Gabbard calls Hillary "queen of warmongers" says 'Russian asset' remarks are 'smear campaign'
Newsletter published on October 25, 2019
(1)
Gabbard calls Hillary "queen of warmongers" says 'Russian asset' remarks are 'smear campaign'
(2)
Gabbard Hammers Hillary
(3)
Clinton and Gabbard exchange insults - WaPo
(4)
Gabbard: Clinton 'personifies rot that has sickened Democratic
party'
(5)
Warren and Sanders Are Not the Same
(6)
Trump’s Chaotic Syria Exit Puts Anti-War 2020 Democrats In A Delicate
Spot
(7)
Economist protests US departure from Syria
(8)
Democrats attack Trump for abandoning the Kurds—but want U.S. to pull out of
Afghanistan - Peter Beinart
(9)
Democrats in an awkward position of defending U.S. forever wars
(10)
Kurdish PKK/YPG troops join the Syrian army; MSM beatup Trump's
withdrawal
(1)
Gabbard calls Hillary "queen of warmongers" says 'Russian asset' remarks are 'smear campaign'
Gabbard says Clinton 'Russian asset' remarks
are part of 'smear campaign' as 2020 Dems voice support
By Julia Musto, Vandana Rambaran | Fox
News
Tulsi Gabbard blasts Hillary Clinton for
suggesting Russia is grooming her to run as third-party candidate
Presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard says
Hillary Clinton represents warmongering and corruption.
Rep.Tulsi Gabbard, D-H.I. accused Hillary Clinton "and her proxies"
of starting a "smear campaign that has been waged
against me and my candidacy and my campaign from the very first day that we
began," pushing back on accusations that
she is a "Russian asset."
"This smear campaign is coming from people
like Hillary Clinton and her proxies, the foreign policy establishment, the
military industrial complex, who obviously feel threatened by my message and by
my campaign because they know that they can't control me," she told an NBC
reporter on Saturday.
When asked if she would disavow support from
foreign entities, including an official Twitter account of the Russian
Embassy who has circulated support for the candidate online, in order to quell
American fear of foreign interference in elections, Gabbard responded: "This is
not about Russia."
"Foreign interference in our election is not
a good thing. But what we're seeing, this is not about Russia," she
said.
"I don't control them. I don't control what
anyone else says or does. All I can do is focus on the message that I am
bringing to this campaign," she added.
In a podcast with former Obama adviser David
Plouffe, Clinton said she wasn't "making any predictions, but [she thinks
Russians] have got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic
primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate."
"She's the favorite of the Russians" she
added, saying they "have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting
her so far."
Gabbard lashed out at Clinton on Twitter
Friday calling her the "queen of
warmongers [and the] embodiment of corruption" in response to the
allegations.
She also told Fox News' Tucker Carlson on
"Tucker Carlson Tonight" that the former Secretary of State is waging a smear campaign against her
because "she knows she can't control me."
She accused Clinton of having "blood on her
hands" after the Iraq war she "championed."
"Their blood is on her hands. That's why
she's smearing my character and trying to undermine my campaign," Gabbard
said.
Gabbard received an outpouring of support from fellow 2020 Democratic
candidates including Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang and Beto
O'Rourke.
Yang wrote in a tweet: "Tulsi Gabbard
deserves much more respect and thanks than this. She literally just got back
from serving our country abroad."
Andrew Yang?? @AndrewYang
Tulsi Gabbard deserves much more respect and
thanks than this. She literally just got back from serving our country
abroad.
11:47 AM - Oct 19, 2019
Williamson chimed in: "The Democratic
establishment has got to stop smearing women it finds inconvenient!" Adding,
"the character assassination of women who don't toe the party line will
backfire."
Marianne Williamson @marwilliamson
The Democratic establishment has got to stop
smearing women it finds inconvenient! The character assassination of women
who don’t toe the party line will backfire. Stay strong @TulsiGabbard . You
deserve respect and you have mine.
2:08 PM - Oct 19, 2019
"You deserve respect and you have mine," she
told Gabbard.
Meanwhile, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker
posted a wide-eyed gif reacting to Gabbard's rebuttal.
Cory
Booker @CoryBooker https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1185289626409406464
…
Tulsi Gabbard @TulsiGabbard
Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment
of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic
Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I
announced my candidacy, there has been a ...
6:53 AM - Oct 19, 2019
O'Rourke, a former Texas congressman,
defended Gabbard as well telling reporters "Tulsi is not being groomed by
anyone. She is her own person. Obviously has served this country, continues to
serve this country in uniform, in Congress, as a candidate for presidency so I
think those facts speak for themselves."
The
Hill @thehill .@BetoORourke on
@TulsiGabbard:
"Tulsi is not being groomed by anyone.
She is her own person. Obviously has served this country, continues to serve
this country in uniform, in Congress, as a candidate for presidency so I think
those facts speak for themselves."
Clinton has since backed out of a speaking appearance at Fortune's
Most Powerful Women Summit, where Gabbard was scheduled to speak.
Julia Musto is a reporter for
Foxnews.com
(2)
Gabbard Hammers Hillary
Sat, 10/19/2019 - 12:00
Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n
Guns blog,
Tulsi Gabbard has stones. She has the kind
of stones born of a life dedicated to the cause of serving others.
She is the direct opposite of Hillary
Clinton, for whom all causes serve herself and her enormous narcissism and
pathology.
So seeing Gabbard go directly after Hillary
Clinton after her debate performance the other evening where she explicitly
called out both the New York Times and CNN (the hosts of the debate) for the hit
jobs on her puts to rest any idea she’s someone else’s stalking
horse.
Two weeks ago I asked if five tweets from
President Trump changed U.S. foreign policy for good, Gabbard does him two
better with these three tweets of absolute, Oscar Wilde-like beauty.
Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers,
embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the
Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain.
From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a ... — Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) October
18, 2019
... concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was
behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and
... — Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard)
October 18, 2019
... powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the
threat I pose.
It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly
hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly. — Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) October
18, 2019
There is so much goodness to unpack in these
tweets it is almost beyond my ability to do so.
Clearly, Gabbard may have real problems with
Donald Trump as president but she’s learned very quickly from him that the best
way to deal with Hillary and her media quislings is to attack them without
mercy.
Gabbard throws down the gauntlet here outing
Hillary as the mastermind behind the DNC strategy of allowing the current crop
of future losers to fall all over themselves to alienate as many centrist voters
as possible.
This paves the way for Hillary to swoop in on
her broom, pointed hat in hand, and declare herself the savior of the
Democratic Party’s chances to defeat Donald Trump next November.
Remember that leading up to the debate
Gabbard was going to boycott the event because it was such a corrupted event and
stage-managed to showcase the chosen ‘front-runners’ — Joe Biden and Elizabeth
Warren.
It makes sense to me that she decided at the
last minute to join the debate after the Times piece just to ensure she got the
national platform to openly call out the corruption in the same breath as
attacking Trump for his, to this point, disastrous foreign policy
mistakes.
She emerged from that debate as the only
candidate with any moral compass capable of pointing in a single direction.
Warren made a fool of herself responding with bromides about leaving in the
‘rightt way’ indistinguishable from any other presidential puppet of the last
twenty years.
This is two debates in a row where Gabbard
came out blazing at the front-runner, claiming a moral and ethical high ground
on foreign policy that, at just over half the age of her rivals, that shows a
maturity well beyond her years.
Her calling Hillary the “Queen of Warmongers” is so self-evidently
true that it will reverberate far beyond Twitter into votes.
