Trump foreign policy

[Deranged Rhino]

Just now, Tiberius said:

From Wikkipedia 

 

Gaddafi's Libya was typically described by Western commentators as a police state,^[447] and has also been characterized as authoritarian.^[370] His administration has also been criticized by political opponents and groups like Amnesty International for the human rights abuses carried out by the country's security services. These abuses included the repression of dissent, public executions, and the arbitrary detention of hundreds of opponents, some of whom reported being tortured.^[448] One of the most prominent examples of this was a massacre that took place in Abu Salim prison in June 1996; Human Rights Watch estimated that 1,270 prisoners were massacred.^[449][450] Dissidents abroad were labelled "stray dogs"; they were publicly threatened with death and sometimes killed by government hit squads.^[451]

 

Open. Air. Slave. Markets. 

 

First time since the end of the Civil War. 

 

Sullivan is not interested in humanitarian relief. He's interested in creating instability and the profits derived from it.

[Chef Jim]

31 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

Jake Sullivan has no business commenting on foreign policy ever again. And people who listen to them, deserve to be called idiots.

 

If Tibs agreed with everything I believed in I'd still call him an idiot. 

[Tiberius]

4 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

Open. Air. Slave. Markets. 

 

First time since the end of the Civil War. 

 

Sullivan is not interested in humanitarian relief. He's interested in creating instability and the profits derived from it.

Oh, you just hate him for favoring the overthrow of a brutal dictator. We should overthrow more of them 

 

 

______

 

oh great, the clown who promised not to bother me anymore, is bothering me again. #noclass 

[Deranged Rhino]

10 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

Oh, you just hate him for favoring the overthrow of a brutal dictator. We should overthrow more of them 

 

 

______

 

oh great, the clown who promised not to bother me anymore, is bothering me again. #noclass 

 

Overthrew him - then left the country to die while Sullivan and his boss picked the carcass clean.

 

That's what Sullivan did. It wasn't nobility that drove him, but greed.

[DC Tom]

2 hours ago, Tiberius said:

 

 

 

***** WHAT???  The Democrats explicitly denied the creed of "American Exceptionalism" for the past ten years! 

[Deranged Rhino]

Hearing rumblings the pull out will not just be in Syria... unconfirmed reports we're leaving Afghanistan as well within the next month.

[B-Man]

3 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

Hearing rumblings the pull out will not just be in Syria... unconfirmed reports we're leaving Afghanistan as well within the next month.

 

 

"On gun control, criminal justice reform and now Syria, President Donald Trump is advancing policies this week that could appeal to voters far outside his much-talked-about political base."

 

Jonathan Allen observes (at NBC News):

[And] Trump appears to be backing down from his threat to shut down parts of the federal government over Congress' refusal to give him $5 billion for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The domestic and foreign policy maneuvers are converging partly on Trump's own timetable and partly as a result of the calendar...

... Trump is signaling something bigger to the American public — that he is "starting to bring Americans home from some of these wars and interventions that we’ve been involved in for years and years....

I'm interested in what this repositioning suggests — that Trump has a strategy to affect how the  Democratic candidates frame their issues and what happens in the primaries. I suspect that it's a 2-step strategy, and later on, after the Democrats have committed to issues and narrowed the field of candidates, Trump can give more attention to his base. It seems that what Trump is doing now is designed — if it is a design — to make it harder for moderate Democrats to gain traction and to boost the more left-wing people who he may think will be easier to defeat in the general election.

 

ADDED: If my reading of what Trump is doing is correct, he's flipping the usual strategy, which is to get the base activated and then, as the general election gets closer, move toward the center. In this new strategy, the idea would be to get the other party to make an extreme choice that they'll be stuck with and won't be able to defend.

Ironically, this is what some Democrats thought was a good idea in 2016: Get the GOP to nominate Trump, and then he'll be easily defeated.

 

 

 

 

 

.

