These are my exact thoughts. For all the shit I give politicians, sometimes I have to remind myself that they have to live with life and death decisions for thousands of people. There’s a reason presidents physically age at double the rate of your avg 'Murican.
Social/economic issues they can still fuck off, but I’m a little more lenient with war atrocities.
Edit: responses to war atrocities, not necessarily committing them.
Don’t buy into the left’s scenario it’s dumb and will come to nothing. And yes I will bet on it.
I have nothing against Trump’s son in law, other than he’s too young for such an assignment and that he’s far too left leaning to suit me. Okay…I guess I have a couple of things against him. Let’s just say there were better people for the job than him.
I am of 2 minds on it. It was pure politics, at its very worst. On one hand, it was an election year, and they were playing for time, so that they could confirm Garland if Hilary got the nod.
On the other hand, advise and consent of the Senate should not mean that you plug your fingers in your ears and start humming until a better situation arises.
What frightens me is the fact that Trump seems to think and react exclusively ‘in the moment.’
Trump was dead-set against intervening in the Syrian civil war. Recall Tillerson’s comment of one week ago that the “longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people.” (As an aside, many observers feel this comment is what emboldened Assad to think he could get away with a gas attack.) Now, in a whiplash-inducing reversal, Tillerson is saying “Assad’s role in the future is uncertain, clearly, and with the acts that he has taken, it would seem that there would be no role for him to govern the Syrian people.”
Say what? We’re doing a 180o policy turn??!! For what reason? Because Assad killed some civilians? He’s already killed 400K civilians. He’s been killing civilians the entire time Trump has been in office (and before, obviously). Because he killed children? Again, he’s been killing children the entire time Trump has been in office. Because he used gas? He’s used gas before. Further, the means by which they’re killed–ie, gas vs barrel-bombs–really doesn’t matter that much to the dead civilians. Dead is dead, after all.
Apparently, the policy change stems from the fact that Trump saw the gruesome images of dead and dying children in Syria, and this resulted in him saying “my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.” And to me, it’s very, very disconcerting to know the POTUS’s views/policies are so poorly thought out, so malleable, that they can be reversed simply on account of what he sees on TV. Consider: If those horrifying video images didn’t exist, Trump very likely would not have done anything. Is that any way to determine foreign policy?
ED. all of Europe, Pelosi, Reid, the entire world of Liberals agree with this move. This is the best day of press Trump has ever had. You found some way to not like it?
Maybe Trump is growing up a little. He kicked Bannon out and he reduced Assad’s capacity to gas civilians. Not a bad week.
He spent alot of time talking about how NATO doesn’t pull their weight and the US is in too many wars. So he did something NATO countries approve of and now they are going to talk to the security council and NATO about fixing this situation. He’s mixing action and diplomacy so hopefully we don’t turn this into another Iraq. This is a great time to mobilize all of the NATO countries and fix Syria. The whole world saw the dead children, and Russia will have a hard time voting no.
Well to be fair do we need to depose or oppose every autocrat that mistreats their people? If so we might as well take over most of the damn world. We better stop all trade with China immediately.
Yes Putin is a bad ruler and the Russians are oppressed. But wtf are we going to do about it. We crushed the USSR without thermonuclear annihalation. We tried to rebuild the country by sending consultants and government aid over in the 90’s. And another brutal regime sprang up not 15 years later. Why do we have to protect the Russians from themselves?
Sure did. If they are trying to throw people off the scent imagine how much more effectice it will be when Tillerson goes to the security council and demands a coalition against Assad. Then they’ll all be fooled. Got my conspiracy room all wired to burn when they find me.
PS. They found out tin foil actually AMPLIFIES brain waves. You’ll need to switch to lead pronto. As a bonus the extra weight strengthens the neck.
I think this is the main reason Obama didn’t do MORE to stop Putin from doing stupid shit. HRC was the one that poked the bear talking about his anti gay and anti journalist approaches.
Personally I’d like to see us stop being the world police until we get our own shit sorted, but I also have a hard time justifying NOT stopping people like Assad from gassing children. It really is a lose lose situation for everyone.
Is that the best metric by which to judge foreign-policy decisions?
I agree, he seems to be inching toward a more conventional style of administration, which is a good thing. (Although in that regard, he has a long way to go before I’d be happy.) And demoting Bannon was a sane walk-back of an insane initial decision–kudos to Kushner for getting that done. (Slight snark.)
As for degrading Assad’s ability to conduct gas attacks–I’m at work, and haven’t seen any recent reports concerning Pentagon assessment of the actual inflicted damage. But my impression of the initial accounts was that no such degradation occurred. Now, whether the bombing was able to create a psychological reduction in Assad’s ‘ability’ to employ gas is, of course, an open question.
The NATO talk was embarrassingly simplistic and misleading.
Now you’re making my argument. Trump was all about us not getting involved in another war, and he specifically cited the Syrian civil conflict as one we would steer clear of. But then, after watching Fox and Friends, all that goes out the window.