And it tells Hillary that Gabbard has zero
fear of her and her political machine.
You can’t cow a person without fear who has
nothing to lose.
[ZH: And Gabbard was not done - she ripped
into Hillary's terrible legacy in a Friday night “Tucker Carlson Tonight”
interview.]
During her discussion with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Gabbard framed
Clinton’s opposition as being not only against her candidacy, but against “every
veteran in this country, every service member, every American, anyone watching
at home fighting for peace and who was calling for an end to these regime change
wars.”
“Ultimately she knows she can’t control me,” Gabbard said, responding to
Carlson’s question about why Clinton is taking aim at her. “I stand against
everything that she represents and if I’m elected president, if I’m the
Democratic nominee and elected president she will not be able to control me. She
won’t be able to manipulate me. She won’t be able to continue to work from
behind the curtains, to continue these regime change wars that have been so
costly.”
The Democratic presidential candidate said the blood of her “brothers and
sisters in uniform” killed in Iraq, a “war she championed,” is “on her
hands.”
“I am calling for an end to these regime change wars. This is why she’s
speaking out strongly and smearing my character and trying to undermine my
campaign,” she said.
“Just as she is doing this to me, this is what will happen to anybody who
is doing the same.”
Responding to a question from the Fox News host about the massive media
and political opposition from both parties to her foreign policy positions,
Gabbard noted that it happened as soon as she announced her
candidacy.
"
And now we know exactly why. It’s because I am standing up and speaking out
strongly against the Hillary Clinton legacy, the warmongering legacy of waging
these regime change wars, continuing to escalate these tensions between the
United States, nuclear armed countries like Russia, China, this nuclear arms
race bringing more profits to the military-industrial complex. "
Bullies like Hillary never learn that lesson
until they are humiliated beyond recognition.
Moreover, when you look at this sequence of
events it’s clear that the DNC, Hillary and everyone else close to the corridors
of power fear Gabbard’s rise. If they weren’t they wouldn’t be putting out
smears in the New York Times.
They wouldn’t be spending millions on social
media trolls to discredit her in the public fora.
The first rule of politics is “You never
attack down.”
Well, Hillary attacked down. The Times
attacked down. The DNC, by gaming the debate rules, attacked down. And that
spells disaster for anyone who does it.
Just ask Rudy Guiliani.
(3)
Clinton and Gabbard exchange insults - WaPo
Battle lines drawn after Clinton and Gabbard exchange
insults
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) reacted after
2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton suggested Russia was
grooming Gabbard to disrupt the 2020 race. (Reuters)
By Colby Itkowitz
Oct. 20, 2019 at 6:13 a.m. GMT+10
There are fresh battles lines in the 2020
presidential campaign, reflecting an unpredictable rivalry between two
Democratic politicians — one who isn’t even running this cycle and another who
is polling at barely 1 percent.
It began when former Democratic presidential
nominee Hillary Clinton suggested this week that current primary contender Rep.
Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is being used by the Russians, who could be plotting a
third party run to siphon votes from the eventual Democratic nominee. It’s a
scenario that Clinton is sensitive to, since she blames Russian election
interference and Green Party candidate Jill Stein for her loss to President
Trump.
Gabbard, in a scathing response, called
Clinton “the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification
of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long.”
“It’s now clear that this primary is between
you and me,” Gabbard wrote on Twitter. “Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies.
Join the race directly.”
Hillary Clinton compares Russian electoral
'attack' to 9/11 Hillary Clinton said Russian election inference "altered the
outcome in enough places," and contrasted President Trump's response to Bush's
reaction to 9/11. (The Washington Post) Clinton has not directly responded, but
her spokesman, Nick Merrill, told CNN, “If the nesting doll fits.”
Merrill, in an interview Saturday, said
Clinton was “not saying Americans are Russian spies but that Russia has found
ways to take advantage and is not being held responsible by anyone in
government.”
Few outside Clinton’s immediate orbit
defended her comments. The closest anyone came was Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.),
who retweeted Gabbard’s reaction to Clinton with a viral GIF from the June
debate when he glanced “side eyed” — a look that often conveys shock or disdain
— at another candidate. That garnered a reply from Clinton — a viral GIF of her
own from a 2016 debate where she exhales, says, “okay,” smiles and shimmies her
shoulders.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, whose Iowa bus
tour had been overshadowed by the Gabbard-Clinton fight, told reporters on
Friday that Clinton could “defend herself, and will.” Asked about the story
again on Saturday, she pivoted to talk about her election integrity
legislation.
“This is something I’m not getting into
right now,” she said. “I will talk about election security, because I think
that’s much more significant than any Twitter fight going on right
now.”
But two of the nonpoliticians in the
Democratic primary, entrepreneur Andrew Yang and author Marianne Williamson,
sided with Gabbard.
Yang tweeted that Gabbard, a veteran,
“deserves much more respect and thanks than this.” Williamson accused the
Democratic establishment of “smearing women it finds inconvenient.”
“The character assassination of women who
don’t toe the party line will backfire. Stay strong @TulsiGabbard. You deserve
respect and you have mine,” Williamson tweeted.
Notably, Clinton — who made the comments on
a podcast hosted by David Plouffe, a former adviser to President Barack Obama —
never used Gabbard’s name. But Gabbard is the only female candidate in the
Democratic primary who has been accused of having ties to Russia.
“I’m not making any predictions, but I think
they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and
are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” Clinton said.
Gabbard has repeatedly ruled out running as
a third-party candidate. But she has been courted to run in the general election
outside the Democratic Party by activists who believe the two-party system is
corrupt and should be cast aside.
Stein has suggested in the past that Gabbard
“should become a Green” because her comments were “similar to our
message.”
In the podcast interview, Clinton also
accused Stein, who won more votes in several states than Trump’s margin of
victory over Clinton, of being a tool of the Russians.
“Yes, she’s a Russian asset, I mean,
totally,” Clinton said. “They know they can’t win without a third-party
candidate.”
President Trump weighed in on on the dispute
Saturday afternoon, urging a third party Green Party candidate to run in 2020,
which would benefit him by peeling off Democratic voters.
“Crooked Hillary Clinton just called the
respected environmentalist and Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, a ‘Russian
Asset.’ They need a Green Party more than ever after looking at the Democrats
disastrous environmental program!” Trump tweeted.
While it’s unclear why Clinton initiated
this fight, the bad blood between her and Gabbard goes back to 2016, when Gabbard quit her post as a Democratic
National Committee vice chair so she could endorse Clinton’s primary opponent,
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) of Vermont.
Gabbard is an unconventional Democrat, whose
message of an isolationist foreign policy and willingness to buck the party
establishment has gained her fans among the far right. She’s a frequent guest on
Fox News, often Tucker Carlson’s show. She went on Friday night to talk to
Carlson about her clash with Clinton.
She has also gained a following with some
white nationalists. A neo-Nazi website called Daily Stormer said it deserved
credit for getting her the support necessary to qualify for the first two
debates.
But the main reason many Democrats,
including Clinton, are wary of her is because she’s a favorite topic on Russian
websites and social media.
“Hillary is absolutely going to continue to
call balls and strikes as she sees them because while she knows she was on the
receiving end of it in 2016, our 2020 nominee will face the same threat,” said
Philippe Reines, a former Clinton adviser.
Gabbard was back on the campaign trail
Saturday, holding two town hall meetings in Iowa, including one in the town of
Clinton.
David Weigel in Ames, Iowa and Michael
Scherer contributed to this story.