[Deranged Rhino]

7 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

Hearing rumblings the pull out will not just be in Syria... unconfirmed reports we're leaving Afghanistan as well within the next month.

 

Confirmation (of the rumors, not the action)

 

 

[dpberr]

Assad's regime is no shining light of hope on any hill or mountain but the world doesn't need another Libya.

 

As I've gotten older and hopefully wiser, I've thought about the tradeoffs between two lousy choices:  keeping a terrible regime around versus removing it and letting the anarchy reign.

 

What would happen if we didn't screw around in Afghanistan in the 1980s?  

What if we didn't invade Iraq?

What if we didn't destabilize Libya?

What happens if the West ends up destabilizing Syria?

 

 

[Deranged Rhino]

1 minute ago, dpberr said:

Assad's regime is no shining light of hope on any hill or mountain but the world doesn't need another Libya.

 

As I've gotten older and hopefully wiser, I've thought about the tradeoffs between two lousy choices:  keeping a terrible regime around versus removing it and letting the anarchy reign.

 

What would happen if we didn't screw around in Afghanistan in the 1980s?  

What if we didn't invade Iraq?

What if we didn't destabilize Libya?

What happens if the West ends up destabilizing Syria?

 

 

 

 

 

Watch the spin if the Afghanistan news is real (still not sure). All the people who have been clamoring for us to end our longest war will suddenly find every reason under the sun to stay there because the Orange Man Bad programming has broken their brains. We've already had one very liberal poster hail American Exceptionalism today... more will follow. 

 

Bringing the troops home is the right move. You can do that without abandoning our allies in the region, and without creating a vacuum. 

[DC Tom]

12 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

Confirmation (of the rumors, not the action)

 

 

 

Invading Afghanistan was necessary.

 

Sticking around for 17 years afterwards trying to make a real country out of that den of vipers was not.  It should have been "go in, smack around al Qaeda and the Taliban, leave."

 

(Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the Afghanis.  I have a grudging respect for them.  But they've been tribal nomads for 5000 years, and they're not embracing Western Liberal Democracy any time within the next 5000 years either.)

[Deranged Rhino]

2 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

Invading Afghanistan was necessary.

 

Sticking around for 17 years afterwards trying to make a real country out of that den of vipers was not.  It should have been "go in, smack around al Qaeda and the Taliban, leave."

 

(Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the Afghanis.  I have a grudging respect for them.  But they've been tribal nomads for 5000 years, and they're not embracing Western Liberal Democracy any time within the next 5000 years either.)

 

It's almost like there was another reason for US forces to stay in the world's leading supplier of opium...  

[DC Tom]

8 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

It's almost like there was another reason for US forces to stay in the world's leading supplier of opium...  

 

Control the opium, have the drug makers produce cheap opioids, get people hooked on cheap opioids, make cheap opioids increasingly hard to get...

 

WAKE UP SHEE - oh, look, shiny object!

[Tiberius]

1 hour ago, DC Tom said:

 

***** WHAT???  The Democrats explicitly denied the creed of "American Exceptionalism" for the past ten years! 

Not true at all. Liberals are the great champions of spreading American style human rights around the globe. 

 

Republicans use to support that too more whole heartedly. 

29 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

Invading Afghanistan was necessary.

 

Sticking around for 17 years afterwards trying to make a real country out of that den of vipers was not.  It should have been "go in, smack around al Qaeda and the Taliban, leave."

 

(Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the Afghanis.  I have a grudging respect for them.  But they've been tribal nomads for 5000 years, and they're not embracing Western Liberal Democracy any time within the next 5000 years either.)

And then the terrorists move back in and another 9-11 gets planned. 

29 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

Invading Afghanistan was necessary.

 

Sticking around for 17 years afterwards trying to make a real country out of that den of vipers was not.  It should have been "go in, smack around al Qaeda and the Taliban, leave."

