Don't Blame the Kurds For Allying With Russian-backed Assad Regime After Trump's Betrayal

An ISIS bomb goes off in Kurdish-held city of Qamishli soon after Trump's withdrawal of U.S. forces.

"In the coming months we''re going to see mammoth ethnic cleansing...This is a humanitarian and national security disaster caused by the president of the United States."  - Ret. General Barry McCaffrey on MSNBC this morning.

"The only thing as remarkable as the scale of this catastrophe Trump initiated in Syria is that he made the decision himself over just about everyone's objection - and at the behest of another authoritarian leader. The GOP has to wake up to the danger,  he poses to our national security."  - Ben Rhodes, former national security officer, on MSNBC this a.m.

As reported in the NY Times the besieged Iraqi Kurds have now made an alliance with Syria's Bashar al Assad and his Russian backed regime, no thanks to traitor Trump leaving them in the lurch. As we read in the Times:

"Kurdish forces long allied with the United States in Syria announced a new deal on Sunday with the government in Damascus, a sworn enemy of Washington that is backed by Russia, as Turkish troops moved deeper into their territory ..The Kurds’ deal with Damascus paved the way for government forces to return to the country’s northeast for the first time in years to try to repel a Turkish invasion launched after the Trump administration pulled American troops out of the way. The pullout has already unleashed chaos and bloodletting."

The Turkish aggression has also allowed hundreds of ISIS rats to escape and as we read also in the Times: "In the mayhem, more than 500 of them escaped"

Also:

"Since the Turkish incursion began on Wednesday, ISIS has claimed responsibility for at least two attacks in Syria: One car bomb in the northern city of Qamishli and another on an international military base outside Hasaka, a regional capital further to the south."

Let's please further note that Trump’s decision – allowing Turkey  to invade areas previously protected by the U..S and controlled by a Kurdish-dominated coalition known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – took almost everyone involved in the Syrian conflict by surprise. Indeed, The Wall Street Journal reported that a commander of the Kurdish force that spearheaded the fight against Isis stormed out of a meeting with the Americans after declaring: “You sold us out!”

Which ought to also be a fair warning to all Trump's brain-jacked zombie followers who somehow believe he's in their corner and he's their personal "hammer"  "against the Democrats, liberals, 'Deep State' enemies, socialists"  etc. No he isn't, and at the right time he will ditch these loopy  assholes like he betrayed the Kurds. WSJ columist Peggy Noonan in  her most recent contribution clearly doesn't buy his base is so dumb, writing:

"The president is misreading his base, which will have qualms.  Their sons and daughters fought in the wars, they know who the Kurds are."

Yeah, well maybe not, or maybe they have short memories.  How else explain how thousands of them cheered when he again announced his fell decision at his Minnesota rally?  Miss Peggy ought to know the only one this orange baboon gives two shits about is himself- and his base - most of which is perfectly okay with that. So long as he makes the ''snowflakes' cringe and cry, of course!

The Kurdish-dominated local forces, after Trump's ordered withdrawal, quickly saw they faced certain genocide by the same bunch of barbaric cretins who nearly exterminated the Armenians nearly 100 years ago. So they had no choice other than to look for allies elsewhere, and they found a powerful one in Bashar al Assad's Syrian Army.  Thank Trump for that, and also now for helping the Turks to unleash a new round of ISIS terror.  Some people really want to re-elect this piece of shit, e.g. instead of a liberal Dem?  If so, they need committing to a nuthouse

Why has Trump unleashed this new hell in the Middle East, after first scuttling the Iran nuclear deal, paving the way for the Iranians to work on their own bomb again?  Because he's an autocrat and loves fellow autocrats, like Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.  Let's also bear in mind he has a Trump Tower in Istanbul he needs to see finished to rake in more $$$.  Probably he needs to use it to bribe other world leaders to try to dig up dirt on his Dem political opponents.

Trump claimed  his decision to pull American troops out of the way of the Turkish advance was part of his effort to extricate the United States from “endless wars” in the Middle East and elsewhere.

“The Kurds and Turkey have been fighting for many years,”  Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday. 

