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Friday, October 11. 2019

Is It Possible For The United States To Withdraw From Any Foreign Engagement?

At Manhattan Contrarian


We helped the Kurds fight their ISIS enemies. No way we will help them fight the Turks who are NATO allies. As Scott says, this was an adult decision. People would die either way


18 years in Afghanistan? What? I blame the neo-cons (who no longer exist) and Bush.


Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 14:25 | Comments (17) | Trackback (1)

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I beg to differ strongly. Turkey has not been our friend since Erdogan was elected. They took the Russian side when Russia invaded Georgia; they cooperate with Iran; they still deny their own Holocaust of Armenians; now they threaten to flood Europe with even more illegal migrants. Worst of all they help fund Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which publicly aspire to exterminate all Jews. That is not a country we have any business staying allied with.

We need to put NATO on notice now: either Turkey is out or we are out. And yes, this also goes for Qatar, UAE, and any other countries that support Hamas.

As far as the Kurds, we should offer to airlift them to safety, as we did for (too few of) our friends in Vietnam when we pulled out of there.
#1 jdgalt on 2019-10-11 14:42 (Reply)
The Kurds, at least the PKK variety, are communists. We allied with the Kurds just as we allied with the USSR in WWII. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Let Putin look after the Kurds as it is in his interest to keep allies available to counter Turkey. Do remember that Turkey shot down a Russian aircraft and killed the pilot some time back. Turkey and Russia are not friends and Russia WILL KEEP a water route open to the south whether Turkey threatens or not. I look for the US to abandon Turkey and open a base in Greece eventually.
#1.1 indyjonesouthere on 2019-10-11 15:00 (Reply)
I agree we should get Turkey out of NATO. But until we do, they are in. We can't have this both ways. Either treaties mean something to us or they don't.
#1.2 Assistant Village Idiot on 2019-10-11 23:20 (Reply)
So, if "allies" don't live up to the terms of the NATO treaty they should be expelled and the US should treat them like oath-breaking pariahs or just walk away from the NATO, Right?

GOOD! Now that that is agreed-upon, let's kick out Germany and all those EU countries who have failed to meet their defense expenditure obligations!

Seeems only fair! So now we're down to Poland and Romania as the only NATO allies.

Great! Move all our bases in Europe to POLAND!
#1.2.1 Old Codger on 2019-10-12 11:12 (Reply)
Actually NATO is a has been I sure would not want to count on those countries to come to our aid and by the way look at the list of countries that pay their share
Hint : it ain't the biggest it's the small ones such as cash strapped as Greece is they pay their share
Turkey is in NATO to get what it can of us it's an Islamist state
#1.2.1.1 Spiro on 2019-10-13 16:59 (Reply)
Correct. Erdogan is probably a more serious threat to NATO than ISIS ever was.
Fighting ISIS was mainly an excuse to bomb Assad's Syria, who is an ally of Iran with which the US has had a beef ever since they threw out the Shah (mind, not that Iran are nice guys, but that's the main reason the US goes after them).
#1.3 JTW on 2019-10-11 23:25 (Reply)
We were there to fight ISIS not to defend the Kurds. As this all wound down two predictable and very significant things happened:
1. Other countries refused to take and punish those captured ISIS prisoners who were their citizens. Presumably they assumed the U.S. would as usual step up and do their job for them.
2. Turkey who is a legal (as in signed treaty) allie of ours told us they intend to invade Syria and create a 10 mile buffer zone to protect them from the Kurds who are THEIR enemy and are terrorists to Turkey. This left us the choice to pull out to protect our troops, let Turkey attack and possibly kill our troops, or reinforce the troops sufficiently to prevent Turkey from attacking.

The right thing to have done was for each country to take their ISIS prisoners and for the U.S. to leave the battlefield. Since our many European allies stuck us with this problem Trump refused to take the bait and inherit a decades long war and walked away. Best possible choice. AND it will likely lead to a break in relations with Turkey and Turkey getting out of NATO. Another great choice.
#2 OneGuy on 2019-10-11 16:33 (Reply)
Get out of Syria. Get out of Saudi Arabia. Get out of Yemen. Get out of Somalia (and Africa in general). Get out of Afghanistan. Get out of Bosnia. Get out of Germany (and Europe in general). Come home and defend OUR borders!
#3 Stargazer on 2019-10-11 18:08 (Reply)
Do you really think that would create stability in those regions? If the rest of the world withdrew or ignored the problems that are happening there, where would they be left? I understand that "we" should keep our nose out of it, but, you can't simply say we should "withdraw".
#3.1 ReallyCurious on 2019-10-12 01:56 (Reply)
Stability? In the Middle East? Really?
#3.1.1 Bird Dog on 2019-10-12 07:59 (Reply)
Stability? In the Middle East? Really?
#3.1.2 Bird Dog on 2019-10-12 07:59 (Reply)
This.

The US military is not a global police force to settle inter-clan squabbles that happen to cross national borders, have already lasted for centuries, and will never, EVER end. Wrong solution to a problem we shouldn’t be troubling ourselves with in the first place.

Don’t fight at all OR fight to win with devastating killing power. Nothing in between.
#3.1.2.1 Jeff Brokaw (Link) on 2019-10-12 09:55 (Reply)
While I totally agree with what you said, what isn't said is that sooner or later the Arab/Muslim nations will either initiate a nuclear war with Israel or provoke it. I am not sure that in a world with a dozen or so nuclear powers that it will be possible to put that genie back in the bottle once it is let lose. We have a national and security issue in preventing that from ever happening. I'm not sure we can or will prevent it but we should try. And we cannot do that while putting all our military in "fortress America".
#3.1.2.1.1 OneGuy on 2019-10-12 16:26 (Reply)
I forgot to mention that our Senate/Congress, will not, because of partisanship, ever fortify our borders. The R and the D have their agenda when it comes to votes and cheap labor.
#3.2 ReallyCurious on 2019-10-12 02:26 (Reply)
There still LOTS of "neocons". It's just that these days, they're known as "NeverTrumpers".
#4 Ken Mitchell on 2019-10-11 23:04 (Reply)
And do you know how empty their "Meet-the-Neocon" cruise ships are these days?

Cap'n Billy Kristol had to buy a second parrot to keep him company!
#4.1 Old Codger on 2019-10-12 11:17 (Reply)
It's impossible for the American people to judge which engagements are worthwhile, because the Government refuses to release the relevant information. There could be a series of broadcasts which explain U.S. Policy in Afghanistan, and other places. But no such broadcasts exist. The American people are kept in the dark about everything. And there's a reason for that: For the military, it's all about the money. They justify their enormous budget by claiming that we "must" maintain dozens of conflicts and foreign military bases. If you ask "Why?" they will tell you that they have secret information; so they can't talk about it. What they can't talk about is the fact that our military has gone full communist. They claim that all soldiers are "brothers" and that female combat troops are a good thing, and that they are protecting an ungrateful nation.
What load of crap. They just are a bunch of political operators who are trying to force a communist code upon the American people. Our military is the real enemy.
#5 Ron Liebermann on 2019-10-13 22:41 (Reply)

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