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[Shelby_]

Turkish troops launch offensive into northern Syria, says Erdogan

As a veteran I am horrified that this is happening. By abandoning the Kurds, we're abandoning an ally who stood with us, even when we were wrong. I'm sure American soldiers who fought side by side with the Kurds are overwhelmed with shame, disgust, and frustration.

It leaves me shaking my head that Trump, who never misses an opportunity to criticize Barack Obama, is making the same mistake Obama did.

[oladub]

By abandoning the Kurds, we're abandoning an ally who stood with us, even when we were wrong.

The Kurds were our allies against ISIS. Our other allies against ISIS include Iraq, Syria, and Russia. Obama tried to overthrow Syria while Turkey was buying petroleum from ISIS and providing us with an airbase to attack our enemies. It gets convoluted and confusing telling the good guys from the bad. CIA funded 'rebels' were fighting Pentagon funded 'rebels'. Erdogon came to the U.S. and unveiled a mosque in our Capital in which Turkey had invested $110M.

The Kurds were losing cities to ISIS until the U.S. bankrolled the Kurds and drove back ISIS. We helped the Kurds achieve a common goal. We did not enter into a treaty with the Kurds. However, the U.S. and Turkey are NATO allies. We are caught up in one big circular firing squad.

Repeat: Congress should pass a bill instructing the Commander in Chief how to pursue a war with ISIS, Turkey or whomever. Until if and when Congress does, Trump has every right to bring our troops home. Whatever congress is presently doing must be more important.

[Shelby_]

Repeat: Congress should pass a bill instructing the Commander in Chief how to pursue a war with ISIS, Turkey or whomever. Until if and when Congress does, Trump has every right to bring our troops home. Whatever congress is presently doing must be more important.

Trump is well within his rights as commander in chief. I'm questioning his wisdom. Trump's knowledge of diplomacy and military operations is non-existent. The fact that he made this decision without consulting any advisors is a boneheaded move that should scare the shit out of all of us.

[Zacha341]

Uh, yeah. Even some of his staunch, long standing supporters, pre and post election view this with great concern.

I'm not particularly partisan: you could see the trouble of this coming around the corner ala his inexperience here.

Trump is well within his rights as commander in chief. I'm questioning his wisdom. Trump's knowledge of diplomacy and military operations is non-existent. The fact that he made this decision without consulting any advisors is a boneheaded move that should scare the shit out of all of us.

[oladub]

Trump is well within his rights as commander in chief. I'm questioning his wisdom. Trump's knowledge of diplomacy and military operations is non-existent. The fact that he made this decision without consulting any advisors is a boneheaded move that should scare the shit out of all of us.

You told Johnnny5 in post 3561 "There wasn't a war." in response to his comment " it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars". Richard made some great points in post 3556 by the way.

I am wondering if President Trump hasn't been taking advice from Senator Rand Paul about the situation in Syria. I did post a Rand Paul link in post 3552. which included-

"The United States has an estimated 1,000 troops in Syria. According to The New York Times, Trump's pullback order affects around 100 to 150 of them.
Turkey wants to set up a buffer zone, free of Kurdish fighters, along its 300-mile border with Syria. It then plans to repatriate some two million Syrian refugees who fled to Turkey to escape the civil war."

Having helped rid Syria of most of the ISIS caliphate with the help of Assad, Russia, and the Kurds, our business there is done. It is an act of war to invade and occupy another country's territory which Obama did in the case of Syria. We should get out. You seem unable to grasp the fact that there are other allies and parties involved besides the U.S. and the Kurds and that some of our allies are each others' enemies. Don't you feel sorry for the 3.6M Syrian refugees in Syria for instance? Do you want to keep them there indefinitely? If you are waiting for a kinder, gentler Islam, it won't happen. Suppressing Islamic terrorism is like playing whack-a-mole. Putting 150 American soldiers in harm's way, as an occupying force where they don't belong subjects them to getting whacked too. It's mission creep. It's a recipe for dead Americans and more wars.

