Trump number 8

[Urinal Cake]

Well there's always somebody willing to take a paycheck. If you're a conservative politician, talking head, apparatchik or think tank flooezy it probably looks good on your resume, 'In my time with the Trump Administration we did a good job but there were some important lessons to be learnt....'

Of course the hires become stupider and more desperate.

[Ferris]

Well there's always somebody willing to take a paycheck. If you're a conservative politician, talking head, apparatchik or think tank flooezy it probably looks good on your resume, 'In my time with the Trump Administration we did a good job but there were some important lessons to be learnt....'

Of course the hires become stupider and more desperate.

It's like signing for man utd under moyes/van gaal/mourinho - "ooh nice paycheque" except it ruins your career and you become an unemployable pariah with a shite reputation after you are chewed up and spat out. No sympathy, mind.

It just means the hirings and staff members become increasingly craven, power-hungry, and unqualified. Which speeds up the process!

Mad, really.

[Mobius]

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/536968931278598144

This guy lasted 3 weeks longer than Mattis..

[manticore]

A hot take, but depressingly Kyle is correct.

https://twitter.com/KyleKulinski/status/1075884543989698562

He is, but it's a relief to see one of the leftists I have respect for at least acknowledge the problem of protecting the Kurds:



Chomsky's interview:

The other crucial question is the status of the Kurdish areas — Rojava. In my opinion, it makes sense for the United States to maintain a presence which would deter an attack on the Kurdish areas. They have the one part of Syria which is succeeded in sustaining a functioning society with many decent elements. And the idea that they should be subjected to an attack by their bitter enemies the Turks, or by the murderous Assad regime I think is anything should be done to try to prevent that.

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/26/trump-united-nations-noam-chomsky/

[jobotic]

Sounds like a resistance grifter neocon to me.

[Hundhoon]

What on EARTH are they doing in Afghanistan, i think they know they have wasted Trillions but are too embarrased to admit it.

last year was the dealisest year in Afghanistan ever, that country does not tolerate empires.

[biggytitbo]

After 17 years of achieving fuck all in Afghanistan, trump announcing a withdrawal of troops is again greeted with the msm pretend handwring about the 'terrible damage' this will do. Post Iraq the entire media establishment have become so thoroughly indoctrinated with American imperial exceptionalism that any reversal of failed and disastrous interventions is greeted with the kind of conformity of regime friendly opinion you'd expect from a banana Republic. As if its just taken as a natural fact of the universe that America should be able to permenently occupy any country they like, for as long as they like, with no real pressing strategic aims or goals. Just because.


"America are handing Syria to Russia and Iran!", as if the rightful owners of Syria were the US empire. America are illegally occupying Syria after illegally trying to regime change it causing an incredible amount of chaos and destruction in its wake. The junky mentality of 'if we just stay a bit longer for x, y or z, then we'll withdraw', despite the fact x y and z were created by us in the first place, is how you end up permenently occupying a country you have no right to be in.

[jobotic]

You don't say.

So the Kurds?

[Paul Calf]

After 17 years of achieving fuck all in Afghanistan, trump announcing a withdrawal of troops is again greeted with the msm pretend handwring about the 'terrible damage' this will do. Post Iraq the entire media establishment have become so thoroughly indoctrinated with American imperial exceptionalism that any reversal of failed and disastrous interventions is greeted with the kind of conformity of regime friendly opinion you'd expect from a banana Republic. As if its just taken as a natural fact of the universe that America should be able to permenently occupy any country they like, for as long as they like, with no real pressing strategic aims or goals. Just because.


"America are handing Syria to Russia and Iran!", as if the rightful owners of Syria were the US empire. America are illegally occupying Syria after illegally trying to regime change it causing an incredible amount of chaos and destruction in its wake. The junky mentality of 'if we just stay a bit longer for x, y or z, then we'll withdraw', despite the fact x y and z were created by us in the first place, is how you end up permenently occupying a country you have no right to be in.

Is it not possible that sudden withdrawal might be just as damaging as continued presence?

[biggytitbo]

Amazing to see how suddenly everyone cares about the kurds after never normally giving the first shit isn't it? So America should continue to illegally occupy Syria to 'help the kurds'? And then what? As far as I know Turkey is a member of both NATO and the UN so whatever its claimed they'll do if American finally fucks off should be handled through those bodies and international law.