 

(Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the Afghanis.  I have a grudging respect for them.  But they've been tribal nomads for 5000 years, and they're not embracing Western Liberal Democracy any time within the next 5000 years either.)

And then the terrorists move back in and another 9-11 gets planned. 

Oops

 

 

 

Mattis is out. Probably because of the Syria move. Tiberius is reporting Putin will be new defense secretary 

Edited December 20, 2018 by Tiberius

[TPS]

1 hour ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

It's almost like there was another reason for US forces to stay in the world's leading supplier of opium...  

In addition,  no one wants to be known as the president who "lost Afghanistan."

gee, I wonder how Putin got him to do this too?

 

[The_Dude]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-defense-secretary-mattis-leaving-end-february-223120592.htm

 

Trump — you ***** retard. 

 

....MATTIS 2020!!!

2 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

Invading Afghanistan was necessary.

 

Sticking around for 17 years afterwards trying to make a real country out of that den of vipers was not.  It should have been "go in, smack around al Qaeda and the Taliban, leave."

 

(Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the Afghanis.  I have a grudging respect for them.  But they've been tribal nomads for 5000 years, and they're not embracing Western Liberal Democracy any time within the next 5000 years either.)

 

Theres absolutely no civilizing Haj. 

Edited December 20, 2018 by The_Dude

[plenzmd1]

 Trump is the master magician..."look over there while I pull my trick over here" . 

 

I just cannot believe not one post on here about the DPRK now saying we ain't de-nuking till the US de-nukes.

 

https://apnews.com/9ad490e00ff5458daa98edb9745aa27e?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

 

 

Thought that threat was gone post-summit and Trump et al proclaiming greatest feat of statesmanship ..maybe ever . 

 

Can we now all agree nothing has changed in regards to North Korea?

Edited December 21, 2018 by plenzmd1

[Deranged Rhino]

1 minute ago, plenzmd1 said:

 Trump is the master magician..."look over there while I pull my trick over here" . 

 

I just cannot believe not one post on here about the DPRK now saying we ain't de-nuking till the US de-nukes.

 

https://apnews.com/9ad490e00ff5458daa98edb9745aa27e?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

 

 

Thought that threat was gone post-summit and Trump et al proclaiming greatest feat of statesmanship ..maybe ever . 

 

Can we now all agree nothing has changed in regards to North Korea?

 

That's China talking, not the DPRK. DPRK deal is being dangled in the tariff negotiations. 

[The_Dude]

9 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

That's China talking, not the DPRK. DPRK deal is being dangled in the tariff negotiations. 

 

Q tell ya about this?

[Tiberius]

Yes, what would Putin be so happy about?! From Mattis 'take this job and shove it' letter

 

Quote

 

One core belief I have always held is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships.

While the U.S. remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies.

 

 

 

Take off the blinders 

[The_Dude]

5 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

Yes, what would Putin be so happy about?! From Mattis 'take this job and shove it' letter

 

 

 

Take off the blinders 

 

Well ***** me....Tibs is right for once. 

[Tiberius]

Mattis will be called to the Hill to testify as to the fitness and competence of this President. No subpoena will be needed. 

 

He will be asked about Russia and our foreign policy 

 

He will be asked about the fitness and competency of this president

 

He will be asked to explain what damages this president has done to our alliance to the other free nations on this earth. 

 

 

[plenzmd1]

21 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

That's China talking, not the DPRK. DPRK deal is being dangled in the tariff negotiations. 

i ain't buying that.. I believe it is same ole same ole from DPRK...agree to do one thing with some immediate concessions from the other side....then just keep delaying, then put additional conditions on it..then the whole thing falls apart. This will be time # 4 this particular gameplan has been put in use.

 

We are in no worse shape in regards to North Korea than before...but again Trump's rhetoric and his supporters blind devotion to everything he says as Gospel is just again put to the test. I know us Trump detractors are supposed to "get" what he really menat..or there is some bigger end game here... I just am not seeing the results on US foreign Policy that Trump supporters claim as wins. 