It isn't just that Trump might be listening to Rand Paul, Trump campaigned on not getting into more wars while Hillary campaigned on shooting [[Russian) planes out of Syrian air space. Imagine that; a President who is trying to keep his campaign promise. Hillary was McCain in drag if the likes of them is what you mean by advisors. Peppering x number of countries all over the world with 150 U.S. soldiers to trigger a war if attacked is not good foreign policy.

[aj3647]

Having helped rid Syria of most of the ISIS caliphate with the help of Assad, Russia, and the Kurds, our business there is done.

For starters, the SDF is holding 12,000 ISIS fighters in prisons in Northeastern Syria. They are holding another ~70,000 ISIS brides, children, and sympathizers in refugee camps. What happens to them in this mess? Kurds have already said that guarding these prisoners is now their lowest priority and have already begun to redeploy soldiers away from guard duty towards the front lines. I've also already seen reports from Syria of ISIS prisoners escaping and Kurdish prisons holding ISIS prisoners being attacked by Turkish bombardment. Odds are good that an entire ISIS army is about to be unleashed back onto the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, and wherever else they decide to go. Maybe someone should have planned for this before Trump made a gut call on-the-fly to let Turkey invade?

Meanwhile, Erdogan has already threatened to unleash a storm of millions of refugees [[including ISIS fighters) upon the West if they dare oppose his invasion of Syria.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9150271.html

So really, there are two decisions Trump made here:
1) Redeploy U.S. troops away from the Turkish border
2) Give Turkey the green-light to invade Syria

What oladub and other intellectually-dishonest people are doing here is conflating 1 and 2, when they are two entirely mutually-exclusive decisions. Trump could have done #1, or better yet, pulled all 1000 U.S. troops out of Syria entirely, and NOT done #2. He could have stood his ground and not let Turkey invade Syria. He chose to do the opposite.

Also, why are some of you so quick to give credit to Trump for bringing troops home? He moved 150 troops away from the Turkish border, likely to another part of Syria. That's all. I've yet to see a source that says that any U.S. troops have been withdrawn from the country entirely. So it looks to me like Trump is framing this as a "bringing the troops home" issue, when it is NOT that, and instead what it really is is "I'm going to let Turkey carve up a foreign country's territory for itself and in the process unleash an ISIS hellstorm upon the world again", which it IS.

[oladub]

For starters, the SDF is holding 12,000 ISIS fighters in prisons in Northeastern Syria. They are holding another ~70,000 ISIS brides, children, and sympathizers in refugee camps. What happens to them in this mess? Kurds have already said that guarding these prisoners is now their lowest priority and have already begun to redeploy soldiers away from guard duty towards the front lines. I've also already seen reports from Syria of ISIS prisoners escaping and Kurdish prisons holding ISIS prisoners being attacked by Turkish bombardment. Odds are good that an entire ISIS army is about to be unleashed back onto the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, and wherever else they decide to go. Maybe someone should have planned for this before Trump made a gut call on-the-fly to let Turkey invade?

Meanwhile, Erdogan has already threatened to unleash a storm of millions of refugees [[including ISIS fighters) upon the West if they dare oppose his invasion of Syria.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9150271.html

So really, there are two decisions Trump made here:
1) Redeploy U.S. troops away from the Turkish border
2) Give Turkey the green-light to invade Syria

What oladub and other intellectually-dishonest people are doing here is conflating 1 and 2, when they are two entirely mutually-exclusive decisions. Trump could have done #1, or better yet, pulled all 1000 U.S. troops out of Syria entirely, and NOT done #2. He could have stood his ground and not let Turkey invade Syria. He chose to do the opposite.

