Trump not having the ability to keep the same story narrative in from one day to the next... What else is new?
To show you how bad trump is at key moments like this... didn't even consult his military leaders on this move...
I agree with you the hand-wringing is a little ridiculous. As far as ISIS goes, yeah they straddled the border with Iraq so of course we were going to hit on both sides. As far as the security of Iraq goes, we're probably done with Syria. But we got ourselves mixed up there to unseat Assad, not just to fight ISIS. We don't have to be in everybody's business all the time, and we shouldn't have been in Syria's, at least not if we don't have the resolve to do what it takes to make real change -- which we don't. Maybe it's a sort of victory on ISIS, but a complete surrender on Assad. Us moving out lets Russia reconsolidate Assad's rule, which should bring this ugly chapter to a close. There won't be a power vacuum problem. However, let's be frank that we are abandoning a lot of people to be tortured and murdered and oppressed. The crackdown on rebels is going to be brutal. And it'll be worse because we had helped to prolong the conflict without doing enough to win it.
The point here isn't really whether you think we should stay entangled in Syria, it's that the decision was made because of the president's lack of interest in world affairs and his association with Russia. He didn't come to an informed decision.
Trump's behavior has been consistent with him being a Russian asset/puppet. I don't have a problem with the Syria withdrawal on the surface of it, myself. Just knowing it happened, without informing or consulting U.S. military leadership, because of Trump's fealty to Putin makes the whole decision laughable.
Trump was right then. Just trump did not realize that you don't need to fake caring about the turmoil after you started a war based on lies and caused more than one million deaths. Trump is making a correct decision now. He just did not know that Obama's US funded ISIS and protected them all along in Syria.
Agreed. It is alarming that he seems to have decided this without discussing with anyone in his Administration.
...actually, no it's not. The Donald is the one surprising constant in all this. The Donald doesn't discuss. He dictates. The problem isn't, and never really has been, him. ...it's everybody else that thought, in any way shape or form, that something worthwhile would come from involving him (outside of his sideline bullhorn rabble-rousing and conspiracy theorizing) in matters like this was ever going to be anything other than a colossal mess...
Some even here in D&D have expressly said they like Trump as a chaos agent because the power of the institutionalized elites could not be reformed or broken by an insider; they needed to have an outsider come and challenge the power structure itself. I think that's a terribly naive point-of-view, but I think Trump is delivering if that's what you were voting for. I don't like it, but then I never wanted it either.
…let me go on a little tangent here, JuanValdez… …I can understand the need or desire for a “chaos agent”…someone or something to focus the impetus of “…changing status quo…” on…a catalyst, if not an actual actor… ..it IS naïve…and speaks to a broader desire for irresponsibility in a communal or societal sense…at least in regards to what is determined to be important or significant at any given point in time… My tangent is this… …I got into an argument with some people in my family about Bill Cosby’s “tragic” fall. Basically, I saw nothing at all “tragic” about it. And I could get where some black people (in light of how the #MeToo Movement has kind of tidal-waved its way into social discourse…cascading and indiscriminate) could feel like there’s a persistent double-standard in how Cosby was handled, as opposed to Harvey Weinstein or Kevin Spacey, or even Louis C.K…. …but the thing that got to me was looking to worry about Cosby’s “legacy” (in this day and age)… …as if there’s any way that Cosby’s imprint on entertainment and popular culture (however abrogated) would somehow be erased from history…it’s happened to Negros before, certainly, but I doubt it in this case… …(and for the record, Cosby’s hypocrisy is what I find as troubling and reprehensible as his behavior…he would have been better served, as it happens, to behave like Marion Berry behaves than anything else)… …I don’t regard Bill Cosby (as a social or entertainment pioneer) as anything more, in regards to historical progression of Negroes in this country, than a doorman. And I say that with respect, believe it or not. There were people long before Cosby appeared, in many walks of American life, that approached those closed doors that Cosby opened. There have been some white people, in fact, who chose to open some of those doors as well…which is why you get some white people from time to time who want to set the record straight as to which direction their moral compasses were pointed… …the problem, for me, is oversimplifying Cosby’s contribution to society (from an African-American perspective) at the expense of the courage it took so many others with no name, in the face of vicious resistance, to even make the attempt. ...No reason to open a door that doesn't have anyone waiting or wanting to go through it... You need both things to happen in order to get it done, I know…so one part of the equation isn’t any more or less significant than any other one. …But what you’re wanting, ultimately, to get done (not necessarily who we choose to identify as the largest reason for the attempt) is where the light should be shone. Acknowledging that, sometimes, the ends can justify the means just says to me that we are not perfect as human beings…and can be decidedly less so when asked to consider, cooperate, and sacrifice for the betterment of others…and that sometimes, within those limits, mistakes are almost inevitable. …what we all ought to be beyond now, is the thinking that making the same type of mistake again is fine because we are at least familiar (or more practically, comfortable) with the result...
