T. Belman. Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted on Sunday. “This decision by President Trump will be a game changer – in all the wrong ways – for Turkey.”
Not only did the removal of troops get Turkey and the Kurds to negotiate it also got the Kurds to accept autonomy only from Syria. Til then, the Kurds had demanded independance which the US didn’t support.
Thus I was right to resist piling on and to suggest there was a hidden agenda that justifies what Trump did. Essentially he is ending the Syrian war by getting these two agreements. Without them the tail was wagging the dog. i.e., Trump was held hostage to intransigence. A side benefit will be the normalization of relations between the US and Syria and the US and Russia and the US and Turkey.
It’s just too delicious. President Trump ordered U.S. special forces out of Syria to a chorus of howling Democrats and all the old, experienced hands at State and, supposedly, the military. (I had doubts as well.) Democrats yelled that all hell was about to break loose. The Pentagon pulled its hair. Europe trembled and blanched. The Mideast girded for something awful.
Everybody thought we had to keep our troops around so the Turks wouldn’t invade Northern Syria and kill off all the Kurds. Everybody wanted them to negotiate with the Kurds and figured the only way to do that was little by little, by getting allies to reason with Turkey and hem and haw and maybe buy her off as in times past. Meanwhile, we had to keep the two ancient enemies, Kurds and Turks, apart.
Negotiations would ever happen only if our troops stayed.
Trump saw the situation differently. As beautifully laid out by Sundance at Conservative Treehouse, removing our guys would leave the intransigent Turks vulnerable to an alliance against them of their many enemies in the region. This thought didn’t occur to Turkish president Recep Erdo?an, who at first seemed delighted that we were leaving and promptly dispatched his troops into Syria, as everybody had predicted he would.
AT’s Thomas Lifson reports that ABC News was so appalled that it ran footage from a Kentucky gun range video, called it the Turkish invasion, and heaped abuse on Trump for atrocities committed against Kurds. Even the usually level-headed Andrew Malcolm took the president severely to task for abandoning our Kurdish allies. George Conway, who has never had a good word to say about the president, styles the troop withdrawal a blunder of historical proportions.
Not so fast, fellas. The actual result hasn’t been quite what everyone expected. Erdo?an suddenly understood the box he was in when Trump authorized Treasury secretary Mnuchin to prepare sanctions against Turkey. By themselves, sanctions haven’t succeeded much in that part of the world. But in concert with the departure of the U.S., they became a scary signal that Turkey was all by her lonesome. Having steadfastly refused to negotiate, Erdo?an now nervously rang up Trump and asked for an emergency conference. Trump sent Vice President Pence and national security adviser O’Brien to mediate negotiations with the Kurds.
These are the long sought negotiations, brought about by U.S. troops leaving.
Only Donald Trump saw it — just as only Donald Trump got North Korea to the table, forced the Chinese to play fair, and got the Mexicans to handle the immigrant caravans on our southern border. Trump once again exhibits strategic insight not seen in the White House since George Washington.
@ Edgar G.: This is a fascinating debate, Edgar. No, I never thought you were sympathetic to slavery.
I think if we want to continue this discussion, which has enabled me to learn a great deal from you about a historical period that fascinates me, we should do it in the chit-chat section. It is not really appropriate in this space, where we should by discussing the Kurd-Turk conflict.
I can’t resist one parting shot–why were the Southerners so angry at Ms. Stowe’s book that they in effect declared war on the North? That was a crazy overreaction. Did they really think it would cause the slaves to revolt?
Most slaves couldn’t even read. And masters had the power to keep books out of the hands of their slaves in any case.Slaves were rarely permitted to read books other than the Bible.
And supposing a few slaves did obtain copies of the book, would it really inspire them to revolt? More likely, they would have just chuckled at Ms. Stowe’s Stowe’s breathless prose, superficial characterizations, patronizing attitude toward blacks, etc. They knew much more about what slavery was really like than H.B. Stowe, and would have found little in the novel that interested them.
Did the Southerners fear that the novel would motivate Northerners to invade the South in order to abolish slavery? To boycott Southern cotton? Raise tariffs on manufactured goods from England? All very unlikely. Best-selling novels are aways one-year wonders. People read them and talk about them. and the author makes big bucks. But tvery few people have ever done anything because tmeasures? Why then did the book incite Southern leaders to wage war?
