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2019-10-14 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Retired four-star Marine general Allen: 'There is blood on Trump's hands':
[MAIL] A retired four-star Marine general has slammed President Donald Trump saying there is blood on his hands over the unfolding crisis in Syria after he ordered all U.S. troops to withdraw from the northern border area.

General John Allen told CNN on Sunday that the U.S. 'greenlighted' the current situation in Syria and that it was 'completely foreseeable'.

Syria's Kurds said Syrian government forces agreed on Sunday to help them fend off Turkey's invasion - a major shift in alliances that came after Trump ordered all U.S. troops withdrawn from the northern border area amid the rapidly deepening chaos.

The fast-deteriorating situation was set in motion last week when Trump ordered U.S. troops in northern Syria to step aside, clearing the way for an attack by Turkey, which regards the Kurds as terrorists.

Since 2014, the Kurds have fought alongside the U.S. in defeating the Islamic State in Syria and Trump's move was decried at home and abroad as a betrayal of an ally.
Posted by Besoeker 2019-10-14 06:28|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ]  Top

#1 At least it won't be American blood.

Any emails lately from socialite Jill Kelley down in Tampa ?
Posted by Besoeker 2019-10-14 06:39||   2019-10-14 06:39|| Front Page Top

#2 But NATO says what about their ïslamic member???
Posted by Varmint Splat1454 2019-10-14 07:11||   2019-10-14 07:11|| Front Page Top

#3 Let the Israelis spend their own money and send their own boys in to die and be maimed. We're sick of it.

We have no interest in this area and further intervention is of no benefit to us whatsoever.
Posted by Herb McCoy 2019-10-14 07:22||   2019-10-14 07:22|| Front Page Top

#4 Let the Israelis spend their own money and send their own boys in to die and be maimed. We're sick of it.

But then we wouldn't be secret rulers of the World anymore, Herb.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-10-14 08:06||   2019-10-14 08:06|| Front Page Top

#5 The Syrian Kurds quickly made an arrangement with Pencil Neck (and likely the Russians). General Allen had a bad case of clientitism.
Posted by Chereting Pelosi1889 2019-10-14 08:28||   2019-10-14 08:28|| Front Page Top

#6 And the other presidents don't!?!?!

There is going to be blood spilt no matter what we do or don't do. It is the Middle East after all.
Posted by DarthVader 2019-10-14 08:56||   2019-10-14 08:56|| Front Page Top

#7 What is our interest in Syria?
Posted by Lex 2019-10-14 09:09||   2019-10-14 09:09|| Front Page Top

#8 Did he complain about the hordes of refuges sent up through Europe from Syria and Libya as the result of Obama and Hillary's Arab Spring? To say nothing about all the people in the ME and North Africa who died as the result of Obama. Sometimes it is best to not say any stupid remarks lest you remove all doubt.
Posted by JohnQC 2019-10-14 09:39||   2019-10-14 09:39|| Front Page Top

#9 ... All fall down ...
Posted by Lex 2019-10-14 09:44||   2019-10-14 09:44|| Front Page Top

#10 I think Varmint Splat makes a damned fine point. What is NATO's position on Turkey's actions?
Posted by rjschwarz 2019-10-14 09:52||   2019-10-14 09:52|| Front Page Top

#11 Really seems our last real General was Stormin Norman. Far too many of these guys are politicians instead of Soldiers and Marines.
Posted by Silentbrick 2019-10-14 10:02||   2019-10-14 10:02|| Front Page Top

#12 We, America, did not sign up to enter a war that can never be won. We signed up to remove ISIS and to train the Kurds for self defense. We did not sign up to defend them. We had 50 troops there, not enough to defend themselves let alone a country. I for one, do not want America being the middle eastern police department that all nations hate and want to do another 911 on. Remember 911 was initially triggered by our involvement in the Iraq war against Kuwait. Which both countries took our wealth and treasure only to be hated after. We give a fortune to Israel and Egypt to keep the peace, and again Israel is a friend and Egypt would much rather see us gone. One last point, where the hell were all these crying, I hate my country for abandoning the Kurds, when the Muslims eradicated, meaning murdered, all the Christians in Iraq, or when they murdered the Christians in Syria, or the Christians in South Sudan. They are hypocrites playing politics against Trump for keeping his words.
Posted by 49 Pan 2019-10-14 12:36||   2019-10-14 12:36|| Front Page Top

#13 It wasn't the war that led to 9/11, it was the postwar stationing of US troops in the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia that caused it.

