It's clear that Netanyahu doesn't condone the two state solution which Biden favors. Despite Netanyahu's intransigence, Biden and the US keep on giving Israel, one of the most prosperous countries in the world, more money. While the US has given Israel around $4 billion annually, it has given a relative pittance of $500 million annually to the impoverished Palestinian people. Most knowledgeable people think that a two state solution is the only way to resolve not only the crisis in Israel and Palestine, but in the larger Middle East as well. However, Biden is not demanding that Netanyahu accede to the two state solution. Why not? Why does the US keep giving billions of dollars to Israel when Israel is belligerent and intransigent about a rational solution to the problems between the Israelis and the Palestinians? Instead, an intractable problem remains, one which is guaranteed to provide additional conflict and bloodshed in perpetuity. I have written before that the US and the UN should impose a two state solution on Israel and Palestine. Indulging Israel only means that the conflict in the Middle East will never end. The additional issue is that the US has some 30 military bases in the Middle East. The people on these bases are sitting ducks to be picked off by militias operating in those areas as we saw recently when 3 US soldiers were killed at Tower 22 in Iraq. Why are these bases still there? Iraq doesn't want them there. Syria doesn't want them there. They are just contributing to the enmity that exists between some countries, mainly Shiite countries, and the US. Bin Laden's big beef with the US was the presence of US military bases in Saudi Arabia and Somalia. He sought to drive US personnel out of these areas by force. When that didn't work, he began formulating plans to attack the West with an evolving, deadly new brand of jihad. We all know what that led to. Clearly US military bases in the area are a major irritant to Shiite countries such as Iran, Iraq and Syria. And it is cooling what had seemed to be promising developments with the Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The Two State Solution Must Be Created, Implemented and Enforced ... Now.
We know what a Two State solution would look like. Even all the details have been worked out. It's just that Israel and the Palestinians won't agree to it. Therefore, it must be imposed on them ... both. They should not be free to continue their mutual madness forever. What a bizarre notion of "freedom:" this portends. Why, sir, your freedom includes a right to hate and attack your neighbor in perpetuity. Free and sovereign states should not be impeded from protecting themselves even if in the long run they are not protecting themselves but just involving themselves in endless rounds of attacks and counter attacks. The world's most powerful nation just stands back and says in effect "we don't want to impose ourselves on your freedom and sovereignty. You have a sovereign right to go on with endless rounds of revenge, hatred and war."
UN peacekeepers should separate the two sides and impose peace on Israel and Palestine by imposing a two state solution backed by the power of the US. The world should say to them, "Enough." You guys are totally incapable of solving your problems, and, left to your own devices, you will go on killing each other indefinitely. By virtue of your incompetence at creating peace among yourselves, you have both lost your right to come up with a workable solution, and, therefore, one must be imposed on you, like it or not. You have both lost your right to be completely free and sovereign nations. You are both making the world a worse place. Therefore, the world community has lost its patience and tolerance for your local squabbles which are forcing the whole world to stop what it is doing and deal with your seemingly overwhelming problems. We'd like to get on with solving the problem of climate change instead of devoting our attention to interminably, intermittent wars.
World leaders seem to be more adept on giving military advice rather than advice on creating peace in the world. They are just moving pieces around on a chess board devoid of any consideration of how many people will be killed or maimed in the process. For them war is a rational game. The peace makers can't seem to make a rational game out of the steps necessary to create peace in the world. It's not in their play book. So millions of innocents have to suffer because one side is right and the other side is wrong or vice versa. Where are the leaders willing to take a chance on peace?
I just listened to the Reverend Al Sharpton's rousing eulogy for George Floyd. He said we want justice for George Floyd. All over the world people want justice for George Floyd. Even in bombed out Syria, an artist painted a wall honoring George Floyd. That's significant. It's not justice for George Floyd here in America. It's justice for George Floyd all over the world. That means justice for George in the Middle East, justice for George in Iran, justice for George Floyd in China, in Russia. So what would justice be? Reverend Al quoted Ecclesiastes, "For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal." So what would this justice be?
For sure criminal justice system reform. Let's start with a national ban on carotid restraint, a national ban on the knee-to-neck restraint. Yes, but that's not enough. I feel that all this protest energy might just be dissipated unless there are concrete demands on the system. Where is Bernie Sanders when we need him now? He had concrete demands: a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, forgiveness of student loan debt. Most of the protesters both black and white are millenials, the most screwed generation in American history. But who among them would most benefit from these progressive demands? African Americans. They are the Americans who not only suffer from the criminal justice system and the law enforcement system, they are the ones who most suffer from poverty as it was made clear George Floyd's family did. Reforming the criminal justice system is not enough. Reforming the economic system is necessary to redress the grievances of first slavery, then Jim Crow and now the videotaped deaths of so many black people that generated the Black Lives Matter movement.