Fix Syria??!! How are you able to say that without the cognitive dissonance causing your head to explode? Trump was ‘America First.’ Trump was ‘I don’t want to be president of the world.’ Trump was ‘we’re in too many wars.’ Trump was ‘let the Russians deal with Syria.’ And all of that just got thrown out the window because he happened to see 45 seconds of horrifying video. I don’t understand why this doesn’t rattle you.
Boom, thanks for the protip!
Tillerson’s comments were wholly appropriate at the time given the strategic realities of the conflict, continued use chemical weapons fundamentally changes the priorities of addressing it and should alter Russia’s course in their support.
Couldn’t it be due to the changes in Trumps cabinet? With Bannon being pushed aside he’s listening to the reasonable members of the cabinet who have a more predictable response.
Well if we can get NATO to do the dirty work for us then all the better. I’d like to see NATO action where the US doesn’t make up 50% of the force or more. That way we won’t have to be the world’s police force.
Also Trump is growing and changing with the job. We’ve hired generals, lawyers (too many), actors, farmers, businessmen, governers etc… to be President. No job, not even vice pres prepares you to be the most powerful person on earth. I hope he grows and gets better at it every day and changes his opinion and tactics when the facts on the ground warrant it.
Are his actions incongruent with his campaign rhetoric…? Maybe. We’ll see if he gets us into another quagmire. I sure as hell hope not. No more Americans in the meat grinder if you please. The Russians are bolstering the AA guns. Daring us to come get them.
I fail to see how killing civilians with barrel bombs is acceptable, but killing them with chemical weapons necessitates a ‘fundamental change in priorities.’
Well, I wasn’t in the room, so I can’t say for sure. I’m going off of his Rose Garden comments, in which he went on at length about the images he saw, and how they changed his view of Assad and the situation.
While I’d love to see Assad get what’s coming to him, there is absolutely no easy answer here. We might have weakened his ability to gas/bomb his own civilians, we’ve also reduced his ability to fight ISIS (and others) and pissed off Russia. If we thought we created a vacuum in Iraq with the removal of Hussein, that’ll pale in comparison to the potential quagmire we’re looking at here.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have done it, but there are no easy answers here: it’s a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation.
For one chemical agents lead to indiscriminate suffering much greater than conventional weaponry.
This however isn’t the rational reason that mandates our action, chemical weapons are WMD’s, Sarin and VX being particularly lethal. If these are utilized by a state actor without repercussions it dramatically increases the risk of other state actors doing the same. From there it’s a gradual but short road to an escalation in WMD use, think biologically and ultimately nuclear.
Assuming you’re referring to Syria, the issue for me isn’t so much who does the dirty work; rather, it is, ‘What comes next?’ That is, say we run Assad out of town–then what happens? This is why Obama didn’t want to go in–there’s no obvious end-game, no clear-cut ‘good guys’ to back. There are dozens and dozens of competing rebel factions, most of which are unsavory in their ideology/political outlook–ISIS being the apex predator in this regard. Speaking of which, if we topple Assad, ISIS will come pouring into areas of Syria that are currently under government control.
I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating:
–In Iraq, we toppled the government and occupied the country. The result was/is a disaster.
–In Libya, we toppled the government and didn’t occupy the country. The result was/is a disaster.
–In Syria, we didn’t topple the government, and we didn’t occupy the country. The result was/is a disaster.
As of now, it seems Trump is planning to reconstitute the approach to Syria into either an Iraq-style or (less likely) a Libyan style. Setting aside the radical and impulsive reversal of his avowed foreign policy approach that doing so would represent, I see no reason to expect a different outcome. If anything, the involvement/presence of the Russians, Iranians and ISIS will make the final result even worse.
There are simply no good answers.
I don’t know if that’s true, but even if it is, it’s hardly a reason to do a 180o pivot.
Again, I don’t know if that’s true. But setting that aside, if all Trump did was lob a few cruise missiles as a finger-wag, that’d be one thing. I’m talking about the pivot to getting actively involved in Syria’s civil war.
I don’t think it has to be, if it’s handled similar to Libya or Iraq then yes but if Russia ultimately plays ball then I think it could be handled similar to the 1st gulf war. If Assad eventually stands trial then even better.
A lot rides on Tillerson’s meeting with Russia next week, if they pull it off I’ll be thoroughly impressed
I also worry Trump is doing this from the gut to distinguish himself from “Obama the Weak” - he’s driven by concerns about leading man optics.
Now, I do think Obama was weak in how he handled Syria (I know you’ll probably disagree), but I don’t like a motivation like “I’ll show I’m tough unlike Obama” as a prime reason to involve the US in military action in Syria without Congressional approval.
Also, another point - without Congressional approval. Where are the concerned, principled Republicans in Congress?
Firstly presidents are allowed to take limited action without Congress. This has always been super vague. But basically a president shouldn’t declare war or deploy whole decisions without congressional approval.
Previous presidents have gotten away with small strikes and incursions without congress.