Hi there, !
Today Thu 10/17/2019 Wed 10/16/2019 Tue 10/15/2019 Mon 10/14/2019 Sun 10/13/2019 Sat 10/12/2019 Fri 10/11/2019 Archives
Rantburg
531691 articles and 1855967 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 64 articles and 284 comments as of 12:11.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Trump tells Pentagon to begin withdrawing remaining troops from northern Syria
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
3 14:20 Matt [1] 
8 14:19 3dc [] 
9 21:08 SteveS [] 
40 19:36 Frank G [2] 
2 11:55 Lex [] 
2 13:44 Mercutio [1] 
1 09:19 Lex [1] 
3 16:09 Procopius2k [1] 
20 23:18 JohnQC [1] 
5 14:10 Glenmore [] 
1 18:07 Dron66046 [] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
0 [1]
0 [1]
3 15:15 Herb McCoy []
10 16:19 JohnQC []
4 17:49 Dron66046 []
0 [1]
0 []
0 []
3 17:14 trailing wife []
0 [1]
2 11:40 Lex [1]
0 [1]
0 [1]
2 17:44 Dron66046 [1]
0 [1]
0 [1]
0 []
0 [1]
0 [1]
Page 2: WoT Background
0 []
9 23:34 trailing wife [1]
2 17:39 Dron66046 [1]
3 08:46 DarthVader []
0 []
3 16:23 JohnQC [1]
4 16:57 chris [1]
4 09:00 Lex []
12 17:12 trailing wife [1]
0 [1]
0 [2]
0 [1]
8 16:56 JohnQC []
0 []
14 19:36 746 []
0 []
1 11:23 SteveS [1]
3 17:36 trailing wife []
1 08:24 Chereting Pelosi1889 []
0 []
0 []
Page 3: Non-WoT
10 23:19 ruprecht [1]
5 09:54 Lex []
16 19:39 Procopius2k [2]
3 14:34 Bright Pebbles []
0 []
0 []
Page 6: Politix
8 14:00 Lex []
6 23:27 trailing wife []
3 08:50 Raj []
6 10:06 JohnQC []
7 19:18 Lex []
19 20:08 Frank G [1]
19 23:16 ruprecht []
The Grand Turk
Turkey’s invasion a trigger for ruinous regional war
[ARABNEWS] Are we sliding into an expanded conflict in a region already on a knife-edge following Iran’s escalations against oil infrastructure and other targets? Talking to diplomats with decades of Middle East experience, many grimly believe this to be the case. The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund...
’s invasion of northeastern Syria demolishes a fragile status quo: Just 2,000 US troops had deterred Iranian proxies from dominating the east of the country, while a few hundred Kurdish fighters guarded nearly 100,000 ISIS
<...embracing their inner Islamic Brute...
suspects and their families.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 10/14/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Sublime Porte

#1  As distinct from the peace MM had until now?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/14/2019 4:12 Comments || Top||

#2  "the American abdication of responsibility in eastern Syria"

What the fuck? WHAT responsibility? We have NO responsibility! Who asked us to do that? Nobody. It has zero support among the American people and does not benefit us one iota.

It's beyond obvious that these people have an entirely warped worldview that is unsupported by any evidence. In their book, America pays for everything and that's just how it is. Nobody has ever stopped to think about if it's a good idea that benefits Americans.

We're self sufficient in oil now. Things have changed. It's not the Carter administration any more.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 10/14/2019 4:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Turkey’s blundering intervention may thus be the straw that breaks the camel’s back — collapsing the regional house of cards and precipitating a war to make earlier conflict phases in the Syrian slaughterhouse look like child’s play.

A potential outcome the Orange Man may have already foreseen. Hopefully, his recent actions will enable us to sit this one out.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/14/2019 5:14 Comments || Top||

#4  sit this one out

Doubtful. US has thousands of hostages in Turkey.
Posted by: Whavimp Grath4899 || 10/14/2019 5:31 Comments || Top||

#5  If Trump is serious about extricating America from the world, then bring our troops and businesses home and let the outside find a new power balance.
Posted by: Whavimp Grath4899 || 10/14/2019 5:37 Comments || Top||

#6  Ref #4: sit this one out
Doubtful. US has thousands of hostages in Turkey.