[Zetetic]

Not much mention of the 2017 or late 2018 bombing campaigns, and associated direct civilian deaths, in my skim of the reporting of this. Seems a bit relevant to any appraisal.

Are repetitions of these precluded by the planned 'withdrawals' are they more focused on ending presence of the ground, training and the like?

[jobotic]

Amazing to see how suddenly everyone cares about the kurds after never normally giving the first shit isn't it? So America should continue to illegally occupy Syria to 'help the kurds'? And then what? As far as I know Turkey is a member of both NATO and the UN so whatever its claimed they'll do if American finally fucks off should be handled through those bodies and international law.

Who's everyone? Me? Fuck off.

It's not claimed is it arsehole? They've done it before. Fur a socialist you seem unphased by the murder of your brothers and sisters. But then you're not one are you? And Erdogan has all the traits you admire in a leader.

And NATO is to be trusted on this but not on anything else.?

[jobotic]

And I agree that the US shouldn't have been there in the first place. Fucking obviously.

[biggytitbo]

Not much mention of the 2017 or late 2018 bombing campaigns, and associated direct civilian deaths, in my skim of the reporting of this. Seems a bit relevant to any appraisal.

Are repetitions of these precluded by the planned 'withdrawals' are they more focused on ending presence of the ground, training and the like?

Yes about 'withdrawals', as we've seen before America announcing a withdrawal can't always be taken at face value. We'll have to see if this is a superficial PR move leaving America still heavily involved. One of the weird pivots in the current bizarre coverage is for the longest time those decrying this 'withdrawal' denied American troops were even in Syria in any number, or that the US was occupying a third of the country.

[Alberon]

Seems to be a government shutdown looming. Trump is demanding $5b for his wall after being harangued by the far right media, but the Democrats (who need to give their assent for it to get through the Senate quickly) are saying no. If no deal is reached then large sections of the government and it's agenci will shut down tomorrow.

[garnish]

Amazing to see how suddenly everyone cares about the kurds after never normally giving the first shit isn't it?

I think you might be telling on yourself here.  What you mean is you don't give the first shit and find it amazing that other people do.

[biggytitbo]

I think you might be telling on yourself here.  What you mean is you don't give the first shit and find it amazing that other people do.

I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the 'bipartisan' and media consensus who will formulate whatever shameless self serving narrative they can as long as the end result is American military hegemony. The pentagon don't need a PR department when everyone in politics and the media so dutifully do the job for them.

[BlodwynPig]

Seems to be a government shutdown looming. Trump is demanding $5b for his wall after being harangued by the far right media, but the Democrats (who need to give their assent for it to get through the Senate quickly) are saying no. If no deal is reached then large sections of the government and it's agenci will shut down tomorrow.

Trump will have to go back to Brussels and put a case for a better deal.

[biggytitbo]

Not just arseholes like Boot either, go back and read the BBC's reports when Obama announced a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and how positively it was spun, in stark contrast to what a 'disaster' it is now Trump has done the same. The US media has totally lost their mind on this too, no self reflection about the failures of americas military adventures, just inveterate warmongers darkly hinting at Russian plots.

[rjd2]

Boot along with other horror neocon trash such as Kristol are making fortunes milking the resistance.

https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/1075977843878834179

Establishment coming for some of the brave voices on the left who are voicing approval for possible withdrawal. 

[Fishfinger]

The second headline in the image is fake, according to Max Boot, and a look at the Washington Post archive seems to bear that out: the article dated April 19th is entitled, "Trump thinks we can replace U.S. forces in Syria with Arab troops. He's wrong." The content of the article supports that headline, too, which it would not do if it had been quickly modified. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/04/19/trump-thinks-we-can-replace-u-s-forces-in-syria-with-arab-troops-hes-wrong/?utm_term=.aa331814e097.

He may well be an arsehole for all I know, but this is just specious.

[Hank Venture]

There is no real anti-war sentiment in the US. It's a fringe position, and you'll see it very clearly when a gross Republican like Trump accidentally does something correct (like the whole North Korea thing) - the liberal media class will immediately let the mask slip and start crying for blood, "harsh measures", "red lines", "confrontation", etc. Oddly, it never works the other way around - when Trump does something to escalate and further fuck up the Middle East, he'll be lauded as "presidential", "making the tough choice", etc.