Black Lives Matter in terms of equal economic justice and millenial lives, both black and white, weighed down with student loan debt that can't be discharged in bankruptcy, matter as well. A country which supports a bloated military bureaucracy that consumes a trillion dollars a year while there is 20% unemployment represents a knee on all our necks. Justice for George Floyd has to extend to justice for all those innocent lives lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Syria. Justice for George Floyd is justice for the 70 million people, half of them children, in refugee camps. Justice for George is justice for all the poverty stricken in favellas and barrios who can't socially distance. Justice for George Floyd is American acceptance of the United Nations 1948 Declaration of Human Rights which include economic as well as political rights.
Justice for George Floyd is justice for people all over the world: black, white and all shades in between. Justice for George Floyd is justice for people without regard to race, religion or national residence. Justice for George Floyd is electing leaders of our country who will make friends instead of enemies, who will convert swords into plowshares, who will create peace and justice in the world.
In this strange never never land, allies become terrorists and terrorists become allies. Let's get this straight. The Kurds were our allies, that is they were, before Turkey, which is our ally, announced that they were terrorists. One day they were our allies, the next they were terrorists as announced by our ally, Turkey. Oh, what tangled webs we weave! What happened with the abrupt pullout of American troops from Syria is that diplomacy went entirely down the drain. A diplomatic solution should have been sought before the American pullout which would have at least protected the Kurds who were American allies in the successful elimination of the real terrorists - ISIS. Now the real terrorists have been given a new lease on life while our former allies, having been completely sold down the drain by the US, have been declared as terrorists.
Without formally announcing it, the US has lost the war in Syria. Bashar al-Assad, whose regime the US sought to change, has remained in power. What's more he has formed an alliance with the Kurds, America's former allies, against Turkey which wants to annex a 20 mile by 250 mile strip of Syria. There is a possible solution to this whole mess if the countries involved were at all interested in anything other than a military solution to every problem. Start by analyzing each party's interests. As far as Bashar al-Assad is concerned, he wants to remain in power as Predident of Syria. As far as Turkey is concerned, they want to relocate Syrian refugees now living in Turkey back to Syria, and they want relief from the trouble the Kurds are causing inside Turkey. As far as the Kurds are concerned, they want a piece of land that they can call home without being hounded by Turkey.
So far only Bashar al-Assad has got his way. He will remain in power, the US having failed to oust him. The crux of the matter is giving the Kurds officially some kind of homeland especially after they fought on behalf of the US with just that in mind. The Kurdish homeland should be an autonomous region in northern Syria and possibly Iraq. If that had been negotiated successfully, Syria, Kurtdistan and Turkey could have achieved a peaceful settlement. Trump's abrupt removal of troops from Syria without at least first seeking a peace deal was shameful to say the least. The US lost all leverage and lost all credibility in one fateful stroke by the hapless and ignorant Trump. Now the situation has devolved disastrously for the Kurds whom Turkey considers terrorists. The Syrian refugees could have been repatriated, Turkey could have had a peace deal with the Kurds if they were willing to relocate to an autonomous region in Northern Syria and Bashar al-Assad could be happy. Since the US is unwilling to work things out with the various countries involved including Russia and Iran who are Bashar's allies, the whole situation is a shambles.
Perhaps Russia, Iran and Syria can work things out diplomatically. The US has foregone the privilege of being the peacemaker in the region. The US has mutated from being a peacemaker to a warmonger in the region starting with George W Bush's lies to get the US involved in war in Iraq. It has gone downhill from there. The US was at the height of its prestige and credibility after WW II. I have the utmost respect and patriotic regard for America's conduct in that era. Most of which that has happened since though, including the Vietnam and Korean wars, has only diminished US credibility in the eyes of the rest of the world. Trump has put the final nail in the coffin of the US' reputation and credibility.
Smoke rises amid bombing of the Kurdish-held city of Ras al-Ayn by Turkish-supporting rebels. Photograph: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Syrian troops have begun sweeping into Kurdish-held territory on a collision course with Turkish forces and their allies, a day after the beleaguered Kurds agreed to hand over key cities to Damascus in exchange for protection.
The deal, which Kurdish leaders emphasised they had made reluctantly after four days of bombardment by Turkish artillery and jets, threatens to open a new front in Syria’s nearly nine-year civil war, and signals the likely end of US and European military deployments in the country’s north-east.
There were several flashpoints across north-eastern Syria on Monday. Syrian militia groups loyal to Ankara launched an assault on the Kurdish-held city of Manbij supported by airstrikes from Turkish jets. The militiamen – including many fighters who hailed from the city and fled years ago – clashed not only with Kurdish fighters but Syrian regime troops, fighting together for the first time since Sunday’s deal.
US troops were understood to still be on the ground in pockets of north-east Syria, including al-Saediya village about 4 miles (7km) west of Manbij. US armoured vehicles were also stationed on a bridge into Kobane, sources said, trying to deter the Syrian regime’s entry into the city where Kurds and the US cooperated to inflict Islamic State’s first major defeat in 2015.
Further to the east, the Syrian army said it had reached the city of Tal Tamr, bringing it to within 20 miles of the Turkish border.
Unconfirmed reports said Syrian army troops had clashed overnight with Kurdish fighters in the city of Qamishli, which was not surrendered to Damascus in Sunday’s Russian-brokered agreement. The final terms of the deal appeared to still be under discussion on Monday, with several contradictory reports of its contents emerging.
