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We’ve got nothing but bad martinis today. Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are frustrated by President Trump ordering the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, even as Turkey specifically says it wants us gone so it can attack our Kurdish allies who did more than anyone else in the region to confront ISIS. Jim and Greg also swat away the NBA’s pathetic apology to China after the general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted out that people should stand with Hong Kong. And they groan as they see polls for the upcoming legislative races in Virginia looking very rough for Republicans.
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Published in: Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, History, Humor, Islamist Terrorism, Journalism, Podcasts, Politics, Sports
I listened to a guy who had escaped Iraq as a refugee talk about the complexities of the Middle East and the difficulties of allying with the United States on anything because of how our power construct is set up… because of how polarized domestic politics here can be.
He mentioned that during the Cold War, presidents from both parties followed a generally similar track, i.e. they all believed in some of the same broad strokes when it came to strategy and the Soviet Union. That served the country well.
Now?
The political incentives are not in place to think long term about anything.
He made a good point about what is a great, great shame, but I do not accept that I just have to throw up my hands and say, “Oh. Okay. Let’s have a chaotic foreign policy then.”
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Agreed. But I see no changes on the horizon.
In the long run, certainly. In the short term, I guess we shall see.
America learned in WW1 and WW2 that going head-to-head with another industrial state with a modern military is incredibly costly in lives and resources, and you won’t be around long as a nation if you make a habit of it. We also happened to become the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the planet, a position that means we will inevitably make geopolitical rivals.
So since then, our strategy has been to engage our forces abroad to keep belligerent developing states from ever reaching a point where they can build out a force that could attack our shores. We’re over in Iraq and Syria to make sure that stuff stays over there and doesn’t get back here.
Our “boys and girls” are men and women who made a choice to volunteer to serve. They didn’t volunteer to grow flowers or play video games or feed the poor. They volunteered to become soldiers and to keep our nation safe by accepting their deployments according to our national security strategies like men and women, not children. I, for one, am tired of people waving “the children,” who made their adult choice, in my face like a bloody rag just because I won’t accept their isolationist arguments.
Recede from the world and inevitably the world will find its way to your doorstep. That’s a historical fact you can take to the bank.
Sorry, but you can go first on your plan to stay.
You are making an argument here that supports me.
What is your limimiting principal here? Why not invade Venezuela?
More importantly, how about you actually argue about what I said, instead of accusing me of isolationism, calling about the children and waving a bloody rag. “Our boys” is an old term, for instance.
Get back to me when you want to argue in good faith instead of making up positions I don’t hold.
You do say “boys and girls” and “children.” They are adults. And volunteers.
Our policy was to stabilize the region and keep fighting abroad. Our Kurd allies did a lot of the fighting. We were shielding them from another country that would love to tear them apart, another country that is not, actually, all that wonderfully friendly under a leader that every American should find suspect. Turkey is not our friend.
So why do I think it’s okay to leave these troops in Syria? And in Afghanistan for that matter?
When we left Iraq, we left a power vacuum. We weren’t having a lot of men and women dying in Iraq at that point either. We had been stabilizing the country. (Yes, there were lots of mistakes made in the Iraq War, and I don’t think it’s our responsibility to make Iraq into an American democracy, but we broke the place, so we had to glue what we had back together in some way, and we were accomplishing this per great sacrifices of many Americans.)
No, I don’t care if troops are left in a place for a generation or two if we shape the environment. I lived in Germany as an Army brat because of the Cold War. Stability takes time.
Flashback to right before the 2012 election in October of 2011: “The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops,” Obama said. “That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end.”
Well, Trump criticized this action as we had to go back and figure out how to defeat the “J-V Team.”
If your theory is that we should just let those guys kill each other–along with the people they ran/run roughshod over and enslave and kill like they’d like to enslave and kill us–okay. Then I guess you did not support President Trump when he dismantled the ISIS caliphate??? You were saying he was doing something that wasn’t wise then? You didn’t like him allying with the Kurds in Syria?
It’s now… uh… October. And for some reason, President Trump looks like the Democrat I always thought he was. The context is not exactly the same because our footprint in Syria is really small. We were just a stabilizing force, not a nation building force. We have been just helping our allies, keeping our promises.
When Turkey advances on the Kurds and the area spins into more violence, we won’t say that this is against our interests? Trump must think it would be a problem because he tweeting something about how we have his “great wisdom” to stand up to Erdogan if necessary.