But this is a pile of horse manure of the type you'd expect from a guy who thrives on such. As any serious military person (ike Ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey) could have told him, there's a right and wrong way to disengage from a conflict and the wrong way is to leave your allies high and dry to promote your own transactional agenda.

 Le't's also recall  the non sequitur excuse this Orange  A-hole stated days ago "The Kurds never helped us in Normandy!"  Again disclosing what an unfit,  deranged narcissist ignoramus we have as a leader.  One who will now be directly responsible for the rebirth of ISIS, the resurgence of terror around the globe and the absolute horror and disbelief of our allies - who will no longer be able to trust anything we say or do or promise .  Not so long as the putrid pestilence Donald J. Trump fouls the office of the presidency.  In this regard WSJ columnist Noonan  was likely correct when she wrote (ibid.):

"The Syrian decision contributes to the hardened impression that in foreign policy he's all impulse, blithely operating out of his depth.  It adds to the hardening suspicion he's not actually tough, he'll say yes to a lot of things- and some bad things - to get the deal, the triumphant handshake"

Which, truth be told, is a lot more generous take than the one I'd offer.  That he's a spineless, no count charlatan, criminal and con man who'd sell anyone out for a dime if he could benefit.

His collected poltroons who follow his every command without a hint of spine are equally bad.

One only needed to see the level of obsequiousness and posturing on display yesterday, e.g.  from Defense Secretary Mark Esper, which was enough to make a real patriot puke.   When  Face the Nation anchor Margaret Brennan asked this toady what choice the Kurds had other than to align with the Syrian regime (that or be slaughtered), the weasel Espy replied:

"The Kurds have been very good partners in the de-Isis campaign and on the battlefield. But at the same time we didn't sign up to fight the Turks on their behalf".

No, sonny, but you sure as hell copped to Dotard's order to amscray the region -  leaving the Kurds exposed to the Turks barbaric atrocities, butchery and mayhem.  You are, in effect, accessories to the genocide and terrorism likely to ensue.

As for Trump's "sanctions" announced after blowback from starting this clusterfuck, don't make me laugh. All that has happened is that Turkey has doubled down in its invasion and atrocities. And threatening Turkey with tariffs is even more of a joke - all posturing and BS from the traitor vermin we have leading this nation right into the mire.  Indeed, when I watched Pence bloviating these threats I nearly spit up my coffee.    I am sure Erdoğan did the same - Turkish coffee, that is..

See also:

• Trump cuts and runs, ordering full retreat of U.S. forces in Syria 

And:

Donald Trump | Syria

Trump Isn't Really Ending Endless Wars, He's Making Them Worse

And:

Donald Trump | Foreign Policy

American Brexit: It’s Not Just Britain Headed for the Subbasement of Imperial History

Donald Trump Actually Talks Sense For Once in REEP Debate #5

Let's first be honest and point out that - as Guardian UK columnist Richard Wolffe put it, this fifth Reepo “debate” was "about as convincing as the gondolas gliding along the supposedly Grand Canal outside the  (Venetian) casino."  If you've ever been to the Venetian you know what Wolffe's talking about, including the faux blue skies and the whole artificial setting, e.g.


A Venetian gondolier - from our trip to Vegas in 2006.

So it was almost to be expected this debate would reflect the artifice of the environment. We beheld Trump, for instance, "ambling in like the character he plays on 'The Apprentice': the judge on a reality show."  And where other candidates embraced the audience as potential voters, "Trump weakly applauded them as apprentices aspiring to his hiring." You had to admire his chutzpah.

But the main takeaway is that most of these guys believe the American people (or at least those who actually vote) are a bunch of whiny little 'fraidy cats or infants, e.g.

"Pwotekt me, Mista Goopa!"

 And can be drumbeaten into the GOOPr fold by manic, unhinged rhetoric spewed out in a hawk fest more appropriate to the meeting scene in 'Dr. Strangelove'. (Google to learn the connection if you never saw the flick.)

