When Napoleon was asked what sort of enemy he wanted to fight, he replied, "allies."
But I do note that according to general Keane these Kurdish allies sustained 10,000 dead and 20,000 wounded.
Posted on 10/10/2019 2:04:53 AM PDT by robowombat
President Trump is barreling toward a showdown with Congress over his decision to pull back U.S. troops in northern Syria despite widespread opposition.
The announcement, which caught leadership and traditional GOP allies flatfooted, sparked a wave of condemnation, with Republicans calling it a “disaster in the making,” a “catastrophic mistake” and a “terrible decision.”
Lawmakers are already weighing how to respond to Trump’s decision, setting the stage for a high-profile clash with Trump as soon as Congress returns from a two-week break on Monday.
“Congress must and will act to limit the catastrophic impact of this decision,” said Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), a member of House GOP leadership, adding that Trump’s decision was having “sickening and predictable consequences.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) warned that unless Turkey changes its behavior “everything is on the table,” including “suspending arms sales, to suspending economic aid to even considering their status in NATO.”
Lawmakers, scattered across the country for a two-week break, are having behind-the-scenes talks about potential legislative action and publicly throwing out a myriad of ideas ranging from a resolution opposing Trump’s actions to sanctions against Turkey to inserting language into a mammoth defense policy bill.
“Multiple committees are looking at possible legislative efforts to put the House on record against the President’s outrageous decision,” a House Democratic leadership aide told The Hill.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y) separately predicted that “Congress will take some form of action” given the “broad condemnation” sparked by Trump’s decision.
Lawmakers are under growing pressure to mount a formal response after Turkey began airstrikes and shelling against Kurdish forces in northern Syria and, hours later, moved ground troops into the country after Trump pulled back U.S. troops. Lawmakers have warned for days that Trump’s decision could endanger the Kurds, who were integral to the U.S.-led fight against ISIS.
Trump on Wednesday tried to distance himself from Turkey’s actions, saying the United States “does not endorse this attack and has made it clear to Turkey that this operation is a bad idea.” But he also said the United States should not be part of “endless, senseless wars.”
Trump reiterated that the U.S. stance is that it is now Turkey’s responsibility to ensure ISIS prisoners being held by the Syrian Democratic Forces do not escape and further claimed Ankara has committed to “protecting civilians” and “ ensuring no humanitarian crisis takes place.”
That’s done little to stem the flow of criticism from Capitol Hill.
“I said that President Trump's decision to abandon the Kurds ... was terribly unwise. Today, we are seeing the consequences of that terrible decision. If the reports of Turkish strikes in Syria are accurate, I fear our allies the Kurds could be slaughtered,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) lamented the “tragic loss of life among friends shamefully betrayed.”
One option under discussion would be to slap new sanctions on Turkey for invading Syria.
Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said after Turkey’s actions that they have reached an agreement on sanctions legislation. The bill would target Turkey’s energy sector and military. It also includes visa restrictions for Turkish leadership, including President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and would sanction any assets they have within U.S. jurisdiction.
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BY ABBVIE “I am pleased to have reached a bipartisan agreement with Senator Van Hollen on severe sanctions against Turkey for their invasion of Syria. While the Administration refuses to act against Turkey, I expect strong bipartisan support,” Graham said.
“Most Members of Congress believe it would be wrong to abandon the Kurds who have been strong allies against ISIS,” he added.
Van Hollen said the sanctions bill will be introduced next week and that they want a quick vote.
“Will ask for an immediate vote to send a clear message to Turkey that it must cease and desist its military action, withdraw its fighters from the areas under attack, and stop the tragic loss of life,” he said.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who has aligned herself closely with Trump, said on Wednesday that she will support new financial penalties.
“I condemn in the strongest possible terms any U.S. policy that will result in endangerment of the Kurds who have sacrificed so much blood and treasure alongside American forces. ... Turkey must pay the price for its aggression toward our Kurdish partners,” Blackburn said.
Trump downplayed the potential pushback, saying he thinks “it’s OK” if Congress imposes sanctions on Turkey even as he disagreed with Graham’s desire to stay in Syria and dismissed the Kurds because they “didn't help us in the Second World War.”