Meanwhile, Turkish fighters and their allies were continuing to attack Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, two cities that have been the focus of Ankara’s mission to push Kurdish fighters – whom it considers to be terrorists – away from its southern border and create a buffer zone where it says it will resettle at least 1 million Syrian refugees.
In a statement, the European Union said it unanimously condemned Turkey’s offensive and asked all member states to stop selling arms to Ankara.
Syria and Turkey have exchanged hostilities sporadically throughout the past nine years but their forces have never engaged in sustained combat, pulling back from doing so at key moments in earlier Turkish incursions into Syrian territory.
The prospect of fighting between Syrian troops and Turkish soldiers and their allies raised deep concerns over the security of the estimated 11,000 Isis fighters and their families who are detained across the region. At least 750 people with links to the terrorist group escaped from detention camps in the area on Sunday.
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What does Turkey's military action in northern Syria mean? – video explainer
Syrian state media said on Monday that units from President Bashar al-Assad’s army were moving north to “confront Turkish aggression on Syrian territory”.
“After everything, it seems that the fate of the Kurdish people [is to be abandoned],” Ismat Sheikh Hassan, the leader of the military council in Kobane, told local television. “We did everything that we could, we called upon the international community … but it did not result in a solution. We urged all Kurdish [groups] to show solidarity, but no one listened.”
The deal is likely to bring a bitter end to five years of semi-autonomy for Kurdish groups in north-east Syria. Turkey’s Operation Peace Spring started on Wednesday after Donald Trump announced that US forces would withdraw from the region.
Trump had not specified a timeframe for the US withdrawal from Syria, but on Sunday, the US defence secretary, Mark Esper, said the remaining 1,000 special forces had been ordered to leave “as safely and quickly as possible” as the fighting between Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) began to threaten US military positions.
The SDF has been funded and trained by the US to combat Isis since 2015, finally defeating the militant group in March after losing 11,000 troops in the battle.
Turkey, however, says the largest unit of of the SDF, the Kurdish YPG, is a terrorist group indistinguishable from the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which has fought an insurgency against the Turkish state for decades.
Trump’s decision to abandon the SDF to an inevitable Turkish assault has been widely criticised, even by his staunchest allies, as a betrayal that has unleashed a humanitarian disaster and threatens to sow the seeds of an Isis resurgence amid the ensuing chaos.
On Sunday, at least 750 people with suspected links to Isis reportedly fled a displacement camp in north-east Syria. The women and children who were formerly part of the “caliphate” had been held in a secure annexe at the Ain Issa camp. They began to riot and scared away the guards after Turkish shelling struck nearby, said Abdulkader Mwahed, the joint president for humanitarian affairs in the Kurdish-held area of Syria.
The camp was home to about 13,000 people, including three suspected British orphans and a British recruiter for Isis, Tooba Gondal.
What Trump did was worse, but Biden doesn't have clean hands either. Trump told Ukraine leader he wanted dirt on Biden or he wouldn't get his money. Biden told Ukrainian leader he wanted prosecutor removed or he wouldn't get his money. Both were meddling in affairs of another sovereign country. To boot Hunter Biden was getting $50,000 a month for a no show job at a Ukrainian gas company. Of course Joe would say, "We have done nothing wrong." Theoretically at least they did nothing wrong. Joe did nothing wrong when he voted to take bankruptcy protection away from student loan debtors either. Theoretically, Trump did nothing wrong when he asked Ukrainian leader for dirt on Joe Biden. Does it say in the Constitution you can't do that? I don't think so.
The point is both these guys, Biden and Trump, are corrupt. Ukraine is corrupt and US policy in Ukraine is corrupt. The US should never be selling weapons to Ukraine or anybody else. A pox on both their houses. We need bold new leadership not an idiot with no political experience nor do we need the "senator from MBNA", who voted for everything credit card companies wanted. Trump is not only an idiot, but he has no command of the English language. He calls a conversation with the Ukrainian leader "perfect" and "beautiful." What kind of a way is that to describe a conversation? Maybe the way a sixth grader would do it. He's the most inarticulate President we've ever had, and that's just for starters. But he sure does know how to rev up a crowd - a crowd with the mentality of sixth graders.
One more point about the Bidens. Trump complains about the Chinese stealing American intellectual property. What better way to do it than to have Hunter Biden become part of a Chines private equity fund? The Chinese are just using American financial methods to take over. A private equity fund buys other corporations, then strips them of their assets and takes them bankrupt. One of those assets of course is intellectual property. What better way than to install Hunter Biden as one of the principles, take over American companies and then strip them of their assets just like American capitalists are doing. You see the Chinese are just using the means of American capitalism to accomplish their objectives. You can't fault them for trying to imitate us. Again Hunter did nothing wrong. Taking over companies, laying off employees and raiding their pension funds is just good ol American capitalism. Why, are we getting upset that the Chinese are just following in our footsteps?