The only explanation I can come up with is that deep down, most white Southerners agreed with Stowe’s condemnation of slavery, even though they had great difficulty admitting this even to themselves. They waged war as a kind of “trial by combat,” to find out if God approved of their way of life or not. Their chivalrous attitudes were connected with this. To the knights of old, who were much admired by Southerners, only combat could determine who was right and who was wrong when a serious difference of opinion arose. The popularity of dueling in the old South is evidence of this.
In effect, the Southerners believed that if they won the war, it would mean that they were vindicated morally. If they lost, it would mean that God disapproved of their way of life, and wanted them to change. One evidence for this is that after the war ended, almost no Southerner suggested that slavery be revived. And almost none ever suggested that the South should make another attempt at secession. The overwhelming majority felt no problem in retaking their oath of allegiance to the United States. Nearly all said that they were glad the country had been reunited. Yes, they ‘grouched” about Reconstruction, but any violence during htis period was directed at the freed blacks, not Federal soldiers. Ever since the civil war, Southerners have paid their taxes and served loyally in all of America’s wars. Although few admitted it, even to themselves, they clearly felt that God had vindicated the abolitionists and passed judgment on their “peculiar institution.” They decided to accept the outcome of the war and move on.
@ Edgar G.: They rebelled because he was elected. He suspended Habeus Corpus only in certain states that were Copper Head dominated like Ohio and Indiana as a part of fighting the war. Yes, he only prosecuted the war to save the union and gave the South an ultimatum which they ignored so he issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan 1. 1863, which only applied to rebellious slave states not loyal border slave states like Maryland though at the end of the war he exerted influence behind the scenes to get those states to abolish slavery. The point is he knew, as a lawyer, that he couldn’t legally abolish slavery but he also knew that slavery had to expand or die. And the slave owners knew it, too. He didn’t have time to do anything and he struck a conciliatory note to keep them in the union. The Republican party was the antislavery party founded the year he was elected. The mere fact of his election was the causus belli. There was nothing irrational about it. It was a conflict between two competing capitalist systems that were mutually exclusive. One had to die. The conflict began during the American Revolution when slavery was abolished in the North, which was mainly a free labor economy any way. But, it was continually postphoned in a series of compromises as long as European powers held land in North America. When the last of those was removed, the war began.
@ Edgar G.:
Actually, the line was, “So this is the little lady who started the great war.”
@ Sebastien Zorn:
They didn’t regard themselves as irrational, the hotheaded loud talkers won the day. Many had great misgivings. The North controlled the Presidency, and Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus, which made him and his people virtual dictators….as many of their later actions showed.
He didn’t make the war inevitable to abolish slavery -that was a side issue, as his speeches showed -although not unimportant. His goal was to preserve the Union of States. The South, that is-the cultured and educated, wealthy part of it, was very strong on “States Rights”. 80 years before, the individual colonies had joined together to form the United States, with the strict proviso that each State held the complete right to leave the Union if it wished. This was partly because they were not homogeneous, rather diverse. Also many had become used to being independent, and for them this was a “try-out” of sorts.
They resented any more interference in their internal affairs. They had different ways of life, customs, wants and need, and felt a separate people, politically together by a tie which could be dissolved at any time they wished. .
There was a definite North-South divide, and the North was constantly short-changing them economically. The Dred Scott decision really brought things to a boil.. And the border states..a primitive time with many gangs of lawless marauders with no organised means to bring them to book. Life was cheap, it was chaotic. Any social history will show this. The country was still being born, with all the halts and missteps which naturally occur with it.
What sealed the fate of the South-although unless they were so brilliant at the beginning that the North would have to sue for peace- was the Battle of Antietam.
It pitted McLellan and Lee as opponents-with a huge advantage in numbers for Little Mac. Neither side won, but it stopped Lee’s invasion of the North. Lincoln took the (political) opportunity of hailing it as a massive victory, and gave the Emancipation Proclamation announcing the freeing of the slaves (in the Southern states only.)..which went down very well abroad, where there was strong objection to slavery, and basically ruined any chance that the Confederacy would ever be recognised as an independent country. From then on, it was mainly a defensive war on their part.
