U.S. Politics

[villakram]

3 hours ago, bickster said:

It was, or do we only count countries with pharmacies, bookmakers, McDs and starbucks on every corner as enlightened places?

They had a functioning economy, healthcare and education system. It absolutely could have been better, but I would dare to suggest that there is a better way to get there than blowing the whole damn thing up. But Freedom and Democracy (tm). 

It always amazes me how people in the easy life like to so demand freedom for others, when it may well involve destroy their lives.

Or maybe I mis-interpreted and you're off on your hols to sunny Syria next year.

[blandy]

6 hours ago, villakram said:

So you support the AQ affiliated groups or whatever it is they have rebranded themselves these days?

A popular uprising where "we" supported jihadi groups because freedom and democracy, that has resulted in the destruction of a fully functioning country. 

Take off the blinkers.

Abhorring Assad does not mean supporting AQ. So that’s a pathetic response  I did not and do not “support” “us” getting involved in bombing etc. Syria either, or Iraq , or Libya (unlike some people with double standards in here. I mean this

Quote

I wonder if the people of Libya prefer the post-US state of affairs to living under Gaddafi? 

From Peter, who supported “us” taking action in Libya, for example.). So put away the ludicrous “take off your blinkers” nonsense, Akram. Though if you want to direct it elsewhere, it might be more useful in light of some of what’s been posted  Monstrous hypocrisy doesn’t do this kind of thing justice

Quote

Because let's face it, the US agenda is not about creating a strong, well-functioning, autonomous and democratic state where people live in harmony in the sunlit uplands of freedom, is it? 

Whilst correct, contrast and compare with this gem

Quote

Towns have been liberated by the Syrian army with crucial support from the Russians and normal life is being resumed in many places

Assad and Russia liberate and return normal order!  I can only laugh at it.  Friendly Russian bombs!

Assad and Russia since they got involved have been responsible for more deaths of civilians in less time than the forces from the US and partners. Because they take less care and because they also deliberately target them on occasion, with their barrel bombs and their gas. They are not, despite the  “whataboutism” from you or @peterms, liberators and bringers of freedom. I’m amazed and genuinely saddened that my saying that has been vociferously opposed. I’m also greatly disappointed to even need to have to correct you, or Peter, by pointing out that opposition by me to Assad and Russia’s actions is not support for Trump’s or Obama’s or Cameron’s. Rail all you like against W, or Blair or Cameron’s folly because I’m with you, but don’t adopt double standards when it then comes to Russian bombings  Frankly, fury at actions by the US is rendered rather artificial to me by anyone who then adopts an entirely different approach if it’s Russian bombs, Syrian gas, and who talks about illegality after calling for that very same thing in Libya. I can’t take it seriously. Pointing out all the flaws in US policy does not make Russian policy “liberation”.

As I said, **** me. Staggering. 

[snowychap]

Grauniad:

Quote

The resignation of US defence secretary James Mattis was triggered by a phone conversation between Donald Trump and the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in which Trump abruptly decided to upend previous US policy and withdraw troops from Syria, according to new accounts of the call.

Mattis went to see the president on Thursday afternoon in a last-ditch attempt to change the president’s mind, and argue for standing by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have take the lead role in ejecting the Islamic State from its Syrian strongholds.

Mattis had already composed a resignation letter that did not mention the SDF or Syria but repeatedly referred to the importance to US national security of respecting allies, and confronting strategic adversaries.

Trump rebuffed Mattis’s arguments over the course of a 45-minute meeting. Trump had already recorded a video in the White House garden, announcing he was bringing the troops home, and it had been shown to Mattis.

At the end of the meeting Mattis took Trump by surprise by presenting his resignation letter. According to the New York Times, Mattis ordered 50 copies to be made and circulated around the Pentagon on his return to his office.

Accounts in the US and Turkish press of the Friday call between Trump and Erdoğan show the volatile US president complying with the Turkish leader’s demands and taking his own advisers by surprise.

It is the latest example of a pattern in which Trump tends to side with authoritarian foreign leaders, over the advice of US officials.

Trump has also ordered the withdrawal of half the 14,000 US military presence in Afghanistan, but it is the decision over Syria which appears to have precipitated Mattis’s decision to leave office.

“As soon as the US folds its tent and leaves, Turkey will immediately begin an air bombardment followed by a ground attack by the [Ankara-backed] Free Syrian army. Thousands will die, thousands will be displaced and will be given no haven within Syria. They will be turned away at the Turkish border,” said David Phillips, a former senior state department official, and the author of the new book: The Great Betrayal: How America Abandoned the Kurds and Lost the Middle East.

