Update on Syria: Americas Latest Perpetual War

If you refuse to grow up, the least you could do is wait for your thoughts to grow up.

What's wrong if a President might not be a hawk? What a puzzle that Mattis and most of Pentagon generally think in favor of using more military force in foreign lands. When did Congress authorize a war in Syria anyway, did I miss that?

America used to be reluctant to join wars, prominently the Great War and WWII. Over seventy-five years since end of WWII and we still have troops in Germany and Japan. Sixty-five years since end of Korean War and we still have troops in So Ko. If we hadn't pulled out of Vietnam when the left paved the way for the Pol Pot massacres by supporting our enemies and in other way agitating against US troops in French Indochina, we'd still have troops in what was South Vietnam. [and there'd be 2 million more SE Asians, and their offspring, running around the peninsula since mid-70s]

So fictionalize a world where Trump is at least as smart as you - would you take your advice on deployment of American armed forces based on what e.g. popular opinion of CNN thinks or do what you think best?

So..........are we happy that the troops are being pulled out or are we angry that they aren't still there?

Heh, quite short-sighted.

Bush 1, made promises then betrayed the Kurds.
Clinton, made promises then betrayed the Kurds.
Bush 2, made promises.
Obama, betrayed the Kurds by breaking Bush 2 promises.

Trump: pulls out, seemingly: betrays the Kurds.

But do you honestly believe if Turkey starts massacring Kurds that US (i.e. Trump or Congress) does not respond to that massacre? Honestly? I sure don't. What do you know that most of world doesn't, i.e. how can you be so confident that US removing our antagonistic presence won't operate to de-escalate the various situations (Yemen, Iran's support of Hamas & Hezbollah, Assad's quelling the revolution, likelihood of direct engagement between US troops and Russia's, etc.)?

How? Don't answer, it's obvious: never Trump. Yawn.

that said not being able to follow the bad guys (the real bad guys yes Rick I was a bad guy too ) when they would flee into Pakistan was FUBAR!
"There they go, across the border! Well I'm sure after they lick their wounds they will be back refreshed & ready to go!" Pakistan was so far up Bin Ladin's ass they could see daylight when he opened his mouth.

either way Trump will be blamed - if he keeps them there he's a warmonger, if he pulls them out he's a traitor!

I wouldn't make a campaign issue out of boasting that I ignore experts when my "gut" tells me something else. Oh and who cares if a few Kurds get massacred, it'll give us an excuse to kill a few Muslims!

That would honestly be awful. Maybe then Congress would finally step up. And America would perform the deliberative process, screaming yelling and lying about and at each other, until we completed the debate and passed a law. Then our objectives would be defined and use of our armed forces would be Constitutionally authorized.

It's hard to pass laws on purpose. It's just as hard to send our soldiers into war, again, on purpose. 'War' by executive action on advice of generals with concerns of 'their' armies growing soft should really be a very limited thing, for a very limited duration.

In fact, I'd be surprised if the vast majority of the US didn't agree with that opinion, if posed with a hypothetical that completely omitted the word trump.

I really do appreciate your man'splaining all this stuff. Randites are clearly superior human beings and I am pleased by your willingness to share your brilliance with me.

Im just curious why our resident anti-war mongers aren't happy to see american troops leaving the "perpetual war" in Syria? If this was the previous regime theyd be falling all over themselves to defend the withdrawal.

Also, since when did it matter that "military experts" think we should stay involved in civil wars? Didn't we learn that lesson from Vietnam? Or does Trump being in the White House change your ideology?

Randites are purported to favor authoritarianism.

Trump is purported to favor authoritarianism.

So would that mean Trump is a Randidte?

Trump is an ignorant, loud mouthed, boorish asshole. He also lives in fantasy land, which gives him something very in common with Randites.

I've personally long been in favour of more intervention in Syria. Obama really shit the bed with his half-assed efforts and non-existent "red lines" on that front.

I’d be happy to see the US pull out of all foreign engagements.

I retrospect I think Obama was actually a pretty good "wartime" president. Just my opinion, no better or worse than anyone else's opinion.

Stop pulling your punches! Tell us how you really feel about Trump.

Plot twist: as we leave President Trump orders nuclear strikes on both nations.

I think that's a fair assessment. Obama didn't fix everything, but an awful lot of chickens came home to roost on his watch and I notice that not one critic ever came up with any solution that was any better (or more palatable) than anything he did.

Neither does your opinion. Or any of those 7 billion+ you've apparently enquired with, you busy little bee you.

If it did, there wouldn't be any illegal wars would there?

And don't confuse irritation with ego-driven (e.g. my opinion matters! Does it dearie? Does it really though?) refusal to recognise concrete reality with a lack of recognition for international law.