You know, the same foreign interventionism that has led to basically all the problems we have today. Six trillion spent with nothing to show for it. Americans could live in palaces behind a wall 100 feet high and have free medical care for life, free college, and highspeed rail from sea to shining sea for that money. But no, all we got was war after war, with no end in sight.
Posted by Herb McCoy 2019-10-14 12:54||   2019-10-14 12:54|| Front Page Top

#14 In both World War I and World War II, there were American boys who went to England before our country got involved in those wars and volunteered in either the Canadian or the British military. In the Texas war for independence from Mexico, Davy Crockett and other Tennesseans volunteered to fight at the Alamo.

So, if Megan McCain and all the other brave hawks feel so strongly about fighting somebody else's war, they can put their own asses on the line, they can go to Syria and volunteer to fight with the Kurds. Just don't ask me to pay for it.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2019-10-14 13:07||   2019-10-14 13:07|| Front Page Top

#15 It wasn't the war that led to 9/11, it was the postwar stationing of US troops in the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia that caused it.

Well, that was their excuse for it and it can certainly be said that's what we get for trying to help those people. But it was also the misguided, corrupt policy of letting those nut cases into our country.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2019-10-14 13:12||   2019-10-14 13:12|| Front Page Top

#16 It wasn't the war that led to 9/11, it was the postwar stationing of US troops in the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia that caused it.

Al Qaeda’s real objection to American troops on Arabian soil was that they would prevent an Al Qaeda overthrow of the House of Saud. The various pronouncements tying the corrupt and backsliding Saudis to the “crusaders” made that clear. After all, they never objected to the hordes of Philippino technicians and household servants on the sacred Muslim soil, all of whom were practicing Christians.
Posted by trailing wife 2019-10-14 13:32||   2019-10-14 13:32|| Front Page Top

#17 Gen Allen is one of the public faces of the West's total lack of civilisational self-confidence.

There's no reason to believe that a Western mission in Syria would not degenerate into a public display of Western masochism and the importation of alien tyranny into Western nations;
just as the Afghanistan intervention.
Posted by Elmerert Hupens2660 2019-10-14 13:43||   2019-10-14 13:43|| Front Page Top

#18 Can anyone articulate the goal of our intervention in Syria?

Anyone?
Posted by Lex 2019-10-14 14:02||   2019-10-14 14:02|| Front Page Top

#19 ^Why ask us, ask Obama.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-10-14 14:11||   2019-10-14 14:11|| Front Page Top

#20 Since 2014, the Kurds have fought alongside the U.S. in defeating the Islamic State in Syria and Trump's move was decried at home and abroad as a betrayal of an ally.

One is motivated to ask "Would ISIS leave Kurds alone if they wouldn't ally with USA?"
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-10-14 14:15||   2019-10-14 14:15|| Front Page Top

#21 I kinda lost confidence in our generals when McChrystal proposed the "Courageous Restraint" award. Huh?
Posted by Matt 2019-10-14 14:23||   2019-10-14 14:23|| Front Page Top

#22 One is motivated to ask "Would ISIS leave Kurds alone if they wouldn't ally with USA?"

However, one knows the answer is, “Don’t be ridiculous. ISIS attempted to conquer everybody who wasn’t them, including Al Nusra, the original Syrian branch of Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria that ISIS was supposed to be part of.”
Posted by trailing wife 2019-10-14 15:11||   2019-10-14 15:11|| Front Page Top

#23 And therefore USA doesn't owe Syrian Kurds but the other way around?
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-10-14 15:19||   2019-10-14 15:19|| Front Page Top

#24 A good question, g(r)omgoru. :-)
Posted by trailing wife 2019-10-14 17:09||   2019-10-14 17:09|| Front Page Top

#25 For Lex, and others wondering just WTF America was doing in Syria.