“For more than three and a half years, they have been our boots on the ground and were the point of the spear in retaking [the Isis stronghold] Raqqa,” Phillips, now at Columbia University, said. “Who is going to fight for us in the future when we throw our allies under the bus?”

Mattis’s colleagues had previously said he was determined to stay on despite multiple differences with Trump to safeguard the interests of the armed services, and in the words of one former Pentagon employee “serve the constitution”.

According to a version of events in the Associated Press, the US position going into the call was to demand that Turkey stall a planned offensive into Syria aimed at US-backed Kurdish elements of the SDF, which Ankara sees as indistinguishable from the Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey.

“The talking points were very firm,” one of the officials quoted by the Associated Press said. “Everybody said push back and try to offer [Turkey] something that’s a small win, possibly holding territory on the border, something like that.”

Erdoğan responded by saying that Isis had been 99% defeated.

“Why are you still there?” Erdoğan demanded, according to the account.

With the Turkish leader still on the line, Trump asked the same question of his national security adviser, John Bolton, who repeated US policy until then, that the defeat of Isis had to be “enduring”, preventing the possibility of a resurgence.

To the surprise of Bolton and Erdoğan, Trump instantly sided with the Turkish president.

According to the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, whose account is similar to the Associated Press’s, Trump declared: “OK – do it.” Not hearing an instant response from Bolton, Trump demanded to know whether his national security adviser was still on the line. When Bolton said he was, Trump ordered: “Start the work.”

Bolton and his Turkish counterpart, Ibrahim Kalin, were left to sort out the details.

The Hurriyet report said the initial timetable for US withdrawal was between 30 and 60 days, which was later extended to up to 100 days.

Such an abrupt withdrawal would leave the SDF vulnerable to Turkish attack. Observers said it gave the SDF little choice but to try to reach deal with the Assad regime, in an effort to safeguard some Kurdish autonomy.

Mattis and other US national security officials sought to change Trump’s mind over the weekend, without success. US allies such as the UK and France, who have small special forces contingents in northern Syria engaged in the fight against Isis, were not consulted, and only found out about the policy change on Monday through informal contacts with US officials.

Mattis had begun his tenure at the Pentagon with good relations with Trump, who admired his martial bearing and one of his nicknames, “Mad Dog”.

However, the relationship soured and Mattis resisted several of Trump’s defence policies including the ban on transgender troops, the creation of a space force and the staging of an extravagant military parade in Washington, based on French Bastille Day parades.

Mattis had also restrained Trump from his initial impulse of threatening to leave the Nato alliance if US allies did not spend more on defence. His resignation letter focuses on the US reliance on its alliances for its security.

“My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues,” Mattis said, before making it clear he no longer believed the president shared those convictions.

“Because you have the right to have a secretary of defence whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position,” he said. The letter offers no words of praise for the president.

Mattis’s departure shocked some of Trump’s most loyal backers in Congress. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, warned the chamber would only confirm a replacement who held the same views as Mattis on the importance of alliances.

Mac Thornberry, the Republican chair of the House armed services committee, expressed regret at Mattis’s departure and said: “Reducing the American presence in Afghanistan and removing our presence in Syria will reverse that progress, encourage our adversaries, and make America less safe.”

 

[sne]

Giving carte blanche for another Turkish genocide.

The Kurds are going to get slaughtered.

[peterms]

43 minutes ago, blandy said:

From Peter, who supported “us” taking action in Libya

This is at best disingenuous, or deliberately misleading.

You know, because we have discussed it on here, that I initially supported intervention in Libya against what the UK government and the BBC announced was an impending massacre of civilians by Gaddafi's forces in the east of the country.  This later turned out to be false, and a parliamentary inquiry found it to be so, and I said that my initial judgement had been wrong.

You know this, don't you?  And yet you present it in this way?  Why?  It doesn't come across as an argument in good faith.

 

[Keyblade]

A little bit of comic relief.

 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, peterms said:

This is at best disingenuous, or deliberately misleading.

You know, because we have discussed it on here, that I initially supported intervention in Libya against what the UK government and the BBC announced was an impending massacre of civilians by Gaddafi's forces in the east of the country.  This later turned out to be false, and a parliamentary inquiry found it to be so, and I said that my initial judgement had been wrong.

You know this, don't you?  And yet you present it in this way?  Why?  It doesn't come across as an argument in good faith.

