James Mattis today l understand why everyone loved him. (1 Viewer)

[The moose]

This is an article from today.

James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution

In an extraordinary condemnation, the former defense secretary backs protesters and says the president is trying to turn Americans against one another.

www.theatlantic.com

Great read by a great man.

 

[SaintForLife]

I think it's reasonable for ordinary citizens like us to try to make honest assessments about US foreign policy, to avoid adopting talking points of leaders we like without conducting our own critical analysis, and to consider the influence of money in domestic and foreign decision-making by our leaders.

I did a quick fact-check of the Schiff story and it appears to have some holes and misstatements. That is not to say that Schiff does not receive funding from entities which would profit from foreign conflicts -- I am sure he does. It would be helpful to me to know whether there were certain congresspeople whose funding disproportionately came from those types of entities and whether their foreign policy views seemed to be disproportionately shaped by their donors.

But even if we accept that Schiff is uniquely corrupted by donors, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Trump's strikes on Soleimani and Abdul Reza Shahlai served the interests of Saudi Arabia and UAE, where he has deep personal financial ties, perhaps more than our own interests. These actions bring us closer to a longer lasting conflict with Iran, with whom Israel -- which has been investigated for assisting his campaign -- wants war. Trump was trying to help Russia obtain sanction relief at the same time he was in secret negotiations for a billion+ dollar deal which would have required Kremlin approval, and his foreign policy has been favorable to Russia nearly across the board.

If your default position is to be skeptical of our military action overseas due to what might be influencing it, it seems inconsistent to draw conclusions about Schiff in Ukraine that you don't also draw about Trump, particularly in light of the fact that our sanctions regime against Russia and in support of Ukraine was a widely bipartisan bill. The same goes for any conclusions you're willing to draw about Mattis, Graham, Rubio, etc. If there were a broader bipartisan consensus among our leaders that Trump's actions with respect to Russia, Saudi Arabia and others were in our best interests, I'd be much less skeptical about his motivations, and they would matter less. But most of the time, his decisions abroad are made abruptly, and without publicly stated reasons, and seem to catch military and legislative leaders off-guard and scrambling to come up with an explanation.

For decisions like the abrupt withdrawal from Syria, it felt like there was a scramble after-the-fact to say it was just him following through with his promise to draw down troops there. That felt to me like a convenient explanation for otherwise inexplicable behavior -- most people eventually want out of Syria, but they didn't want to just up and leave one day. It reeks of incompetence and/or corruption and it is not surprising to me that it was met with such aggressive bipartisan and military blowback. It seems extremely charitable to believe that what he did, and the way he did it, was part of a legitimate withdrawal plan. Being against an abrupt withdrawal that nobody seemed to know about is not the same as supporting our perpetual participation in Syria.

But even if you buy Trump's flimsy post hoc explanation for withdrawal, it's hard for me to understand why he is entitled to so much benefit of the doubt that you don't seem to give to the people who say it was a bad idea. If you gave Mattis even close to that much benefit, for example, you'd have to acknowledge that his reasons for resigning were legitimate. Those reasons appear to be supported by far more people than those who think that abandoning the Kurds and letting Erdogan massacre them was a good idea. And that takes me back to my original point: I didn't need Adam Schiff and Mattis to tell me that leaving the Kurds in the way we did it makes the US look like a crappy ally and empowers regional actors whose values do not align with ours; it seemed obvious to me, as it did to many others across the world.

That might be a record for the biggest strawman on the MCB. When did I say anything about Schiff being uniquely corrupted by donors? Also when did I say that Trump wasn't also corrupted by donors? Both parties are beholden to the miltary industry complex with varying levels of corruption I listed a Republican and a Democratic example.

Once again, I didn't say anything about accepting Trump's reason for withdrawal from Syria. I could care less what the reason he gave publicly or whatever the real reason was. The most important thing was the the withdrawal from Syria because we had no business being there in the first place.