I still believe that slavery was on it’s way out, and by the end of the century would have been gone. It was being “chipped away”, piece by piece. When importing slaves was banned in , I think, about 1805-6, it was the beginning of the slide..
I think it was when Jefferson was President, and he was always very much against it. Strange that his mixed race descendants are still around to this day….I remember the news reports of Sally Hemmings about 20 years ago….
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
You don’t need to tell me that slavery as immoral. Do you believe that I think differently…??
However you have mentioned far too many items for me to deal with right now. Certainly many are correct and can be found anywhere, but some are very wrong. As for Stowe you are not correct there. As a pointer….and I checked, the book sold over 300,000 copies in the US right away, ( that takes up almost all the educated classes who could read English), the first printing sold in 3 days, and over a million sold in England alone. There were 17 printing houses working 24 hours a day and couldn’t keep up with the demand.
When she and her son met Lincoln at his request, the son reported after, that Lincoln greeted them with.. “So here’s the little lady who started this war” Some have said it wasn’t just a story, but the son confirmed it. … The South’s reception of the book only generated dozens of volumes of refutations… apart from that, it didn’t bother them that much, because their books gave them the satisfaction of pointing out all her errors and lack of knowledge about the subject, plus her quoting “sources” that they could show she’d never read… and etc. Why do I have to go into all this again.
I’m going to stop here else I’d have to sit down and write a book, and I’ve already explained my points of view.for both sides..
@ Sebastien Zorn: Good point. Itseems to be an example of insane “groupthink” that they seceded. “Thinking” based exclusively on emotions, not reason.
@ Edgar G.:
What other solution could they have sought, once out of the union? Otherwise, why leave? They had controlled every branch of government up to that point. Lincoln understood that the Constitution did not permit him to abolish slavery except in the capital and newly acquired territories. Only the war made that possible. They could have just waited four years and tried to take back the White House. They waited 2 weeks after his inauguration before they fired on Ft. Sumter.
@ Edgar G.: As to the “details” of the war, you are obviously much better informed than I am, and I defer to your superior knowledge in all of these matters.
Obviously, though, Edgar, we disagree as to who the “good guys” were and who the “bad guys” were in the civil war. I do not mean to say that the Southerners were bad people-very few Northerners thought that at the time, and Lincoln and Grant certainly did not. Both had Southern connections and inlaws. Lincoln was deeply saddened to have to call up men to supress the irrational rebellion.But the Southern “cause” was 100% wrong , both morally and from the point of view of their own interests.
The South was prospering in 1860 and in no danger. The cotton boom had lifted all boats. Few Southerners were suffering. They were not in any danger from the Federal government or the North. There was no political repression, no police state. The South was well represented in Congres, voted for president, and actually controlled the powerful Supreme Court.It had no rational grounds for going to war.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was in no position to inflict any harm on the South or change its scial structure. She couldn’t even vote! She was not in a position to abolish slavery or do anything that could hurt Southerners. If Southerners had simply ignored her novel , no harm of any kind would have come to them.
Many, although by no means all, Northerners disapproved of slavery in principle.But they did not have the power to end it in peace time, and only a small minority of “hotheads,” led by John Brown, wanted to abolish it by force. If the South had remained peaceable and loyal to the Union, very few Northerners would have followed his lead. And certainly not the Federal government.
Lincoln denied any intention of abolishing slavery without the approval of the Southern states. And there is no evidence that he was lying. If the South had not made an armed insurrection against the United States, slavery would only have been abolished when the Southern states felt ready to abolish it peacefully.
Slavery was and is a fundamentally immoral institution and a major violation of human rights. The Southerners were wrong continue this institution and even more wrong to fight to preserve it–even if it had been threatened, which it was not.
As for the tariff grievance, this was a minor irritant to the South that could have been resolved through peaceful political and economic means in time. Wealthy Southern planters could have “neutralized” any economic harm that the tariffs did to the South by investing their substantial profits from the cotton trade in manufacturing plants of their own. But few did.