I would prefer nations to follow it, but I also recognise it has limitations and endlessly whining about it after the fact is pointless.

I'm pointing out what actually happens. Not opining. An opinion is an abstract. Bombers are not.

I wouldn't dream of letting you do my work for me, I'm perfectly capable of screwing things up on my own, and you come across as someone who wouldn't exactly mitigate that.

I'm glad you brought up the deaths, and apologies for skipping over it, I wasn't going to - and certainly not going to either - wade through pages of the same arguments made time and time again when I can just speed read over and get the gist.

I can tell you they're incredibly unlikely to give a shit about international laws if they're a barrier to getting to what they think is right. And parroting about how a war was illegal isn't battling ignorance, it's tedious prattling with the result of you'll be less likely to be listened to.

*sigh* Wars end. What happens at the end of them? All sides negotiate. Are there negotiations prior to the end? Usually. Why do they fail? One or more sides feel they can get a better deal later by prolonging the conflict.

This is what happens pretty much every time. It may, eventually, happen in Syria when everyone not getting blown up has had their jollies, assuming Assad doesn't turn it into a fully genocidal campaign.

Beyond you, apparently.

My points are pretty simple - arguing against illegal wars is pointless, keeping out of things only works if you're the only meaningful power as others with differing worldviews will intervene, and, if intervention is going to take place, it is preferable if we 'win', that we need to re-evaluate how we do that because we've been quite bad at of late, and, if and when we do it right, it comes with the side effect of being more humanitarian than the other powers.

Fuck me, I've not exactly planted that out as a cryptic crossword - anyone else having difficulties? Is it me not communicating very well?

Ahhhhh. Okay, so when we support murderous regimes, we're shits, when the Chinese do it, they're just being peaceful.

Got it.

You might want to read up on the actions of their Ministry of State Security, even the CIA seem to be taken aback at how thoroughly they've infiltrated pretty much every continent.

You may as well be promoting catching HIV over Norovirus.

I'd also read up on the economic pressure they exert on other nations, primarily to enforce compliance to Chinese demands - many of China's neighbours remember well how often China has taken territory from them, and are seeing it again in disputed waters, only this time the threats are both military and economic, meaning their ability to resist has been eroded.

Bit like First/Second/Third World, it's shorthand for a group of nations with similar attributes. It's been used in many ways, for many years.

But, don't want to do your work for you either, and since you're hot on tackling ignorance, something for you to read up on over crimbo. Enjoy.

And, when you do that, you can come back you'll know why I wasn't being specific on countries as I was on about blocs. Luxembourg has many differing rules to, say, Italy, yet if I say X about the EU as a whole, you'd recognise picking up an individual nation out of that whole to refute X would be bollocks? At least I'd hope so.

You appeared to be stating that aggrandizing ourselves as the "better guys" just hides that we're not. I'd like to some evidence that our values as a whole are inferior to another set. It's easy to pick individual failings we need to improve on, and others we could learn from, but as a whole, I'm not seeing anything, and certainly not from out direct competitors, Russia and China.

I've already pointed out the problem with the western interventions.

You claim they can never work, yet we have proof they can in post-war Japan and Germany, using - as I have also pointed out - a lot of time and money. There were lessons from both of those to improve upon.

Where?

I keep hearing the Chicken Little claims. There is a definite shift from the centre towards further left and right, mostly due to the complete failures of governments to handle migration and integration in a remotely sane manner, but I'm seeing a lot less pushbacks on LGBTQ, sexual and racial equalities than we've ever had, even from the further right. When even a lot of the piggy eyed skinheads are taking a "puffs are okay I guess" stance, I call that a win over them kicking out with bovver boots, like they'd have done a mere decade ago.

Sure, you've the Trumpites, but they're a reflection of a malaise, and will fuck off eventually, and are a minority of their own.

I'm not coming to the same conclusion. You, apparently, want all interference to stop.

I recognise someone will interfere in these states, and we either have to counter that or pre-empt it. Which, I'll point out, does not mean war - it can be as part of alliances, military or economic, too, which is the preference, and also sometimes means having to deal with people we'd rather spit on.

I recognise that, when war is used, we don't do a very job of the post-war aspects, but we have previous templates which we can learn off.

The next bits are pretty much rinse-repeat of already stated.

How were we acting in self-defence?

History question, out of the UK and Germany, who declared war on who. And which side attacked the other first?

Suddenly the rights and wrongs of declaring war becomes a little less binary.