That’s not a good foreign policy or even political strategy. And the military community itself does not support it.
https://nypost.com/2019/10/08/how-obamas-team-set-up-trumps-syrian-dilemma/
So we are “abandoning” Kurdish terrorists.
Gotcha ya.
Wow. Way to ignore what I said.
Or maybe you wanted to misunderstand. Let me spell it out to you:
Using the term “Our Boys” to describe the men in the Army is an long accepted term. Maybe I am being old fashioned, but it is a term of affection, not meant to say they are not adults. Period. Any statement to the contrary by you is not taking me on good faith when I tell you what I meant.
Second, “out boys and girls” are children of someone. People can be both an adult and someone’s child. I am not making a “for the children” argument, and I just told you that, but you insist on saying that I am. I am not. Therefore, to bring it up a second time is to argue in bad faith.
Get back to me when you want to argue in good faith instead of making up positions I don’t hold. If you can.
Lois,
I am waiting for your plan. So far it is stay and fight for two generations. Fine, sell that to me. Sell me on the need for our troops to die for two generations. Army brat? It is a whole different kettle of fish to say in Germany with Dad and Mom than the Green Zone in Iraq. You may not have noticed, but unlike Germany after WWII, it is not safe to bring families to bases in that part of the world. The people there do not want peace. If they did, they would figure it out. The Germans wanted peace after two wars. Dear Lord, we should let them have at each other. If they try to bring violence here, utterly destroy them from the air.
Yes. All true. I certainly get tired of people saying that we have to “bring them home” because of… I don’t know… some reason. After all, less than 1% of the American population today wears a uniform. More than 70% of our young adults aged 17-24 are not even eligible to be in the armed forces so could not volunteer even if they wanted to do so. As a result, I know many, many, many people who are completely disconnected from that population. Soldiers/sailors/marines/pilots are all an abstract to most Americans. I don’t even blame them for thinking that the “bring them home” phrase sounds good because… well… sure. Why wouldn’t you want to “bring them home”?
I get more tired of politicians who use the military to forward their political positions instead of forwarding national security. At the very least, those men and women who volunteered to do exactly what you said–and their families–deserve a little more direction about why they’re going, coming, staying, leaving.
The last guy I think showed leadership for the military from the White House–real leadership per how he advocated for his own vision, whatever one thought about his plan, and spoke constantly about what we were doing–was George W. Bush, and God knows, I don’t think that leadership was perfect.
I have two giant issues for 2020: the courts and foreign policy.
On one, Trump has been great. On the other, he reminds me why I felt panic when he took over the Republican Party. And I don’t think I’m alone.
Bryan… You are pretty much alone in your thoughts here. Very few people in power other than Donald Trump and Rand Paul feel as if this is a good idea. I was a third generation child in Germany, so the context is all quite different. The Cold War was quite different. But I think it still has plenty of lessons for Americans, as all history does.
I told you what I would do. I believe in keeping small footprints in tact to stabilize as much as possible. We were a stabilizing force in one tiny corner of the chaos. Now we won’t be. Later on, when we have to redeploy under whatever president, we can talk again about how chaos was awesome and how it was good for “our boys and girls.” (I don’t think the objection to your sentiments really had anything to do with your phrasing, by the way, though I can’t speak for someone else’s post.)
All I’ve got from Trump is a platitude for his foreign policy strategy. That’s it. A bunch of Twitter. And while I have entered into this conversation in good faith, your opinion is predicated on a premise that I find kinda strange: “The people there do not want peace. If they did, they would figure it out.”
Even if this is entirely true, it is irrelevant. We aren’t there for them. We are there for us because we are but a 12 hour plane ride from “people there [who] do not want peace.”
Anyway, I must go to work. I wish you well. This is not about “but Trump” for me. I simply dislike his foreign policy and don’t find how he conducts it very reassuring.
Finally… just because I couldn’t let this one go. I am not. I am saying that this action will actually put men and women in uniform at greater risk in future for no good reason. And I am objecting to the sentiment that I am talking about other people’s children because I am clearly not. Nothing about this feels abstract to me.
Alone in this thread maybe, but not alone in my thoughts.
I will agree the Cold War was quite different.
Why do we have to redeploy? Why do we have to stabilize any corner the world?
I think you would fine my chosen foreign policy even less reassuring. I don’t like any of the previous president’s policies going back to Bush I.
Yes you are. The whole idea that we will ever have any coherent foreign policy is absurd. We never will. Administrations change. Even W, would not let the men on the ground do their jobs without politics getting involved.
Why did President Trump redeploy after the Obama administration had massive withdrawals? Why do we care about global stability? Ever?