There was Jeb! boasting how he wanted to "increase defense spending" to fight ISIS despite the fact we are now spending $667 billion a year. WTF does he want? Another $3 trillion squandered like his dumb bro pissed away in the Iraq War?  In any case, the last thing we need is another Bush in the White House to complete the descent of this country into 2nd class nation status. And then there was Cruz who intended to "carpet bomb" Raqqa - the HQ for ISIS -  but which actually is a city of over 400,000,  with mostly civilians. Collateral damage, anyone? How about intentional genocide?

We also had the really immature dolts going after Russia, which nation I guess they really believe is a "paper tiger" as one deluded WSJ poppet put it a week ago in an op ed. There was John Kasich (who I once took to be the GOP "adult") bragging he intended to "punch Russia in the nose". Good luck on that, pally, but you are going to have to go through Vladimir Putin first, and somehow I don't think you're up to it against the former KGB head who walks with a "gunslinger's gait". (As noted in a report on the news last night, from having his weapon at the ready on that right side.)

Then we have the heavyset (putting it mildly) turkey,  Chris Christie,  who actually wants to outdo Gen, Curtis LeMay (from 1962's Cuban Missile Crisis) vowing he would effectively  start World War III if he had to by shooting down Russian pilots over Syria - if he put up a no fly zone. He even defended it this morning, essentially insinuating if he put up such a zone the Russians would not dare disobey it, "if they knew the consequences". One wonders what manner of marijuana edibles or candies this fool was ingesting.

Amidst all this huff and puff it was therefore gratifying to at least see Trump separate from the hawkathon and especially inveighing against the insane GOP yen for 'regime change". We've already seen in Iraq (ousting Saddam), Libya (ousting Muammar Ghadaffi) how this game plays out and now also the eagerness to supplant Assad in Syria. Mincing no words, Trump emphatically stated that the $4 trillion blown on those regime change operations would have been better spent here at home for roads, infrastructure, schools, etc. He also added that any future trillions that the interventionists might wish to blow, would be better spent here in the U.S. To which the harpy-witch Carly Fiorina responded he was "talking more like Obama". Actually no, you ignorant misfit, he was talking sense!

By contrast, the odious slob Chris 'Crisco' Christie instantly disqualified himself by asserting that he'd have no qualms shooting down a Russian plane over Syria after installing a dopey "no fly" zone. So, he'd risk incinerating billions in a third world (nuclear) war to prove his security bona fides and that his Pillsbury doughboy frame really had the balls to do it. (Recall in 'Oct. 62 JFK had to restrain Gen. Curtis LeMay who wanted to bomb Cuba into the stone age, despite the fact there were 93 fully armed IRBMs  aimed at the eastern and central U.S.)

What Christie really showed is how easy it is for one's ass to occupy one's brain, when bravado supersedes common sense and intellect.

Christie, while lamenting the sense of fear gripping the United States,  then ended up stoking as much fear as possible, talking at length in dog whistle style about the bomb threat that closed the Los Angeles Unified school system on Tuesday. But somehow ignoring that the New York authorities in his backyard decided the same threat was a hoax. (The reason given by the NYPD Police commissioner is that the email sender referred to "allah" and not Allah.)

By contrast to Christie and the other warmongering, take 'em all out Reepo yahoos,  Trump showed forbearance and sound judgment- at least by his stated unwillingness to intervene and overthrow yet another Middle Eastern state and for nothing.  (Of course, he later more or less neutralized the quantum of rationality displayed then by his stance on killing the families of terrorists. As Rand Paul asked: "Ever heard of the Geneva Convention?")

Let's recall the Bush bunch are the original regime changers so no surprise Jeb! had to butt in to do an indirect defense of his incompetent brother.

Late in the debate, for example,  Jeb! jabbed at Trump for "getting his national security advice from retired generals on cable TV.". But Trump simply stepped out of the exchange to critique his rival and the moderators – retaking his role as judge rather than participant.

At one point Jeb clearly lost it,  barking:

“You’re never going to be president of the United States by insulting your way to the presidency,”

“Well, let’s see,” said Trump, “I am at 42 and you’re at three,” he added citing recent polls. “So, so far, I’m doing better.”