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how long we needed to stay in Syria to protect the Kurds or how long we need to stay in Afghanistan and why.

You said you fact checked the article about Schiff and there were some holes and misstatements. Okay. List them please

 

[SaintForLife]

SFL, please don’t take this the wrong way. I have a thought which has occurred to me from reading your posts for a while now.

You like to say you read from both sides of the political divide, and I think you are sincere about that. Does it ever concern you that you seem to read from the extremes of both sides, maybe?

The extremes have more in common with each other than they do with the rest of us. Just a thought.

It's hard to respond to your post when you aren't specific. Please explain

 

[surada]

"But even if we accept that Schiff is uniquely corrupted by donors, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Trump's strikes on Soleimani and Abdul Reza Shahlai served the interests of Saudi Arabia and UAE, where he has deep personal financial ties, perhaps more than our own interests. "

Trump has NO deep, personal or financial ties to KSA. The Saudis know who and what he is.. and that he'll be around 4 years or 8 years.

 

[TaylorB]

That might be a record for the biggest strawman on the MCB.

Once again, I didn't say anything about accepting Trump's reason for withdrawal from Syria. I could care less what the reason he gave publicly or whatever the real reason was.

I tried, SFL, I really did, to make this productive. We obviously don’t quite connect. This thread consists almost entirely of good faith efforts to engage your argument about the corrupt motivations of every leftist and neocon who opposed Trump’s Syria withdrawal, which started when you sarcastically preempted any suggestion that Mattis’ resignation had anything to do with Russia.

If you're someone like me who thinks Trump is not intelligent or morally grounded enough to craft cohesive foreign policy that comports with our values, and rather approaches it transactionally in a way that is not necessarily designed to benefit the United States, then you're more likely to take Mattis' concerns seriously. If you think the criticism of Trump is overblown, and that his decisions are always designed to benefit the United States, then you're more likely to support what he did as being necessary, and to call out the motivations of Mattis and the scores of others involved in the bipartisan blowback over how he withdrew.

I don't claim to have the answers in Syria, but I was not alone in being alarmed about how the withdrawal went down. There's plenty of room for disagreement on the obligation we owed to the Kurds to protect them, but I don't remember many people arguing that we should just call them up one day, put up deuces, and leave them to be slaughtered. At least until after Trump did it -- then, it was spun as him fulfilling his campaign promise to withdraw troops. Did you speak up when the industrial military complex was invited to suppress protests the President didn't like, and declined? Will you speak up if things escalate with Iran in the coming months, or if we send Erik Prince's arm of the military industrial complex to Afghanistan or elsewhere?

 

[TaylorB]

"But even if we accept that Schiff is uniquely corrupted by donors, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Trump's strikes on Soleimani and Abdul Reza Shahlai served the interests of Saudi Arabia and UAE, where he has deep personal financial ties, perhaps more than our own interests. "

Trump has NO deep, personal or financial ties to KSA. The Saudis know who and what he is.. and that he'll be around 4 years or 8 years.

Sure he does:

Trump and Saudi Arabia: Deep business ties spark new scrutiny

The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi and calls for a tough U.S. response put the president in a hot spot

www.cbsnews.com

View attachment 1749

 

[SaintForLife]

I tried, SFL, I really did, to make this productive. We obviously don’t quite connect. This thread consists almost entirely of good faith efforts to engage your argument about the corrupt motivations of every leftist and neocon who opposed Trump’s Syria withdrawal, which started when you sarcastically preempted any suggestion that Mattis’ resignation had anything to do with Russia.

If you're someone like me who thinks Trump is not intelligent or morally grounded enough to craft cohesive foreign policy that comports with our values, and rather approaches it transactionally in a way that is not necessarily designed to benefit the United States, then you're more likely to take Mattis' concerns seriously. If you think the criticism of Trump is overblown, and that his decisions are always designed to benefit the United States, then you're more likely to support what he did as being necessary, and to call out the motivations of Mattis and the scores of others involved in the bipartisan blowback over how he withdrew.