 

 

[Deranged Rhino]

Here we go 

 

2 minutes ago, plenzmd1 said:

i ain't buying that.. I believe it is same ole same ole from DPRK...agree to do one thing with some immediate concessions from the other side....then just keep delaying, then put additional conditions on it..then the whole thing falls apart. This will be time # 4 this particular gameplan has been put in use.

 

We are in no worse shape in regards to North Korea than before...but again Trump's rhetoric and his supporters blind devotion to everything he says as Gospel is just again put to the test. I know us Trump detractors are supposed to "get" what he really menat..or there is some bigger end game here... I just am not seeing the results on US foreign Policy that Trump supporters claim as wins. 

 

 

 

If it were the same ole, there would be evidence in their actions. So far, despite the press trying to downplay it/ignore it, the actions taken have been in line with the deal. Not just with relations with the US, but also with South Korea and Japan. China still has a heavy hand in the DPRK, we're in a stand off with them at present. This is a dangle - and from the evidence we actually have of the deescalation/disarmament going on at the DMZ - it's likely a bluff. 

[plenzmd1]

^^^^^

 

@Deranged Rhino , please explain the deal to me and what deal North Korea has been following????

 

Mattis leaving I think is pretty damaging too..his letter is pretty freaking damning of Trump policy. But again, I am sure you and all Trump supporters will find the positive/conspiracy theory here, and why I good man leaving was in Trumps grand plan all along

[B-Man]

Quote

 

Kurt Schlichter‏Verified account @KurtSchlichter

FollowFollow @KurtSchlichter

I am of two minds on Syria, and I see both sides of the argument. The same with Afghanistan. But make no mistake. The Beltway consensus that we need to stay indefinitely is not uniformly shared outside it by the people who send their sons and daughters to fight. And PDT knows it.

3:19 PM - 20 Dec 2018

 

 

 

 

#1- "Who cares about the Texas/Arizona Borders, where illegals flood into our country and kill Americans. No need for a wall."

 

#2- "Americans need to die and defend the borders of Afghanistan/Syria."

 

This is how Trump won.

 

 

 

 

Quote

 

Mollie‏Verified account @MZHemingway 5h5 hours ago

Mattis' resignation letter, which I just read, shows this is exactly right. Trump has not hidden his desire to wrap up operations in Syria.

 

That bureaucracy ignores and even expanded operations is not healthy, regardless of your view on whether Syrian warfighting should continue.

 

 

 

.

[B-Man]

Sean Davis‏Verified account @seanmdav 17m17 minutes ago

Short-sighted intervention in Libya was similarly disastrous, leading to American deaths that never should have happened all because politicians apparently decided a vicious Islamic theocracy that loathed America was preferable to a brutal yet kept tyrant who feared it.

 

One would think that kind of disastrous record, which has failed across the board to make America and its allies safer or the Middle East more stable, would lead to some soul-searching and humility from those who enabled it. Unfortunately, we’ve seen the exact opposite reaction.

 

Just as Marxists will tell you that their own failures are no such thing because true communism has never really been tried, so, too will the unyielding interventionists swear that Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria et. al. only went sideways because we didn’t intervene enough.

 

The complete inability to define the specific goals and account for the resultant costs to attain them in Afghanistan has led to 17 years of war, tens of thousands of American lives lost or permanently scarred, and to what end? A down payment on another 17 years?

 

If you are clamoring for a never-ending U.S. military presence in Syria and Afghanistan, the burden is on you to specifically define what military and political victory looks like in each country, when/how it will be achieved, and the costs in lives and dollars it will require.

 

 

 

.