Turkey's Incirlik air base is Erdogan's insurance policy.

"Americans, we hate you. Oh, the Germans are here...Hello Americans."
~ Robin Williams
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/14/2019 5:59 Comments || Top||

#7  What is our interest in Syria?
[crickets]
Anyone?
Bueller??
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 8:58 Comments || Top||

#8  ...another gift from the previous administration.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/14/2019 9:13 Comments || Top||

#9  So... we're there to oppose Syria and Russia, which oppose ISIS, and also to oppose ISIS, who oppose ... Syria and Russia, and also to oppose Turkey, who opposes, kinda sorta, some of the above

Getting involved in Syria now makes about as much sense as it would have to intervene in the Crimean War in 1854 or one of the Turkish-Russian wars.

Madness.

Trump's the only sane person in Washington.
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 9:24 Comments || Top||

#10  I notice the profound policy wonks of Code Pink have been uncharacteristically silent.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 10/14/2019 10:19 Comments || Top||

#11  Looks like the DS wants to create a mire for Trump. I'm with Trump on this one. If this spills over into Israel, continue to support Israel, they are the only democracy over there.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/14/2019 11:56 Comments || Top||

#12  Drudge headline is that the Turks are holding Incirlik and the "50 tactical nukes" there hostage. Anyone have an idea if we were dumb enough to actually leave them there after the last threatening event?
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 10/14/2019 18:42 Comments || Top||

#13  Why not just kick Turkey out of NATO for the whole thing ? Be better than sanctions. I suppose the nukes could all be disarmed by a DoD contingent.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 10/14/2019 18:49 Comments || Top||

#14  Word from some (who knew better than me) were that they were evacuated long ago
Posted by: Frank G || 10/14/2019 20:03 Comments || Top||

#15  PS Drudge has turned to a Dem/Leftist Whore. Better to hit Rantingly.com
Posted by: Frank G || 10/14/2019 20:05 Comments || Top||

#16  Better to hit Rantingly.com

Agreed. I’ve been checking both just about every day for comparison purposes, and almost all of the articles I click are on Rantingly. Also, I am much calmer now that the news site matches my understanding of current events.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/14/2019 20:33 Comments || Top||

#17  Anyone have an idea if we were dumb enough to actually leave them there after the last threatening event?

Apparently so.
With Turkey’s invasion of Syria, concerns mount over nukes at Incirlik
The Air Force on Monday said it has made no changes to daily operations at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey even as Turkish forces continue to push into Syrian territory, which has prompted U.S. forces to pull back.

But concerns are growing over the reported presence of U.S. nuclear weapons at Incirlik, believed to be about 50 B61 gravity bombs. The New York Times on Monday reported that officials from the State and Energy departments over the weekend reviewed plans for evacuating the nuclear weapons there.
...
A senior official reportedly told the Times that the weapons “were now essentially [Turkish President Recep] Erdogan’s hostages” since removing the weapons would effectively spell the end of America’s alliance with Turkey, but keeping them there would leave them vulnerable.
Posted by: Whavimp Grath4899 || 10/14/2019 20:54 Comments || Top||

#18  Another vote for Rantingly.com
Also:
- realclearpolitics.com
- amgreatness.com
- legalinsurrection.com
- quillette.com
- spectator.org
- aldaily.com
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 21:47 Comments || Top||

#19  Also: Manhattan Institute's City Journal
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 21:51 Comments || Top||

#20  Sometimes I think, those in the DS who want us to leave a trip-wire force of 50-100 troops over there are hoping for another Benghazi.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/14/2019 23:18 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Fox News is Joining the Fake News Pollsters
[American Thinker] Those on the political right believe Fox News is an ally, while those on the left criticize Fox as a right-wing echo chamber. Both groups are wrong. Fox News has made a hard turn to the left in recent years. Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch are relegated to the Fox News Wikipedia page while the new bosses are the next generation of Murdochs, woke, liberal, and no fan of either President Trump or his supporters.

Fox’s news shows are peppered with liberals, from Juan Williams and the recently departed Sheppard Smith to Donna Brazile and Chris Hahn. The evening and weekend opinion show hosts are still solidly conservative, but that number is dwindling. Fox us still better than CNN for example, with no conservative voices, after firing Jeffrey Lord for the high crime of defending Trump on the Orange Man Bad network.