Enough of this nonsense. Both Trump and Biden are has beens that should have been never wases. Let's elect someone who takes climate change seriously, who wants to get on with the Green New Deal like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. Time's a wasting, folks. We've got ten years in order to escape the worst effects of climate change. Trump is right about the endless wars, but he's a total nincompoop about Syria. Take the money devoted to the military and put it towards infrastructure, conversion to renewable energy, diplomatic settlement of disputes with other countries and between other countries, honor the United Nations, build housing for the homeless, shore up the Social Security of senior citizens and implement Medicare for All who want it.
Nothing is as ridiculous as selling out our ally the Kurds who are considered terrorists by our ally the Turks who are now setting out to destroy our ally the Kurds who we've sold down the river 8 times before. These idiots, not just Trump, in charge of American foreign policy are complete idiots including Lindsay Graham and all the neocons. Let's get rid of them, make restitution to the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons and refugees that American policy has created in the Middle East and start creating a more peaceful world. That means we stop selling weapons to oil billionaires like the Saudis or anybody else, make peace with Iran, cooperate with Russia and China and build a better world instead of one that is militarized to the hilt. American policy could have settlled the Syrian, Kurdish, Turkish issues by diplomacy instead of just scooting out and leaving it up to others to fight it out. Not to mention the escape of all the ISIS folks we and the Kurds had captured. Now there off to create another caliphate, and we can start all over.
Kurdish protesters demonstrated in the northern Syrian town of Ras al-Ayn on Oct. 7, 2019 against the U.S. troop withdrawal from positions along the border in northeast Syria ahead of an expected Turkish invasion. (Photo: AP/YouTube/screenshot)
A CNN exclusive by Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne reveals that Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi told the U.S., "I need to know if you are capable of protecting my people, of stopping these bombs falling on us or not. I need to know, because if you're not, I need to make a deal with Russia and the regime now and invite their planes to protect this region."
Gen. Abdi told William Roebuck, the deputy special envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIL, "You have given up on us. You are leaving us to be slaughtered."
A close reading of the Russian press, however, shows that a Russian no-fly zone against Turkey in northeast Syria is highly unlikely.
Although U.S. politicians and pundits keep saying that the Turkish invasion benefits Russia, in fact Moscow is clearly very uncomfortable with it. It may end up inadvertently aiding the major Russian ally in Syria, the government of Bashar al-Assad, if it forces the Kurds into Assad's arms. But Russia hasn't connived in it, and its benefits to Moscow are uncertain.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called for all foreign militaries to leave Syria, according to Reuters: "Everyone who is illegitimately on the territory of any state, in this case Syria, must leave this territory. This applies to all states,"
Except we know that Putin was only talking about the United States and Turkey, not about his allies, Iran and Lebanon's Hizbullah.
BBC Monitoring reports that the state-owned Rossiya 1 and NTV complained about the Turkish invasion placing civilians at risk, and were especially scathing about the Sunni Arab auxiliaries fighting alongside Turkish troops as disregarding civilian security. They did not go so far as criticize Turkey directly.
The Russian position is that the Turkish incursion is a legitimate way to safeguard Turkish security, as long as it doesn't go too far.
Last week, Michael Jansen noted that Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, admitted that Russia recognizes "Turkey's right to ensure its security," but he cautioned Turkey's government to "refrain from any actions that may create obstacles on the path of a Syrian [political] settlement."
Russia has never controlled the Kurdish-dominated northeast, concentrating on helping the al-Assad regime reassert itself in the rest of the country. So Moscow does not have a dog in the fight in some ways.
Both networks interviewed war correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny, who appears to take a pro-Putin line in his analysis. He says that the Syria Kurds are at least partially responsible for their own predicament. BBC Monitoring translated him as saying, "For the past few years leaders of Kurdish formations have been demonstratively ignoring the interests of Damascus." He criticized Kurdish hyper-nationalism, saying that the Kurds insist they are fighting for their motherland.
He insisted, "the land is not theirs, but Syria's." He did not mention that Syria as far back as the mid-1960s had stripped citizenship from many Kurds, leaving them stateless and with little reason to invest their loyalties in Syria.
He also blamed them for subordinating themselves to the interests of Washington.
Absent all the hardware bearing Made in America stickers sitting in Turkish military bases, we would probably not be fretting about what Turkey’s government was doing to the Syrian Democratic Forces. (Photo: Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images)
Turkey, a U.S. ally in Syria, attacks another U.S. ally in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led group of militias whose very existence is anathema to the Turkish government—and the Trump Administration does nothing to prevent it. Trump’s indifference is appropriately denounced by the leadership of both political parties—Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell opposes the planned "precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces" from Syria, and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls upon the president to "reverse this dangerous decision." But is this bipartisan leadership consensus that American troops must remain in Syria really the only alternative? Is there no way to stop Turkey, other by interposing American troops? Well, at the least, there is one other obvious path as yet untread upon: Want to stop Turkey from attacking another ally? Take away their guns, and their tanks, and their planes, and their…
According to GlobalSecurity.org, Turkey has about 2550 armored personnel carriers, of which 99% are America made, as are all but two of its 170 fixed wing aircraft. Less than 1% of Turkey’s 760 "towed" artillery are homemade; the rest, again, are manufactured here. 80% of its 990 "self-propelled" artillery pieces are made in the U.S.A. Less than 2% of Turkey’s 3,250 "Main Battle Tanks" are manufactured there; 53% are American made; another 24% are joint U.S./Israel products. (The rest come from Germany.) In short, the Turkish military doesn’t function without the U.S. weapons industry—and the approval of the U.S. government. Absent all the hardware bearing Made in America stickers sitting in Turkish military bases, we would probably not be fretting about what Turkey’s government was doing to the Syrian Democratic Forces.