(4)
Gabbard: Clinton 'personifies rot that has sickened Democratic
party'
Gabbard: Clinton 'personifies rot that has
sickened Democratic party'
2016 candidate implies 2020 hopeful
‘favorite of the Russians’ Congresswoman fires back in extraordinary intra-party
spat Associated Press in Washington
Sat 19 Oct 2019 23.21 AEDT Last modified on
Sun 20 Oct 2019 04.55 AEDT
In an interview, Clinton said she believes
the Russians have “got their eye on somebody who’s currently in the Democratic
primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate”.
The former senator, secretary of state and
2016 Democratic presidential candidate did not name Gabbard directly.
But in tweets on Friday, Gabbard called
Clinton the “personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party
for so long”. Gabbard also alleged there has been a “concerted campaign” to
destroy her reputation since she announced her presidential run in
January.
“It’s now clear that this primary is between
you and me,” Gabbard tweeted about Clinton. “Don’t cowardly hide behind your
proxies. Join the race directly.”
There is lingering trepidation in the
Democratic party of a repeat of the 2016 race, when Russia interfered in an
effort to help Donald Trump defeat Clinton. US intelligence agencies have warned
that Russia intends to meddle in 2020. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin,
has mocked that possibility, joking earlier this month that Moscow would
“definitely intervene”.
During a Democratic debate on Tuesday,
Gabbard criticized a commentator who she said called her “an asset of Russia”.
She called the comments “completely despicable”.
Clinton seemed to echo the commentator’s
remark during a podcast appearance this week on Campaign HQ with David Plouffe.
Plouffe was campaign manager for Barack Obama in 2008 and a senior adviser to
the president.
“She’s the favorite of the Russians,”
Clinton said, referring to the person she had earlier identified as a woman
“who’s currently in the Democratic primary”.
”They have a bunch of sites and bots and
other ways of supporting her so far.”
Clinton also called Trump “Vladimir Putin’s
dream”. She went on to say Trump’s inauguration speech was “like a declaration
of war on half of America”. Clinton also described the 2016 Green party
presidential candidate Jill Stein as “a Russian asset”.
Gabbard said on CBSN she “will not be
leaving the Democratic party. I will not be running as an independent or a
third-party candidate.”
Stein, who ran against Trump and Clinton,
received about 1% of the vote in the 2016 election. But some Democrats said her
candidacy syphoned votes from Clinton and helped Trump win, particularly in
states like Wisconsin.
The Senate intelligence committee asked
Stein for documents as part of its inquiry into Russian interference in the
election because she attended a 2015 dinner in Moscow sponsored by the Russian
television network RT, with Putin. Stein has said she attended “with a message
of Middle East peace, diplomacy and cooperation”.
In a tweet on Friday, Stein accused Clinton
of “peddling conspiracy theories to justify her failure instead of reflecting on
real reasons Dems lost in 2016”.
(5)
Warren and Sanders Are Not the Same
OCT 16, 2019
No, Warren and Sanders Are Not the
Same
When Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had two
heart stents inserted into his arteries in early October, media pundits were
quick to foresee the end of his pioneering, movement-based candidacy. Some
questioned why it took three days for his family and campaign to confirm the
details of his medical condition and others wondered whether age and health
would be important factors in his candidacy. Given the documented media bias
against Sanders, it is certainly not surprising to see Sanders’ health scare
exploited to undermine his candidacy. (Sanders, on the other hand, in his
typical fashion, exploited his situation to demand that health care ought to be
“a human right.”)
Los Angeles Times opinion writer Rich
Benjamin pushed the bias further by saying, “any perception of fatigue and
frailty can undercut his effectiveness in competing for the nomination and in
the dogfight against Trump if he does beat the rest of the Democratic field.”
Benjamin demanded that it was time for “Bernie and his bros”—using a sexist,
racist and discredited smear that assumes Sanders’ supporters are mostly
pig-headed white men—“to get behind Elizabeth Warren.” In fact, men and women
are roughly evenly split among Sanders’ supporters, and people of color are more
likely than whites to back him.
Benjamin is echoing a sentiment that has
been gaining traction: that Warren is a good enough emulation of Sanders and has
adopted enough of his progressive policy proposals for Sanders’ supporters to
unreservedly support her. But while a Warren nomination would certainly be a
strong sign of progress, particularly in the era of Donald Trump, there are
serious distinctions between Sanders and Warren that should not be
dismissed.
For example, on health care, although they
both back the idea of a “Medicare for All” plan, Warren and Sanders do not take
identical positions. Health care is the most important issue for the American
electorate. During Tuesday’s Democratic presidential candidate debate, Warren
repeatedly avoided admitting that backing a Medicare for All plan would mean
that taxes would go up across the board. She sidestepped questions twice,
saying, “I will not sign a bill into law that raises their costs, because costs
are what people care about.”
But in fact, people care about getting the
health care they need more than anything. According to a new poll released on
the same day as the debate, “Fifty-six percent of Americans think providing
access to affordable health care coverage for all Americans is the
responsibility of the federal government, and two-thirds favor the creation of a
national, government-administered health insurance plan similar to Medicare that
would be available to all Americans.” Vox.com writer Tara Golshan explained that
although Warren has endorsed Sanders’ health care plan, “she speaks about
Medicare-for-all more in terms of expanding public options for health care,
rather than eliminating private insurance altogether.”
Sanders, on the other hand, was far more candid about the cost of his
plan during the debate, saying, “I do think it is
appropriate to acknowledge that taxes
will go up. They’re going to go up significantly for the wealthy. And for
virtually everybody, the tax increase they pay will be substantially less —
substantially less than what they were paying for premiums and out-of-pocket
expenses.” By acknowledging that taxes will go up while premiums, co-payments, deductibles and “all
out-of-pocket expenses are gone,” Sanders was far more honest about what his
bill to expand Medicare to every American would entail while also demolishing
the right-wing argument about high costs. Later in the debate, he went further
and slammed the Democratic Party, challenging it to have “the guts to stand up
to the health care industry, which made $100 billion in profit.”
There are differences in other policies too.
For example, Sanders’ plan to tax the wealthiest Americans goes much further
than Warren’s. His tax rate for billionaires is more than twice that of
Warren’s, leading one commentator to declare that Sanders’ plan to tax extreme
wealth “makes Warren’s wealth tax look moderate.” Sanders has even said he
doesn’t think billionaires should exist.
It has become more and more apparent that
Sanders is the only Democratic candidate to have a lengthy track record on
progressive politics, compared to those who have discovered their progressive
backbones more recently, because they know it plays well to the party’s
left-leaning base. Seven years ago, Warren did not back Medicare for All, and 23
years ago she was a registered Republican. In fact, she maintains she is an
avowed capitalist. Meanwhile, Sanders has been backing the idea of a Medicare
plan expanded to all Americans for at least 10 years. He has been calling
himself a socialist for decades, and he most recently distinguished himself from
Warren’s self-proclaimed capitalist label in an interview.
When Sanders ran for the Democratic
presidential nomination in 2016, media outlets ignored him until he began
winning primaries, and even then, experts routinely underestimated his pull and
popularity. Progressives were thrilled to finally see a bona fide leftist
candidate on a national stage echoing the issues that we longed to hear about,
analyzed in ways that targeted corporate profiteers.