"... after decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be.” - Obama

The Syria Transition Support Act, a bipartisan legislation introduced by a FR committee and passed by a majority. It included weapons and training to the (Sunni) Syrian Opposition, sanctions on trade with the (Alawite) Assad Regime, delivering a stable and secure Post-Assad Syria.

Assad's side are the Alawites, the Opposition are mainly sunnis, the majority of Syrians are dominated by an alawite group. This was probably unacceptable to Obama, a sunni himself.

Incidentally, all the attacks on christians, yezidis and others within Syria are perpetrated by the sunnis, people part of the Syrian Opposition. Not mere strong arming and harassment, but the Free Syrian Army and armed mullahs screaming for regime change have indulged in overnight ethnic cleansing and delivered christians and kurds into ISIS hands too.

It seems Trump, in the understandable practice of reversing a predecessor's follies has extricated US forces from a bloody, bedouin power game, and maybe it's a successful move in the short term. I know that God is with Trump as long as he's for Israel and christians and whatever he does shall somehow prosper for now.

The General is right too, in a way. A very minimal presence of base staff and some APCs could have prevented the Turks, but for some reason, Trump personally welcomed Erdogan to feel free to run amok. That is just wrong.

Conservatives as we are, we may run with the 'other people's wars' rationale, but many of you who have served and fought alongside strangers will understand my bitterness with the outcome.

And the thousands of ISIS freed, salafist bastards all the way to Pakistain rejoicing. Why, even Obama could not have delivered such a bounty.
Posted by Dron66046 2019-10-14 17:09||   2019-10-14 17:09|| Front Page Top

#26 Fair enough- thanks Dron.
Posted by Lex 2019-10-14 17:15||   2019-10-14 17:15|| Front Page Top

#27 I'm beginning to think it's rooted in the land itself. A curse, that shall demand blood constantly, the attempts of humans to build States and reach ceasefires notwithstanding.

A bloodthirsty Djinn that shall not be denied, no matter what level of mutual coexistence is imposed. Maybe it's in the Bible somewhere...
Posted by Dron66046 2019-10-14 17:16||   2019-10-14 17:16|| Front Page Top

#28 delivering a stable and secure Post-Assad Syria.

How about a stable and secure America? The only place we need to be nation-building is right here at home. This stated mission is a fool's errand that will never realistically happen. Let the Israelis do the dying if it's so important to them.
Posted by Herb McCoy 2019-10-14 17:16||   2019-10-14 17:16|| Front Page Top

#29 for some reason, Trump personally welcomed Erdogan

This forced the Kurds to suddenly become realistic. They quickly submitted themselves to Assad and Russia, and within hours Syrian and Russian forces were headed for the Turkish border.

But even I know that an army must spend time organizing logistics before it can move out, which suggests Assad and Putin’s local generals had been preparing for some time for exactly this situation. One must wonder what it was that turned their thoughts in that direction.
Posted by trailing wife 2019-10-14 17:20||   2019-10-14 17:20|| Front Page Top

#30 Yes. in that you're right. Except for the Israelis part, whom I don't know why you hate so much.

In my book, America serves at the pleasure of The King, and Israel are His family. 'Nuff said.
Posted by Dron66046 2019-10-14 17:21||   2019-10-14 17:21|| Front Page Top

#31 Sorry, TW. That reply was for Mr. McCoy, who weeps for every village idiot in Afghanistan killed in a drone strike, but happens to dismiss other with abandon.
Posted by Dron66046 2019-10-14 17:24||   2019-10-14 17:24|| Front Page Top

#32 Well, TW. You'll agree that the act of keeping ISIS prisoners alive in squalid prisons under local allies, and then letting principal supporters of ISIS kill those prison guards is pretty daft.

From an optics view, it may be salvaged by our 'other people's wars' idea, and we may tell ourselves that Russia will save them, and they're ultimately all muslim commies anyway - but these things gather up a cosmic vendetta of their own in the long run. I just don't have a good feeling.