“I think Lindsey would like to stay there for the next 200 years and maybe add a couple a hundred of thousand people every place, but I disagree with Lindsey on that,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “But I will tell you that I do agree on sanctions, but I actually think much tougher than sanctions if [Erdogan] doesn’t do it in as humane a way as possible.”
Graham is also crafting a resolution formally opposing Trump’s decision, adding that he expects “it will receive strong bipartisan support.” A spokesman for Graham told The Hill this week that they were in the process of drafting the resolution.
It would mark the second time the Senate has rebuked Trump on Syria after providing veto-proof support for an amendment from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warning the president against withdrawing troops from Syria or Afghanistan earlier this year.
McConnell sent a warning shot on Monday saying that “the conditions that produced that bipartisan vote still exist today.”
Lawmakers could also slip language into a mammoth defense bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). House and Senate lawmakers are negotiating on a final version of the legislation.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) called Turkey’s actions “unacceptable” and warned that Ankara will face “serious economic, diplomatic and security consequences.”
“Erdoğan’s actions risk undermining our bilateral relationship, destabilizing northeastern Syria, squandering hard-won progress against ISIS, creating a new humanitarian crisis and harming our Kurdish partners,” Inhofe said.
A spokeswoman for Inhofe said because “the NDAA is currently in the conference process” she “couldn’t speculate” on whether it will include a response to the Syria situation.
A House Armed Services Committee spokeswoman told The Hill that lawmakers, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), are working on legislation related to the issue separately from the NDAA, but could not immediately provide more detail. A House Foreign Affairs spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
More than 50 House Democrats, led by Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), sent a letter to Trump on Wednesday afternoon demanding he answer 10 questions about his Syria policy, including how the United States will ensure the Kurds’ protection and what Trump considers to be “off limits” for Turkey to do.
“This decision jeopardizes decades of trust in American solidarity and will only serve to undermine current and future alliances,” they wrote.
In the meantime, calls are mounting for the Trump administration to testify about the decision, providing a high-stakes setting where they would likely face a bipartisan grilling.
Romney and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) are urging Senate Foreign Relations Committee leadership to have administration officials testify before the panel and “explain to the American people how betraying an ally and ceding influence to terrorists and adversaries is not disastrous for our national security interests.”
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, also called for Defense Secretary Mark Esper to testify before Congress “as soon as possible.”
“I would hope Secretary of State [Mike] Pompeo and Acting Director of National Intelligence [Joseph] Maguire will be called before the respective oversight committees as well,” Reed said.
“We need a full accounting and there is no time to waste. Congress must send a clear, bipartisan signal to this president that we do not condone his decision,” he added. “And it has to go beyond tweets and statements. We need action.”
A lot of opposition to us getting out of Afghanistan and Syria.
WRT Afghanistan, it should now be obvious to everybody that it was a mistake to Americanize the war, the planning for which was done under Bush, and the follow-through was conducted by Obama.
We’ve been in Afghanistan since 2001 and, still, the Afghanistan army cannot stand up on the battlefield. Nobody thinks the Afghanistan army will be able to stand up on the battlefield any time soon. At some point, we have to accept that we made a mistake attempting to “reconstruct” that Godforesaken place, and announce that for the foreseeable future, we’re out of the reconstruction business, and re-considering our options when attacked by a country such as Afghanistan or by terrorists operating from within such a country.
WRT Syria, it now should similarly be obvious that it was a mistake to support the uprising in this country. This decision was the brainchild of the Obama administration and was mostly the work of Hillary Clinton. This was a catastrophic mistake, with refugee crises in both north Africa and the Middle East, and with the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq and of Boko Harem in west and central Africa.
Part of the re-calibration of our strategy in response to transnational terrorist and criminal organizations has to be that we do not have many allies in the world. NATO is useless and, in the case of Turkey, part of the problem in the Middle East. Our foreign policy and military strategy has to consider what is sustainable in a world in which almost all of our so-called allies have disarmed.
Furthermore, the UN and the UN Security Council cannot play more than a token role in peacekeeping. The collapse of the UN in Iraq following our overthrow of Saddam forced us into a difficult situation. No country, not even one the size of the US, can be both the peacemaker and the peacekeeper in the world. These two roles are almost antithetical.
