#Resistance have lost their collective minds

The mental gymnastics the liberal establishment has used to oppose Trump's decision to pull out of Syria is stunning. Consider The Atlantic.
These articles are from last year and earlier this year.

trump1.PNG
trump2.PNG

Now let's look at today's headline.

The Trump administration has unexpectedly decided to rapidly withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, where they have been fighting ISIS. This decision, which demonstrates that the president’s National Security Strategy does not govern his policies, will have deleterious effects across the strategic waterfront: throwing Syria policy into chaos; rewarding Iranian regional destabilization and Russian intervention; alarming Kurdish forces and American allies fighting in the region, as well as countries to which jihadists might return; and calling into question America’s commitment to stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan.
All of these priorities have been capriciously sacrificed by President Trump for no apparent reason other than that he campaigned on withdrawal and wants it to happen now. There has been no precipitating event to drive a policy change.

"No apparent reason"?
What happened to "unconstitutional and illegal"? Those reasons alone are a full-stop.
We don't need a single other reason.

But let's not stop there. Let's look at "throwing Syria policy into chaos".

Kurdish forces in Syria, Iraq, and Turkey will be immediately and negatively affected by the decision.

The Kurdish forces being mentioned are separatists!
I sympathize with the Kurds, but let's be honest here. Armed separatist rebellions create chaos. Not the other way around.

And then there is this gem.

For if Syria can be so lightly written off, the fight arbitrarily declared won, what is the argument for continuing to assist Iraq—where ISIS is even more defeated?

???Even more defeated???
What exactly are you trying to prove? How pointless it is for us to be there?
Let's not forget that the Iraqi government wants us to leave!

Now let's look at the jihadists, the one item that everyone talks about, because they haven't completely ceased to exist. Let's look at headlines from last year.

The Nation: Why Does the US Continue to Arm Terrorists in Syria?

Incredibly, after nearly six years of war, the US government continues to fund rebel groups that, far from being moderate, often subscribe to an Islamist ideology long funded and propagated by the Gulf State tyrannies Saudi Arabia and Qatar—with, in recent years, a healthy assist from Erdogan’s Turkey.

WashPost: Why is the Trump administration empowering al-Qaeda in Syria?

“Current US strategy empowers al-Qaeda, which has an army in Syria, is preparing to replace ISIS . . . [and] is more dangerous than ISIS,” says a recent report from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project (CTP). Our approach, the report declares, “is inadvertently fueling the global Salafi-jihadi insurgency” because Sunnis see the United States as working with their mortal enemies. Al-Qaeda is taking advantage of this perception to build support among Sunni tribes, portraying itself as the defender of Sunni Arabs against a U.S.-Russo-Iranian axis intent on subjugating and destroying them.

Right. Like we are "fighting terrorism" in Syria.
If your GWOT is helping terrorism then you need to stop what you are doing.

And yet liberals use even dumber reasons to oppose a withdrawal from Syria.

dumb.PNG

As soon as Trump announced via Twitter his intent to withdraw troops from Syria, everyone has been losing their minds. Virtually every liberal media outlet has reacted hysterically, with the New York Times editorial board condemning the decision, along with multiple CNN and MSNBC releases and Rachel Maddow going full Rachel Maddow but with Turkey this time. Senators Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Jeanne Shaheen, Tom Cotton, Angus King and Joni Ernst wrote Trump a bipartisan letter warning that a US withdrawal “may embolden Bashar al Assad to take further actions to solidify his power” inside the country he is the president of. Hollywood celebrities like Bette Midler, Mia Farrow and Cher burst out of their dust pods of irrelevance to scream at everyone that limitless US military expansionism is glorious and desirable. Max Boot, the legendary Man Who Is Always Wrong About Everything, declared that Trump is giving a “gift to Iran, Russia, ISIS, and Assad” by exiting

Here's an idea: Let's say Russia pulls out of Syria. Using the same logic, Russia leaving would be a "gift" to al-Qaeda. Is that what we want?

Then there is the fact that our troops are stuck between the Syrian Kurds and the Turkish military. Do we really want to go to war with our NATO ally?
Speaking of war, we already have fought Russian mercenaries, Syrian militias, and Iraqi militias. So exactly what did we hope to achieve? To take on everyone in an illegal war?
Is this what it means to #Resist?

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Raggedy Ann's picture

Everyone wants it their way and they are stomping their feet and throwing themselves on the floor. They want it both ways and that's that. Why can't the rest of us get that through our heads?

Up is up, goddamn it, except when it's down! Now get it straight! Diablo

up
0 users have voted.

