If there’s anything I have heard from every veteran of the Iraq war and the Gulf War, it’s that the Kurds are the only good people in the region.

Too bad we have neither.

I'll be happy when the reality television show guy is gone.

Our actions are precipitating a humanitarian disaster as bad as the initial Syrian Civil War, which our inaction prolonged.

It wouldn't have been boots on the ground it would be assassination by drone btw. Clean dart through the heart to show that dictators shouldn't open fire on the peaceful people gathered in their cities.

If you defend Assad then you'll defend any totalitarian dictator like Stalin or Hitler without being a hypocrite.

We know you would be against D-day, etc.




Yep. Like I said, Taiwan must be very nervous right now.

Every one of our rivals has benefitted from us having a weak sovereign.

Most here wouldn't go to places like that and do what those guys did though. You can't explain honor to people who don't understand it already.

This post was edited by Skinned on Oct 9 2019 04:04pm

"Ppl like you", wondering if that's an internet thing to not get banned for personal attacks as it seems to be popular from some idiots addressing arguments. This is not done out of value for lives.. It are only tax dollars that are important. More evidently now than before.

Basically meaning that Trump is to be considered worthless without his tax refunds according to his actions.

This post was edited by Knoppie on Oct 9 2019 04:06pm

i just love how the cult is trying to excuse this devastating foreign policy blunder with his alleged 'non-interventionism', completely ignoring all the conflicts he remained in and the ones he created in the first place (like iran, something that has a much larger scale btw).

but hey, abruptly and without any strategic thought or coordination abandoning the only reasonable faction in that whole damn region, while it's facing concrete and unambiguously announced military threats is 'good', simply because the emperor says so.

don't get me wrong, all those shitty republicans like lindsey graham and ted cruz, who suddenly appear to have grown something that remotely resembles balls, who managed to finally speak out against something trump does, do so for the wrong reasons. they don't give a shit about the kurds or even americas reliability as an ally, their only thoughts are with their donors and owners in the military industrial complex - but in the short term (it would have been great if a kurdish state, or at least an internationally recognised and protected, self-governing region would have been established BEFORE america withdrew) they happen to be 'right', but no one who knows the first thing about the conflict, or them for that matter, is fooled by their statements...
and just to be crystal clear (and to inb4 the inevitable and simplistic 'if you disagree with this decision you are pro war' narrative): as a long term goal i absolutely agree with america withdrawing from ALL middle eastern conflicts, but only doing it where there's vested interest by turkey, russia, and ISIS, and where no mining and digging rights are to be won for american companies, is as transparent as it gets...

I'm a bad guy though. It doesn't matter that I work hard, have never been on warfare, am a combat veteran, a licensed social worker in my state, give money to charity, volunteer my time, don't lie to or manipulate people, and generally do no harm and take personal responsibility for my existence, no criminal record or past....

Too bad I'm out here lol. I bet he would rather have George Zimmerman as a neighbor. Too bad I throw a good BBQ and I'm very generous.

And yes I'm very fortunate.

This post was edited by Skinned on Oct 9 2019 04:13pm

Do you hear that guys ? Free BBQ at Skinned place coming up !!!

Skinned wanted intervention. We've discussed this issue ad nauseam and in no way am i mis-representing his point of view on this.

Many people died in our idiotic interventions and it's not just a few tax dollars it's 6 trillion dollars. Imagine how many people could be provided with basic preventative insurance with 6 trillion. Imagine how many lives could have been saved just by using those funds for that instead.



You're not a bad guy, you're just ignorant of the effects of actions. I don't defend Assad, what i defend is a utilitarian perspective in which most are better off. Yes Assad is a bad guy, yes he killed many people, but is removing him mean the region or most of those people will be better off? What happens with the power vacuum that's created? What happens to the Alawite, Christian, Kurd, Yazidi minorities in a void where it would have been filled by the Al-Nusra types? Do you understand that if we removed Assad we would need to spend 10 years there to make sure the country doesn't implode like Iraq would have? Do you care that even after 10 years of keeping things bottled up the ISIS types will emerge when we leave?

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Oct 9 2019 05:29pm

The Syrian Civil War was much worse than the Iraq War in terms of death. The Syrian Civil War was a couple orders of magnitude greater than the Iraqi War....

Iraq is imploding, Syria imploded several years ago. Both countries were the most educated nations in the Middle East not that long ago.

https://twitter.com/JenGriffinFNC/status/1182053870744276993

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For ofthevoid, aren't the consequences of our interventions relevant? We have an extremely limited presence in Syria. Obama used restraint, formed a coalition to fight ISIS, which Trump continued, and they were mostly defeated. The Kurds fought for us and suffered far more casualties than we did.

This is where the ideological non-interventionists lose me. There's examples in American history where a limited intervention makes perfect sense and prevents far worse outcomes. The Gulf War is a prime example. It's ahistorical to pretend America can just pack up and leave from the world militarily and expect things to work out just fine. We all agree that major mistakes have been made(Vietnam, Iraq), but throwing every intervention into that category is silly.

The Kurds didn't fight for us they fought for themselves. It's westerncentric to think ISIS was wiped out because of us. They didn't lose to some coalition, they lost because after Trump won, everyone knew he wouldn't get in the way of Assad and Russia. So what happened is the Russians started raining bombs on them while Assad & Shiite militias started advancing. In concert with that, the Kurds also started advancing on ISIS.

The Kurds are alright but thinking of defending them is a good idea is dumb as fuck and ignores the dynamics of the region. Turkey will simply not allow Kurds to set up shop on their border and quarterback insurrection in Turkey, that's the cold hard reality. Turkey has the second largest army in NATO and to essentially position our self against them would be a catastrophic mistake. There are no good choices here, but as much as i would want to tell Turkey to fuck off and support the Kurds, putting our self at odds with a NATO ally in a very strategic part of the world would be the height of geopolitical stupidity. I mean, lets say we leave our troops there, and Turkey starts rolling in with the jets and the tanks, what are you going to do start a war with a country that has an army of 600,000 soldiers and somewhat modern military?