To go to war when there were no rational grounds for doing so, and no grievances that required a war and gross violations of the constituion (which had been signed and ratified by every Southern State) was simply wrong. The result for the South were tragic. In some ways, the whole country is still struggling even now to overcome the bad blood and anger stirred up by this stupid, unnecessary war.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
I agree with all your points, except for the “conquering Sth America”. That was the brainchild of a group of “no surrender” fanatics,who got as far as Mexico and Maximilian. There was even the remains of an army ready to go, but it dwindled away to nothing before departure date…
Yes, I forgot all about Eli Whitney, and the “boost” of the cotton gin. A very good point. You might say that with no cotton gin, there might have been no war
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Lincoln and the Northern politicians generally took arbitrary and often unlawful
( by then standards) liberties, rather like bullies. Take the “Trent” matter, where Mason and Slidell, the 2 accredited Confederate Reps were illegally taken off the British ship Trent and brought back to the US. They were on their way to England and France to urge them to recognise the Confederate States as a separate National entity.
Britain actually nearly went to war against the North over it. They arranged to blockade the northern ports, sent an army to Canada, and prepared for war, generally. France also took the same measures.
It was a VERY apologetic communication from SEWARD which averted this looming conflict, which, if it had happened, would have doomed the Union..
Davis was NO “smooth politician”…He was under water nearly all through the war, didn’t ant to be President, had expected to be an army commander, and was completely unsuited for the position he was unexpectedly elected into by his colleagues. So he shouldered the burden.
Adam Dalgliesh Said:
Exactly. Slavery had to expand or die due to soil exhaustion as a result of a monocrop export economy. The Confederate States intended to conquer their way southward to South America. When Lincoln was elected on a platform of no slavery in newly acquired territories, that was the death knell for slavery. Its life had been artificially extended at the end of the 18th century with the invention of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin and the discovery of bat guano for fertilizer.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Adam, why go over all that stuff.. My books were written much closer to that period when many of the original sources from that time were still living.I’m not disputing your facts, just trying to give the period more balance. We both necessarily have to omit very much. .
{A little vignette- I recall in the late 1950’s In BC Canada, I was looking to buy property, and saw a VERY old woman digging in a back garden. Very small, brown as a nut, but vigorous. {very like Granny Clampett in “The Beverley Hillbillies) We got talking. She had a distinct “southern” accent, and talked about those times. Very heated cursing “them damned “niggas”, and how they ran riot over everyone after the War. Astonishingly she was over 90, and I originally thought she was part negro herself. All the time she was talking, she chewed tobacco (splotch.!}
The southern generals with more “dash”.., often were game hunters, riders, better shots, etc. took more risks. The plantation owners generally lived a “stately” old fashioned life, more like the English Cavaliers,, chivalrous -and easily insulted. This might be a cause of why they pushed for secession, although not all did, only the loudest talkers, mostly. (It’s no accident that the vast majority of the best horses in America traditionally come from Kentucky and the lower southern states). They believed very strongly in States Rights. As Bear said, they were fighting for their way of life. In a way, they were “100 years behind the times”. They had much contempt for the Northern money grubbers. They had to import all their manufactured goods from the North, and many disputes arose from northern sharp-dealing from time to time. I have read some of the economic reports of the imports-exports, etc of that period between the two areas, and the South was at a massive disadvantage.
{{{ Oh yes, I nearly forgot to mention “Uncle Tevia’s Cabin”, supposed to be based on a memoir (itself a bit dubious, especially the early part, and not widely read), of Josiah Henson, who, although supposedly mistreated (although he learned to read and write) He escaped to Canada WITH HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN, when about 40, became a preacher, travelled the world, and lived to be 94-5, in very good health nearly all that time. (question–how would a badly treated slave, born not long after the American Revolution, know the day, month and year he was born..?)..
The Stowe book had such a massive American and European impact, that I venture to say, that if it had not been written, there would have been no Civil War, and slavery, already well on its way out, would have been eradicated by the end of the 19th century.
