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He's Commander in Chief. He'll do it his way.
I prefer his methods to Obama who created ISIS in the first place and then had no idea how to defeat them, so he compromised by making the military fight with one hand behind their back.
The Usual Snarky Posters on C-D would have been whining if he announced a buildup. Their opinions don't count.
Stop listening to Trump. ISIS was "created" in the prison camps in Iraq well before Obama came to office. This isn't to defend Obama but it's relevant to today. No way is the United States going to fix the ME and their internal issues should not be our business. But like it or not, global terrorism is an issue that impacts us all.
There will always be wanna be terrorists around and the impact of the internet cannot be denied (or suppressed). Still the establishment of the caliphate had enormous religious/emotional impact on the situation. How it's dismantled is relevant, with any reappearance of the caliphate as an entity if we undercut the Kurds potentially devastating.
So ... THIS is one of the reasons why our allied countries do not want ISIS remnants even in their home-country prisons and why we're keeping them somewhat bottled up in Syria/Iraq. It's a problem with no easy solution. But, yes, we may need to maintain some "status quo" however unsatisfactory it may be. Folks can take that and fit it into whatever political stance pleases them but sometimes real life doesn't fit the theory-of-the-day.
You're confusing Al Qaeda in Iraq with Islamic State. Nusra Front splintered into two militias in 2012 when they required allegiance to Al Qaeda (aka Saudi Arabia). The faction supported by Qatar split off and declared themselves Islamic State in Syra (ISIS).
Al Qaeda in Iraq was created in 2003 during the Sunni resistance to the US occupation. They reformed in 2013 during the "Breaking the Walls" campaign in which they staged massive prison breaks. In sympathy with ISIS, they called themselves Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Some of their leaders returned from Qatar where they had been given asylum.
I Heard Trump say that he gave his military a leaders a deadline in a recent interview but that's the only time he went public. Bolton indicated 2 moths ago that we wouldn't withdraw as long as Iran was in Syria, this contradicts that statement. Trump got off the phone with Erdogan and announced we were withdrawing via Tweet, very unprofessional.
The Kurds did most of the fighting against ISIS and lost thousands of lives and now we are leaving them at the mercy of Turkey. I'm not against withdrawal but it should be planned intelligently not by some spontaneous thought that crossed Trumps mind.
The Iranian situation is something else entirely - and that is Bolton's "thing." The problem here is that there are multiple actors (and relevant factors) with Trump's impulsivity a real issue. Wanting to get out and giving the military "deadlines" is easy enough to do (rather like sending out a tweet). Implementing it another.
So ... we've got announcements that we're staying until the situation stabilizes more ... then announcements that we're leaving (post the Erdogan call). Trump disregards military advice provided to him here in Washington then flies off to Iraq and all of a sudden - per Graham - decides to pause that withdrawal (I think, hard to know what today's plan is).
Quote:
Graham said during the President's trip to Iraq, commanders on the ground informed Trump that ISIS is not "completely destroyed," which he said was an "eye-opening" experience for the commander in chief.
It sounds like getting information from military on the ground was more convincing to Trump. But nothing changed about the actual situation from before he got onto the plane then debarked it. And then, yes, Graham is a Trump-whisperer, adept at managing him. Reports of that alone may bring about yet another "policy reversal."
Gee... how much wall could you build for the cost of those "private contractors"?
Every time I hear that they'll possibly use private contractors to fight these wars--- I just go back and think/read what the greatest, most intelligent war philosopher, war sociologist in history says.
Machiavelli :
Mercenary and auxiliary troops are useless and dangerous. Mercenaries are “disunited, undisciplined, ambitious, and faithless.” Because their only motivation is monetary, they are generally not effective in battle and have low morale.
You're confusing Al Qaeda in Iraq with Islamic State. Nusra Front splintered into two militias in 2012 when they required allegiance to Al Qaeda (aka Saudi Arabia). The faction supported by Qatar split off and declared themselves Islamic State in Syra (ISIS).
Al Qaeda in Iraq was created in 2003 during the Sunni resistance to the US occupation. They reformed in 2013 during the "Breaking the Walls" campaign in which they staged massive prison breaks. In sympathy with ISIS, they called themselves Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Some of their leaders returned from Qatar where they had been given asylum.
Is that why Obama always made a point of saying ISIL instead of ISIS like everyone else was saying? He knew we were funding ISIS. I always thought he was just trying to be a know it all but maybe he was just letting us use our own misconceptions to mislead ourselves about what he was actually saying.
You're confusing Al Qaeda in Iraq with Islamic State. Nusra Front splintered into two militias in 2012 when they required allegiance to Al Qaeda (aka Saudi Arabia). The faction supported by Qatar split off and declared themselves Islamic State in Syra (ISIS).
Al Qaeda in Iraq was created in 2003 during the Sunni resistance to the US occupation. They reformed in 2013 during the "Breaking the Walls" campaign in which they staged massive prison breaks. In sympathy with ISIS, they called themselves Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Some of their leaders returned from Qatar where they had been given asylum.
No confusion (beyond that the entire situation is nothing but confused) ... the groups go by various names with sometimes shifting alliances.
Al Qaeda in Iraq morphed into the Islamic State. Or at least a portion of it did with (yes) the Nusra Front closely aligned with the remnants of Bin-Ladin's Saudi Arabia-fed Al Qaeda. This is the group that the US at times flirted with later on in Syria
Al Qaeda in Iraq (Zarqawi) gained strength thru various mechanisms, that included recruiting in the Iraq prisons. It fed the Sunni resistance then went underground during the Surge. The Surge succeeded, in part, because life under the Islamic state of Al Qaeda in Iraq was too religiously rigid for the Iraq Sunni tribes. When Zarqawi was killed during a U.S. airstrike in 2006, the Egyptian al-Masri became the new leader and renamed the group “ISI,” which stood for “Islamic State of Iraq.” That group later became immersed in the Syrian Civil War and renamed itself ISIS.
Regardless of the name-of-the-moment, my point is that disregarding the emotional power of the "caliphate" would be a mistake. It's a bit of a conundrum - I agree that we cannot as a rule involve ourselves as we have for generations in the ME for the complexity of its politics and religious factions does not fit itself into US policy making, not to mention military intervention. But then on the other hand, it's equally problematic to disregard certain realities.
Lindsey Graham ( POTUS Whisperer?) announced a slowdown of troop withdrawal in Syria.
It’s not what Trump announced. It how his announcement blindsighted the Pentagon and allies.
So, once again, Trump ignored his previous announcement and now seems to support a more moderate approach and timeline to troop withdrawal.
And then I heard this morning that he is doubling down. He's like Lucy with the football in Charlie Brown. He will tell anybody what they want to hear when they meet with him, and then quickly change his mind once they leave. It's crazy making at its finest.
Folks, we are talking 2000 soldiers. Virtually none are involved in combat. People want to pretend this is the end of the world. It won't even make a ripple. There are close to a million combatants on the field. You leave them alone and they'll find some accommodations. Kurds are already talking to Syrians, Syrians are talking to Kurds and Iranians are wondering what's gonna happen to foreigners like them. Make no mistake, Arabs don't like Iranians.
Trump to withdraw from Syria. ”orange man bad”
Trump to slow withdraw from Syria. ”orange man bad”
Nope that's not what I read here.
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”orange man bad”
