impeachment stupidity
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boji
Well-known member
nope. I meant ultimate. How'd that pen get in there? 
I'd edit it, but then your post would lose meaning.
I'd edit it, but then your post would lose meaning.
living sounds
Well-known member
BTW, what is even more damning about this decision to throw the Kurds - US allies instrumental in defeating ISIS - under the bus is the timing: Trump has a long history of creating deflections, and the Kurds appear to simply be the pawns sacrificed in order to divert attention from the Impeachment investigation and the underlying scandal.
How many men is the United States moving when we "throw the Kurds under the bus"?living sounds said:
Is the United States removing all support? After all, military support includes materiel, training, logistics support, and air cover as well as direct military action. What were we doing before, and what are we doing now?
What was the Kurdish involvement? What did they contribute? Do you have any idea of the number of men?
What is the Kurdish territory? Is there a single Kurdish element that we can coordinate with or negotiate or treat as a nation-state ally? Or are they a fragmented nominal identity without a central identifying element?
Basically, do you have any clue what you are talking about, or are you just repeating what you hear on the news because Trump = Bad therefore Trump Actions = Bad?
Oh, and how many troops will Germany commit to preventing Turko-Kurdish aggression? How long will you commit your young men and women in order to secure the imposed nation state of Syria? Which side will you support? Do you even k know what your options are, who the players are in Syria?
We should agree to disagree about President Trump since neither of us has much chance of changing the other's perception.living sounds said:
That said I do not want to appear unsympathetic to the Kurds, they have been the odd man out in the region for a very long time.
They are fierce fighters, typically on the right side of most fights (same side as US).
Turkey OTOH has been less of an ally, especially for being a long time NATO member. They want to become part of the EU also but have been unwilling to make some required reforms. :
Angela Merkel recently reiterated her opposition to letting Turkey join the EU as a full member. I repeat let's see how this plays out, but I do not expect Turkey to protect anybody but their own self interest (happy to play footsies with Putin to embarrass US).
JR
This kind of shallow political analysis is closer to mindless sports cheering than actual thought. Red is good so blue is bad, blue is good so red is bad, refs calls that benefit blue are bad because I am red even if it is right call, refs call that benefit red are bad because I am blue.
Geopolitics is complex stuff, and the entire history of the ME is fraught with messy perfidious foreign interference for geopolitical gain - short term and long term. The Kurds are in an unfortunate position of being spread across four imposed national borders - I say imposed because they were formed by treaties after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in WWI - the Treaty of Sevres and the Treaty of Lausanne, which formed modern day Iraq and Syria. There was a Kurdish nation for a little while then - the Kingdom of Kurdistan, but the British crushed it because Iraq was theirs, but they did not crush the Turkish Kurds in the Republic of Ararat because Turkey was not (they didn't really care if the Turks did, which they did eventually). Then the Kurds got caught in the Cold War and the Iranian revolution, so depending on which side of the Iran-Iraq border determined whether the US (or the rest of the West) supported, ignored, or hindered their efforts. After the Gulf War, where the Kurds in Iraq got obliterated again, the US decided to support the Iraqi Kurds because Iraq was our enemy (now) but we did not support the Turkish ones because Turkey was our friend. Heck, the Clinton administration even provided materiel to Turkey which they used to wage war against the Kurds. Iraqi Kurds were independent for a while after the 2003 invasion, but when this started to bleed into Turkey, we let Turkey bomb them in Iraq - the US even agreed to provide intelligence on Kurdish "rebel" movements. But that is all Iraq-Iran stuff.
Now we're talking about Syrian Kurds. Who is the good guy in Syria? Who is our ally? The Kurds are not our ally - nations do not ally with people, they ally with nations. We have not recognized a government to represent the Kurds. There isn't one.
Being completely analytical - and, yes, cold and callous - the Kurdish fighters in Syria are useful pawns in geopolitical games played by nations much larger and much more powerful than they are. We have geopolitical objectives in Syria, we have different ones for the Middle East, we have another set about Russia, we have another set for Turkey. And when the Kurds support our geopolitical objectives, we will help. When supporting them hinders them, we will not. We are not attacking the Kurds. We have, as far as I can tell, removed only 50 special forces personnel from Kurdish bases. But the raw quantity doesn't matter, not really.
Nation states act according to self-preservation and self-aggrandizement. They have always done so. They will always do so. Germany does it. The US does it. Syria and Turkey are doing it. Iraq and Iran do. Hyperventilating about this is to be irrational in the face of facts.