The writer, Harriet Beecher Stowe, shortly after, was found to know nothing about plantations, never even saw one, and had not read the books which she gave as references,…Strange. When the facts became known and other books refuting her claims were written, she had to write another book to explain her first book.}}}
Like many “large fish in small ponds”, the southerners felt that one southerner could lick any 3 Northerners. They lived an extremely free life compared to the majority of the north, who were slave-wage earners, and boasted that their slaves were far better off than those “free” workers, living in very overcrowded hovels, and in unsanitary factories, working 10-12 hours a day, just to eat..etc. . About your contention that people were free to leave their jobs if the management was harsh. Of course they had the choice, but they were mostly immigrants from poor, backward parts of Europe and their jobs meant everything to them.
The southern plantations and small farmers were self-supporting in everything -except manufactured goods. Also, in a way, their position was like that of Israel, in that they HAD to win, because they had nowhere to go, so often used unorthodox tactics which solid, unimaginative military training did not teach.
You likely know that many un-reconciled southerners went to Mexico…
@ Adam Dalgliesh:I believe the Southerners were fighting for their way of life.
I believe many Northers were not so sure what they had to gain in their fight.
That was always my impression about motivations in the war.
@ Edgar G.: Edgar, I accept that you know more about the civil war than I do. I have only read half a dozen books about the civil war, not the 140 that you have read. And while you have kept your books in your private library, I either gave away nearly all my books to my town’s library, either to sell or add to their permanent collection, and sold them to private collectors, when I sold my house and moved to my present small apartment. However, the books I did read about the civil war were in my opinion of high quality, especially Macpherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom, and one called Lincoln’s War, and two books by Southern authors that told the war from the point of view of Confederate general, former U.S. Vice president and Secretary of War, and eventually Confederate Secretary of War as well, John Breckinridge. I also was a devoted watcher of the PBS documentary series about the civil war, directed by Ken Burns, which I think was overall pretty good-especially the photographs and drawings, which reveal quite a lot about what the war was like and what it did to America.
While I am sure you are more familiar with the details of the war, including the problems on the Confederate side, and are right to correct me on some important points that I got wrong, I will stand by my view that the Southerners were for whatever reason more motivated to fight than the Northerners. Actually, there were many Northerners who were motivated to fight, but only about half the Northerners and Westerners, as opposed to most Southern whites, were highly motivated to fight. This made the North’s numerical advantage less impressive than it seemed.
Whatever their occupational backgrounds, none of the authors that I read doubted that the Southern generals were on the whole much more talented and successful commanders than were the majority of the Union commanders. While most Confederate commanders did a good job throughout the war, the majority of the Union commanders had a “learning curve” of at least two years before they began to win battles, and some never caught on.
Perhaps one reason the Confederate generals did better than their union counterparts is that most of them had been slaveowners. A slave-owner can give commands that his slaves have little alternative but to obey. On the other hand, while most Union generals did have high social positions before they were commissioned as generals by Lincoln, few had experience commanding people who had no choice but to obey. Foe example, several Northern generals had been industrialists. But workers at a factory did have the option of quitting their jobs if the boss was harsh with them, and some did. It is thus possible that the Northern commanders had less confidence that they would be obeyed by their men than the Southern commanders. In any case, it is not in dispute that there were more incompetents in the Union officer corps than in the Confederate officer corps, for whatever reason.
The biggest mystery of the war is why the Southerners were so eager both to secede and to fight in the first place. Many of the historians whom I have read think this lacked rational sense. When they were debating whether to secede after Lincoln was elected, all of the pro-secession leaders and governors stressed the slavery issue. They argued that Lincoln intended to free the slaves , and that this would cost the slave-owners hundreds of billions of dollars (in present-day inflated dollar values), and totally destroy the Southern economy. However, Lincoln had promised that he would not attempt to abolish slavery where it was only established, only try to prevent it from spreading to the territories in the West which were not yet states. But since seven of the nine Supreme Court justices were Southerners, and the Supreme Court had ruled in the Dread Scott case, that it was unconstitutional to free any American slave without the consent of his/her owner, because it violated the right to private property guaranteed by the Constitution, it was unlikely that in peacetime Lincoln could have abolished slavery or even have prevented it from speading to the West and North.