As an American-Belgian, I say good, that fucker would deserve it

Whining about it after the fact is what we call history, it's a thing we're supposed to learn from and whilst we can't change it we can make damn sure the world knows we're paying attention. I protested at the time, I'd put odds as even you did too. Acknowledging the odds are stacked against you is never a good reason to swallow your ethics and give up. You may be tired and weary, but you seem pretty motivated to reply to my posts. Maybe that energy might be better spent elsewhere, such as actually trying to make a difference in the world?

It's never going to be enough, it'll never be final, but for fuck's sake it's a whole lot better than wallowing in self pity and lashing out at others who don't do the same.

So am I, those bombers kill a lot of people and they are deployed by democracies, democracies which ultimately do in fact answer to electorates. Those electorates can't always hold their leaders to account, but they're in a far better position if they don't just shrug their shoulders and ignore what has happened in the past.

Actually I suspect you're quite capable of doing better than screwing things up and that's what I find frustrating about your attitude, it represents wasted talent and potential. I don't think you can personally change the world, very few of us get that chance in our lives, but using your intelligence for nothing more than bemoaning the fact it would get you nowhere to actually speak up and keep speaking up is just pathetic.

But they're pretty likely to be interested in public opinion, opinion which can be influenced and motivated. I may be pissing you off, along with all the other people "parroting" the simple facts, but that's your problem.

And? Do you think negotiations are limited to those made with an enemy state? Politicians negotiate with their own populace all the time, domestic support or lack thereof is the basis for how democracies work. They aren't perfect but they're the best we have available provided we actually make use of them.

On the contrary it's an over simplification, the world isn't that binary. We can influence the behaviour of those other powers without killing millions of people. In Iraq and Afghanistan, however, no one else was intervening. Nor would we if it weren't for 9/11 lending an excuse.

Exactly, they're no worse than any other major power in that regard. What do the CIA do if not infiltrate other powers? That's their role and infiltration is vastly preferable to military regime change. We were shits for supporting Saddam, but we became no lesser shits when we destabilised the region and caused far more deaths than he ever would have.

Which is exactly the sort of behaviour we are discussing here from the coalition, the invasions, the economic sanctions, the disregard for sovereignty. China's not alone in using intimidation , but on recent form outright aggression is more our schtick which is precisely what you denied when you referred to them as having "less restraint".

Only where it makes sense to do so, where there is some coherent whole or facsimile thereof which might reasonably be referred to the "The West", but that isn't currently the case. The West is very much divided and splintered, pulling in a multitude of different directions. That makes any statement about the actions of the west disingenuous at best.

"Not the better guys" or "inferior to another set"?

Which is it, the two are not synonymous and neither represent what I actually said, which is ironic considering how free and easy you've been with insults about my comprehension.

You've acknowledged them reactively, that's not quite the same thing

Absolutely, but it's not exactly as though we had a choice is it? We fought wars of defense which we were forced into and the evidence from WWI was that punishing the defeated party was only inviting another cycle of violence. We didn't need to fight in Iraq, we didn't need to fight in Afghanistan, the "clean up" only became necessary as a result of choices we made as nations.

Yes it can work, no one's claimed otherwise, but it's a hell of a dicey game and there are no surefire methods. The ideal scenario is to avoid having to do it at all.

Seriously?

All I can say is I'd love to come be your neighbour, because very few people seem to be reporting the same thing.

Sorry, what malaise?

I thought you said we were seeing less ignorance, less intolerance? If that's the case what malaise can they possibly be reflecting?

Nope.

So again, what exactly are you disagreeing with?

Of course we declared war, there was an imminent threat and only the most deliberately pig headed interpretation of the situation would deny that, the first actual exchanges were u boats attacking the allied blockades and German troops attacking the forces stationed in France, forces which had been put on hold since Chamberlain's government decided against an invasion of Germany at the time. There's absolutely no equivalence between that situation and the ongoing middle east crisis.

There's nothing sudden about it, war is about moral ambiguity, but that really doesn't have any bearing on the point being made regarding the Iraq and Afghan wars.

I'm guessing he "stayed in his lane" and listened to his experts rather than second-guess them.
I'm still waiting for Obama to crash some live sporting event or Fox News live broadcast drunk as a skunk
screaming "you motherfuckers miss me yet?"

They sure as hell didn’t care when Obama fired Mattis. He was head of Central Command at the time. He and Obama disagreed on policy especially in regards to Iran. Obama won because of course Obama was POTUS. Mattis wasn't.

Obama and the Pentagon didn't even call him to fire him. An aide told Mattis that the Pentagon had announced his replacement.

We should get out of Afghanistan. It's been eighteen years.

Syria? We should stay there. It's only 2000 troops and it's working.

But I'm not POTUS. So it's not my call.

Me too.