Also, why are some of you so quick to give credit to Trump for bringing troops home? He moved 150 troops away from the Turkish border, likely to another part of Syria. That's all. I've yet to see a source that says that any U.S. troops have been withdrawn from the country entirely. So it looks to me like Trump is framing this as a "bringing the troops home" issue, when it is NOT that, and instead what it really is is "I'm going to let Turkey carve up a foreign country's territory for itself and in the process unleash an ISIS hellstorm upon the world again", which it IS.

aj, You sound like a ventriloquist's puppet for Bolton/McCain/Hillary. What happens to the prisoners of war from any war? If Democrats get elected, they've promised to greatly expand the number of refugees brought here. That's one partial solution. I would rather Erdogen sent them back home to Syria. It is idiotic to keep our troops in this circular firing squad where the friends of our friends are our enemies. Trump didn't "let Turkey invade". Erdogen announced he was going to invade. Trump's choice was to get troops out of the way or possibly have casualties trigger a conflict with a NATO ally. Your BS macho talk about Trump should have "held his ground" is nonsense. It wasn't our ground. Key word: Mission Creep. Occupying another country is an act of war whether by the U.S. or Turkey. Eventually, Assad will pressure Turkey to get out. That's Turkey and Syria's problem; not ours.

What were you going to suggest doing with ISIS prisoners? Kill them, keep them in refugee camps indefinitely?

Answering your question, I'm quick to give Trump credit for bringing troops back home. He tried to bring them all back within weeks on 12/19/18. On 12/27/18, Trump modified that position by saying it would be done over several months. Other parties have had 10 months warning. It's more than the 150 troops along the border. That NY Times reference I mentioned suggested there were 1,000 U.S. troops still in Syria. It's happening. Half or more seem to be gone.

[Shelby_]

Oladub wrote: You told Johnnny5 in post 3561 "There wasn't a war." in response to his comment " it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars".

Actually I said: There WASN'T a war. That's the point. With the US forces there, the Turks didn't dare attack. It was an uneasy truce, but there was relative peace. Trump pulled the shield away from the Kurds and told Turkey it was open season. NOW there's a war. NOW there's potential genocide.

Having helped rid Syria of most of the ISIS caliphate with the help of Assad, Russia, and the Kurds, our business there is done. It is an act of war to invade and occupy another country's territory which Obama did in the case of Syria. We should get out...You seem unable to grasp the fact that there are other allies and parties involved besides the U.S. and the Kurds and that some of our allies are each others' enemies.

And you, along with Richard, seem unable to grasp that these actions have long term consequences and they are detrimental to our overall mission. I'm just staggered at the ignorance on display here. You guys have no understanding of how alliances work.

What you think of as endless war is good military strategy. Our mission is not to defeat terrorism with force, but to defeat it by building alliances. It's called building partner capacity [[BPC). It's achieved by, with, and through partners. It is the signature mission of special forces [[USSOF).

Unfortunately, Trump has upended years of BPC with his action. Who knew there were consequences when people chose an effing moron as their president.

[jcole]

Actually I said: There WASN'T a war. That's the point. With the US forces there, the Turks didn't dare attack. It was an uneasy truce, but there was relative peace. Trump pulled the shield away from the Kurds and told Turkey it was open season. NOW there's a war. NOW there's potential genocide.



And you, along with Richard, seem unable to grasp that these actions have long term consequences and they are detrimental to our overall mission. I'm just staggered at the ignorance on display here. You guys have no understanding of how alliances work.

What you think of as endless war is good military strategy. Our mission is not to defeat terrorism with force, but to defeat it by building alliances. It's called building partner capacity [[BPC). It's achieved by, with, and through partners. It is the signature mission of special forces [[USSOF).

Unfortunately, Trump has upended years of BPC with his action. Who knew there were consequences when people chose an effing moron as their president.

When Trump stated that he could "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" and not "lose any voters." these guys were the voters he had in mind.

[Dan Wesson]

As a veteran I am horrified that this is happening. By abandoning the Kurds, we're abandoning an ally who stood with us, even when we were wrong. I'm sure American soldiers who fought side by side with the Kurds are overwhelmed with shame, disgust, and frustration.

It leaves me shaking my head that Trump, who never misses an opportunity to criticize Barack Obama, is making the same mistake Obama did.

??????? again????