As the impeachment scheme falls apart, with no actual wrongdoing by the President, no bribes or extortion, no pay-to-play, no collusion, or anything else which Trump is accused of, but which Joe Biden actually did, the media has gone into overdrive to push the "everyone hates Trump and wants him thrown from office" mantra.

Who needs high crimes or misdemeanors if a majority of America wants Trump removed from office? Impeachment by opinion poll.

Related: The Blaze - Poll showing 'record support' for Trump impeachment was 'misrepresented' by polling agency, analysis finds
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/14/2019 06:03 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What was it? They over-sampled Dims by 14% to try to support a left-wing DS narrative? Elements of Fox are no better than MSNBC, CBS or CNN.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/14/2019 11:50 Comments || Top||

#2  There's no hidden "deep" conspiracy a la "Deep State."
It's all transparent, obvious and easily discovered.

It's a rolling, multi-tent Shitshow whose performers move easily from one tent to another.
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 11:55 Comments || Top||


Rashida and the law
[AmericanThinker] It seems that the charming and attractive Rashida Talib is still running off at the mouth about arresting people, specifically administration officials who refuse to respond to the House’s "impeachment" subpoenas.

According to Rashida:
    "There have been actual serious conversations about what the logistics would look like... if we did have to force someone through a court order to come before the Congressional committee... she said. "This is pretty uncharted territory for many of us and even for Congress."

Of course there have been. Leftists yearn for police powers, for the ability to reach out and punish anyone they see, with a ferocity unknown to normal human beings. That was true during the French Revolution, and will be true of the Ganymede revolt of 2250.
Now add that special Palestinian seasoning
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/14/2019 05:25 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Batshita the Menace
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 9:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Did those conversations also cover the rope and lamppost convergence sure to follow, Sweeatpea?
Posted by: Mercutio || 10/14/2019 13:44 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Death penalty doesn't stop child abuse. What's it for then?
[DAWN] I'll bite: Punishment?
Posted by: Fred || 10/14/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Never a repeat offender.
Posted by: Whavimp Grath4899 || 10/14/2019 5:18 Comments || Top||

#2  guaranteed to reduce recidivism rates.
Posted by: AlanC || 10/14/2019 8:43 Comments || Top||

#3  What they said!
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 10/14/2019 10:08 Comments || Top||

#4  The punishment takes WAY to long. It is too NICE. Bring back PUBLIC HANGING.
Posted by: ranture || 10/14/2019 10:57 Comments || Top||

#5  Page 3 story 'Pedophile who abused up to 200 children stabbed to death in prison' would suggest it would help...
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/14/2019 14:10 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Kurdish WWII veterans: Trump wasn't born when we fought the Nazis
[RUDAW] ERBIL, Kurdistan Region ‐ Ahmad Mustafa Delzar may be frail nowadays, but his mind is sharper than ever as he approaches his 100th birthday. On Wednesday, when US President Donald Trump justified his Syria withdrawal by claiming the Kurds never helped the US in the Second World War, Delzar, a veteran of that very war, was outraged.

"Trump was not born then ‐ that is why he does not know that the Kurds participated in the war," Delzar told Rudaw’s Hiwa Jamal on Saturday.

Trump was accused of abandoning the Kurds of northern Syria, a critical ally in the war against the Islamic State (ISIS), when he greenlighted the ongoing Turkish offensive.

In an attempt to justify his withdrawal of US troops, seen as the guarantors against a Turkish invasion, Trump said: "They didn’t help us in the Second World War. They didn’t help us with Normandy."

Trump’s comments raised doubts about the reliability of the United States as a partner in the region, with many Kurdish politicians rethinking their long-held faith in the superpower as their protector.

Delzar, who was born in 1920 and is a well-known Kurdish poet, became a member of the Iraq Levies, a minority scout force established by the British during the First World War to control Iraq, in 1943.

"The levies were mainly Assyrians and Kurds and a smaller number of Arabs," Delzar told Rudaw. "I was the 8,000th Kurd who joined the levies during the Second World War. I joined the levies on February 28, 1943."

Delzar went through intense training at Habbaniyah airbase in western Baghdad and then transferred to Palestine via Syria in December 1944. Dezlar and a number of other Kurdish levies stayed on in Haifa in Palestine until the war ended.