While this is nihilism I do not accept (the idea of no coherent foreign policy being possible), if it is true, I would advise American families like my own that have had men (and women now) in uniform since the very founding of the country simply cease and desist from volunteering for future service. And once we have no one in uniform, I suppose we will be fine in our happy little country because we will not have anyone to deploy.
That’s an absurd idea, but… yeah. Sure.
I’d get to “not anyone’s kid” pretty darn fast if President Trump’s core ideology is, “Hey, guys. Sorry to tell you this, but it’s all chaos, chaos, chaos, and I’m just making it all up forever like a kid playing with toys in the dirt ’cause it’s nothing but tweets, man. Nothing but tweets. Don’t’cha worry about it.”
Limiting principal to what? Pursuing our geopolitical interests? Why should there be a limit on that? We don’t invade Venezuela because they are in no danger of becoming a threat to us anytime soon.
You hide behind “the children,” using them as a rhetorical human shield to excuse your tantrums (I’ve been kind to this point calling them arguments), and now you want to accuse ME of not arguing in good faith? Doctor heal thyself.
I’ve followed a bit of this thread and it’s clear you’ve lost your composure and are just swinging at anything that moves now. I’m done here.
As someone else mentioned, Turkey – at present – is not really our friend. But let’s say the protestors etc in Iran were (and they probably are) called “terrorists” by the mullahs. Would you just focus on the T word (terrorist, not Trump) and believe we shouldn’t support them either?
Got it.
Remember, one person’s – Turkey’s (Erdogan’s) or Iran’s (mullah’s) – “terrorist” is another person’s (such as ours) “freedom fighter.”
It is not Turkey calling them Terrorists, it is America. Got that?
Continuing to say thing like “you hide behind “the children”” when I have said I am not doing this is very much in bad faith. Telling me my arguments are “tantrums” is tantamount to name calling. So you insult me and walk off. And I am the one not making an argument?
I am being realistic, not nihilistic. I have watched American foreign policy go back and forth my entire life. Was Reagan a change from Carter? Yep. Bush I From Reagan? Yep. Clinton was different, then Bush II, then Obama, not Trump. Every 4 to 8 years, we can expect our foreign policy to be “Reset” as it were. If Bush I following Reagan could not be stable, changing parties in this day won’t be even close.
Commercial republics are incapable of a coherent foreign policy absent an exstistintial threat. The USSR was such a threat. Now there is not such a threat. In no way is that a call to have no armed forces. I am being realistic about what that means though. As a student of history, this sort of thing is pretty normal.
What I would prefer is a very strong, imperial foreign policy, where we go to stay, use the resources of the land we purchased with blood and treasure, and wipe out anyone who looks at us funny. Alas, commercial republics don’t act that way. The greatest check on American power is the will of the American people, who just are not all that interested in endless wars.
I might note something about this thread. I have not called anyone a “chicken hawk” or “war monger” or that they are filled with bloodlust or that they are throwing a tantrum or anything of the sort. I have asked for others to answer the hard question of what we are doing abroad and how it helps us. And I think it is clear I don’t want our military dying for no clear purpose.
What I have received is bad faith statements claiming I am making arguments I have denied I am making. When challenged on my use of certain words, I explained those words, and that explanation was ignored. My arguments have been called “tantrums”.
The name calling has not come from me. The bad faith arguments have not come from me. Y’all may disagree with what I say. Y’all clearly don’t want to change my mind. I am not sure of what your point is, other than to hope I shut up and go away.
Well, if that is what you want, change my mind. Explain to me, in facts so clear I cannot deny them, how defending the Kurds in Syria, a group our own nation calls Terrorists, protects my family.
But you see, you claiming that you’re not making certain arguments doesn’t necessarily make you correct. People are in denial about their own true motives, on a regular basis. Sometimes revealed by using words like “boys and girls” or “children” when referring to adult all-volunteer military personnel who might even be in their 40s or 50s.
I haven’t called you any names at all. I’ve told you exactly what I thought.
I-and many people in power including Trump’s entire cabinet and many people connected to the military-feel this action threatens to undo all the work that has been done to restrain ISIS, which is a threat to the United States…. certainly a threat to members of our military who have had to contain them.
If I were one of these Kurdish “terrorists” who are now being abandoned to be attacked by Turkey, I certainly wouldn’t spend my energy keeping 12,000 ISIS fighters secure for the Americans. And since the US stopped trying to closely work with Turkey a few years ago in part because they were working with terrorists who were opposed to American interests, I probably wouldn’t put a lot of faith in, “Yeah. That nice Erdogan chap is gonna take care of this for us instead.”