 

The bit I remember is “I supported intervention in Libya” I also remember you later saying you were wrong for the right reasons, or some such. I have no recollection of the rest, but happily accept what you say above.

One of the reasons I was not convinced by your (and more pertinently Cameron’s) then enthusiasm for us to get involved in Libya is because, as ever, and as with Syria, Iraq etc. the myriad various sects, factions, religious and ethnic groups don’t want foreigners there. Whether US, French, British, Russian... and there’s only so much you can do from the air, or offshore. 

Quote

you've been in the forces, you will understand the practical issues involved in trying to regain cities from well equipped forces, with networks of tunnels large enough to shelter lorries, using the civilian population as human shields.  Both Syria and the US used bombing in cities to capture territory.  You present this as what Syria and Russia does, and by implication, by saying nothing about other actors, you suggest that it is only them that do this. 

Anyone doing that causes casualties amongst non combatants. My perception is that the UK is more careful than the US which is more careful/less careless than Russia which in turn is less reckless than than Syrian forces.

The massive issue I have with your “outlook” is not that it comes from an anti-American/western position - that’s your prerogative and I can see some justification for it, but the hypocrisy and double standards and willingness to excuse or overlook or re-define actions when they’re taken by Russian actors in Salisbury or Syria, or anywhere. Your critical and sceptical talents are not evenly directed. There’s a bias that’s very apparent, which is fine, it’s a free world, but I can’t take what you write seriously when you exhibit it. 

[blandy]

28 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

A little bit of comic relief.

 

Gruesome.

[a m ole]

30 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

A little bit of comic relief.

 

“let’s do that bit about the projects again Ivanka but this time say they’re sexy”

Edited December 21, 2018 by a m ole

[OutByEaster?]

There are no good guys in Syria - it's just a matter of arranging the bad guys to your liking. There are plenty of bad guys to be arranged.

 

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, Keyblade said:

A little bit of comic relief.

 

"They're the sexiest projects out there."

[villakram]

4 hours ago, blandy said:

Abhorring Assad does not mean supporting AQ. So that’s a pathetic response  I did not and do not “support” “us” getting involved in bombing etc. Syria either, or Iraq , or Libya (unlike some people with double standards in here. I mean this

From Peter, who supported “us” taking action in Libya, for example.). So put away the ludicrous “take off your blinkers” nonsense, Akram. Though if you want to direct it elsewhere, it might be more useful in light of some of what’s been posted  Monstrous hypocrisy doesn’t do this kind of thing justice

Whilst correct, contrast and compare with this gem

Assad and Russia liberate and return normal order!  I can only laugh at it.  Friendly Russian bombs!

Assad and Russia since they got involved have been responsible for more deaths of civilians in less time than the forces from the US and partners. Because they take less care and because they also deliberately target them on occasion, with their barrel bombs and their gas. They are not, despite the  “whataboutism” from you or @peterms, liberators and bringers of freedom. I’m amazed and genuinely saddened that my saying that has been vociferously opposed. I’m also greatly disappointed to even need to have to correct you, or Peter, by pointing out that opposition by me to Assad and Russia’s actions is not support for Trump’s or Obama’s or Cameron’s. Rail all you like against W, or Blair or Cameron’s folly because I’m with you, but don’t adopt double standards when it then comes to Russian bombings  Frankly, fury at actions by the US is rendered rather artificial to me by anyone who then adopts an entirely different approach if it’s Russian bombs, Syrian gas, and who talks about illegality after calling for that very same thing in Libya. I can’t take it seriously. Pointing out all the flaws in US policy does not make Russian policy “liberation”.

As I said, **** me. Staggering. 

Assad started things in the way dictators do. We escalated things to an extent that resulted in massive deaths. Dictators are bad. It's an awful pity our elected representatives are so flexible on this point. It's not you that supported AQ and whatever it's constant rebranding has it called these days, but our freedom loving democratic governments had no problem doing so. It was US policy to ally itself with AQ affiliates in Syria... only a decade after 9/11.

There has been lots of propaganda around this conflict but I'd love to know where your, we are careful, they are evil part comes from. The body count is rotten but I'm unaware of a reliable keeping of score (that's an abhorrent way of describing things!). I expect amnesty or the IRC etc., will get around to this as the situation returns to something approaching normal. 

The losers in any conflict generally are in a bad position, that those who opposed Assad may have to leave is realpolitik 101. Shoe on the other foot would have resulted in similar. 

The claim that Russian actions here have been way worse than ours is laughable. Hiding behind proxies fools no-one.