"There were around 40 Kurds who participated on the northern Italy front and one of them was Karim Abdulwahid Haji Aziz," Delzar recalled. "Karim was a paratrooper and I remember he parachuted twice in Habaniyah."

The veteran, who spoke to Rudaw from his bed in Erbil, still wears a Kurdish hat known as klaw, with the word Kurdistan embroidered on it.

He’s not alone in speaking out against Trump’s false claims. Several families have come forward with photographs of their fathers and grandfathers proving they were on America’s side in World War Two.

"I heard Trump saying that the Kurds did not take part in the war. He is lying," 69-year-old Mam Fareq Sadeq Ahmad, originally from Kirkuk, told Rudaw, showing a photo of a young, clean-shaven man in green uniform.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/14/2019 11:02 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  His service is certainly to be respected, but geopolitics has a way of morphing over sever or eight decades.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/14/2019 11:09 Comments || Top||

#2  Reductio ad absurdum.

No one can say why, which Kurds, where, for how long to what end and with what measure of success we should align our foreign policy - and now the anti-Trumpers are quibbling about ... WWII?

Please go away.
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 11:25 Comments || Top||

#3  Argumentum non sequitur
Posted by: magpie || 10/14/2019 11:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Ya think after 80 years they would figure out how to defend themselves. Blaming Trump, morons. The Serbs helped us in WWII, but we blasted them in 92 during the Balkans war. Did the Kurds go to save the Christians that were murdered in Syria?
Posted by: 49 Pan || 10/14/2019 12:39 Comments || Top||

#5  He wasn't born when the Russians fought the Nazis either. And were these Kurds fighting the Nazis because they were anti-Nazi or pro-Stalin?
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/14/2019 12:45 Comments || Top||

#6  We also fought the Nazis with Joe Stalin. Things change.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/14/2019 13:13 Comments || Top||

#7  Delzar went through intense training at Habbaniyah airbase in western Baghdad and then transferred to Palestine via Syria in December 1944. Dezlar and a number of other Kurdish levies stayed on in Haifa in Palestine until the war ended.

British Mandate “Palestine” was not a battlefront until 1948. It was a safe place for fighting soldiers to recuperate.

Wikipedia's page on the Kurds has this on the subject:

World War II
During World War Two, the Kurds formed 10 companies in the Iraq Levies that the British had recruited in Iraq. Kurds supported the British in the defeating the pro-Nazi 1941 Iraqi coup d'état.[79] Twenty-five percent of the Iraq Levies' 1st Parachute Company was Kurdish. The Parachute Company was attached to the Royal Marine Commando and was active in Albania, Italy, Greece, and Cyprus.[80][81]

Kurds participated in the Soviet occupation of northern Iraq in 1941,[82] creating the Persian Corridor, a vital supply line for the USSR. This led to the short-lived formation of the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad.

Despite the fact they were a tiny minority in the Soviet Union, Kurds played a significant role in the Soviet war effort. On 1 October 1941, Samand Siabandov was awarded the honour Hero of the Soviet Union. Kurds served at Smolensk, Sevastopol, Leningrad, and Stalingrad. Kurds took part in the partisan movement behind German lines. Karaseva received both the Hero of the Soviet Union medal and the medal Partisan of the Fatherland War (First Degree) for organising partisans to fight against the Germans in Volhynia Oblast in Ukraine. Kurds took part in the advance into Hungary and the invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria.[83][84]
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/14/2019 13:18 Comments || Top||

#8  The invasion of Manchuria didn't happen until after the US defeated Japan. 9 August 1945 Manchuria invasion
August 6, 1945 Hiroshima Bombed
August 9 Nagasaki Bombed - time for the Soviets to loot Japanese Manchuria....
Posted by: 3dc || 10/14/2019 14:19 Comments || Top||


General Mattis: ISIS Will Resurge If U.S. Doesn't Keep Up the Pressure
[Free Beacon] Former secretary of defense James Mattis on Sunday said that ISIS will "resurge" if the United States does not keep up the pressure in Syria.

"We have got to keep the pressure on ISIS so they don't recover," Mattis said on NBC's Meet the Press. "We may want a war over, we may even declare it over. You can pull your troops out, as President Obama learned the hard way, out of Iraq. But the enemy gets a vote, we say in the military."