[DC Tom]

12 minutes ago, B-Man said:

Sean Davis‏Verified account @seanmdav 17m17 minutes ago

 

Short-sighted intervention in Libya was similarly disastrous, leading to American deaths that never should have happened all because politicians apparently decided a vicious Islamic theocracy that loathed America was preferable to a brutal yet kept tyrant who feared it.

 

One would think that kind of disastrous record, which has failed across the board to make America and its allies safer or the Middle East more stable, would lead to some soul-searching and humility from those who enabled it. Unfortunately, we’ve seen the exact opposite reaction.

 

Just as Marxists will tell you that their own failures are no such thing because true communism has never really been tried, so, too will the unyielding interventionists swear that Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria et. al. only went sideways because we didn’t intervene enough.

 

The complete inability to define the specific goals and account for the resultant costs to attain them in Afghanistan has led to 17 years of war, tens of thousands of American lives lost or permanently scarred, and to what end? A down payment on another 17 years?

 

If you are clamoring for a never-ending U.S. military presence in Syria and Afghanistan, the burden is on you to specifically define what military and political victory looks like in each country, when/how it will be achieved, and the costs in lives and dollars it will require.

 

 

 

.

 

The fallacy in that being the idea that Afghanistan and Syria are the same war.  They're not.  They're very different.  Afghanistan is a half-assed multinational attempt at nation-building where a nation has never existed.  Syria is a limited action against a specific group in a nation that can reasonably be called a "failed state," with no nation-building component.  

 

The two are not even remotely the same...which probably has something to do with Mattis' retirement.  He'd understand the difference, and wouldn't care to be forced to implement a simplistic "bring the troops home" policy as promulgated by a halfwitted candied yam.

[Deranged Rhino]

1 hour ago, plenzmd1 said:

^^^^^

 

@Deranged Rhino , please explain the deal to me and what deal North Korea has been following????

 

Mattis leaving I think is pretty damaging too..his letter is pretty freaking damning of Trump policy. But again, I am sure you and all Trump supporters will find the positive/conspiracy theory here, and why I good man leaving was in Trumps grand plan all along

 

No missile tests or nuclear tests for over a year. When that changes, the deal has changed. Until then you've seen nothing but positive developments including:

* North and South meeting several times

* Demolition of guard posts along the DMZ

* Removal of artillery from the DMZ

* Remains continue to be returned

* Shuttering of several missile and research sights. 

 

Inspectors and denuclearization come last.

[plenzmd1]

4 hours ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

No missile tests or nuclear tests for over a year. When that changes, the deal has changed. Until then you've seen nothing but positive developments including:

* North and South meeting several times

* Demolition of guard posts along the DMZ

* Removal of artillery from the DMZ

* Remains continue to be returned

* Shuttering of several missile and research sights. 

 

Inspectors and denuclearization come last.

I agree on the missile tests..good thing for sure. Worth giving up joint exercises? Someone smarter than me on how important those are to readiness would have to expound.

 

I agree 10 of 150 guard posts have been dismantled, maybe some of the 2M mines have been disarmed..

 

and yep, some artillery has been removed from the DMZ..but you know and I know that's like saying the Bills offense is no longer a threat cause Peterman was cut.

 

But then we have this

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/06/new-satellite-images-reveal-north-korea-expanding-key-missile/

 

the whole point of my posts was Trump declaring that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat was assinine....I said it at the time and will continue to say it.

[ALF]

Major Chinese shipyard rapidly expands in size amid military buildup

 

It comes amid a concerted campaign by Beijing, pushed by Xi, to rapidly expand and update China's navy, with 32 ships commissioned in 2016 and 2017 alone, according to US government reports.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/20/asia/china-military-jiangnan-satellite-intl/index.html

[Doc Brown]

Even more respect for Mattis.  He didn't write any anonymous op-eds.  He's not going to leak anything to the press.  He's not going to go on a book tour.  He resigned because he had a difference of opinion with our president.  

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

I applaud Trump's decision to leave Syria. Anything that has Arabs killing other Arabs is a GOOD thing in the long run, and we should be encouraging it rather than stopping it.