Meanwhile, Ted Cruz tried to talk with a certain Texan swagger on how he'd "wipe out ISIS" and basically do everything Obama "isn't doing"  now. Except Obama is, including sending in more strategic ground forces for support. But as I noted before, it's easy for imps like Cruz and Rubio to try to out swagger each other with empty rhetoric when they hold no real positions of power. It's likewise easy for a pompous porker like Christie to vow he'd shoot down Russian planes when the only really nasty thing he's done up to now (as NJ Governor) is shut down a key bridge backing up traffic in his state for miles- and hours.

The most important aspect of last night's debate was to show that the Reeps -most of them - can only "win" by instilling fear. Fear of the terrorists and fear of our own shadows, if we let the lizard brain take over the prefrontal cortex.  People need to bear in mind the only political leverage the Reepos hold is the terror card. And if they can get enough of us to submit, and believe terrorism trumps all else - then we will have truly fucked ourselves to a far thee well in next year's elections.

The facts speak otherwise, that this era and period is nowhere near as terrifying as many in the past, including the Cuban Missile Crisis which I lived through when we came within a hair's breadth of WW III. Our much bigger fear ought to be of the millions of assault weapons in our midst which too many seem to be quite content to leave alone, at least their regulation, out of a misinterpretation of the 2nd amendment. Meanwhile mass murders go on daily, not by terrorists or ISIS sympathizers but by fellow Americans too ready to settle things or act out with their AR-15s. There've been 200,000 slaughtered since 9/11 by these weapons in the hands of fellow citizens, vs. 45 killed by terrorists. Do the math! And if you are still terrorized by ISIS,  or any other random jihadi terror,  you don't deserve to call yourself an American - or at least claiming that you belong in "the home of the brave".

And if you believe Chris Crisco Christie is the answer- as some expressed in an MSNBC focus group this morning-  you definitely don't know which end is up or what WWIII would look like. So I suggest you get the movie 'Threads' and watch it - maybe several times - to let it sink in.

If this fifth debate did anything it showed the Dems still are the adults in the room, and the party most likely to feature a sane and temperate leader in a world too overrun by fear, panic sand over-heated rhetoric. But, of course, the election next year will ultimately depend on adults - not fearful infants - to make the decision that best serves the nation.

And when one writes that Donald Trump was (relatively speaking) the most rational on the stage tonight, you have some idea of just how fucked up the GOP really is.

Obama -ites Need to Grow Up And Work With Putin - Not Against Him!

"Jeebus, do I really got to shake this thug's hand! Drat!"

The news in The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal is that the meeting of Obama with Vladimir Putin Monday did not go well. This was regarding what to do about the nest of terrorist vipers (ISIS or ISIL)  breeding in Syria and undermining that nation, creating havoc and causing millions to flee. (As a reality check, let's also bear in mind nearly 60 percent of the fleeing Syrian refugees are Assad supporters.).

According to the WSJ's account (Monday, A1):

"President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin clashed publicly over how to resolve the conflict in Syria, in a showdown in front of the rest of the world's leaders that added uncertainty to the burgeoning crisis in the Middle East"

Then:

"The U.S. and Russian leaders traded barbs in dueling speeches to the United Nations General Assembly then later clinked champagne glasses at a luncheon."

Left unsaid is that Mr. Putin had by far the more powerful "ammo" packed into his speech, compared to Obama. This was in respect to his mention that the Pentagon had admitted $500m in weapons and equipment had been handed over to Al Qaeda by U.S.-backed Syrian rebels. See e.g.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/09/26/us-backed-syrian-rebels-handed-over-equipment-al-qaeda-affiliate-military-admits

This could no doubt also have fallen into the hands of ISIS. The point is, it means the Obama plan to somehow create a Syrian opposition "counter force" to Bashar al Assad is a failure. It can't work and won't work.  Like it or not, Assad's gov't is the one with UN representation and is the legitimate one.