Mattis said that unless the United States keeps pushing against ISIS, it is "absolutely a given" that the terrorist organization will come back in full force.

Mattis resigned as secretary of defense in December 2018 after President Donald Trump announced that all United States troops would be withdrawing from Syria.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/14/2019 06:51 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He's just angry he doesn't get to have his war any more. I used to have a lot of respect for Mattis, but he revealed himself to be yet another globalist who puts the interests of the American people last. :(
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 10/14/2019 7:36 Comments || Top||

#2  And what did you do during your tenure to reduce the number of hostages in Turkey?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/14/2019 7:49 Comments || Top||

#3  Exactly what's the difference, except YouTube videos, between ISIS and any other fraction in Syria?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/14/2019 7:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Probably true. But since we are condemned for collateral damage or even propaganda claims of such, there is no really practical military way of keeping up the pressure.
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/14/2019 12:47 Comments || Top||

#5  So what?

ISIS is not our problem. Al Qaeda was only our problem because the Soddies bribed our politicians into letting some of their misbegotten sons into our country. All we have to do is keep these people out of our country. They're all nuts and they will always find some reason to fight each other. Let them. They don't come here and we don't go there.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 10/14/2019 12:48 Comments || Top||

#6  ISIS is not our problem.

ISIS would very much like to be our problem and, like Al Qaeda, they keep trying. Over and over we discover that lone wolves here in the U.S., as well as Europe and elsewhere, were either seduced by or self-radicalized via ISIS or Al Qaeda internet channels, starting with videos and moving to personal connections.

Whether it is time to take the war into the shadows, as it is in certain other parts of the world, is a different question.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/14/2019 17:04 Comments || Top||

#7  So, a neverending war and hundreds of billions spent is worth preventing a few lone wolves. Understood.

The rest of us Americans disagree with your neo-con risk/reward calculus. The cure is worse than the disease.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 10/14/2019 17:12 Comments || Top||

#8  ^ Can't say I disagree.
Why can't we be smart and make more use of proxies?
Why not let the Russians and Syrians mop up ISIS in Syria?
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 19:27 Comments || Top||

#9  Mathis is right. They will. Like fire ants, you can kill a bunch or chase them into the neighbors yard, but they *will* come back.

So, a neverending war and hundreds of billions spent is worth preventing a few lone wolves. Understood.

Don't put words in other people's mouths. It is a sign of cognitive dissonance.

The question is what to do. Ignoring them doesn't work. Hearts and minds, hah! Treating terror as police matter doesn't work. Waging near-peer war against distributed bands of desert hillbillies doesn't work and costs waaay too much. What to do?

Given that carpet bombing is off the table, I suspect the answer is smaller, targeted strikes, both drone-zaps in the desert and some up-close wet work. Some people just need killin', as they say.
Posted by: SteveS || 10/14/2019 21:08 Comments || Top||


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 || 10/14/2019 06:28 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

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

Any emails lately from socialite Jill Kelley down in Tampa ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/14/2019 6:39 Comments || Top||

#2  But NATO says what about their ïslamic member???
Posted by: Varmint Splat1454 || 10/14/2019 7:11 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 7:22 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 8:06 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 8:28 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 8:56 Comments || Top||

#7  What is our interest in Syria?
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 9:09 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 9:39 Comments || Top||

#9  ... All fall down ...
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 9:44 Comments || Top||

#10  I think Varmint Splat makes a damned fine point. What is NATO's position on Turkey's actions?
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/14/2019 9:52 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 10:02 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 12:36 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 12:54 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 13:07 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 13:12 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 13:32 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 13:43 Comments || Top||

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

Anyone?
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 14:02 Comments || Top||

#19  ^Why ask us, ask Obama.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/14/2019 14:11 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 14:15 Comments || Top||

#21  I kinda lost confidence in our generals when McChrystal proposed the "Courageous Restraint" award. Huh?
Posted by: Matt || 10/14/2019 14:23 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 15:11 Comments || Top||

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

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

#26  Fair enough- thanks Dron.
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 17:15 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 17:16 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 17:16 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 17:20 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 17:21 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 17:24 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 17:34 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 17:43 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 17:47 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 17:54 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 17:54 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 17:57 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 18:09 Comments || 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 || 10/14/2019 18:50 Comments || Top||

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


Terror Networks
The militant threat
[DAWN] OVER the past four decades, a variety of jihadi organizations have taken root in South Asia, thanks largely to the anti-Soviet Afghan ’jihad’, a geopolitical adventure marshalled by the US, financed by the Gulf Arabs and supported by this country.