After the election ended, the movement that
was borne from his candidacy flourished and proliferated into multiple
organizations determined to challenge establishment politics from inside and
outside the electoral system. Among the successes of that movement was the 2018
election of the outspoken and staunchly progressive Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
While recent polls show Sanders’ popularity
as a candidate dipping a few percentage points behind Warren, his performance
this week during the Democratic debate (including his characteristic dismissal
of concern over the state of his health, saying only that he was “healthy” and
“feeling great”), may bump his numbers up in the next poll. Perhaps even more
important is the announcement that Ocasio-Cortez will be endorsing his
candidacy. Both Warren and Sanders had sought the endorsement of the young and
very popular progressive Democrat, and now that Sanders has clinched it, it may
well boost his standing.
Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar and Michigan Rep.
Rashida Tlaib, who are considered part of the four-member “squad” of prominent
progressive congresswomen of color, have also decided to throw their weight
behind the Vermont senator. Sanders and Omar just co-sponsored a bill to feed
all schoolchildren three free meals a day regardless of income. Clearly
Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Tlaib see a distinction between Warren and
Sanders.
There is one thing Warren has going for her
over Sanders: She’s far more charismatic than he is. At a recent LGBTQ event in
Los Angeles, Warren won over the crowd when she was asked how she might respond
to a supporter who claimed that marriage should be between one man and one
woman. She replied, “I’m going to assume it is a guy who said that. And I’m
going to say, ‘Well, then just marry one woman. I’m cool with that.'” With the
perfect timing of an improv artist, she waited for applause and added, “Assuming
you can find one”—which of course resulted in even more applause.
Yes, Warren’s candidacy would be huge step
in the right direction for the United States in the Trump era—especially if she
were the most progressive front-runner in the race. But she’s not. In fact, she
is arguably being pulled to the left by Sanders’ candidacy. CNBC’s Jim Cramer
suggested that if Sanders dropped out of the race, “she doesn’t have to be
worried about that [far-left] flank anymore.” So, do progressives want the
candidate who may be feeling pressured to move to the left or the person whose
candidacy is setting the progressive standard?
(6)
Trump’s Chaotic Syria Exit Puts Anti-War 2020 Democrats In A Delicate
Spot
Alex Emmons
October 16 2019, 5:31 a.m.
THE PENTAGON announced on Monday that the
U.S. was pulling all of its troops out of northeastern Syria at President Donald
Trump’s direction, completing a withdrawal he had started by Twitter declaration
a week earlier. The move further clears the way for a full-on invasion by
Turkey, whose soldiers have already been accused of executing noncombatants. In
the chaos, hundreds of Islamic State detainees have reportedly
escaped.
Trump defended his decision in a series of
early-morning tweets on Monday. “The same people who got us into the Middle East
mess are the people who most want to stay there!” he wrote. “Never ending wars
will end!”
Trump’s abandonment of eastern Syria and the
U.S. military’s Kurdish allies has put progressive Democrats — many of whom also
favor withdrawing from overseas military operations — in a delicate spot. Over
the past week, they have been trying to thread the needle between condemning
Trump for recklessly abandoning an ally and emphasizing that withdrawing U.S.
troops should be an eventual policy goal.
Trump’s decision has showcased what a
worst-case scenario for expedited military withdrawal could look like, making it
harder for progressive Democratic presidential candidates like Sens. Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to press their cases against “endless wars” on the
campaign trail. The question of how progressives can go about drawing down U.S.
military commitments without repeating Trump’s calamitous actions would be an
obvious pick for Tuesday night’s Democratic debate.
So far, the Democratic candidates have been
critical of Trump but light on specifics about what they would do differently.
Last week, Sanders condemned Trump’s withdrawal from Syria, telling reporters
that “as somebody who does not want to see American troops bogged down in
countries all over the world — you don’t turn your back on allies who have
fought and died alongside American troops. You just don’t do that.” But when
George Stephanopoulos asked Sunday morning on ABC for Sanders to explain the
difference between his and Trump’s approaches, Sanders responded simply that
Trump “lies. I don’t.”
Warren’s response was similarly vague. She
tweeted that “Trump recklessly betrayed our Kurdish partners” and that “we
should bring our troops home, but we need to do so in a way that respects our
security.”
Ro Khanna, a Democratic representative from
California and co-chair of Sanders’s 2020 campaign, told The Intercept that
progressives urgently need to make the case for a “doctrine of responsible
withdrawal.”
“I don’t believe that withdrawal from a
progressive perspective means a moral indifference to the lives of the places
that we leave,” Khanna said in a phone interview. “It’s not an ‘America First’
approach that says our interests and our American lives are the only things that
have moral worth. Rather, our withdrawal is based on an understanding of the
limitations of American power to shape and restructure societies. It emphasizes
the need for effective diplomacy and understands our moral obligations in these
places.”
The U.S. should not have withdrawn troops
without negotiating a deal that would have kept Turkey from invading Syria,
backed by a threat to withhold future arms sales and economic assistance, Khanna
told The Intercept. “We could have used all those points of leverage to get
their commitment that they wouldn’t slaughter the Kurds.”
Another key difference between Trump’s
approach and that of progressives is their level of trust for civil service
expertise, Khanna said. “What this shows is that it’s not enough to have a
president with certain instincts. Foreign policy requires great expertise. You
need a progressive president who understands the importance of military
restraint, but who also has the ability to put together an extraordinary foreign
policy team to implement the goals that they may have.”
Far from admiring Trump’s approach to Syria,
many anti-interventionists and foreign policy experts in D.C. view it as a
blueprint for how not to withdraw from a conflict, according to Adam Wunische, a
researcher with the Quincy Institute, a new pro-diplomacy, noninterventionist,
and nonpartisan think tank.
“What we should have been doing from the
very beginning is once we achieved the limited objective of destroying ISIS
territory, they should have immediately begun contemplating what kind of peace
or settlement could come afterwards,” Wunische told The Intercept. “To my
knowledge, the U.S. is one of the only actors that can effectively talk to both
the Turks and the Kurds. So they should have been trying to find an acceptable
political arrangement for all the parties involved that doesn’t involve an
endless, ill-defined military presence for the U.S.”
The Quincy Institute is working on a report
outlining a possible plan for U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan that
would avoid the type of disorder on display in northeastern Syria, Wunische
said, though the timing of the report remains unclear.
Throughout the 2020 Democratic primary
campaign, a number of candidates have railed against “endless wars.” But in a
conversation that has been defined by intricate domestic policy proposals and
detailed outlines of how to structure a wealth tax, candidates have said little
about the rest of the world and even less about how they would wind down
overseas conflicts.
Sanders, for example, has called for a
withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan “as expeditiously as possible.”
Warren has said “it’s long past time to bring our troops home, and I would begin
to do so immediately.” Joe Biden has said he would bring “American combat troops
in Afghanistan home during my first term,” but left the door open for a
“residual U.S. military presence” that would be “focused on counterterrorism
operations.” When asked during a July debate whether he would withdraw from
Afghanistan during the first year of his presidency, Pete Buttigieg, the South
Bend mayor and Navy Reserve veteran who spent seven months in Afghanistan,
answered emphatically in the affirmative.
But aside from seeking a diplomatic
solution, candidates have said very little about their policies for ending the
war. And as in Syria, stakes for U.S. allies in Afghanistan are high.
A January study by the Rand Corporation
found that a “precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan” would have
far-reaching consequences. The legitimacy for the U.S.-backed Kabul government
would plummet, the report argued, and the Taliban would extend its control and
influence. People all across the country would turn to regional militias and
rival warlords for basic security.
“I don’t think that anyone, whether they
promise it or not, is going to get out of Afghanistan in a week,” said Wuinsche.