The United States is responsible for the well-being of one nation and one people only. When we believe it is in the best interest of our people to help other people, we will do so. And you know what? Americans are actually pretty generous and have a strong sense of justice - we help altruistically sometimes, too, with foreign aid, personal financial contributions, support to care organizations and charities, and even sometimes direct economic and miltary intervention to act as a force for good in the world.
Geopolitics is complex stuff, and the entire history of the ME is fraught with messy perfidious foreign interference for geopolitical gain - short term and long term. The Kurds are in an unfortunate position of being spread across four imposed national borders - I say imposed because they were formed by treaties after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in WWI - the Treaty of Sevres and the Treaty of Lausanne, which formed modern day Iraq and Syria. There was a Kurdish nation for a little while then - the Kingdom of Kurdistan, but the British crushed it because Iraq was theirs, but they did not crush the Turkish Kurds in the Republic of Ararat because Turkey was not (they didn't really care if the Turks did, which they did eventually). Then the Kurds got caught in the Cold War and the Iranian revolution, so depending on which side of the Iran-Iraq border determined whether the US (or the rest of the West) supported, ignored, or hindered their efforts. After the Gulf War, where the Kurds in Iraq got obliterated again, the US decided to support the Iraqi Kurds because Iraq was our enemy (now) but we did not support the Turkish ones because Turkey was our friend. Heck, the Clinton administration even provided materiel to Turkey which they used to wage war against the Kurds. Iraqi Kurds were independent for a while after the 2003 invasion, but when this started to bleed into Turkey, we let Turkey bomb them in Iraq - the US even agreed to provide intelligence on Kurdish "rebel" movements. But that is all Iraq-Iran stuff.
Now we're talking about Syrian Kurds. Who is the good guy in Syria? Who is our ally? The Kurds are not our ally - nations do not ally with people, they ally with nations. We have not recognized a government to represent the Kurds. There isn't one.
Being completely analytical - and, yes, cold and callous - the Kurdish fighters in Syria are useful pawns in geopolitical games played by nations much larger and much more powerful than they are. We have geopolitical objectives in Syria, we have different ones for the Middle East, we have another set about Russia, we have another set for Turkey. And when the Kurds support our geopolitical objectives, we will help. When supporting them hinders them, we will not. We are not attacking the Kurds. We have, as far as I can tell, removed only 50 special forces personnel from Kurdish bases. But the raw quantity doesn't matter, not really.
Nation states act according to self-preservation and self-aggrandizement. They have always done so. They will always do so. Germany does it. The US does it. Syria and Turkey are doing it. Iraq and Iran do. Hyperventilating about this is to be irrational in the face of facts.
The United States is responsible for the well-being of one nation and one people only. When we believe it is in the best interest of our people to help other people, we will do so. And you know what? Americans are actually pretty generous and have a strong sense of justice - we help altruistically sometimes, too, with foreign aid, personal financial contributions, support to care organizations and charities, and even sometimes direct economic and miltary intervention to act as a force for good in the world.
One other thing. I don't think President Trump is acting as a fixer in the ME. We have a decades long series of foreign policy decisions, reversals, pivots, and counter-pivots. During the Obama administration we softened on Iran and their proxy Syria at the expense of our relationship with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Israel. This made a mess. Trump is not fixing this mess. He is more or less saying, this is a mess, there is no solution, I'm out. It's a punctuation mark, not the start of another chapter...until the next administration, perhaps.
Think of Bashar al-Assad as Iran's proxy, who is Russia's proxy. Assad is supported by Iran and Russia. The US armed rebels and other groups against Assad, some of whom were moderate, some of whom were radical. The US was trying to walk a narrow path to reduce instability caused by ISIS in Iraq and reduce the severity of the Syrian civil war without stepping too hard on Assad-Iran-Russia to cause a confrontation.
What did that mean? Lots and lots of airstrikes, and US boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq supporting (i.e., training and materiel) certain groups. This includes "good" Syrian rebels who double pinky swore to fight only ISIS and not Assad and also YPG, a Kurdish militia who had worked WITH Assad but were willing to fight ISIS. We also supported Iran in Lebanon by saying their proxy the Lebanese Armed Forces were also a partner against ISIS. Which tacitly/indirectly is a boon for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Further, in Iraq, we delivered resources to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to fight ISIS on the eastern side. This action by President Obama's administration, particularly people like James Mattis and Brett McGurk is the situation which Trump inherited.
Those refugees all over Europe are a direct result of THAT action. Russia's increased influence in the entirety of the mideast via their proxies - Iran, Syria, and influence in Iraq and Lebanon, are a direct result of THAT action. Increased instability in Yemen caused by Iranian proxies are a direct result of THAT action.