Though many outfits have been neutralised in the aftermath of 9/11 and the so-called war on terror, the region is still not completely free from the menace of bully boy militancy. For example, more ferocious terrorist outfits have emerged, such as the self-styled Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group, while ’veteran’ players such as Al Qaeda have branched out and formed new wings.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 10/14/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban

#1  Theater for the FATF. The same paper had an editorial a few months ago about mainstreaming former jihadis into the political process to 'decrease extremism and encourage legitimate ascension of faithful muslimeen (sic) to legislative roles'.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 10/14/2019 18:07 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Iowa Hawk does the Pope!
Posted by: 3dc || 10/14/2019 11:19 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'd say the pesos went all in on the Packers
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 14:09 Comments || Top||

#2  correction: Francis's ped0s went all-in on the Packers
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 14:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Some funny responses from Aints fans:

"Please heal Drew Brees for us"

"Whoeth Dat sayeth thou shall beateth thy @Saints"

Posted by: Matt || 10/14/2019 14:20 Comments || Top||


The Elite Hates The Trump Doctrine Because It Puts America First
We have Kurt Schlichter
What our betters ‐ those same smug geniuses who brought us Iraq, let NATO deadbeats string us along, and who let Mexico and China exploit us ‐ truly hate is the fact that the American people stood up in 2016 and demanded that our foreign policy stop sucking. Americans are sick of always getting handed the bill for some lame ruling caste priority, whether it’s paying for the privilege of defending Europe on behalf of ungrateful continentals or funding the weird climate religion or letting China get rich off of gutting our industries. Mostly, we are sick of shipping our magnificent warriors off to die in ill-conceived, poorly-planned, ineptly-executed wars where we ended up shedding our boys’ (and girls’) blood refereeing fights that go back a dozen centuries.

The coastal elite gets to bask in the radiance of its own moral superiority for deploying young people in camo from Nebraska farms and Texas towns, and we get to hold the funerals.

...America First is a commonsense response to decades of America Last. It’s a repudiation of those who get elected by Americans to protect and promote American interests yet think of themselves as "Global Citizens."

The elite scoffs at the notion of a "Trump Doctrine," imagining that no one but them could construct a coherent geopolitical paradigm. Of course, their neo-Wilsonian faculty lounge geopolitical paradigm has been a disaster, but if there’s one thing our garbage elite is good at ‐ it is certainly no good at its core responsibilities of preserving American power, prosperity and freedom ‐ it is weaseling out of accountability for its myriad failures.


Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/14/2019 05:03 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  America First is a commonsense response to decades of America Last.

Exactly so, and nicely put. Best framing I've seen. Schlichter should have his own prime time show.

It’s a repudiation of those who get elected by Americans to protect and promote American interests yet think of themselves as "Global Citizens."

Correct, but incomplete. Scratch the "Global Citizen" and you'll see a Global Grifter - witness...
- the Clinton Foundation
- Biden, Inc.
- the Obama Media Company
- the DC/Google revolving door
- DC/Wall Street/Goldman, Blackstone etc revolving door
- DC Lobbyists, Shills and Bedbugs for China including Kissinger Associates
- NBA, Nike, other shit-products' kowtowing to China
Etc etc
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 9:19 Comments || Top||


The Age of Mutual Assured Cancellation
h/t Instapundit
[CityJournal] A modest proposal for my fellow journalists: Could we declare a bipartisan amnesty for the stupid things people did in high school and college‐or at least stop pretending that these things have any relevance in judging a middle-aged adult’s professional competence?

I realize that this suggestion will trouble the many liberal journalists who have worked diligently to reveal what might or might not have happened at a party at Yale that might or might not have been attended by Brett Kavanaugh during his freshman year. (The definitive conclusion from thousands of hours of investigative reporting: people at the party were really drunk.) Nor will it appeal to the conservatives now savoring the seemingly endless series of photos of a young Justin Trudeau in blackface. (The Babylon Bee, a news-satire site, delivered the coup de grace: "Rare Photo Surfaces of Trudeau Not in Blackface.")