“What we need to focus on is, what is the political solution that we think is
possible, and how do we get there? That requires marshaling all of these
different tools of foreign policy, not just the military.”
Kate Kizer, policy director for the
D.C.-based advocacy group Win Without War, stressed that one of the most
revealing differences between progressives and Trump is how they would treat a
conflict’s refugees. Under Trump, the U.S. has accepted historically low numbers
of refugees and closed the door on future Syrian immigrants applying for
Temporary Protected Status.
“One of the cruelest parts of Trump’s policy
is the fact that, in addition to fueling more bloodshed with this decision, he’s
also banning any types of civilians who would be fleeing from the conflict,”
Kizer said. “In a situation like Syria and even Afghanistan, there’s a way to
responsibly withdraw and then there’s a way to cut and run, which is what Trump
has shown he has a predilection for. But I’m not sitting here saying that any
type of military withdraw will necessarily be bloodless.”
(7)
Economist protests US departure from Syria
Things fall apart Turkey’s invasion has
thrown a once-stable corner of Syria into chaos Less than a week after America
removed its troops, a Kurdish-run fief has collapsed
Oct 14th 2019 | ABU DHABI
ALL OF IT was foreseeable: the death and
displacement, the atrocities, the flight of jihadists and the return of a brutal
regime. But it has happened more quickly than almost anyone predicted. In the
days since Turkey invaded north-east Syria on October 9th, scores of people have
been killed and more than 100,000 displaced. A brief Syrian Kurdish experiment
in self-rule has come to a crashing halt. Their entity, known as Rojava, is now
a carcass to be picked over by the Turks and the regime of Bashar al-Assad,
Syria’s dictator. Hundreds of Islamic State (IS) supporters, once held by the
Kurds, have escaped into the desert scrub.
Small though it may seem, President Donald
Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw some 100 troops from north-east Syria has
reshaped the Levant. It cleared the way for a long-threatened Turkish invasion
meant to dislodge the Kurdish-led militia in control of the region. Turkey views
the group, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), as a mortal foe because of its
ties to the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought a long
insurgency against the Turkish state.
With America gone the Turks, backed by
Syrian rebels under their command (mostly Sunni Arabs), swept across the border
and quickly seized a swathe of central Rojava. They control a stretch of the M4,
the main east-west highway about 30km south of the border, allowing them to
bisect the Kurdish enclave and cut the YPG’s supply lines. Advancing Syrian
rebels have already been accused of atrocities. One gruesome video circulated on
social media showed giddy militiamen executing a bound Kurdish prisoner on the
battlefield. “Photograph me,” one rebel urges the cameraman, before he turns a
sniper rifle on the captive.
Though known as fierce fighters, the Kurds
lack armour or air power. Their light infantry stands little chance against a
modern Turkish army. Instead of fighting to the death they have asked Mr Assad
for protection. For years the YPG, perhaps hedging its bets, tried to avoid open
conflict with the regime. And on October 13th the Kurds struck a deal to bring
the regime back to the north-east. “If we have to choose between compromises and
the genocide of our people, we will surely choose life,” the Kurdish commander,
Mazloum Abdi, wrote in an op-ed for Foreign Policy, an American magazine. Mr
Assad wasted little time. His troops are already fanning out into territory
formerly under YPG control.
While his men moved in, America moved out.
On October 13th the defence secretary, Mark Esper, said America would withdraw
all 1,000 troops deployed across northern Syria, fearing they would be caught
between the Turkish and Syrian armies. Hopeful Pentagon officials still think
they might maintain a presence elsewhere. This is wishful thinking. It will be
hard to protect and resupply troops. One group of American soldiers already had
to flee under Turkish shelling. America does hope to maintain its outpost at
Tanf, in the badlands of south-east Syria, which is meant (rather improbably) to
constrain Iranian influence in the region. Even that may be impossible,
too.
Faced with a crisis of its own making, a
flailing superpower has turned to economic sanctions to pretend it is still
relevant. Senators have drafted a bill that takes aim at Turkey’s leadership and
its armed forces, with apparent support from the president. “There is great
consensus on this,” Mr Trump tweeted. Set aside the hypocrisy of America
punishing Turkey for an offensive that Mr Trump himself acquiesced to earlier
this month. Sanctions will not compel Turkey to halt its invasion. Nor will
condemnations from European powers, some of which have also restricted arms
sales to Turkey, a fellow NATO member.
If anyone can stop the fighting, it is
Vladimir Putin. The Russian president finds himself in an awkward spot. Mr Assad
is a client, and Russia is happy for his regime to retake territory. On the
other hand, Turkey is a valued friend, and part of a Russian-led effort to find
a political agreement that ends Syria’s wider civil war. “Losing Turkey means
losing a solution to the Syrian problem,” says a former Russian diplomat. Mr
Putin will try to push both sides towards a modus vivendi. Having thrown away
his last bit of leverage in Syria, Mr Trump will be a mere bystander. Eight
years after Barack Obama called for Mr Assad to go, it is America that is
ignominiously leaving Syria.
(8)
Democrats attack Trump for abandoning the Kurds—but want U.S. to pull out of
Afghanistan - Peter Beinart
Democrats Are Hypocrites for Condemning
Trump Over Syria
Presidential hopefuls blasted Trump for
abandoning the Kurds—but want the U.S. to pull out of Afghanistan under similar
conditions.
6:00 AM ET
Peter Beinart - Professor of journalism at the City
University of New York
On Tuesday night, the Democratic
presidential candidates vied with one another to offer the harshest condemnation
of President Donald Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of American troops from northern
Syria. Joe Biden called it “the most shameful thing that any president has done
in modern history … in terms of foreign policy.” Elizabeth Warren said Trump
“has cut and run on our allies,” and “created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian
crisis.” Kamala Harris announced, “Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks
out.”
Pete Buttigieg’s denunciation was the most
personal. Recalling his military service in Afghanistan, the South Bend,
Indiana, mayor asked whether America’s wartime allies would ever trust it again.
“When I was deployed,” he declared, “not just the Afghan National Army forces
but the janitors put their lives on the line just by working with U.S. forces. I
would have a hard time today looking an Afghan civilian or soldier in the eye
after what just happened over there” in Syria.
It was a powerful statement—but also an
ironic one. Because if Trump’s unilateral, non-negotiated withdrawal from
northern Syria makes it harder for Buttigieg to look America’s Afghan allies in
the eye, the same might be said of the unilateral, non-negotiated withdrawal
that Buttigieg and the other leading Democratic candidates are proposing in
Afghanistan itself.
At this week’s debate, Warren explained that
the United States should only have withdrawn its troops from northern Syria
“through a negotiated solution.” But speaking about Afghanistan last month in
Houston, she rejected that very same principle. ABC’s David Muir asked whether
she would “bring the [American] troops home starting right now with no deal with
the Taliban.” Warren replied, “Yes.”
In Houston, Warren’s rivals also refused to
condition America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan on a negotiated deal. When Muir
asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops
from Afghanistan in his first year despite warnings from top American
commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that “we have got to put
an end to endless war.” Turning to Biden, Muir cited “concerns about any
possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan.” But Biden brushed them off,
declaring, “We don’t need those troops there. I would bring them
home.”