It would appear that the course of pulling the plug on the Turkish war machine is just unthinkable to them.
It would appear that the course of pulling the plug on the Turkish war machine is just unthinkable to them.
So, what if the U.S. government were to simply tell Turkey to desist? Yes, it’s true that theoretically the Turkish government could opt to break with Washington and proceed with their attack using the equipment already on hand. But realistically, if it was told that there would be no replacements in the pipeline unless it called off this attack, it seems highly likely that we would see some serious behavior modification—pdq.
How does it not occur to our national leaders to at least promote such a commonsensical step? Trump we need not discuss, immersed as he is in the "alternative facts" that reign in his White House. But Pelosi and McConnell? It would appear that the course of pulling the plug on the Turkish war machine is just unthinkable to them. At this point, the idea of sending and maintaining American troops 6000 miles away to prevent an ally from carrying out an attack apparently seems the more reasonable and familiar option to them.
And, to be fair, we can see how they got to this point, since Congress annually appropriates funding for over 800 foreign military bases. Adding to the militarization of a situation and sending in the Marines is standard operating procedure for them. On the other hand, the interruption of the militarization of the situation by threatening to cut off the transfer of military equipment is so far out of the Capitol playbook that it no doubt now seems the more radical direction there—one with the potential to cause a genuine international crisis.
And there could, after all, also be serious implications for the "defense" industry, which would not be confined to the nation’s capital, given that the industry has been carefully constructed to involve every region of the country. And it would certainly have grave implications for the current nameless, permanent state of war formerly known as the "War on Terror."
In short, placing American military personnel in harm’s way apparently carries less political risk than endangering the profits of munitions manufacturers, or the careers of foreign policy experts. This is the mindset of war without end; war so ubiquitous that it remains largely unnoticed most of the time. It is but another example of why the bi-partisan Washington foreign policy consensus has got to go—along with the people who purvey it.
It's the Trump method for everything. Let your workers do the dirty work. Then stiff them on the payment. Such is the lot of the Kurds who took down the ISIS caliphate, were guarding the ISIS detainees, and just wanted a piece of property they could call their own in return. In a nutshell Trump sold them out. But this is nothing new. The Kurds have now been betrayed 8 times by the US:
The U.S. has now betrayed the Kurds a minimum of eight times over the past 100 years. The reasons for this are straightforward.
The Kurds are an ethnic group of about 40 million people centered at the intersection of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. Many naturally want their own state. The four countries in which they live naturally do not want that to happen.
On the one hand, the Kurds are a perfect tool for U.S. foreign policy. We can arm the Kurds in whichever of these countries is currently our enemy, whether to make trouble for that country’s government or to accomplish various other objectives. On the other hand, we don’t want the Kurds we’re utilizing to ever get too powerful. If that happened, the other Kurds — i.e., the ones living just across the border in whichever of these countries are currently our allies — might get ideas about freedom and independence.
Just after the terrorists (ISIS) have been "conquered", by the Kurds, Turkey declares that the Kurds themselves are the terrorists and is proceeding with a mission to wipe them out. Wait a minute. One day the Kurds are heroes for defeating the terrorists. The next day the Kurds are the terrorists themselves. What a wacky world we live in. Obviously, there should have been a political settlement before the US just pulled out, abandoned the Kurds and told Turkey in effect, "Go at it."
The US doesn't much care who does the fighting as long as they buy the weapons of war from us. Saudi Arabia can attack women and children in Yemen, but don't you dare buy your weapons from Russia. We need to sell them to you in order to grow our economy. Our GDP is dependent on weapon sales so the more war the better. We'll sell you everything you need. You see there's no money in settling disputes diplomatically. You pay the salaries of a few diplomats which you would have to do anyway, and that's it. But war ... you need weapons, you need airplanes, you need bombs, missiles ... these are costly items. We will sell you everything you need, and if you don't buy from us, we will put sanctions on your economy. That's the Trump way. Trump told Turkey they better not go too far in their slaughtering of the Kurds or else he would sanction them. He wouldn't hurt them militarily, however, because they are our ally. But we sanction both our friends and our enemies if they don't do what Trump wants them to do.