I also realize that it’s futile to appeal to my colleagues’ sense of perspective or feelings of compassion. These qualities have always been in short supply in our profession, and they’re rarer than ever in the age of "cancel culture." We can convince ourselves that anything is newsworthy if it embarrasses the other side and generates enough clicks. Exactly how many beers did Kavanaugh drink in high school? A nation’s fate is at stake! Precisely how many parties in the early 1990s did Trudeau attend in blackface? The public has a right to know!

...But now journalists have a selfish reason to behave decently: mutual assured cancellation, a strategic doctrine that has emerged from the recent media furor involving Carson King, a security guard in Iowa. He’d become a media sensation after holding up a sign on ESPN’s College GameDay asking people to send him money so that he could buy Busch Light beer. As the money rolled in, he decided to redirect it from beer to charity, raising more than $1 million for a children’s hospital. Anheuser-Busch kicked in money and planned to include him in a marketing campaign.

It should have been a feel-good story, but then a Des Moines Register reporter unearthed a couple of racist jokes that King had tweeted seven years earlier, when he was 16.

...The Register was besieged by readers outraged at its treatment of King, and they didn’t just write letters to the editor. They retaliated by studying the social-media history of Aaron Calvin, the reporter who had written the article‐and who’d made a few offensive posts of his own, before joining the paper.

...As a form of deterrence, mutual assured cancellation‐let’s call it MAC‐should not be underestimated.

...So long as journalists had a monopoly on public shaming, they were happy to judge yesterday’s behavior by today’s standards.

Now that social media has ended that monopoly, non-journalists can pass judgment, too, and they’re following Alinksy’s rule number 4: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules." Journalists would be wise to rewrite these rules, and to remember the adage about people in glass houses. In the age of MAC, everyone has stones.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/14/2019 04:43 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I see the leftists are starting to enjoy the New Rules they created.
Posted by: Nguard || 10/14/2019 10:01 Comments || Top||

#2  Right. The aggressor-class, seeing the tide turning, now asks for a truce in the war they started
Posted by: Lex || 10/14/2019 10:40 Comments || Top||

#3  In the end, there an be only one.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/14/2019 16:09 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
26[untagged]
17Sublime Porte
3Taliban
3Arab Spring
3Islamic State
2Palestinian Authority
2Govt of Syria
2Govt of Iran
1Govt of Iran Proxies
1Moslem Colonists
1Antifa
1Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami
1Govt of Sudan
1Ansarullah Bangla Team (AQIS)

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2019-10-14
  Trump tells Pentagon to begin withdrawing remaining troops from northern Syria
Sun 2019-10-13
  Syria now considers itself at war with Turkey!
Sat 2019-10-12
   Palestinians riot on Gaza border; 49 said wounded
Fri 2019-10-11
  Orange Man confirms bomb maker and terrorist Ibrahim al-Asiri is Tango Uniform
Thu 2019-10-10
  2 ISIS 'Beatles' transferred from Syrian prison to US military custody
Wed 2019-10-09
  Possible terror attack with automatic guns in Halle (Germany)
Tue 2019-10-08
  Turkey starts bombing Kurds
Mon 2019-10-07
  Iraqi premier rejects resignation of seven ministers, Baghdad governor steps down
Sun 2019-10-06
  91 protesters killed by Iraqi police over week of demonstrations
Sat 2019-10-05
  Masked gunmen attack TV stations reporting the protests in Iraq
Fri 2019-10-04
  At least 35 Russian mercenaries killed fighting for Haftar in Libya
Thu 2019-10-03
  Breaking: Paris knife attacker kills 4 people at police headquarters
Wed 2019-10-02
  Soleimani claims he and Nasrallah barely escaped Israeli air raid in 2006
Tue 2019-10-01
  Uzbekistani militant among 64 killed, wounded in Faryab clashes
Mon 2019-09-30
  Yemeni army captured over '2000 troops', inflicted heavy casualties on Saudi army

Better than the average link...



Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
44.210.236.0
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (19)    WoT Background (21)    Non-WoT (6)    (0)    Politix (7)