Putin also made it clear to Obama and the U.S. that Russia has a vested interest in fighting ISIS too, given "2,000 Russians have left for Syria to join ISIS" and he told Charlie Rose in a powerful interview on '60 Minutes' that he'd prefer to fight them in Syria.  As one administration official put it regarding the meeting between Obama and Putin:

"This was not a situation where either of them was seeking to score points".

Which is good, because it must be 'all hands on deck' to fight the ISIS vermin. Of course, the WSJ's editorial minions screeched their usual hysteria about Putin seeking to form a coalition against the Islamic State (which is a damned GOOD idea) but which they portray on "Russian and Iranian terms" adding "which means supporting Bashar al Assad's regime against all opponents".

So? What is the alternative? There is none! The real threat (as disclosed in the previous link) is sending lethal weapons to the jihadis in Syria seeking to overthrow Assad- only to have them fall into the hands of ISIS and al Qaeda..  Hence, this misbegotten U.S. mission as Putin notes, must end and all the anti-ISIS forces must get on the same page. ISIS must be eliminated first - THEN we can talk about replacing Assad in the future in an electoral transition.

Meanwhile this morning, the Saudi Prime Minister-  in an interview with Nora O'Donnell on CBS-  was outraged...outraged, that the Russians were entering the Syrian fray. Yet this mealy-mouthed wimp,  presiding over a backward nation that still delivers 1,000 lashes to females who violate their primitive laws,  had no answers himself. Other than to suggest the existing coalition of ten nations had to work harder so why didn't the Russians just join them? Well, mayhap because the Russians also see the need for more than remote air strikes.  In addition, these Saudi rats (from which the 9/11 hijackers hailed) haven't delivered a dime for the refugee camps or taken any of them in - so fuck their 'holier than thou', officious attitude. The only reason the U.S. remains chummy with their lot of regressive slime is because it still needs Saudi light sweet crude to deliver the energy 'bang' the degraded fracked crap (kerogen)  can't.

 Any sober realist will assure you there's not even a semi-legit alternative to take the place of Assad now which could also provide stable governance. (And we saw how it played out in Iraq when a Shia U.S. puppet gov't was put in charge - directly paving the way for the spawning of the Sunni ISIS.)  To believe so, as Obama and his bud David Cameron appear to, is to be drinking the Neolib dreamer kool aid. For more on this please do read the FT article below (sign up for the free limited access if you have to!):

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/96bf7e48-6041-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html#axzz3mSz73FXD

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/margaret-kimberley/64096/putin-trumps-obama-at-the-u-n


Excerpt:

Presidents Obama and Putin both made their respective cases before the United Nations General Assembly at its annual meeting. Obama’s speech was an apologia for imperialism and American aggressions. He repeated the lies which no one except uninformed Americans believe....

The world ought to fear pax Americana, not a Russian military presence in Syria. There cannot be true peace and stability unless nations and peoples are left to their own devices. The helping hand of United States democracy is anything but. It is a recipe for disaster and requires forceful opposition. If Russia can be a reliable counterforce the whole world will benefit, even if Barack Obama frowns before the cameras.

U.S. Needs To Take In At Least Two Million Refugees - And One Million from Syria!

Syrian boy cries amidst refugee crush to leave Tovarnik, Croatia

"Syrians meet any standard for recognition as refugees with a well-founded 'fear of persecution', under the terms of the UN convention on refugees of 1951. Helping Syrians is a clear moral duty." - The Economist, Sept. 12, p. 13.

The news on the front page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal ('U.S. To Raise Refugee Limit') was ludicrous to say the least. As reported, and as the European Union is flooded by up to one million Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi refugees now - the U.S. in its magnanimous heart - will raise its quota to 100,000 from 70,000 now. According to the piece:

"Mr. Kerry said that in fiscal year 2016 which starts in October, the U.S. would accept some 85,000 refugees including 10,000 Syrians the White House proposed earlier this month".

Whoopee Do! 10,000 Syrians when Germany is on a path to accept possibly 1 million with only one sixth the population of the U.S. and fewer resources., This is disgraceful!