What makes these statements so remarkable is
that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from
Afghanistan in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate
remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria. In this week’s
debate, Warren denounced Trump for having “created a bigger-than-ever
humanitarian crisis.” But earlier this month, the International Crisis Group
warned that, if American troops unilaterally leave Afghanistan, “Afghans could
pay a heavy price” as that country’s war “would likely intensify and become more
chaotic.” A Rand Corporation report in January predicted that following a
unilateral American withdrawal, “civilian deaths will spike, and refugee flows
will increase significantly,” and that “the major advances that Afghans have
achieved in democracy, press freedom, human rights, women’s emancipation,
literacy, longevity, and living standards will be rolled back.” In September,
nine former American diplomats with experience in Afghanistan pleaded, “A major
withdrawal of US forces should follow, not come in advance of [a] real peace
agreement,” or else the United States might “betray all those who have believed
our promises or stepped forward with our encouragement to promote democracy and
human rights.”
Peter Beinart: The two psychological tricks
Trump is using to get away with everything
Afghans themselves have offered equally
ominous warnings. In February, two Afghan women—Mariam Safi, who runs the
Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies in Kabul, and Muqaddesa
Yourish, a commissioner on Afghanistan’s Independent Administrative Reform and
Civil Service Commission—predicted that “a hasty American withdrawal will
jeopardize for Afghans the future of hard-won gains such as constitutional
rights, freedoms of citizens and democratic institutions.” In March, Palwasha
Hassan, the executive director of the Afghan Women’s Educational Center, urged
“a responsible withdrawal that is not at the expense of women’s rights.” And in
July, Akram Gizabi, a leader of Afghanistan’s Hazaras, a Shia minority, noted
that his people had suffered under the Taliban in “brutal, vicious and
unimaginable ways” and that “women and Hazaras [had] thrived after the Taliban.”
Now, Gizabi said, Taliban victims “watch with amazement that the United States
is busy finding the fastest way out of Afghanistan, while leaving the Afghans to
the wolves.”
The parallels between Afghanistan and
northern Syria aren’t merely humanitarian. In condemning Trump’s actions in
Syria, Warren accused him of having “helped ISIS get another foothold, a new
lease on life.” But experts forecast a similar terrorist resurgence if Warren
carries out her proposed Afghan withdrawal. Following a unilateral American
departure, the Rand report predicts, “extremist groups, including Al Qaeda and
the Islamic State, [will] gain additional scope to organize, recruit, and
initiate terrorist attacks against U.S. regional and homeland targets.” In their
joint statement, the nine former American diplomats envision “an Afghan civil
war in which the Islamic State (IS) presence could expand its already strong
foothold” and “the Taliban would maintain their alliance with al-Qaeda. All of
this could prove catastrophic for US national security as it relates to our
fight against both al-Qaeda and IS.”
In Houston, Warren suggested that in the
absence of American troops, the United States and its allies could combat
terrorism in Afghanistan through “economic investment” and by “expanding our
diplomatic efforts.” But Rand maintains that, if American troops leave
Afghanistan before a peace agreement, the resulting insecurity will spark “the
departure of foreign diplomats, aid agency officers, and other civilians,”
including “many of Afghanistan’s most educated and capable citizens.”
In another ugly echo of the current chaos in
northern Syria, leaving Afghanistan unilaterally could endanger American troops.
The International Crisis Group warns that if the U.S. leaves without a deal, the
Taliban “might then be unwilling to allow departing U.S. forces safe passage.
Those forces might end up fighting their way out.” The thousand or so personnel
at the U.S. embassy in Kabul might have to be evacuated from the building by
air, as happened in South Vietnam.
There are, of course, differences between
Afghanistan and northern Syria. Afghanistan hosts about 14,000 American troops
at an annual cost of roughly $45 billion. And in each of the past five years,
the Afghan war has claimed roughly 20 American service members’ lives. In
northern Syria, where the United States stationed only 1,000 troops prior to
Trump’s recent withdrawal, the financial and human costs were lower. In
Afghanistan, U.S. forces are battling a homegrown Taliban rebellion (aided by
foreign support), whereas the recent bloodshed in northern Syria is largely the
result of a foreign invasion by Turkey (aided by local Syrian allies). In
Afghanistan, the United States is defending a government it installed when it
overthrew the Taliban in 2001. In Syria, by contrast, the United States was,
until Trump’s withdrawal, defending an autonomous zone—known as Rojava—that the
Kurds carved out themselves, and then expanded with American help during the war
against the Islamic State.
Daniel Nexon: Trump’s a paper tiger, and
everyone knows it
If pushed to distinguish their positions on
Syria and Afghanistan (which, sadly, didn’t happen at this week’s debate),
Democratic candidates might survey these differences and declare that America’s
presence in Rojava was sustainable in a way the Afghanistan mission is not. The
best argument for a rapid, unconditional American troop withdrawal from
Afghanistan is also the harshest. It’s that Afghanistan is doomed either way.
Rand, the International Crisis Group, and the former diplomats all suggest that,
if the United States makes a deal with the Taliban that conditions America’s
withdrawal on a peace agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government,
then Afghanistan might survive an eventual American troop departure without
collapsing into civil war and again becoming a terrorist sanctuary. At least
Americans won’t have to be ferried off the embassy roof via
helicopter.
But to the skeptic, all this sounds
suspiciously like Henry Kissinger’s request that the North Vietnamese allow a
“decent interval” following America’s departure before conquering Saigon. Since
America won’t keep its troops in Afghanistan indefinitely, and since the Afghan
army will likely crumble once they leave, neither Washington nor Kabul possesses
the leverage to make the Taliban keep its promises, even if there is a peace
deal. According to a recent report by the Institute for the Study of War, Afghan
warlords are already preparing for the civil war they now expect. So why,
leading Democratic presidential candidates might ask, should the United States
wait around for a negotiated agreement that is unlikely to make a difference?
It’s not worth sacrificing any more American lives and spending tens of billions
more dollars to delay for a couple of years—and perhaps reduce from 95 percent
to 85 percent—the likelihood that Afghanistan descends into hell.
Intellectually, this is a defensible answer.
But it’s not an answer the Democratic candidates can easily give. They can’t
give it because Democrats aren’t comfortable with the brutal language of
unvarnished national interest. They aren’t comfortable acknowledging tragic
tradeoffs between the welfare of ordinary Americans and the welfare of
vulnerable people overseas. Donald Trump is. He genuinely doesn’t care what
happens to the Kurds or the Afghans—or any other group of people who can’t offer
him votes or money or project his image onto the side of a luxury hotel.
Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Joe Biden do care, which is why they found
it so easy to offer ferocious moral denunciations of Trump’s Syria policy at
this week’s debate. They just don’t care enough to ask Americans to sacrifice to
reduce the chances that Syria’s horrors repeat themselves in
Afghanistan.
The trauma of America’s post-9/11 wars, and
the reduction in America’s resources, are pushing Democrats toward policies of
retrenchment that can only be coherently defended in the language of realism, a
language few Democrats speak. And because they don’t speak it, the Democratic
candidates for president had better hope that no enterprising moderator asks
them about Afghanistan and Syria at the same time.
(9)
Democrats in an awkward position of defending U.S. forever wars
Democrats Have No Answer for Trump's
Anti-War Posture
OCT 17, 2019 OPINION |
I hate to say I told you so, but well … as
predicted, in the wake of Trump’s commanded military withdrawal from northeast
Syria, the once U.S.-backed Kurds cut a deal with the Assad regime. (And Vice
President Mike Pence has now brokered a five-day cease-fire.) Admittedly, Trump
the “dealmaker” ought to have brokered something similar before pulling out and
before the Turkish Army—and its Sunni Arab Islamist proxies—invaded the region
and inflicted significant civilian casualties.