After the war, Southern historians argued that cultural differences between Northerners and Southerners, and other economic issues, such as the protective tariffs imposed oon the South by the Northern majority in Congress, were the real reasons for the secession. But that was not the explanation that the Southern politicians gave when they voted for secession. Go figure. Certainly the secession proved to be a suicidal decision by the Southerners. It took them decades to recover from the economic devastation caused by the war. the war. And the number of Southern women would were left as widows by it, with little chance of remarrying, was huge.
Folks remember this is the middle east you are commenting on. Common Occurrences:
1. Lying is the Norm
2. Agreements are for breaking or denying
3. There are already reports I have heard about that say Turkey did NOT agree to a ceasefire and the Kurds refused everything.
@ Laura:
Perhaps that could be altered-a little- to read “decisions, of which they have no idea, what his expected outcome will be”.
The point is, that people are shooting-from-the-hip, at anything that moves…even a waving blade of grass, or bird on the wing.. How can we see into the mind of a man like Trump who has outwitted thousands of experienced foes, far more clever than we are.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Adam- I am not misunderstanding you. Yes, Lincoln turned out , (posthumously), to have been a great and good man, and I actually know just about everything that you have posted, including the riots, lasting for days, the border states, Copperheads, and much more. As you do. Not to forget his personal unpopularity, and opposition within and without, his own government…Stanton, Chase, Washbourne, Greeley, Sumner, Vallandigham, and many others. He was perhaps the most genuinely hated and despised President of all.. He never recovered from the opprobrium he caused when he suspended the Rights of Habeus Corpus.
I know Lincoln wrote his own speeches, but he also had secretaries, from whom he got some occasional assistance, John Hay and John Nickolay. They were very close and today would be called National Security Advisors. They helped Lincoln in planning and much more. Hay later became Secretary of State…. I just pointed out that he was very careful about composing his speeches, and wasn’t an “off-the-cuff” speaker or writer by any means. I have this documented somewhere. I didn’t want to write a megillah, so confined myself to what I thought was the major salient points. But it looks as if I’m into one now. (but barely scratching the surface, like yourself)
I have a Civil War collection alone of well over a 120-30 books ,by the most prestigious authors and some by otherwise unknowns. They include major and minor battles, plans, tactics , battle movements and much more. They include a few written by former slaves, and one very touching book by a man who worked for a Jewish family. He and his fellow slaves were given as much free time as needed to work outside the home, earn money and then buy themselves free. Thus, they complied with the law, and aroused no public animosity towards the family. I also have few social histories of that period.
I know all about McLellan,”Little Mac” or “Little Napoleon” and how beloved he was by his men, and how wary and over anxious, and almost useless, he was as a general.
West Point in those days was a very small place, and in fact, gave the Union double the number of Southern Generals. they weren’t that many, and left West Point as cadets, before graduation as 2nd lieutenants. . Lee, the Commandant, 1852-55, They had no command experience. Bragg was a plantation owner, self-taught, with NO experience whatsoever, but became the most successful general on either side…etc.
You have to credit the South with having NO government, and none of the normal functioning departments of a country. They had to begin everything from scratch. Nothing except spirit.
I know about Judah Benjamin, I have 3-4 books on him. He was really the brains of the South, which would have folded much earlier except for him. Davis, the former Sec of War, was well over his head, and the lack of discipline, quarrels and infighting amongst his various staff and applicants, seriously hampered the war effort.
I happen to have Mary Boykin Chesnut’s book based on her very true-to-life Civil War Diary. Massively interesting as I recall it. It seems that she was in and out of the Davis’s home all the time . She knew EVERYBODY. And, from what she said, Davis knew he was not fit to be President, he was at heart a supporter of the Union, placed in an ambivilous position, deeply disturbed about the people he had to send to war. A really good guy, with a very unhappy life..
The fact is, that it WAS a David and Goliath situation, in which the South was doomed to lose from the very beginning. .
So let’s leave them all at Rest and Peace….
THE LATEST IN THE TURCO-KURDISH-SYRIAN SAGA, AS REPORTED TODAY IN THE JERUSALEM POST. I realize that it is disrespectful to speak this way about a war in which hundreds of people have been killed and about 200,00 displaced from their homes. But with new developments and conversations about it reported every day in the media since Oct. 8, this story ihas begun to seem like a soap opera. As with soap operas, ther is no way of knowing how it will end, or if it ever will. Maybe like “as the world turns,” the Turkish-Kurdish-Syrian-Russian-Iraqi-Iranian war will continue to “run” for the next 30 years, without ever reaching a conclusion. The MIddle East violence just keeps “turning” (or churning) around, with ever shifting alliances and new developments.
