Total victory for warmongers over U.S. foreign policy
As recently as April, President Trump sounded occasionally reasonable.
“I want to get out,” Mr. Trump said of the United States’ military engagement in Syria, at a news conference on Tuesday with leaders of the Baltic States. “I want to bring our troops back home.”
... Rather than pursuing military adventures abroad, he said, “I want to get back. I want to rebuild our nation.”
That president is gone.
NEW YORK (AP) — National Security adviser Bolton: US troops not leaving Syria 'as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders'
— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) September 24, 2018
We were not invited into Syria. There is no UN resolution, or even a congressional AUMF, to put our troops into harm's way in Syria.
ISIS has been defeated. Al-Qaeda is faltering. So even the original reasons for our troops to be there have gone away.
So what do the warmongers do? They change the narrative.
Officially, the only mission for U.S. troops on the ground in the region ― including about 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 2,200 in Syria ― is to defeat and destroy ISIS.
But recently the White House has begun to reveal a massive new mission on the horizon for U.S. troops in the Middle East: containing Iran.
...
“We’re not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders, and that includes Iranian proxies and militias,” Bolton said, signaling a fundamental shift from the current counter-terrorism operations to a mission focused more on geopolitical maneuvering and proxy warfare.Bolton’s comments echo sentiments that are widely shared among the think tank experts and hawkish defense officials in Washington who allude to the real purpose of U.S. forces as balancing against regional threats like Iran.
“I would prefer to keep U.S. troops there indefinitely, because they also serve a purpose in blocking Iran’s freedom of movement and access to lines of communication that would connect western Iraq with Lebanon,” said James Phillips, senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs at the Heritage Foundation.
It doesn't matter how many times these a**holes get it wrong, they will always be invited back to preach for more war.
Plus, when did Congress authorize this? When was it presented to the public?
And what will happen to our troops when Turkey invades the Kurdish areas of Syria where our troops are?
Expanding Turkey's military campaign into the much larger Kurdish-held territory east of the Euphrates would risk confronting troops of NATO ally the United States, that are deployed alongside a YPG-dominated force there.
You know where else U.S. troops can indefinitely block Iran’s freedom of movement? Iraq.
“We’ll keep troops there as long as we think they’re needed ... The main reason, after ISIS (Islamic State) is defeated militarily, is the stabilization efforts and we still need to be there for that, so that’s one of the reasons we’ll maintain a presence,” Colonel Sean Ryan told a news conference in Abu Dhabi.
You know where else U.S. troops can indefinitely block Iran’s freedom of movement? Afghanistan.
“Our vital national interest,” Miller said in his testimony, “is to protect against threats emanating from Afghanistan.” And he later added: “I can’t guarantee you a timeline or an end date.”Translation: We’re never getting out of there.
As if to prove that nothing will ever change, both the Trump Administration and Congress are about to lay sanctions, again, on that broken and impoverished nation of Iraq.
Why? because they dared to elect a government that we didn't like.
Meanwhile Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., has introduced a bill to sanction two Iran-backed Shiite militias in the upper chamber.“I’m proud to introduce this legislation and send a strong message that we will not tolerate the destabilizing efforts of the Iranian regime when it comes to the government of Iraq,” the House bill's sponsor, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said in a statement when he introduced the Preventing Iranian Destabilization of Iraq Act in December.
If you ever supported Trump because he wanted to end these forever wars, that reason is now gone forever. Trump has been taken over by the warmongers.
Comments
And now that the world lauged
at Trump he won't be going back on any belligerence now. Not that he didn't deserve the laughter, I did allow myself to watch a short clip. Chilling, I thought.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Hmm! Iraqi destabilzation...
You know, I feel fairly certain that another country, other than Iran, was involved. Something in the '90's and the early 'naughties'?
Maybe?
But I could be wrong.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
I came up with a better nickname for that decade...
...before it even started:
The OOOs (pronounced 'OOZE')!
Wonderful name for how that decade given how it turned out feeling, right?
I'm hoping I can get it to 'stick'/'go viral'/whatever somehow.
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!
Yeah
The "naughties" sound like fun. The Ooze was not fun.
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Thing is, it was supposed to be
I came up with it in 1999, so I originally intended it to be delivered with a "Toxic Crusader/Weird Al Yankovic/Ninja Turtles/Nickelodeon Gak" sort of aesthetic in mind.
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!
If Putin ever actually thought he'd bought Trump
he must be crying in his beer now. All he did was buy some time to prepare for armageddon. Let's see if trading Hillary Clinton for John Bolton was a good idea. No, let's not.
On to Biden since 1973
DOES Putin drink beer?