One must admit that a single phone call
between Trump and President Erdogan of Turkey has turned the situation in Syria
upside down in just over a week. The Kurds have requested protection from
Assad’s army, Russian troops are now patrolling between the Kurds and invading
Turks, and the U.S. is (for once) watching from the sidelines.
The execution has been sloppy, of course—a
Trumpian trademark—and the human cost potentially heavy. Nonetheless, the U.S.
withdrawal represents a significant instance of the president actually following
through on campaign promises to end an endless American war in the Mideast. The
situation isn’t simple, of course, and for the Kurds it is yet another
fatalistic event in that people’s tragic history.
Still, while the situation in Northeast
Syria constitutes a byzantine mess, it’s increasingly unclear that a continued
U.S. military role there would be productive or strategic in the long term.
After all, if Washington’s endgame wasn’t to establish a lasting,
U.S.-guaranteed Kurdish nation-state of Rojava, and it hardly appeared that it
ever was, then what exactly could America expect to accomplish through an
all-risk, no-reward continued stalemate in Syria?
What’s truly striking, though, and
increasingly apparent, is that President Trump possesses—as a foreign policy
autocrat, of sorts—the power to derail the Democrats and place 2020 hopefuls in
an awkward position of defending U.S. forever wars. It’s already happening, at
least among mainstream “liberal” media and political personalities who’ve
flooded the networks with anti-Trump vitriol since the Syria
withdrawal.
Lest we confuse Donald Trump with a
consistent antiwar dove, it’s important to remember that his behavior is erratic
and often turns on a dime. Take, for example, his decision to impose sanctions
on Turkey right after greenlighting the very invasion he now seeks to punish.
He’s also prone to contradictory moves. Also, just as he pulled troops from
Syria, he added an even larger number to Saudi Arabia, justifying the move on
the grounds that the Saudis will foot the entire bill, making rather official
the U.S. military’s gradual transformation into a mercenary force ready to serve
the highest bidder. Trump has also surpassed, in his first two years, the number
of drone strikes his predecessor Barack Obama launched overseas during the same
phase of Obama’s presidency.
Nonetheless, Trump’s Democratic opponents
have bet big on using Syria to attack the president without providing any real
alternatives to withdrawal. In doing so, they might just hand Trump a winning
hand for 2020. In fact, I haven’t seen so much foreign policy coverage of a U.S.
war by the establishment media for over a decade, at least since Democrats
finally turned against Bush’s failing war in Iraq as a tool for midterm
electoral success.
The attention suddenly focused on Syria is
rather cynical, of course, with the country’s civil war only receiving notice
now because it’s a cudgel used to reflexively attack Trump. It’s not about
Kurdish ethnic rights or women’s, rights—and it never was. No, this is all about
partisan political advantage. And it might just backfire on the Dems.
Trump isn’t all that scared of criticism on
Syria, even from the establishment wing of his own party. Firing back at critics
this week, Trump tweeted: “Others may want to come in and fight for one side or
the other [in Syria]. Let them!”
See, this president knows what many
congressional Republicans do not appear to realize: that the old conservative
coalition—which included a powerful hawkish national security wing—is breaking
down. The Republican base, well, they’re just about as sick of endless war as is
Trump himself. Consider this remarkable turnaround: In recent polls, 56% of
Republicans supported Trump’s Syria withdrawal, while 60% of Democrats opposed
it.
Which brings us back to the mainstream
Democratic machine and the potentially awkward position of even the most
progressive of the 2020 presidential hopefuls on the “left.” By flipping the
script and demonstrating that Trump and his conservative backers constitute the
only serious antiwar coalition, he could expose that establishment Dems—who’ve
almost all stood tall with the neocon retreads against Trump’s move—represent
little more than Sen. Lindsey Graham lite. He could show that they’re hawks too,
opportunistic hawks at that, figures mired in the Washington swamp. Disgust with
that bipartisan beltway elite is exactly what got Mr. Trump elected in 2016
(along with a peculiar outdated Electoral College, of course), which is exactly
why responding to Trump’s (tentative) war-ending propensity will be sensitive
and awkward for Democratic leaders and presidential candidates.
Look, even America’s usually conservative,
if (purportedly) apolitical, soldiers and veterans are now against these forever
wars that Trump ostensibly seeks to end. A series of polls this summer indicated
that nearly two-thirds of post-9/11 vets say they believe the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan and the military engagement in Syria “were not worth it.” This
should have been an alarm bell for both major parties, but expect the Democrats
to once again squander the opportunity presented by these frustrated, alienated
troopers.
By ignoring foreign policy—generally having
ceded that political territory to the Republicans since midway through the Cold
War—the Dems have ensured that most of these antiwar veterans won’t find a home,
or land in the Democratic Party.
I personally know dozens of these sorts of
exhausted veterans. Almost none have followed my own journey toward the left. In
fact, the vast majority tell me they trust Trump, warts and all, over figures
like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden or any of the other Democratic elites that they
find even more corrupt than the reality-TV-star-in-chief. My friends and
colleagues may be wrong, may be off-base, but most truly believe it, which ought
to worry Democrats. Only it won’t, or at least not in enough time.
So, while I’m cautious about giving sensible
advice to Trump (luckily, he doesn’t read Truthdig, or read much at all), I
think there’s potential for him to craft a winning strategy for 2020.
Here’s a modest proposal on just how it
might go: He could end one of America’s illegal wars, particularly those clearly
not covered by the post-9/11 AUMFs [Authorization for Use of Military Force],
every three months. Little-to-no warning, ignoring the complaints of senior
generals and national security officials; just pick an ill-advised military
intervention (there’re plenty to choose from) and announce its end.
Not only would this distract from
impeachment, but it would force Trump’s potential 2020 opponents to perform some
awkward intellectual gymnastics. They’d be obliged to double-down and promise to
end even more wars, even more quickly, than Trump. Or, more likely, they could
join the bipartisan swampy establishment and half-heartedly (and disingenuously)
defend continuing the very unwinnable wars with which the American people have
grown so tired.
I know all of that’s unlikely, but it’s not
unthinkable. Trump could even wrap himself in a new brand of patriotism and
emphasize his concern for America’s beloved troops. Now, this president isn’t
known for his sincerity, but he has previously claimed that signing condolence
letters for the families of fallen servicemen “is the hardest thing he does.” So
in my fantasy, Trump would address the nation in prime time, and, noting that
18-year-olds have begun to deploy to Afghanistan, assure the people that he
intends to end these wars before a kid born after 9/11 dies in one of
them.
————
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army Major
and regular contributor to Truthdig. His work has also appeared in Harper’s, The
LA Times, The Nation, Tom Dispatch, The Huffington Post and The Hill. He served
combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught
history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical
analysis of the Iraq War, “Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the
Myth of the Surge.” He co-hosts the progressive veterans’ podcast “Fortress on a
Hill.” Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet.
(10)
Kurdish PKK/YPG troops join the Syrian army; MSM beatup Trump's
withdrawal
October 18, 2019
Media And Pundits Misread The 'Everyone
Wins' Plan For Syria
The U.S. media get yesterday's talks between
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
all wrong. Those talks were just a show to soothe the criticism against
President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeast
Syria.
The fake negotiations did not change the
larger win-win-win-win plan or the facts on the ground. The Syrian Arab Army is
replacing the Kurdish PKK/YPG troops at the border with Turkey. The armed
PKK/YPG forces, which had deceivingly renamed themselves (vid) "Syrian
Democratic Forces" to win U.S. support, will be disbanded and integrated into
the Syrian army. Those moves are sufficient to give Turkey the security
guarantees it needs. They will prevent any further Turkish invasion.
