) will bear the cost at present, but the U.S. will bear the cost for the next 50 years.

Bad day but did you expect this? Seriously, the Turks look to decimate the Kurds and Trump calls it a playground pushy-shovey?

p.s. The Pence cease-fire looks to be worthless. This isn't the Turk's first genocide. This is extremely depressing stuff.

Quote:

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Trump Compares Turks and Kurds to 'Two Kids' Fighting

Hours after his vice president and secretary of state brokered a cease-fire, President Trump said he was right to let Turkey attack America's Kurdish allies because it eventually led to a deal.

DALLAS President Trump insisted on Thursday night that he was smart to let Turkey attack America's Kurdish allies in northern Syria, comparing the two warring sides to children on a playground who need to slug it out before settling their differences.

Speaking at a campaign rally hours after Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brokered a cease-fire, Mr. Trump defended his decision to withdraw American forces from Syria, effectively clearing the way for a brutal Turkish assault on Kurdish fighters who had fought for years alongside the United States against the Islamic State.

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I hope somebody gets Appeasing Pence an umbrella for when he gets off the plane at Andrews, waves the piece of paper, and proclaims that the selling out of Kurdetenland is Peace in Our Time

But I thought it was Trump, not Pence, who negotiated this strategically brilliant one of a kind deal that others have tried to accomplish for 15 years, and he did it in 30 minutes after an emergency CYA negotiation to make the mess he created 100% by himself in a unilateral decision without DOD or State Department and at the behest of Erdongan (and Putin)?

I am so confused I thought he saved civilization by allowing dictators to Ethnic Cleanse and literally rip women out of their cars and shoot them at the side of the road--you know like kids do on the playground in a little scrap.

This POS needs to not be able to make one more decision about anything.

BearNIt said:

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So now there are reports that the 1000 military personnel that were to be leaving Syria have been cut off from their exit and may have to be airlifted as the Turks have shut the road they were using. *** is going on and where are the people who make sure that our soldiers are safe as they exit Syria? This is why an experienced leader is needed. Someone who is smart enough to know that they don't know it all. In less than a week we have found out that the Idiot in Chief's incompetence has risen to new heights and is awe inspiring in its cluelessness.

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If some of those soldiers get killed, or if we lose some nukes to Turkey, do you think that will be Trump's Benghazi?

What on earth will it take for Republicans to turn against him, my god.
They create invented theories against Hillary, but when Trump does all that and more x1000, they make excuses.
Crazy!

concordtom said:

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BearNIt said:

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So now there are reports that the 1000 military personnel that were to be leaving Syria have been cut off from their exit and may have to be airlifted as the Turks have shut the road they were using. *** is going on and where are the people who make sure that our soldiers are safe as they exit Syria? This is why an experienced leader is needed. Someone who is smart enough to know that they don't know it all. In less than a week we have found out that the Idiot in Chief's incompetence has risen to new heights and is awe inspiring in its cluelessness.

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If some of those soldiers get killed, or if we lose some nukes to Turkey, do you think that will be Trump's Benghazi?

What on earth will it take for Republicans to turn against him, my god.
They create invented theories against Hillary, but when Trump does all that and more x1000, they make excuses.
Crazy!

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Benghazi (as politicized) was a hoax. Stealing nukes is serious as a heart attack.