You can't fix that with 4,000 US troops. President Trump keeping special forces or 5,000 troops or whatever there does not, cannot fix that. President Trump removing a few thousand troops doesn't change anything. The only thing it does is open him for criticism because of his own belligerent, trolling, clumsy-but-effective way of executing politics.
This entire situation can be laid at the feet of an Obama-era foreign policy pivot which has all but granted a complete victory to Assad in Syria, which is a boon for Iran, which is a boon for Russia.
In other words, we outsourced our warfighting to a bunch of rival factions that shared no common ethnic, political, or religious framework for the future. It's easy come, easy go for us - that's a feature, not a bug. So when we bail on one of these surrogates because its no longer convenient, that's exactly why we supported them in the first place. Right, wrong, or indifferent.
Think of Bashar al-Assad as Iran's proxy, who is Russia's proxy. Assad is supported by Iran and Russia. The US armed rebels and other groups against Assad, some of whom were moderate, some of whom were radical. The US was trying to walk a narrow path to reduce instability caused by ISIS in Iraq and reduce the severity of the Syrian civil war without stepping too hard on Assad-Iran-Russia to cause a confrontation.
What did that mean? Lots and lots of airstrikes, and US boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq supporting (i.e., training and materiel) certain groups. This includes "good" Syrian rebels who double pinky swore to fight only ISIS and not Assad and also YPG, a Kurdish militia who had worked WITH Assad but were willing to fight ISIS. We also supported Iran in Lebanon by saying their proxy the Lebanese Armed Forces were also a partner against ISIS. Which tacitly/indirectly is a boon for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Further, in Iraq, we delivered resources to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to fight ISIS on the eastern side. This action by President Obama's administration, particularly people like James Mattis and Brett McGurk is the situation which Trump inherited.
Those refugees all over Europe are a direct result of THAT action. Russia's increased influence in the entirety of the mideast via their proxies - Iran, Syria, and influence in Iraq and Lebanon, are a direct result of THAT action. Increased instability in Yemen caused by Iranian proxies are a direct result of THAT action.
You can't fix that with 4,000 US troops. President Trump keeping special forces or 5,000 troops or whatever there does not, cannot fix that. President Trump removing a few thousand troops doesn't change anything. The only thing it does is open him for criticism because of his own belligerent, trolling, clumsy-but-effective way of executing politics.
This entire situation can be laid at the feet of an Obama-era foreign policy pivot which has all but granted a complete victory to Assad in Syria, which is a boon for Iran, which is a boon for Russia.
In other words, we outsourced our warfighting to a bunch of rival factions that shared no common ethnic, political, or religious framework for the future. It's easy come, easy go for us - that's a feature, not a bug. So when we bail on one of these surrogates because its no longer convenient, that's exactly why we supported them in the first place. Right, wrong, or indifferent.
living sounds
Well-known member
All the motivated reasoning and whataboutisms aside, the fundamental thesis still stands:
Trump acted against his advisors, against their explicit counselling and expert judgement in a surprise move.
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/07/trump-syria-turkey-national-security-leaders-037958
The likely consequences are either genocide and/or new alliances of the Kurds with bad actors like Assad, Iran or Russia.
Trump acted against his advisors, against their explicit counselling and expert judgement in a surprise move.
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/07/trump-syria-turkey-national-security-leaders-037958
The likely consequences are either genocide and/or new alliances of the Kurds with bad actors like Assad, Iran or Russia.
living sounds said:
The last statement you put shows the abject ignorance you have of the situation. The Kurds are destabilizing separatists. Their people are in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.
There is no single entity, "the Kurds". Some Kurds - the YPG and PKK - are allied. The US considers the PKK terrorists but tries to have their cake and eat it to by arming and trainig the YPG. The PYD Kurds are supported by Assad in Syria.
Separatist Kurds in Syria are NEVER going to be supported by Assad, because that fractures his control. The PYD he supports because they want to decentralize but stabilize. Russia will not support separatist Kurds because they destablizie Assad. Likewise for Iran - Kurds are 10% of the Iranian population and no one wants a new, separate ethnic nation in the ME. The US supports the Iraqi Kurds, because they're a check against ISIS in Iraq and also act as a check to Iran. This move in Syria doesn't affect that position.
This isn't motivated reasoning or whataboutism, it's called being an objective observer and using your brain instead of being carried along the torrent of the political news cycle.
This sticky point in US-Turkish relations has been building for over a year now, and really for several years, because of the ties of the YPG to the PKK.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/world/middleeast/turkey-kurds-syria.html
Just admit you never heard of the Kurds until a few days ago and you don't give a rip about them or anyone else in the ME beyond their usefulness to you as a political bludgeon against a US administration you don't like. At least I could respect that.