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

@Raggedy Ann
It just shows how detached from reality the liberal establishment has become.
Obama derangement became Trump derangement.

up
0 users have voted.
SnappleBC's picture

@Raggedy Ann

In this case, the way of the neoliberal Democrats is "war profiteering" and they are throwing a temper tantrum that Trump is [slightly] dialing down the US's war crimes and so hampering the profit flow.

This is what the Democratic party has come to. They are pissed that they get to murder slightly fewer people for cash.

up
0 users have voted.

A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

come up with a better metaphor for Syria and Iran than "waterfront."

When your only guiding political principle is "neoliberals good; Trump very, very bad," the likelihoold that you will contradict yourself sooner or later is high.

Gotta love wikipedia:

On July 28, 2017, The Atlantic announced that multi-billionaire investor and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs (the widow of former Apple Inc. chairman and CEO Steve Jobs) had acquired majority ownership through her Emerson Collective organization, with a staff member of Emerson Collective, Peter Lattman, being immediately named as The Atlantic's vice chairman. David G. Bradley and Atlantic Media retained a minority share position in this sale.[41]
Politics

Throughout its 159-year history, The Atlantic has been reluctant to recommend candidates in elections. In 1860, three years into publication, The Atlantic's then-editor James Russell Lowell endorsed Abraham Lincoln for his first run for president and also endorsed the abolition of slavery.[42] In 1964, 104 years later, Edward Weeks wrote on behalf of the editorial board in endorsing Lyndon B. Johnson and rebuking Barry Goldwater's candidacy.[43] In 2016, the editorial board endorsed a presidential candidate, for the third time since the magazine's founding: Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, in a rebuke of Donald Trump's candidacy.[44]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic

up
0 users have voted.
Deja's picture

Hollywood celebrities like Bette Midler, Mia Farrow and Cher burst out of their dust pods of irrelevance to scream at everyone that limitless US military expansionism is glorious and desirable.

Thanks for sharing this gem!

up
0 users have voted.
TheOtherMaven's picture

@Deja

lives in her own deranged world that has little to do with things-as-they-are, and this latest escapade pretty much clinches the case. Blum 3

up
0 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

WoodsDweller's picture

Trump is on the phone to Endrogan, then tweets (does not bother with the chain of command) that we will be leaving. Later we hear that air support will continue.
If I had to guess, it seems that we are withdrawing ground troops so that Turkey can roll in unopposed and wipe out the Kurds. After that we'll find some pretence to go back in. Beware allying yourself with Imperial America, for they care not a whit for your miserable brown hides and will sell you out for a small arms deal with your enemies.
In the meantime the irreleventsia (new word, what do you think?) has their collective hair on fire over what will prove to be a short-lived action. Watch them oppose going back in as well. But never mention abandoning the Kurds, for that does not fit the narrative.

up
0 users have voted.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

snoopydawg's picture

"Meanwhile, congressional Republicans, utterly neutered by Trump the past two years, were suddenly apoplectic over his decision to give the keys to Syria to Russia and Iran." -kos 12-2018

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg
Fuck Obama

up
0 users have voted.
CS in AZ's picture

@gjohnsit

What “liberals” opposed in 2008 was G.W. Bush.

Obama in 2007/08 was not an anti-war candidate. He himself said in his speech against the Iraq war that he did not oppose all wars. He was only against “dumb” wars. He promised smarter wars.

He explicitly promised to ramp UP the war in Afghanistan, and the global war against “terrorists”, and to do it aggressively. Obama called Bush’s Iraq war ‘dumb’ and said the Bush administration’s war efforts were incompetent, and he was going to fix that with better war.

And liberals ate that shit right up. Yum.

If liberals were anti-war in 2008, they would have rejected this out of hand.

up
0 users have voted.

@CS in AZ spoke in support of war in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech but Obama did just that.
"OSLO - President Barack Obama entered the pantheon of Nobel Peace Prize winners Thursday with humble words, acknowledging his own limited accomplishments while delivering a robust defense of war.

In his acceptance speech at Oslo City Hall, the president wove themes of optimism and realism. He spoke at once of the inevitability of war and his belief in a "North Star" of faith in human progress....."
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/news/2009/12/11/Obama-defends-war-promot...

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@CS in AZ

and that he wasn't anti war. He also said that he was going to follow AQ into Pakistan and other countries, but people heard what they wanted to hear because he wasn't George Bush.

And liberals ate that shit right up. Yum.