I recall reading back in 2007, when TIME made him Man of the Year, about how atypically sober he is for a Russian. He may just be a wine-sipper. Beer sounds like it might be a bit...Sehr Deutsche for him.
Then again, it was ONLY under his regime that (as Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up) Russia first legally categorized beer as "alcoholic".
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!
Baltika's Imperial Russian Stout
is a comfort for those long winter nights.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
I happen to know that the Russian army
has a 1 liter/day vodka ration. I have a friend who was a liason officer in Bosnia. He was given a special dispensation from the US Army reg banning alcohol while armed so he could eat with the Russians and still wear his sidearm.
On to Biden since 1973
Putin does not smoke
and rarely, if ever, drinks.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
At least we aren't shooting at the Russians yet. So I think
we are still ahead of where HRC was going.
chuck utzman
TULSI 2020
If a democrat wins in 2020, war in either 2022 or 2024.
If a democrat beats Trump in 2020 (assuming Trump runs again), an elected democratic will be under enormous pressure from the media and the party faithful to get into a shooting war with Russia--sanctions are not working. Plus the Russia hysteria is getting worse by the day. You know, worse than 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Putin is Hitler, etc. If war happens, it will be before an election.
Trump has already filed for 2020
The question is who the Dems will put up against him.
A Dem establishment candidate will be a warmonger, but if the grassroots can put someone up then we'll have a chance.
Can't fight the tide I'm afraid
What ever will happen will happen now, I'm afraid. No amount of peacemaker demonstrations will help now We are on the wrong side of what history demands now. I'm sure Germany of the 30's had it's share of peace activists who were ignored in favor of unstoppable history. All we can do it watch from the sidelines and at least encourage our families to not enlist in any military capacity to become cannon fodder in the current and next incursion where the ignorant young enlistees become the next "honored dead" at local VFW parades. Like Mormons, Quakers, Amish, Islamic communities and consciousness objectors - just keep you and your families the hell out of it and let another family get the "red star", "gold star". "blue star" on their door and not yours...
peace
FN
"Democracy is technique and the ability of power not to be understood as oppressor. Capitalism is the boss and democracy is its spokesperson." Peace - FN
It does look that way.
I think in most ways, the hysteria around Russia has effectively smashed any sort of anti-war, pro-peace movements. People calling for diplomacy are branded traitors by the media and the democrats. The republicans are there also the only difference being they will not call Trump a traitor. Both parties have effectively made Google, Facebook, and Twitter agents of the government in censoring any counter voices. Together they are Orwell's Ministry of Truth touching literally every American.
The Neocons and Nazi exiles
...have been at this a long time, with their industrialist cohort. Ninety-eight years to be exact. By the 1940s they captured the State Department,and by the Reagan years, they became fully embedded and operative, and self-funding in the international heart of the Federal Government. Between Reagan and Clinton, they monopolized their news/propaganda franchise on the public-owned broadcast spectrum. Trump was certainly not going to get in their way, and by my reckoning, they achieved their coup back in April 2017. I can see why Trump made his kids leave DC and stay away.
Our trajectory has never moved a degree off its empire solution since I've been alive. Not even once.
There's a lot of kabuki that goes on to make it look like a fluid situation. A lot of feigns and false starts and misdirection — and, of course, a void or worse on international news to keep Americans famously clueless about the outside world. But there has been no recent loss to feel bad about. It is what it has always been.
That doesn't mean the world has not changed, or changed its mind, or had second thoughts, however. Trump, at least did that.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Trump has never sounded reasonable
Not even back when he was a Democrat. He may say something that one might misinterpret as sounding reasonable, but he will contradict himself before the day is out, or in some instances, before the sentence is out. Only one rule applies to Trump: "two plus two equals fish."
May I venture to suggest a modest modification to this
sentence:
Between "Trump" and "sounded," insert the word "occasionally."
I think Presidents are still reluctantly relying on the AUMF that authorizes them to get any and all terrorists. IIRC Obama made noises about how he would welcome a new one, but Congress apparently was not incline to give that to him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Ag...
And this outtake from the wiki article at the above link makes me want yet another reminder of why I supposedly should have voted for the Clinton-Kaine ticket:
More generally, I had not re-visited that particular wiki article in quite a while. Reading some of the more recent info was interesting. So, thank you for getting me to take another look at it.
As I remember it
when the thought of revisiting the AUMF came up Bernie (or someone like him) called for placing restrictions on it. The idea was quickly dropped.
On to Biden since 1973
Hillary was taken over by the warmongers too.
Peace is off of the table, apparently, at least among the duopoly.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Her wasn't "taken over"
Her was always one of them.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Well, the take over was at least bi-partisan. (nm)