The Kurds, however, are expendable. One day they're the good guys helping the US to wipe out ISIS. The next day they're the bad guys because Turkey considers them the terrorists. You can't make this stuff up! But you guys go ahead and fight all you want. The more you fight , the more money we make selling you arms. Heck, we'll arm both sides, and may the best man or woman win! The word "terrorist" has lost its meaning. Any country's enemies are called "terrorists" any more. Hezbollah are terrorists because Israel says so. The Palestine Liberation Organization considers Israel the terrorists. It's a much overworked and useless word. But of course right wing racists and white nationalists in the US are not considered to be terrorists.
Meanwhile, even some Republicans have had enough when some dipshit like Trump can be elected as the most powerful man in the world and can, on a whim, conduct foreign policy with no input from those who might have some knowledge in the matter. Well, knowledge doesn't count in Trump's world. Neither does science. All that counts is Trump's whims. Congress, for sure, doesn't count. Congress has been totally been put in a straitjacket by Mitch McConnell. Congress effectively is not even a branch of government any more which makes an inexperienced guy like Trump even more powerful with life and death decisions made by whim affecting people all over the world.
Republicans are in a full-out revolt against President Trump over his decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria, a move broadly seen as putting the lives of Kurdish allies at risk.
The overwhelming opposition from GOP lawmakers is putting increasing pressure on Trump to reverse course. And it comes at a time when Democrats are moving full steam ahead with an impeachment inquiry.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s loudest congressional supporters, on Tuesday demanded a senators-only briefing on the Syria move, which he said betrayed the Kurds and would make it tougher for the U.S. to build alliances going forward.
“The President’s decision will have severe consequences for our strategic national interests and reduce American influence in the region while strengthening Turkey, Russia, and Iran,” Graham wrote in a letter also signed by Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.). “The decision also dramatically increases the threat to our Kurdish allies, who helped destroy ISIS’s territorial caliphate, and will impair our ability to build strategic alliances in the future.”
Will Republicans primary him? It looks increasingly likely as Democrats proceed to impeach him. Is it fair to say that Hillary Clinton would have been a much better President? At least she was experienced as a diplomat. For all her faults, and she had a few, at least she was competent and professional and her heart was in the right place.
In a nutshell, Kurds betrayed again. Over half of Syria's prewar population of 22 million are now refugees. ISIS detention camp no longer protected by Kurds so they're about to be set free so they can reconstitute themselves, and it can start all over. Turkey on the march. If Trump wants to bring troops home, how about the 35,000 troops stationed in Germany. If Trump wants Europeans to pay more for their protection, BRING THEM HOME. Or how about the 55,000 troops stationed in Japan. Let Japan pay for their own protection and BRING THEM HOME. He never should have brought the troops home from Syria, however.
There are about 11,000 ISIS detainees in over 30 detention facilities across northern Syria. A separate camp for internally displaced persons known as al-Hol, located in northeastern Syria, holds nearly 70,000 people, including thousands of ISIS family members, according to a recent Defense Department Inspector General’s report. Trump has told Turkey it is now responsible for the ISIS detainees. Turks are saying, gee thanks.The Syrian situation is a ghastly mess, but Trump has made it worse by withdrawing US troops. After all the Kurds did the fighting with US help and assistance to break the back of the ISIS caliphate. Now, what you going to do with them all now that they're in detention camps? This situation cried out for a diplomatic solution, but diplomacy is America's short suit. The only diplomacy Trump knows how to do is to threaten people with sanctions, the latest, of course, is to destroy Turkey's economy if they don't do what he wants and what he wants isn't very clear, let alone carefully thought out.
A political solution would involve recognizing that Turkey has 3.6 million Syrian refugees which it wants to resettle back in Syria. It would recognize Bashar al-Assad as Syria's President, and respect the territorial integrity of Syria. It would give the Kurds an autonomous region inside Syria. It would recognize Russia's and Iran's roles inside Syria because they are Syria's traditional allies. It would bring all these disparate parties to the bargaining table perhaps at the UN. A political solution would provide for the unlimited detention of the 11,000 ISIS fighters preferable at a site outside Syria, perhaps at Guantanamo along with the other detainees there where they are unlikely to reconstitute themselves and start over.
But diplomacy and world leadership is the US short suit especially now with an imbecile as President surrounded by a bunch of toadies and henchmen. So the result will probably be: sanctions against Turkey, the destruction of the Kurds by Turkey, the freeing of the ISIS detainees and the dumping of the Syrian refugees back inside Syria without adequate support to restore their lives. Let's hope that for once cooler heads prevail.
Will Trump Bring the Troops Home From Syria and Afghanistan?
by John Lawrence, February 7, 2019
Short answer: NO! It's a meaningless question. The troops have never come home from any war the US has fought. There are still 35,116 military troops in Germany, 54,281 troops in Japan, 25,813 troops in Korea and 5,200 in Iraq. More importantly, the US has invested billions in real estate in these and other countries in the form of military bases such as Bagram AFB in Iraq and al-Asad base in Syria. There are also 36 bases in Germany, 23 in Japan, 15 bases in Korea and 12 bases in Iraq. The US has invested billions in infrastructure in other countries while neglecting its own infrastructure. It doesn't want to just abandon these bases so there will never be a complete troop withdrawal from any of these countries. The US has effectively colonized certain parts of every country it has ever been at war with in addition to the hundreds of other military bases in countries which are considered our allies.