In any case, with the loss of the small capacity the UN once had for peacekeeping, and with the lose of almost all of our allies in peacemaking, the world should be recognized to be a much more dangerous place. Everybody should be forewarned to be on their guard.
We should after ourselves what few allies we have that are willing to belly up to the bar of mutual self-defense.
When Napoleon was asked what sort of enemy he wanted to fight, he replied, "allies."
But I do note that according to general Keane these Kurdish allies sustained 10,000 dead and 20,000 wounded.
If NATO and the EU wanted to stop Erdie, they could do it without firing a shot. Trump is clearly for an approach like that. Why isn’t Europe?
Answer: This isn’t about saving the Kurds. It’s about getting Trump. And our allies are in this up to their armpits.
Congress should just declare War against Turkey.
Otherwise give up the posturing.
Don't you dare try to pin that label on me. I have long argued in a vanity mea culpa that I was wrong in favoring the onset of the Iraq war. I have long posted that these wars are draining us, diverting our resources and weakening the nation.
On the other hand, I have warned against taking the wrong lessons from the last war which seems to be history's invariable grim joke played on humanity.
Right is right no matter who is against it and wrong is wrong no matter who is for it. Leaving those troops there would have condemned many of them to death and ultimately others would be added to the crucible to either rescue them or some idea of misplaced honor.
We are not prepared to decisively win battles so we should stay out of them until we are.
If I fight I will fight to kill and so I don’t. There is no other fight that is decisive or worth the investment or that ever ends. Life is hard and hazardous enough without spending it looking over your shoulder for someone you have injured to get even with you.
The very people who can impeach Trump hate him and what he does will not change that one bit. They, including most of the republicans, would turn on him in an instant over nothing but that they hate him. Sacrificing troops over moral outrage that is not in the immediate national interest to avoid impeachment is wrong and Trump knows that.
In the end none of our opinions matter one whit. The forum for sharing ideas may, from time-to-time enlighten someone so thank both of us for our views.
After what CONGRESS caused in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1975, when they pulled the plug on aid and would now allow President Ford to help them in any way, they literally have NO BUSINESS telling Trump how to run policy.
Note also that the Democrats have NEVER apologized for the genocide there.
Shipping war material is more than anyone would do for us and it is more than enough that we do for them.
Which is why our Deep State and the Euroweenies are going ballistic.
>>>But I do note that according to general Keane these Kurdish allies sustained 10,000 dead and 20,000 wounded.
Sure, but they did nothing to help us at Normandy.
Think about this: Some of Europe, our allies participated in Spygate. They have been aiding and abetting seditious Americans attempting a coup.
Would you trust those allies with/around your service personnel in a war zone?
I wouldn’t.
I mostly agree with you on this issue. You’ve been rying to reason with the current makeup of the dovish isolationist posters on FR and I think it is a waste of time. The misuse of the term “neocon” is one example of the lack of intelligent thought by this group. They use it as a slur against many Conservatives when they don’t even understand the meaning.
While we have disagreed from time to time, you are a serious thinker.
We have options with respect to the Kurds and others in Syria who fought alongside us. It’s not either defend them where they are or abandon them. We can relocate them to a place that can be defended; such as Iraqi Kurdistan; or taken them in as refugees. (There may be other options.) (I realize that Iraqi Kurdistan has challenges of its own, surrounded as it is by Turkey and Iran and Iran’s puppet states.)
This is in response to your prior reply in which you said: It’s about getting Trump. And our allies are in this up to their armpits. This isn’t about saving the Kurds. It’s about getting Trump. And our allies are in this up to their armpits.
The Kurds are against this, the Israelis are against this, our European NATO allies are against this, congressional Democrats are against this, most congressional Republicans are against this, but nevermind, the Turks are all for it.
If this is not a trap what is it, Fourth dimensional chess?
The Constitution specifies that Congress has the right to declare war. They haven’t done that. So why are they upset that POTUS is bringing out troops home from an undeclared War?
Bush wanted to get Bin Laden and get out of Afghanistan. It was Tony Blair who convinced him to attempt the building of a nation, something Bush’s advisors advised against.
The PPK Erdogan is attacking are Maoist Communists who have waged an insurrection in Turkey for decades. IEDs against civilians and all.
So many half truths.
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