I don't claim to have the answers in Syria, but I was not alone in being alarmed about how the withdrawal went down. There's plenty of room for disagreement on the obligation we owed to the Kurds to protect them, but I don't remember many people arguing that we should just call them up one day, put up deuces, and leave them to be slaughtered. At least until after Trump did it -- then, it was spun as him fulfilling his campaign promise to withdraw troops. Did you speak up when the industrial military complex was invited to suppress protests the President didn't like, and declined? Will you speak up if things escalate with Iran in the coming months, or if we send Erik Prince's arm of the military industrial complex to Afghanistan or elsewhere?

So because I don't care what the reason was Trump gave for withdrawal for getting out of Syria then somehow you act as if my argument isn't done in good faith?

I don't believe that the US should be involved in all these unnecessary wars and miltary engagements primarily so the military industrial complex can get big profits. Just about every major war or military engagement that we have been involved with has gone badly. We sacrfice our troops and the ones who survive are negatively changed forever. We inflame regions, kill their citizens, create more people that hate us, we leave region and coutries in shambles. We spent trillions of dollars that could be better spent at home or not spent at all considering we are 25 trillion in debt. If we are directly threatened or attacked then I could support limited miltary responses. We don't need to be the worlds policeman anymore. It's not worth it and counterproductive. We don't need to spend as much as we do on Defense.

I have no problem with people criticizing Trumps foreign policy decisions or statements, but I can also have my own opinions about them too.

I am against any war with Iran.

Why didn't you elaborate on the holes and misstatements in the Schiff article? If you make a vague claim you should probably explain in detail.

 

[TaylorB]

So because I don't care what the reason was Trump gave for withdrawal for getting out of Syria then somehow you act as if my argument isn't done in good faith?

I didn't mean it that way -- I actually believe that you're in favor of withdrawing from Syria. It's just hard for me to respond to your style of debate. You tend to aggressively steamroll counterarguments before considering them. I'm sorry for the poor analogy. It's hard to articulate. It's like going into a fight where one of the fighters gets to choose the weapons and rules for both sides. You steamrolled nearly everything I've said to this point in this thread by saying motive or bias discredits people (bipartisan Congresspeople and military members against the abrupt withdrawal) or clouds their judgment (me still believing the stupid Russiagate hoax). But you preempted that argument being used in response to you, because say you don't care what Trump's motives are. I made nuanced observations about our role in Syria, and what specific Trump decision I disagreed with and why, and you steamrolled it with another diatribe about the military industrial complex and our role in the world instead of attempting to consider whether there is any merit to the counterargument of not letting a strongman with whom Trump is infatuated commit genocide against an ally by leaving their side without meaningful notice. I didn't further clarify on Schiff because you will just try to steamroll it.

I am glad you have no problem with people criticizing Trump's foreign policy, because I will continue to do so as long as it appears not to be made in our country's best interests. I am glad you have your own opinions about foreign policy that are different from mine because it makes me challenge myself as to whether I am seeing it the right way. I would never say you're not entitled to your opinions, and despite our difficulty understanding each other, I'm still interested in what you have to say. I am with you on a lot of your views on the United States' role in the world, it's just that Syria was more complicated than that for me due to very specific things that were at stake.

 

[surada]

Sure he does:

Trump and Saudi Arabia: Deep business ties spark new scrutiny

The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi and calls for a tough U.S. response put the president in a hot spot

www.cbsnews.com

View attachment 1749

Print is too small for me to read. Prince Talal lives outside KSA and buying a boat is not a relationship.. Hotels in KSA are superior to five star hotels anywhere and typically have Swiss Mgmt.

The Saudis know what Trump is.

 

[MT15]

There’s a link, maybe you could click on the link and read the words

 

[surada]

There’s a link, maybe you could click on the link and read the words

Trump is always lying and bragging. The Saudis are cordial as they have been towards every US president since Roosevelt.

The know that Trump is stupid and unstable.