Without an easily identifiable country like the USSR standing as our existential threat, American foreign policy needs to be a bit nuanced, but American presidents don’t have to be schizophrenic in how they deploy power. But to your point, I think Trump is a lot like President Obama.
Philosophically, by the way, I am a realist, which is why I am not an isolationist. I understand we are not going to go all “Roman imperialist” in the world, so we need allies to destroy the other sorts of threats that crop up.
Also, if you weren’t aware, our own military is not large enough to go all “Roman imperialist” on anyone. Nor is that just a matter of funding.
American kids in general are now almost wholly disconnected from ideas of service. Joining the armed forces is not a desire for the vast majority of them. And many of them… to be quite frank…. aren’t even fit enough to join a military force, even if that crossed their minds.
It may seem like a strange thing to think about, but I know more than 20% of Americans between 17-24 are just too fat to even be considered. Over 20%. That is a national security crisis, actually.
When we are turning into hobbits–and not the Bilbo Baggins kind–we really don’t need to go around making more enemies, double-crossing any of our friends. It’s very, very shortsighted.
I explained exactly what I meant by those, and yet now, you are saying that I used them in a different way. Kedavis, you sound like a lefty searching for dog whistles.
“Our Boys” is a long standing way to talk about our military. Maybe I am showing my age, but come on, it was very common during WWII. As far as calling adults “children” Mothers still mourn the loss of their adult children, don’t they? In no way have I tried to make infants out of the military here. You are trying to argue that I have, and in doing so, despite my setting the record straight (3rd time now), you are not engaging me on the topic.
You have been the only person engaging me honorably. I should have made that point above and I did not. I apologize for that.
However, if we have to be nuanced, we have to sell it to the American People. We cannot expect the People to keep on supporting wars that last so long that we now are sending people who were born after the events which set the war off. This is endless. Congress has no willingness to provide oversight. And no one seems willing to spell things out for someone like me.
What is the goal?
When will we know we have achieved it?
Why is this in the best interest of American?
No one condemning Trump is answering these questions in any sort of detail. If you want the voters to support the use of our blood and treasure to fight in far away lands, then I think there is a duty to explain that to the American people. Frankly, all I have seen said on the “pro forces in Syria” side is attacks on Trump. Since this is just being used to attack Trump, just as he was attacked when he fired on Syria, I have am pretty skeptical. When everything Trump does is wrong, I find I grow deaf to the calls he is doing the wrong thing. When it is all fire from the left and form the right who hates Trump, I sigh and tune it out. Your case is weaker because most of the people making it are anti-Trump no matter what. That means you have to do an even better job explaining to me why I want to condemn Trump for pulling out of Syria.
What I am asking for, is for reasons to stay.
We should have stayed to make sure that the ISIS fighters we rounded up were made incapable of returning to power, but there is an AEI podcast here on Ricochet that was posted today with someone making this case. Perhaps you would find the argument for why this particular decision of Trump’s is ill advised better presented there with more context for you.
I can understand why you want to hear reasons for why I think this was a poor choice, and I feel I’ve stated all of that.
But to your point, it is essential for any president to also explain his reasoning in a logical, serious way because there are certainly soldiers who think this will hurt them in the long run. A few Tweets and/or platitudes doesn’t really cut it.
Anyway, I am not a big Trump fan, but I believe I’m fair. I praise his actions when I think they’re good. I scorn things like this that I think are dire mistakes.
I don’t think there is anything else to say, but I hope you have a nice evening.
One of the reasons that I refused to support Trump was because he criticized Bush’s foreign policy. But as I came to appreciate Trump’s approach on other things, I also began to see the wisdom of not taking on perilous or risky foreign adventures.
In short, I changed my mind.
But I would also draw a distinction between Obama’s abandonment of Iraq, even while it contended with a great deal of internal turmoil – his unwillingness to keep troops there as we do in a lot of other risky places – and Trump’s minor movement of 50 American troops to at least 20 miles out from the Turkish/Syrian border. One is an abandonment of the fate of the occupied country, the other is an abandonment of a strip of borderland in an occupied country. One was an accession to chaos and division (which resulted in the rise of ISIS and Iranian influence) and the other is an accession to a NATO ally’s army under the command of its elected President.
Those who call it an abandonment of Syria are mischaracterizing the retreat.
And by the way, the word we often use to describe those who refuse to strategically retreat is “dead”.