Trump is ‘fully prepared’ to take military action against Turkey if needed, Mike Pompeo says

swishnicholson wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Finding someone preferable to Trump and his foreign policy is a pretty low bar and a false dilemma. There are other alternatives. Gabbard has said a lot of other things than “brutal dictator” about Assad and US involvement in Syria. In the context of her full body of work on the subject those two words seem little more than lip service.

Gabbard’s view that we were still involved in a “regime-change” war is Syria is also misleading and outdated. The small number of troops we had left in Syria were there to defeat ISIS and subsequently to support the Kurds from attack by Syria or Turkey. In both respects they were remarkably successful.

History has proven that noninterventionism as fundamentalist dogma often doesn’t work and Syria is no exception — especially when troops have already been committed. In this case it has led to the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds, the release of thousands of ISIS supporters from prison camps and the strengthening of Assad, Russia and Iran. As an added byproduct it has weakened Israel’s security.

That’s an awfully high price to lay at the altar of noninterventionism.

The kind of noninterventionism supported by Gabbard’s and effected by Trump is too blunt an instrument in the case of Syria (and the Middle East in general). We need a more nuanced approach.

I have no idea whether Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset, a useful idiot or neither. I do know that if a Russian asset were to share his or her views on American foreign policy, they would sound a lot like Tulsi Gabbard’s.

And that's a perfectly reasonable view, much of which I agree with. My problem comes when Democrats join up to attack and attempt to ostracize a minor candidate like Gabbard, tossing around terms like "foreign agent" and "Manchurian candidate" and have people like Hilary Clinton weighing in about third party candidacies implying they had a role in determining the winner in 2016 (they didn't) and will have one in 2020 (who knows, but they certainly don't exist at this point.) I really want the Democratic candidate for President, and other offices, to win in 2020. The image of a squabbling, resentful in-crowd insisting on orthodoxies doesn't help that. Gabbard's line is also a good reminder to Democrats. It's totally unfair, but I doubt the next President will have any of the leeway Trump seems to have in saying one thing and then just moving on when it's proved he can't achieve or loses interest in his goals. So Democratic candidates actually have to be considered and limited in their statements of foreign policy goals, since the definition of what is desirable and/or achievable can change so rapidly.

Grotewold wrote:Cruz coaxing sex from one person strains credulity

CFP wrote:Pierre Delecto

Trump spoke at length during a Cabinet meeting on Monday about his decision to withdraw US troops from northern Syria -- arguing that the US never agreed to protect Syrian Kurds forever, suggesting the US may secure an oil deal for the Kurds to bolster their finances and saying he's "the one that did the capturing" of ISIS fighters

jerseyhoya wrote:Election night in Canada

Fun stuff

momadance wrote:

Trump is ‘fully prepared’ to take military action against Turkey if needed, Mike Pompeo says

Yes. Military action against a NATO "ally" that houses a US military base with nukes.

“Each member of Congress must uphold a high standard of honesty and integrity. When it comes to matters of our national security, that responsibility is even greater,” McCarthy, R-Calif.

First, Trump calls the impeachment process a lynching, now Lindsey Graham doubles down saying “This is a lynching in every sense. This is unamerican.” Asked if he can see African-Americans being offended he says “no”.