Let's not forget that the Obama administration is basically responsible for the growth of ISIS in the first place. Some of the groups that coalesced into ISIS were funded and armed by the US as destabilizing forces against Assad in the hopes that we could oust him from Syria.
The general consensus is that we did this with the aim to get a natural gas pipeline built from Qatar to our European allies to free them from reliance on Russian natural gas. Hence Russia's involvement against ISIS and other rebel groups in Syria.
But oh no, Trump abandons Kurds. That's the storyline we need to focus on. Its comical.
The general consensus is that we did this with the aim to get a natural gas pipeline built from Qatar to our European allies to free them from reliance on Russian natural gas. Hence Russia's involvement against ISIS and other rebel groups in Syria.
But oh no, Trump abandons Kurds. That's the storyline we need to focus on. Its comical.
Bo Deadly
Well-known member
You guys are debating this like Rump actually knows the issues. Rump knows nothing of Kurds. He's just spinning things. He's using NYC real estate mogul blitzkrieg tactics to just bull-rush people into a defensive position, to conflate the real issues and create opportunities to change the narrative.
This is why I think impeachment is stupid. Anyone opposing Rump or running against him should just be reciting the long list of horrible positions, mistakes and ill effects of his presidency over and over again. And they should also always be pointing out that it's the Republicans that make it possible for Rump to corrupt everything around him. Just run that on a loop and wait until 2020.
I know it's not going to make a difference to the 43% of people that actually like the fact that he's a troll, but that's not enough to get re-elected. He would need to get that number up another 3-4%. That might not seem like much but the numbers appear to be locked into a very narrow range. He lost that 3-4% a few months in (Charlottesville) and never regained it. I know people don't want to make predictions and turn out to be wrong (again) but IMO the only way Rump can get re-elected is if democrats screwed up things with lots of righteous principles when they should be thinking long-term strategy.
This is why I think impeachment is stupid. Anyone opposing Rump or running against him should just be reciting the long list of horrible positions, mistakes and ill effects of his presidency over and over again. And they should also always be pointing out that it's the Republicans that make it possible for Rump to corrupt everything around him. Just run that on a loop and wait until 2020.
I know it's not going to make a difference to the 43% of people that actually like the fact that he's a troll, but that's not enough to get re-elected. He would need to get that number up another 3-4%. That might not seem like much but the numbers appear to be locked into a very narrow range. He lost that 3-4% a few months in (Charlottesville) and never regained it. I know people don't want to make predictions and turn out to be wrong (again) but IMO the only way Rump can get re-elected is if democrats screwed up things with lots of righteous principles when they should be thinking long-term strategy.
I have a serious question for you. Do you think referring to the president of the United States as "Rump" or whatever other childish pejorative you may dream up is helpful to adult discussion? I don't care who is in the office, I believe they deserve the title of President Obama, President Trump, President Bush.
I think people tend to underestimate political opponents. President Trump is not stupid. Nor was President Obama, or President Bush, or President Clinton. Stupid people do not become president of the United States.
You can't rail against political showmanship and talk about long-term strategy while employing emotional, ad hominem attacks. It does the exact opposite. In other words, calling the President "Rump" feeds his troll-base, it plays right into his hands by destroying political discourse.
President Trump the twitter troll was in some ways born out of the vitriol of the left for President Bush ("Chimp" and "Shrub"), and the vitriol of the right for President Obama ("Obongo" and others). Then everyone looks around, sees that we don't vote on issues or virtues or even rational self-interest any more but instead on looks, emotional sway, and appeal to crowds and wonders "how'd we get here?"
The next step is to say -- "Probably rumps fault," and perpetuate the cycle.
I think people tend to underestimate political opponents. President Trump is not stupid. Nor was President Obama, or President Bush, or President Clinton. Stupid people do not become president of the United States.
You can't rail against political showmanship and talk about long-term strategy while employing emotional, ad hominem attacks. It does the exact opposite. In other words, calling the President "Rump" feeds his troll-base, it plays right into his hands by destroying political discourse.
President Trump the twitter troll was in some ways born out of the vitriol of the left for President Bush ("Chimp" and "Shrub"), and the vitriol of the right for President Obama ("Obongo" and others). Then everyone looks around, sees that we don't vote on issues or virtues or even rational self-interest any more but instead on looks, emotional sway, and appeal to crowds and wonders "how'd we get here?"
The next step is to say -- "Probably rumps fault," and perpetuate the cycle.
living sounds
Well-known member
dogears said:
I live in Germany and know a few Kurds personally. But that has nothing to do with it.
Again, it's not my personal assesment I am sharing here, it's the relevant expert's.