 

[The_Dude]

1 hour ago, Doc Brown said:

Even more respect for Mattis.  He didn't write any anonymous op-eds.  He's not going to leak anything to the press.  He's not going to go on a book tour.  He resigned because he had a difference of opinion with our president.  

 

To his credit and my disappointment he’s a modern day Belisarius. I say that because I’d love for him to challenge Trump for the republican nominee in 2020, and he’d immediately create mass defections of GOP support for Trump. Veterans would rally to his side over the draft dodger. However, knowing what I know of the man I do not believe that is something he’s considering. But if he does, he’d be a very serious threat to Trumps political future. 

8 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

The fallacy in that being the idea that Afghanistan and Syria are the same war.  They're not.  They're very different.  Afghanistan is a half-assed multinational attempt at nation-building where a nation has never existed.  Syria is a limited action against a specific group in a nation that can reasonably be called a "failed state," with no nation-building component.  

 

The two are not even remotely the same...which probably has something to do with Mattis' retirement.  He'd understand the difference, and wouldn't care to be forced to implement a simplistic "bring the troops home" policy as promulgated by a halfwitted candied yam.

 

Without genocide there is no winning solution in that country. Kill a million of them and they’ll offer you a million more to kill. And when they run out of those they’ll find more Afghanis for us to kill. The Afghanis desire an unoccupied Afghanistan so that they can refocus their efforts on killing their greatest enemy the Afghanis. 

 

 

[The_Dude]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/canadian-detained-china-questioned-daily-no-lawyer-access-020840144.html

 

China has my concern over Russia at this point. 

 

To some extent Putin can be reasonable. 

 

The same cannot be said of the Chinese. It is an evil, lawless empire that needs to be checked at every turn. 

[keepthefaith]

3 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

Even more respect for Mattis.  He didn't write any anonymous op-eds.  He's not going to leak anything to the press.  He's not going to go on a book tour.  He resigned because he had a difference of opinion with our president.  

Yes and his leaving bothers me. 

[Buffalo_Gal]

11 minutes ago, keepthefaith said:

Yes and his leaving bothers me. 

Why? They come and go all the time. For a little comparison, he's been on the job for 700 days and leaves in a bunch more days - under Obama, Panetta served 606 days, Hagel 720 and Ashe Carter 702 (he left when Trump came on) and no one wet their pants over their leaving. 

Secretaries of Defense. Click on the bio to see how long in office (if you care about that sort of thing).

[B-Man]

Trump’s Syria Withdrawal Policy Is Correct, But Communicated Horribly

Requiring "enduring defeat" in Syria will only result in endless war.

 

“Trump Criticized For Breaking With Longstanding American Tradition Of Remaining In Middle Eastern Countries Indefinitely,” joked the Babylon Bee upon the news President Donald Trump is bringing troops home from Syria, but the joke wasn’t far from the truth at all.

 

The news deeply angered the Washington foreign policy consensus, which argues that troops should stay in the region indefinitely even though the stated mission of defeating ISIS has been accomplished.

 

It’s true that Trump’s decision to depart Syria was sudden and poorly communicated. Viewed one way, however, it was not a complete surprise. Since at least 2013, Trump has repeatedly argued against the idea we need a sustained conflict in Syria:

 

 

.

[Deranged Rhino]

56 minutes ago, keepthefaith said:

Yes and his leaving bothers me. 

 

He'll be missed, but he was always going to leave once his primary job was done (and it is). 

 

But the hypocrisy being displayed by the media (who lamented Trump surrounding himself with Generals originally) will be endlessly entertaining. As is the hand wringing over leaving Syria... 

 

 

 

[B-Man]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I need clarification:

 

Wednesday, Trump was bad because he is going to stop a war.

 

Thursday, Trump is bad because without Mattis to constrain him he's going to kill us all in wars.