@ Ted Belman:
This would be a great outcome. I don’t know if that’s Trump’s strategy, I think he’s simply an isolationist at heart. He has explained straightforwardly that he wants to end our military involvement in the Middle East, it might just be that simple. But many supporters are overthinking Trump’s decisions and coming up with all kinds of convoluted explanations to justify a bad decision.
Are folks aware that 11,000 Kurdish fighters were killed fighting isis on our behalf? Since when is it a conservative or American value to throw pro-American allies who fought alongside us under the bus? The fact that the president takes sole credit for defeating isis while throwing those who actually did the fighting and dying under the bus and even trashing them, is unseemly. I support president Trump but I won’t blindly defend every policy decision he makes. This is the problem I see with some Trump supporters though. What’s wrong is wrong.
As far as fighting endless wars, the few soldiers that we had in northern Syria weren’t fighting, they were there gathering intelligence. They were no more involved in fighting a war than the troops we still have in Europe, Japan and South Korea.
We will find out the hard way that taking an isolationist approach to foreign policy is what will bring us war, history bears that out. WW2 was preceded by a period of isolationism. 9/11 came about after we failed to respond to multiple terrorist attacks over a period of several years; the first WTC bombing in 1993, the Kobar towers, African embassy bombings, the USS Cole. I just don’t understand the isolationist, appeasement, cut and run attitude that currently pervades the conservative movement.
@ Edgar G.: Edgar, Lincoln’s written speeches and letters (he didn’t have a speech-writer) are among the most eloquent and beautiful ever written by any American, and as beautiful as that of the very best European orators, such as Cicero. They have been included in the series of the greatest classics of American Literature. So, for that matter, are Grants memoirs, which are also beautifully written. I think that many Americans in this period had a greater command of the English language and how to write beautifully than today. FDR was the first President who needed a full-time speech writer. All the previous Presidents wrote their own speeches.
Winning the civil war was not so easy as you think for the Unionists. Many people in the North were sympathetic to the South. That included some Union generals, most notably George McClellan. Some Northern newspapers campaigned against the war. Opinion was deeply divided between pro-Unionists and pro-Confederates in the key border states of Missouri, Kentucky, and above all Maryland. If Maryland had seceded, as a fairly large minority of Marylanders desired, Washington DC would have become the capital of the Confederacy. When Lincoln tried to draft men to fill the increasingly depleted ranks of the Union army, it provoked violent riots in New York City. Few men were actually drafted, and by the end of the war the North was running short of volunteers.
More than half of the West Point graduates and most of the competent generals at the beginning of the war were Southerners. It took a long time for Lincoln to identify and weed out the incompetent generals and and identify and promote the competent ones, of whom Grant was only one. Jefferson Davis never had any such problem. Most Southern generals proved to be excellent, aggressive commanders throughout the war.
Although the North had all the advantages in terms of numbers and resources, the Southerners were more highly motivated. Lincoln had to cope with a very large “peace” faction in the North that wanted a negotiated peace with the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis did not have to cope with such a large southern peace faction. Despite their inferiority in numbers, the 5-6 million white Southerners fought with enormous ferocity and courage. People were willing to make unlimited financial sacrifices for the “Lost Cause.” The Southerners showed great inventiveness in producing weapons and procuring them abroad, in spite of all the difficulties they faced.
The incompetence problem in the Union officer corps was so severe that Lincoln had to teach himself a crash-course in military strategy and tactics, accomplished through massive quick-speed reading, in order to direct the actual battlefield strategy and tactics himself, despite his lack of previous military experience. He had to be commander-in-chief in the narrowly military as well as political sense of this term.
He had to cope with being reelected in order to assure a union victory. His reelection campaign was long and hard. His opponent, General McClellan, nearly won.
Davis never had to worry about reelection and could devote himself full time to directing the war. However, he did not prove to be as good a military commander as Lincoln, and sometimes got in the way of his generals instead of helping them.