Look, since the U.S. had a major hand in driving all these people (up to 4 million) out from their homes because of arming Syrian rebels to take down Bashar al Assad, it certainly has a bigger responsibility to take at least as many as the Europeans, (Islamophobes like Trump be damned)

Columnist Michael Ignatieff, writing in the International Ed. of the New York Times ('This Isn't a European Problem', Sept. 7, p. 10), put it thusly:

"The Syrian War has created about 4 million refugees. The United States has taken in about 1,500 of them. The United States and its allies are at war with the Islamic State in Syria - fine, everyone agrees they are a threat- but don't we have some responsibility toward the refugees fleeing the combat? If we've been arming Syrian rebels (against Assad), shouldn't we also be helping the people trying to get out of their way? If we've failed to broker peace in Syria, can't we help the people who can't wait for peace any longer?"

Indeed.  And he goes on to note the forces driving the refugees to flee the camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon - including their filth and squalor and lack of basic food - with funding having already been cut severely in some cases and repealed in others. (The World Food Program was recently forced to slash food allocations for refugees in Lebanon to $13. 50 per person per month. Try to process that!)

As he notes:

"Now the refugees have decided that if the international community won't help them - if neither the United States or Russia is going to force the war to an end - they won't wait any longer. They are coming our way. Blaming the Europeans is an alibi and the rest of our excuses, like they 'don't have the right papers' are sickening."

Again, right on. Conservative NY Times columnist Ross Douthat is also clear when he makes the ":plausible proposition" (op.cit., p. 11) that:

"the world's powers, the United States chief among them, had a responsibility to prevent the Syrian war from developing and to protects its victims once it did",

Adding:

"And since our various Syrian forays: clandestine aid to rebels, airstrikes (then held back), explicit aid to rebels - look like failures at the moment, we're partially implicated in the continuing catastrophe".

That means, if one accepts the proposition of plausible culpability, the U.S. must accept at least as much responsibility as its NATO-EU allies to take refugees in. It means we can't just smugly look on at the European situation and make token gestures while we wash our hands under the worn out excuse "well, we can't do it or dem t'errorists will sneak in".  The Germans - also faced with that line of thought - knew they had a greater humanitarian duty and have accepted up to 800,000 refugees already.

The U.S., having fomented a Pax Americana war to not only overthrow Assad, but demolish ISIS, has a similar responsibility, You can't just help tear the shit out of a country - reduce it to rubble - then tell its fleeing victims to go suck salt. (The U.S. has, of this writing, donated $419m to help the refugees but this is a 'drop in the bucket' when well over $10b is needed given some 4 million are in camps.)

The need for the U.S. to offer more help becomes more evident when one realizes what's happening now in Europe is only the first phase of a massive migration-refugee wave likely to add millions more each year. Some articles in the same NY Times Int'l editions have forecast nearly all the 11 million displaced Syrians will be soon on the move, not to mention over 1m Afghans who see no future in their bombed out nation, and 2m Iraqis who are unable to have a life because of the ISIS vermin (who entered after we meddled in Iraq and removed the one secular force inhibiting Muslim factionalism)

Bottom line, the U.S. can't look on and pat itself on the back for taking in a mere 100,000 refugees and only 10,000 Syrians - when it had a major hand in stirring up the original Mideast shit storm by invading Iraq in 2003  Europe simply will not be able to absorb all the millions, and as one Syrian refugee put it (ibid.) "we are coming and nothing can stop us".

Thus, to fully acknowledge our role in creating the "catastrophe" as Douthat puts it, we are morally obliged to take in at least the same number of Syrians the Germans will, and 1m more Afghans and Iraqis.

We cannot, in good and decent conscience, look on as these millions (most of them middle class people who've had their homes, neighborhoods bombed out) either perish in frantic efforts to reach safety or return in defeat to their homelands to be slaughtered by the ISIS bugs. We did as much for the fleeing Cubans in the 1960s- 80s so we can do as much now for the fleeing Syrians and others!


See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/marjorie-cohn/63959/the-u-s-has-a-duty-to-the-tempest-tost-Syrians



and:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/96bf7e48-6041-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html#axzz3mSz73FXD