Oh... forget it. What's done is done. I'm still hungover from yesterday.
Posted by Dron66046 2019-10-14 17:34||   2019-10-14 17:34|| Front Page Top

#33 You'll agree that the act of keeping ISIS prisoners alive in squalid prisons under local allies, and then letting principal supporters of ISIS kill those prison guards is pretty daft.

The sillies thought they'd be able to hand the prisoners off to their countrymen, countrymen who’d been fussing at America for nearly two decades about holding jihadis in Guantanamo Bay instead of bringing them to the U.S. for trial. Now we all know, and it seems to me those among the prisoners who manage to escape the battle space unkilled will be a fraction of those who were originally held... and mostly not their women and children.
Posted by trailing wife 2019-10-14 17:43||   2019-10-14 17:43|| Front Page Top

#34 That reply was for Mr. McCoy, who weeps for every village idiot in Afghanistan killed in a drone strike, but happens to dismiss other with abandon.

I had so assumed, Dron66046. :-) That’s why I put the bit I’m responding to in italics, and/or name the person I’m responding to. I’ve had to apologize too many times to the legitimately annoyed, which is an effective but unhappy way to learn.
Posted by trailing wife 2019-10-14 17:47||   2019-10-14 17:47|| Front Page Top

#35 Who hates Israelis? You just made that up. Rantburgers have some kind of mental block where they read something I wrote and then lie to me about what I said.

I'll say it again: if this issue is so important to them let them send their own people to do the dying. All of Syria isn't worth a single American life.

And yes, I do care a great deal about innocent civilians getting killed. It's called being a fucking human being.
Posted by Herb McCoy 2019-10-14 17:54||   2019-10-14 17:54|| Front Page Top

#36 Yes, the pre-quote. I should use that more often.

You didn't see the party we had yesterday. Two learned men and an Indian drunk. You shoulda seen the look on Frank's face when he entered the room.☺

Sorry for the broken glass.
Posted by Dron66046 2019-10-14 17:54||   2019-10-14 17:54|| Front Page Top

#37  I’ve had to apologize too many times to the legitimately annoyed

Shit. Forgot the pre-quote again.

Herb, sorry to raise your blood pressure again. Please don't start hating human beings now.
Posted by Dron66046 2019-10-14 17:57||   2019-10-14 17:57|| Front Page Top

#38 if this issue is so important to them let them send their own people to do the dying. All of Syria isn't worth a single American life.

Huh? When did Israel demand the U.S. fix the situation in Syria? Historically it’s been the other way round: Israel wanted to handle a situation by breaking a few key things and killing a few key people, but America told them to not upset various applecarts. The first Gulf War comes to mind, when President George Herbert Walker Bush refused to let Israel bomb Saddam Hussein’s scud missile launchers lest the other Coalition members refuse to get involved where Joooooooos were present; the joint North Korean-Syrian nuclear weapons facility (Israel sent in some scientist-spies for that one to physically obtain samples and photos demonstrating that the Syrians really were building what the Israelis claimed before President Bush would agree); Iran’s nuclear bomb development program — both George W. and Barack Hussein Obama refused repeatedly to agree to Israel bombing the sites, BHO even promising Iran that he would protect them against those mean Israelis, to the point that the Israelis had to cart away and entire fucking warehouse full of documents under the noses of ite Iranian guards to even get a hearing... not that anyone is letting them act on it even yet.

You are full of it, Mr, McCoy. You have an idée fixe on the subject of Israel which is seriously unhealthy.
Posted by trailing wife 2019-10-14 18:09||   2019-10-14 18:09|| Front Page Top

#39 Evidence of a missed warm milk and noon-day nap. Herb, please adjust your schedule for tomorrow accordingly. This is your last warning.
Posted by Besoeker 2019-10-14 18:50||   2019-10-14 18:50|| Front Page Top

#40 I was severely shocked and Herb, you're still a pedant c*nt
Posted by Frank G 2019-10-14 19:36||   2019-10-14 19:36|| Front Page Top

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