The Washington Post reports:
Turkey agreed Thursday to a cease-fire that
would suspend its march into Syria and temporarily halt a week of vicious
fighting with Kurdish forces, while allowing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s
government to carve out a long-coveted buffer zone far beyond its
borders.
The agreement, announced by Vice President
Pence after hours of negotiations, appeared to hand Turkey’s leader most of what
he sought when his military launched an assault on northeastern Syria just over
a week ago: the expulsion of Syrian Kurdish militias from the border and the
removal of a U.S. threat to impose sanctions on Turkey’s vulnerable
economy.
Pence said Turkey had agreed to pause its
offensive for five days while the United States helped facilitate the withdrawal
of Kurdish-led forces, called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), from a large
swath of territory stretching from Turkey’s border nearly 20 miles south into
Syria. After the completion of the Kurdish withdrawal, Turkey’s military
operation, which began Oct. 9, would be "halted entirely," Pence
said.
The
New York Times falsely headlines: In ‘Cave-In,’ Trump Cease-Fire Cements
Turkey’s Gains in Syria
The cease-fire agreement reached with Turkey
by Vice President Mike Pence amounts to a near-total victory for Turkey’s
president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who gains territory, pays little in penalties
and appears to have outmaneuvered President Trump.
The best that can be said for the agreement
is that it may stop the killing in the Kurdish enclave in northern Syria. But
the cost for Kurds, longtime American allies in the fight against the Islamic
State, is severe: Even Pentagon officials were mystified about where tens of
thousands of displaced Kurds would go, as they moved south from the Turkey-Syria
border as required by the deal — if they agree to go at all. ... Military
officials said they were stunned that the agreement essentially allowed Turkey
to annex a portion of Syria, displace tens of thousands of Kurdish residents and
wipe away years of counterterrorism gains against the Islamic State.
The U.S. can not "allow Turkey to annex a
portion of Syria". The U.S. does not own Syria. It is completely bollocks to
think that it has the power to allow Turkey to annex parts of it.
Turkey will not "gain territory". There will
be no Turkish "security corridor". The Kurdish civilians in Kobani, Ras al Ain
and Qamishli areas will not go anywhere. The Turks will not touch those Kurdish majority
areas because they are, or soon will be, under control of the Syrian government
and its army.
{photo}
The picture, taken yesterday, shows the
Syrian-Turkish border crossing north of Kobani. The Syrian army took control of
it and raised the Syrian flag. There are no longer any Kurdish forces there that
could threaten Turkey.
The Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu
confirmed that Turkey agrees with the Syrian government moves:
Russia "promised that the PKK or YPG will
not be on the other side of the border," Cavusoglu said in an interview with the
BBC. "If Russia, accompanied by the Syrian army, removes YPG elements from the
region, we will not oppose this." Even partisan Syrians opposed to its
government recognize the ploy:
Rami Jarrah @RamiJarrah - 12:53 UTC · Oct
17, 2019 Turkey’s foreign minister once again reiterates that if Russia and the
Syrian regime take over border areas they will not object, as long as the PYD
are expelled. This has to be the easiest land grab opportunity Assad has had
since the war started.
These moves have been planed all along. The
Turkish invasion in northeast Syria was designed to give Trump a reason to
withdraw U.S. troops. It was designed to push the Kurdish forces to finally
submit to the Syrian government. Behind the scene Russia had already organized
the replacement of the Kurdish forces with Syrian government troops. It has
coordinated the Syrian army moves with the U.S. military. Turkey had agreed that
Syrian government control would be sufficient to alleviate its concern about a
Kurdish guerilla and a Kurdish proto-state at its border. Any further Turkish
invasion of Syria is thereby unnecessary.
The plan has everyone winning. Turkey will
be free of a Kurdish threat. Syria regains its territory. The U.S. can leave
without further trouble. Russia and Iran gain standing. The Kurds get taken care
of.
The 'ceasefire' and the retreat of the armed
Kurdish groups from the border, which is claimed to have been negotiated
yesterday between Pence and Erdogan, had already been decided on before the U.S.
announced its withdrawal from Syria.
As veteran reporter Elijah Magnier wrote
yesterday, before the Turkish-U.S. negotiations happened:
Assad trusts that Russia will succeed in
halting the Turkish advance and reduce its consequences, perhaps by asking the
Kurds to pull back to a 30 km distance from the Turkish borders to satisfy
President Erdogan’s anxiety. That could also fit the Turkish-Syrian 1998 Adana
agreement (5 km buffer zone rather than 30 km) and offer tranquillity to all
parties involved. Turkey wants to make sure the Kurdish YPG, the PKK Syrian
branch, is disarmed and contained. Nothing seems difficult for Russia to manage,
particularly when the most difficult objective has already been graciously
offered: the US forces’ withdrawal.
What Magnier describes is exactly what Pence
and Erdogan agreed upon after he wrote it because it was - all along - part of
the larger common plan.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump - 20:13 UTC
· Oct 17, 2019 This is a great day for civilization. I am proud of the United
States for sticking by me in following a necessary, but somewhat unconventional,
path. People have been trying to make this "Deal" for many years. Millions of
lives will be saved. Congratulations to ALL! The question is now if the U.S.
will stick to the deal or if the pressure on President Trump will get so heavy
that he needs to retreat from the common deal. The U.S. must move ALL its troops
out of northeast Syria for the plot to succeed. Any residual U.S. force, even an
unsustainable small one, will make the situation much more
complicate.
That the U.S. media and pundits completely
misread the situation is a symptom of a wider failure. As Anatol Lieven
describes the mess of U.S. Middle Eastern strategy:
This pattern has its roots in the decay of
the US political system and political establishment at home, including the power
of lobbies and their money over US policy in key areas; the retreat of area
studies in academia and think tanks, leading to sheer ignorance of some of the
key countries with which the USA has to deal; the self-obsession,
self-satisfaction and ideological megalomania that in every dispute leads so
much of the US establishment and media to cast the USA as a force of absolute
good, and its opponents as absolutely evil; and the failure – linked to these
three syndromes – to identify vital and secondary interests and choose between
them .. Only a few realist in the U.S. recognize reality. Stephen
Walt:
The bottom line: The solution to the
situation in Syria is to acknowledge Assad’s victory and work with the other
interested parties to stabilize the situation there. Unfortunately, that
sensible if unsavory approach is anathema to the foreign-policy "Blob"—Democrats
and Republicans alike—and its members are marshaling the usual tired arguments
to explain why it’s all Trump’s fault and the United States should never have
withdrawn a single soldier.
I am confident for now that the blob will be
held off by Trump and that the Win4 plan will succeed. Erdogan will soon travel
to Russia to discuss the next steps towards peace in Syria. The talks will be
about a common plan to liberated the Jihadi controlled governorate of Idleb.
That step may require a summit between the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and
Erdogan which Russia and Iran will help to facilitate.
With the U.S. removed from the Syria file
such steps towards peace will now be much easier.
Posted by b on October 18, 2019 at 6:43 UTC
|
-- Peter Myers 381 Goodwood Rd Childers Qld 4660 Australia ph. in Australia: 07 41170125 from overseas: +61 7 41170125 website: http://mailstar.net/index.html Skype video: petermyersaus . By prior arrangement only, after discussions by email. To unsubscribe, reply with "Unsubscribe" in the Subject line. Allow one day.
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