I am guilty of hearing what I wanted to hear Barack say. I'd love to say that I was dazzled by his charm, but more honesty I was dazzled by his bullshit motto of Hope and Change!

If liberals were anti-war in 2008, they would have rejected this out of hand.

Yep again. Again I'm admitting that I believed his H & C spiel and everything that came with it. Filibustering the FISA bill, but then voting for it was all it took for me to see through him. Glad I didn't wait until he appointed his CitiBank cabinet to see how bad he was going to become.

The pushback I got for holding him to his promises should have opened mine eyes far earlier.

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Bisbonian's picture

@CS in AZ

He himself said in his speech against the Iraq war that he did not oppose all wars. He was only against “dumb” wars. He promised smarter wars.

He explicitly promised to ramp UP the war in Afghanistan, and the global war against “terrorists”, and to do it aggressively.

That was precisely when I changed my vote to Cynthia McKinney.

up
0 users have voted.

"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

We lost the war in Syria to Russia for one of the same reasons Hillary lost to Donald.

In Syria, Russia was fighting FOR something of great importance to their country. The bases on the western Mediterranean coast of Syria established by Russia are named Latakia and Tartus and they are invaluable to Russia. One is a Naval base! This is the ONLY big water warm water naval base that Russia holds outside of the one in Crimea.The other Russian base is ground troops and airforce. That's the Russian incentive.

Ours, on the other hand, is what, exactly? Yet another base in yet another country. Americans generally either know about how spread out we are in the Middle East and Europe and they are wondering why our tax dollars are being frittered away on military objectives that make little to no sense. Or they don't know and perhaps this latest episode of American misadventure will open a few eyes.

Either way: We went to war on the Assad is Bad platform. "Trump, Russia, Bad. Bad. Bad" didn't work and neither did Assad, Bad Bad Bad.

up
0 users have voted.

NYCVG

Anja Geitz's picture

to all things Trump has narrowed the camera lens to such a blinkered extent, they might as well have themselves diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder because their arguments are no longer anchored in reality.

Isn't there something they could take for that?

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

earthling1's picture

The 2000 American troops were becoming vulnerable and subject to capture or annihilation by Syrian, Iranian, Kurdish,
terrorist, or Russian troops or all of the above.
I suspect we will bomb all from above from this point forward. Or simply lob missiles from afar.
Because it's what we do.

up
0 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

snoopydawg's picture

@earthling1

and training the very same terrorist groups that they and their friends fought against in Iraq. Remember people saying that "we can't leave because it would nullify all the people who gave their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq"? Well what does it mean to those dead soldiers when you are now fighting side by side with them? The whole lot of them should put down their weapons and say hell no! This is supposed to be treason to give aid and comfort to ones enemies isn't it?

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Bollox Ref's picture

if it hit them on the head.

up
0 users have voted.

Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

k9disc's picture

This might be going a bit far, perhaps, for some of you but I think there is little doubt that TV doesn't rot your brain, it reorganizes it alchemically.

Recently I've become exposed to many spiritual concepts, esoterica, and theology and I now completely believe in "magic". I shouldn't even use the quotes around it, as people are clearly under a spell, by design. Mass delusion, the likes we're experiencing is, by definition, a spell; people are charmed.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM8dCGIm6yc]
(the magic starts at 1m)

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRg_8NNPTD8]
...complete with human bones as an instrument

These 2 songs made me realize that music and media are modern magic, and probably a faithful representation of historical magic as well. Since seeing these, I've decided that American music and film are magic and we are under a collective spell.

Add the purposefully addictive, scientifically sound weaponized envy of social media to the mix and you've really got something that floods the mind and crowds out "common sense". Can you imagine seeing a troupe like Heilung in the Middle Ages?

Sound, light, symbols, and imagery are powerful tools, and the smarter we think we are the more we think we are above them. The sociopaths running the show always win because they understand how magic works and are not afraid to delve into it as magic.

up
0 users have voted.

“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

lotlizard's picture

@k9disc  
“The Mule,” a mysterious mutant taking over the galaxy and disrupting the Foundation’s plans, disguises himself as a minstrel and uses an electronic instrument, the “Visi-Sonor” — a medium that can transmit imagery, sounds, and feelings directly into people’s brains — to induce mass psychological disturbance and despair.

The fake minstrel’s Visi-Sonor “concerts” serve to soften up the population of the Foundation’s base planet Terminus, emotionally and mentally, for takeover by his own attacking military forces.

Obviously, the Visi-Sonor = television and its latter-day spawn on the Web.

up
0 users have voted.