America as a country does genuinely believe that the world is just a setting for their military imperialism. That is the only real bipartisan foreign policy. Look at the absurd glorification of "Mad Dog" Mattis, a complete psychopath awash in civilian blood, just because he and Trump had a falling out.

[manticore]

Amazing to see how suddenly everyone cares about the kurds after never normally giving the first shit isn't it? So America should continue to illegally occupy Syria to 'help the kurds'? And then what? As far as I know Turkey is a member of both NATO and the UN so whatever its claimed they'll do if American finally fucks off should be handled through those bodies and international law.

The Kurds are under threat from Assad, Isis and Turkey. What's being argued for is a limited continued US presence specifically to protect the Kurds, not an 'occupation'.

I would prefer it if the UN did it, but I very much doubt that's practicable - I would be interested if someone has some information to suggest it is.

I share your loathing of the hypocritical war loving liberal establishment in the US but that's no excuse for leftists to collude in the abandonment of the Kurds out of kneejerk anti-imperialism. That's pure dogmatism at the expense of basic humanity.

[hummingofevil]

Is it not possible that sudden withdrawal might be just as damaging as continued presence?

They should sneak out one-at-a-time so no-one notices; leave cardboard cut outs like the copper in the window of Home Bargains.

[biggytitbo]

The second headline in the image is fake, according to Max Boot, and a look at the Washington Post archive seems to bear that out: the article dated April 19th is entitled, "Trump thinks we can replace U.S. forces in Syria with Arab troops. He's wrong." The content of the article supports that headline, too, which it would not do if it had been quickly modified. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/04/19/trump-thinks-we-can-replace-u-s-forces-in-syria-with-arab-troops-hes-wrong/?utm_term=.aa331814e097.

He may well be an arsehole for all I know, but this is just specious.

He is an arsehole, but fair dos I should have checked.

The Kurds are under threat from Assad, Isis and Turkey. What's being argued for is a limited continued US presence specifically to protect the Kurds, not an 'occupation'.

That's always the excuse - ohh it'll be limited, it'll be for this specific reason, and lo and behold years later they're still there. Everytime.


A reminder that the US are illegally occupying 1/3rd of the whole of Syria, that's not a limited presence by any stretch of the imagination.

[Satchmo Distel]

How can Democrats scupper the wall bill when they have fewer than 50 seats?

[Zetetic]

A reminder that the US are ... occupying 1/3rd of the whole of Syria, that's not a limited presence by any stretch of the imagination.

That's obviously a grossly misleading use of the word 'occupying', of course. They are, perhaps, two or three thousand US troops on the ground in north-east Syria alongside local forces numbering perhaps twenty or thirty times that.

It doesn't help to mislead people about this. The point and the power of those troops isn't as an occupation force.

[Zetetic]

We might also contrast 2,000 'troops' against 30,000 air strikes (under the CJTF-OIR banner since 2014; although these were overwhelmingly focused in in 2017 and late 2018 as far as I can tell).

[Paul Calf]

Not just arseholes like Boot either, go back and read the BBC's reports when Obama announced a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and how positively it was spun, in stark contrast to what a 'disaster' it is now Trump has done the same. The US media has totally lost their mind on this too, no self reflection about the failures of americas military adventures, just inveterate warmongers darkly hinting at Russian plots.

A man who has invited white supremacists into the White House, whipped up anti-Muslim hate, called neo-Nazis 'very fine people', opened concentration camps for child refugees, openly boasted about sexual assault...this man has less goodwill than someone who did none of this.

I'm not sure I can agree that this is a wholly bad thing.

[biggytitbo]

That's obviously a grossly misleading use of the word 'occupying', of course. They are, perhaps, two or three thousand US troops on the ground in north-east Syria alongside local forces numbering perhaps twenty or thirty times that.

It doesn't help to mislead people about this. The point and the power of those troops isn't as an occupation force.

It's an exercise in semantic whataboutery to claim they don't though isn't it. Also surprise surprise, the area of Syria the US control has most of the oil. They might withdraw the notional on the ground troops, but whether they withdraw effective control is an other matter.