Despite recently closing hundreds of bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States still maintains nearly800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad—from giant “Little Americas” to small radar facilities. Britain, France and Russia, by contrast, have about 30 foreign bases combined as of 2015. Maintaining bases and troops overseas cost $85 to $100 billion in fiscal year 2014; the total with bases and troops in war zones is $160 to $200 billion. These hundreds of billions of dollars could be spent on building and maintaining US infrastructure, converting to renewable energy, subsidizing electric vehicles and ameliorating climate change.
On the other hand China is investing in infrastructure in other countries with its Belt and Road initiative. Instead of investing in military bases, China is investing in ports, railroads, shipping infrastructure, airports and raw materials. This is not a giveaway. China is loaning these nations who are the recipients the money while building with Chinese expertise and manpower. While China will reap the rewards of increased trade with these countries, they will also have an income stream of repayments on their loans coming back to them. It's a win-win for China and the recipient countries and a lose-lose for the money drain that US bases in foreign countries represents.
Case in point: Over the past decade, Venezuela received over $62 billion from China, which is 53 percent of all money lent by China to Latin America. China currently owns $23 billion worth of Venezuela's foreign debt, making it the country's biggest creditor. China needs Venezuela's oil and is willing to pay for it. But here's the rub. The US wants the current Venezuelan President Maduro out, but China wants him to stay in. The US wants a regime in Venezuela that is not "socialist." It doesn't have a problem with the socialist regimes in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, however. Basically, it doesn't want regimes around the world that shout "Death to America" and "Yanqui Go Home." Maybe if these countries changed their rhetoric, we could all get along. But privatizing Venezuela's oil industry would leave China out in the cold with a potential loss of its sizable investment.
So will the US confront China over Venezuela? Will a US backed Venezuelan regime privatize Venezuela's oil industry? Will China fight to retain its $62 billion investment in Venezuela's nationalized oil industry? God only knows. Let's see how this plays out.
How About We Give Trump His Wall (Steel Slats Not Concrete) in Return for Cutting the Military Budget
by John Lawrence, December 23, 2018
Trump is pulling troops out of Syria where the US government has pulled a bait and switch on the American people, and that's to the good - not the bait and switch, the pull out. They were originally sent there to effect regime change. It's clear they lost that battle so now the powers that be have decided that their presence is actually required to get rid of ISIS who they were actually supporting when both ISIS and the US wanted to get rid of Bashar al-Assad. Now instead of Mission Accomplished, it's Mission Changed. When the US goes into some part of the world, it's like the Hotel California where you can check in, but you can never check out.
The bloated trillion dollar a year military budget is consuming resources needed elsewhere such as infrastructure building and maintaining. The fully employed US economy is great at developing and selling gadgets and trinkets, but it's lousy at creating peace in the world or even a world that can survive global warming. We need to create renewable energy at mach speed and share that technology with the rest of the world if there is any hope of survival for Planet Earth. In addition we need to get rid of plastic and replace it with something biodegradable if there is any hope for the oceans or the creatures who live there who are ingesting all these plastic particles. Then we eat them.
The US is seeking to control the world through its military - Pax Americana. In the meantime China is building infrastructure all over the world winning friends and influencing people as the old self help book was titled. The American response to this is to consider China a threat. Instead of construction America is basing its foreign policy on destruction or the threat thereof. So China must be stopped from doing good deeds at all costs because they are a threat to American dominance. Voila! The arrest of a Chinese executive of the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world - Huawei. China will no doubt retaliate. What's next? The Chinese arresting Jeff Bezos? orTim Cook, CEO of Apple? Or maybe Mark Zuckerberg?
If the US sought to create peace in the world, it would be trying to solve problems diplomatically instead of militarily or financially, that is by the threat of force or sanctions. When sanctions don't work, then the US arrests Chinese executives which is a total provocation to China. In any event there is a lot of money to be made by supporting the US military-industrial complex and seeking to solve every problem militarily instead of by seeking to solve problems by peaceful methods and developing friends instead of enemies. There are no lobbyists for that.
"President Trump is absolutely right to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria," said Paul Kawika Martin of Peace Action. "President Obama deployed U.S. soldiers to Syria in violation of international law, and the ongoing U.S. presence there only serves to prolong the war and fuel the risk of confrontation with Russia, Iran, and other parties to the conflict." (Photo: DoD/flickr/cc)
Even as the Pentagon stammered and the retired generals, ex-CIA chiefs, and war hawks from both major political parties took to the cable news to warn against the prospect of less war—or at least U.S. involvement in them—peace groups on Wednesday afternoon applauded news reporting that President Donald Trump has ordered the withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from Syria.
"President Trump is absolutely right to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria," said Paul Kawika Martin, senior director for policy and political affairs at Peace Action, in response to reporting from the New York Times and others.
"President Obama deployed U.S. soldiers to Syria in violation of international law," he said, "and the ongoing U.S. presence there only serves to prolong the war and fuel the risk of confrontation with Russia, Iran, and other parties to the conflict."