The reason this is ending is because of leadership that did not come from our side. Imagine, it's bloody Trump withdrawing support that is allowing this to wind down... what a world.

I have never claimed to support Assad, but it was quite clear early on in this conflict what was going on and there was minimal reporting of things when the friendly rebels were looking like winning. Plenty of death followed that. However, it has been clear since Russia put troops there that our game was up, but we happily kept supporting the death toll. Any claim of moral superiority on our side is ridiculous.

Imho, we're a lot closer in position than is readily apparent.

[A'Villan]

37 minutes ago, villakram said:

Imho, we're a lot closer in position than is readily apparent.

You'll have to excuse my ignorance but can you elaborate on what you mean by this?

[blandy]

1 hour ago, villakram said:

Assad started things in the way dictators do. We escalated things to an extent that resulted in massive deaths. Dictators are bad. It's an awful pity our elected representatives are so flexible on this point. It's not you that supported AQ and whatever it's constant rebranding has it called these days, but our freedom loving democratic governments had no problem doing so. It was US policy to ally itself with AQ affiliates in Syria... only a decade after 9/11.

There has been lots of propaganda around this conflict but I'd love to know where your, we are careful, they are evil part comes from. The body count is rotten but I'm unaware of a reliable keeping of score (that's an abhorrent way of describing things!). I expect amnesty or the IRC etc., will get around to this as the situation returns to something approaching normal. 

The losers in any conflict generally are in a bad position, that those who opposed Assad may have to leave is realpolitik 101. Shoe on the other foot would have resulted in similar. 

The claim that Russian actions here have been way worse than ours is laughable. Hiding behind proxies fools no-one.

The reason this is ending is because of leadership that did not come from our side. Imagine, it's bloody Trump withdrawing support that is allowing this to wind down... what a world.

I have never claimed to support Assad, but it was quite clear early on in this conflict what was going on and there was minimal reporting of things when the friendly rebels were looking like winning. Plenty of death followed that. However, it has been clear since Russia put troops there that our game was up, but we happily kept supporting the death toll. Any claim of moral superiority on our side is ridiculous.

Imho, we're a lot closer in position than is readily apparent.

Yes, I agree with most of that  im particularly pleased your question as to whether I support AQ seems to have been resolved. I obviously don't. I also agree dictators are baf and we make things worse not better in the middle east when we start bombing .  That's long been my view.

As to the degree of caution used when bombing,  there's plenty of evidence out there. Ditto casualty numbers, and they pretty universally back up (inform) what ive said on them. Wiki has some, I posted maybe 6 months ago in the Russia thread some others.

Essentially my view has long been that if weregoibg to even contemplate sending our sons, daughters brothers etc. to fight and die, then we sure as heck have to be absolutely certain of the ecact plan, outcome, post-war settlement, validity of information, and we have to resource and equip those going to the utmost level. The UK has not done this in my lifetime, save perhaps Kosovo and Sierra Leone. The US has the resources and equipment, but has fallen well short in the other areas.

There's a further twist, too. Once you've made a decision and got involved and changed things, then there's a duty to get the best/least bad outcome. Like a wasp nest, i wouldn't pokecit with a stick, but once its been poked, and there's a ton of angry wasps, is it best to run away and leave others to be stung, or is there a responsibility to either kill the wasps or shield the other people?

[TheAuthority]

12 minutes ago, blandy said:

There's a further twist, too. Once you've made a decision and got involved and changed things, then there's a duty to get the best/least bad outcome. Like a wasp nest, i wouldn't pokecit with a stick, but once its been poked, and there's a ton of angry wasps, is it best to run away and leave others to be stung, or is there a responsibility to either kill the wasps or shield the other people?

I don't want to just play the contrarian but are we to assume that the intentions of poking the wasp nest are honorable in the first place? If they're not, then who gives a **** what mess is left (as long as the right people have profited)

[blandy]

8 minutes ago, TheAuthority said:

I don't want to just play the contrarian but are we to assume that the intentions of poking the wasp nest are honorable in the first place? If they're not, then who gives a **** what mess is left (as long as the right people have profited)

Exactly. unfortunately that seems to be part of whats happened.

[snowychap]

 

[NurembergVillan]

22 minutes ago, snowychap said:

 

What a pair of absolute dickslaps.

[Davkaus]

Put on some lipstick and a blonde wig Piers, and I'm sure there's a valuable contribution you can make. 

[HanoiVillan]

15 hours ago, snowychap said:

 

They absolutely deserve each other.