[quote author=dogears]
I think people tend to underestimate political opponents. President Trump is not stupid. Nor was President Obama, or President Bush, or President Clinton. Stupid people do not become president of the United States.
[/quote]
General intelligence (working memory, math, langauge skills etc.) is just one of the 3 traits experts have found important for success and effective decision making. The other 2 are intellectual curiosity (a genuine interest in the world around you) and conscientiousness (self-discipline, efficiency, dilligence). Bush and Trump very much seem to lack intellectual curiosity. Trump also appears to lack empathy. And both lost the popular vote.
Appeals to authority fallacy. I don’t care what the “experts” say. Half of the “experts” are the same bad of neocons and misfits that got us in this mess in the first place. Why should we listen to them?
You have no clue what you’re talking about, are left copying and pasting experts that you’re frantically googling and can’t even admit it.
///
Popular vote is irrelevant in US presidential elections..
I guarantee you President Bush is better read than you are. I don’t know anything about President Trump’s intellectual curiosity - but I’m also pretty sure you don’t either. I wouldn’t be surprised if both had a higher IQ than either of us.
//
This conversation has been a delight. Have a good one.
You have no clue what you’re talking about, are left copying and pasting experts that you’re frantically googling and can’t even admit it.
///
Popular vote is irrelevant in US presidential elections..
I guarantee you President Bush is better read than you are. I don’t know anything about President Trump’s intellectual curiosity - but I’m also pretty sure you don’t either. I wouldn’t be surprised if both had a higher IQ than either of us.
//
This conversation has been a delight. Have a good one.
Bo Deadly
Well-known member
Seriously? You do realize that no one will know that your joking if you don't add a bunch of smiley face emojis.dogears said:
Obama did not call Jerry Nadler "Fat Jerry" or Al Franken "Al Frankenstein" or James Comey a "Slimeball" or others "Pocahontas" or "Crazy" or "Crooked". Rump mocked a disabled person at a rally. He said he would not have groped a woman because she wasn't good looking enough. Rump referred to entire countries as a "s**thole". He referred to Mexicans as "rapists". I could literally go on like this for an hour.
I do care who is in office and Rump does not deserve the title of President. He has no respect for his position, he's only interested in enriching himself and he violates his oath every day.
Rump it is. The "T" is silent.
Yes, in his great and unmatched wisdom here he can be watched demonstrating his IQ and all the best words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htyNQ8MK3xUdogears said:
I got criticized as being disrespectful of POTUS for calling the ACA Obamacare, even though democrats called it that (so I stopped), but you just go ahead and party like you are in your own personal echo chamber. It mainly reflects upon your character, while it does reduce civility on the forum for the rest of us.squarewave said:
Impeachment is many things but not stupid, it is an orchestrated opposition political strategy...trying to control the news cycle with a series of negative news leaks (death by a thousand cuts ).
Here's a stupid question, why not just try to vote him out of office in 2020? Perhaps the opposition doesn't think they can win a fair election on merit.
I am not smart enough to predict the future but I see trolls behind just about every tree these days. I miss the days when we could ignore politics between elections. Now even the NBA is tangled up in international politics. I bet Houston Rockets jerseys are more valuable in Hong Kong these days. 8)
President Trump has promised to drain the swamp and swamp dwellers from both parties, all over DC are pushing back, as they see their old comfortable and profitable ways being upset.
JR
Yet he's the President of the United States, wealthier than you will ever be, and defeated the shoo-in Democrat. I don't understand why people make their political opponents out to be idiots. Football coaches know better, because if you say they're terrible and they beat you, what does that say about you? Sure must suck to lose to an idiot.volker said:
Again. Stupid people simply do not become President of the United States. This is a conclusion anyone can arrive to over a beer or a scotch in a few minutes of quiet reflection.
Pretty interesting case study here.squarewave said:
As an casual observer -- and not a Trump voter -- I'd say he deserves the title of president as much as anyone else who got the requisite number of votes in the electoral college. As far as I know there is no character prerequisite. Making your respect of the title, and of the office, contingent upon your evaluation of the person holding that office is exactly backwards.
I imagine you never served in the military or this probably would be second nature to you. You salute the rank, not the person.
It's ok, though. Continue to perpetuate the very incivility you're railing against. I don't see how you miss the irony, but you do you.
boji
Well-known member
I think the left can't help themselves because he's become a symbol of the illusion of democracy. The left needs democracy more than the right does to enact change, and the leash held by corporate interests turns out to be much longer than the average citizen imagined.
It's safe to assume that in the greatest of power games, the one at the top is likely to exhibit the most psychopathy. If it were otherwise, they would not be at the top.