A troop withdrawal, Martin added, does not mean the U.S. cannot have a role in helping the Syrian people or securing a better future for the nation. "The U.S. can and should pursue a more active role in negotiations aimed at securing a political solution and a lasting peace in Syria, and should step up funding for humanitarian aid," Martin said. "President Trump should also rethink his administration's callous, discriminatory refugee policies and immediately increase the number of refugees allowed into the United States rather than continuing to shut our doors to Syrians fleeing a war that the U.S. has played such a significant role in."
My statement supporting decision by @realDonaldTrump to withdraw US troops from Syria. It was wrong when the Obama Administration took part in unauthorized war actions in Syria without a strategy. It was wrong for the Trump Administration to continue it. https://t.co/K8zONxPKnw
The anti-war and human rights group CodePink also applauded the prospect of all U.S. troops leaving Syria.
"We believe the U.S. withdrawal from Syria is a positive contribution to the peace process," said the group's co-founder Medea Benjamin. A withdrawal, she added, also "decreases the tensions between the United States and Iran that could have escalated the dangerous proxy wars that have been victimizing the Syrian people."
Putting focus on the war's countless victims, Benjamin said her group is calling "on all foreign powers that have been involved in Syria’s destruction, including the United States, to take responsibility for rebuilding this nation and providing assistance to the Syrian people, including the refugees, who have suffered so tragically for over seven years."
Benjamin said she further hopes that the decision will also mark the start of further reevaluation of U.S. troops stationed around the world. "This is particularly true in Afghanistan," she said, "where some 16,000 US soldiers are engaged in a war that is beginning its 18th year, and in neighboring Iraq, where the U.S. says it will maintain its presence with 5,200 troops stationed in the country. President Trump should continue to stand up to the neocons and the military-industrial complex that profit from endless war by bringing these troops home as well."
Martin agreed.
"As long as Trump is rethinking the U.S. role in Syria, he should also move to withdraw U.S. forces from the 17-year-old war in Afghanistan, and from the catastrophic Saudi-led war in Yemen," Martin said.
"The U.S. has been waging endless war for a generation, wasting trillions of dollars and costing countless lives, and we're no better off for it," he concluded. "We need a security strategy rooted in peace and cooperation rather than death and destruction. In the coming year, the new Congress should move to reclaim its long-lost authority on war so that these critical decisions are vetted by the people's representatives instead of left in the hands of one person."
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Getting the US out of Syria is the right thing to do. Ditto for that money pit - Afghanistan. Let us not forget that the purpose of going into Syria was regime change. The US wanted to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad. However, Assad with Russia's and Iran's help won the civil war so then the dialog has been all about ISIS. A little history is in order perhaps. Assad practices a flavor of Islam which is close to the Shiites. Assad is an ally of Iran which is majority Shiite. But the people of Syria are majority Sunni. It is just the opposite situation that existed in Iraq before the US invasion. There a majority Shiite population was governed by a Sunni government. By overthrowing Saddam and instituting a "democracy", Iraq became a country governed by Shiites allied with Iran. The Saudis, who are the largest Sunni nation in the Middle East and a US ally were saying the Arabic equivalent of "What the fuck?"
So Obama and Hillary in all their zest and zeal for "democratic values" were of the opinion that the US should institute "regime change" in Syria so that the majority Sunnis could be in power there. That would be lovely as far as the Saudis were concerned. However, please don't forget that ISIS is Sunni. ISIS was spawned by Saudi Arabia in their virulent Wahhabist schools which preach "Death to the West." Lest we forget, Usama bin Laden came from a wealthy Saudi family and 15 0f the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. So getting back to Syria, if the US had been successful in unseating Assad, it is likely that a Sunni caliphate aka ISIS would have taken over. In fact the US and ISIS were fighting for the same objective - a Syrian government dominated by Sunnis and allied with Saudi Arabia.
So getting out of Syria is the right thing to do. Hurrah for Donald Trump! Lindsay Graham needn't worry about ISIS taking over now. Assad, Russia and Hezbollah (Iran's proxy) will make short work of ISIS in Syria. The Kurds which had hopes of establishing an independent state in northern Syria - Kurdistan - will have to retreat into Turkey where they and the majority Turks are Sunnis. So the status quo ante will have been reestablished and the fighting will have ceased thanks to Trump's decision to declare victory and get the hell out of the way. (Actually, it was a US defeat, but what the hell.)
So to sum up, Syria will remain governed by Assad aligned with Iran and Iraq had a regime change which aligned it with Iran. US meddling in the Middle East has caused nothing but death and destruction and cost a trillion dollars which could have been spent more wisely at home rebuilding US infrastructure. Instead, we destroyed civilian infrastructure in the Middle East. The US is left with its human rights violating ally, Saudi Arabia minus an ally in Iraq, the legacy of being friends with the murderer of Kashoggi and a money pit in Afghanistan. Might we venture to say that US foreign policy is a shambles? A shambles that makes a mockery of human rights and allies itself with the worst actors? Oh what tangled webs we weave.
