The good and bad of Trump's recent foreign policy

While everyone is focused on the pandemic, several extremely important developments have happened in recent weeks that are being mostly overlooked.

Afghanistan
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The US agreed to reduce its troops from about 12,000 to 8,600 within 135 days of signing the agreement.
Drawing back troops was a condition of the historic peace deal signed by the US and the Taliban on 29 February.

Cutting a deal with the Taliban is HUUUGGEE! I means we have finally acknowledged that we can't win in Afghanistan.
Also, the Trump Administration appears serious about making the peace treaty stick.

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There is more good news from Iraq

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On March 27, the U.S.-led coalition forces withdrew from its third site, the K-1 military base in northern Iraq, the same base where an American contractor was killed in December, which nearly ignited war between Iran and the United States. The U.S. handed the base and its approximately $1.1 million of equipment over to the Iraqi military....
U.S.-led coalition spokesman Col. Myles Caggins said further withdrawals were planned “in the coming days.” One of the bases he specified was the Habbaniyah Air Base west of Baghdad.

Without any fanfare, we've already left bases at Qaim, Qayara Airfield West, K1, Taqaddam Air Base and in Mosul.
In fact we'll have withdrawn from most of Iraq soon, which sounds like great news.

But there's a catch.

The Coalition forces have so far withdrawn from six military bases across Iraq over the since past few weeks...
A large U.S. military convoy entered northeastern Syria on Monday, bringing with them extensive reinforcements and huge supplies.

The U.S. military entered Syria’s Al-Hasakah Governorate from neighboring Iraq, making their way to the Al-Malikiyah District near the border crossing in North eastern region of Syria and North western area of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Despite withdrawing most of their forces from northern Syria in recent months, the U.S. military continues to divert resources to directly re-assert control of some of the bases they constructed in the Al-Hasakah Governorate, specifically, the installations near the oil fields.

It appears that we are reducing our illegal military occupation of Iraq, while beefing up our illegal military occupation of Syria.
Syrian villagers are not happy about this development.

Finally, there is our totally ignored war in Somalia.
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Amnesty International accused the US military on Wednesday of providing “zero accountability” for civilian victims of airstrikes by its Africa command, Africom...
According to Amnesty, the victims were 18-year-old Nurto Kusow Omar Abukar, whose house was hit while she ate dinner with her family, and 53-year-old banana farmer Mohamud Salad Mohamud.

“We’ve documented case after case in the USA’s escalating air war on Somalia, where the Africom thinks it can simply smear its civilian victims as ‘terrorists’, no questions asked,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty’s east and southern Africa director.

“Not only does Africom utterly fail at its mission to report civilian casualties in Somalia, but it doesn’t seem to care about the fate of the numerous families it has completely torn apart.”

If there's one thing you can count on, it's the American's ability to not give a shit about Africans.

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Trump promised to get out of these wars in Western Asia and North Africa. He's going to try to fulfill some of these promises, especially Iraq, since Joe was the principal cheerleader for the Dems to vote for the AUMF. Without his hard, diligent work it would have been very difficult for Bush to invade Iraq, so this is a big hammer against Biden. The military reinforcements in Syria is very disturbing, it seems to make no sense. The US strategy seems to be to make reconstruction as difficult as possible, so this must be part of this strategy. But that will only slow it down as Syria has many allies. In a time of pandemic this is pure evil. But no Democrat will make that point, since they are about as evil as Trump, plus or minus. I have read that some pundits are thinking that this may be the end of US hegemony, as the Pandemic will cause the US to concentrate on its problems at home, combined with the fact that the world has about had it with US globalism. Where's the aid or the leadership in times of crisis?

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

Bob In Portland's picture

During Vietnam a lot of soldiers died being crammed into barracks. Meningitis back then. During my basic training in Fort Dix in the middle of winter a full quarter of the soldiers ended up having to repeat it because they had pneumonia.

I mention this because, as Captain Crozier pointed out the other day, being stuck in confined quarters on a ship is not conducive for one's health during a plague.

At some point the US would best throw in the towel and bring the troops back home.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

Once again, I have shared this with friends and family.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

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Betty Clermont