Lincoln’s ambassidor in London, Chrles Adams, had great difficulty talking the British government from joining the war on the Confederate side. He suceeded only through his great eleoquence and persuasiveness, and his success in rallying the British anti-slavery movement and labor unions to the the side. Lincoln and his Secretary of State, Charles Sumner, picked Adams for the job, and hence deserve a share of the credit for his success.
Lincoln’s cabinet was extremely fractious and full of internal conflicts, and he had real trouble getting them to pull together. The U.S. Congress as well, often opposed and harassed him, and even harassed his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.
Jefferson Davis had no such problem. He had an incredibly able, smooth politician as his right-hand man, with an office right next to his, Judah Benjamin (a Jew). Although his official title was Secretary of State, Benjamin was also Davis’s de facto chief of staff. He kept Davis’ cabinet and the Confederate Congress in line, relieving Davis of most of this responsibility. Lincoln jhad no one of equal political skill close to him, not even Sumner.
The only way Lincoln was able to defeat the fanatical Southerners was to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and then allow blacks to volunteer for the Union army. Towards the end of the war, black volunteers were the only way Lincoln could replenish the huge losses suffered by the Union Army, which lost more soldiers than the Confederates. Yet he had to overcome the opposition of many northerners, and soldiers, both to the emancipation of the slaves and to blacks serving in the army.
Lincoln was a “great and good man.” The USA could not have survived without him.
@ Edgar G.:
@ Michael S:
Hello Michael, It’s pleasant to get such a nice post from you. Nothing to argue about as we’re both on the same side in this. You’ve obviously been keeping a very close eye on whats going on, and drawing the more correct conclusions (my opinion). Yes I did forget to mention you, because I’ve seen your presence only very rarely for a while. So that makes three of us. My error and apologies.
And thank you for your blessing. This is the time of the year when our Festivals have been in full flower, and also blessings, so yours is very welcome..
@ Ted Belman:
Well thank you indeed. Of course, Adam is highly educated with several degrees. He’s also a good researcher (which I don’t do at all) And I have had the benefit of being a truly omnivorous reader all my available waking hours, since about age 3-4-5, possessing a 7000 volume personal library, as well as taking shopping bags full of books home weekly, from any public library available. When I’m interested in a subject i get everything I can find on it, so have a wide variety of data. And i read the footnotes as well as references.. etc.
I recall very much of what I’ve read -although I don’t believe all of it. So no credit there.
Bear Klein Said:
I never said that. I said “Not only did the removal of troops get Turkey and the Kurds to negotiate”. Perhaps I compressed what I had read to come up with this but one of the articles I read said Erdogan invited Trump to come and negotiate after being told what should be negotiated.. It was for this reason that Pence and Pompeo came to Turkey. Erdogan has since said that he will only negotiate with Trump.. Obviously they would be negotiating on behalf of the Kurds. Sorry for not being more explicit in my comment.
My last post Erdogan says Turkey will never declare ceasefire in northern Syria includes this sentance,
I found the article I was looking for.
@ Ted Belman:
Ted, I believe strongly obviously that Trump was very short sighted and made a strategic error that weakens the USA and strengthens its enemies.
As he the best choice I will still vote for him.
Bear Klein Said:
I agree that that is the outcome so far. Nothing has been disclosed that justifies the removal of US troops without properly laying the ground work.
Having said that, I do not believe that Trump has disclosed his agenda. Nor do I believe that his decision was not well thought out. That doesn’t mean I think he is infallible. Everybody makes mistakes.
@ Ted Belman:From Lindsay Graham on Twitter
Maybe the Senator took down the tweet you are referring to as I do NOT find it on his twitter feed and it contradicts everything else he is tweeting and saying. Whatever the case Ted, it IS NOT ACCURATE.
@ Ted Belman:You should read my link and listen to Trump talking whatever Graham may have tweeted is NOT currently the state of affairs nor any longer relevant.
@ Edgar G.:
I am truely impressed with the knowledge both you and Adam display.
@ Ted Belman:Another inaccuracy in your commentary above is that Turkey has agreed to negotiate with the Kurds. THIS IS NOT CORRECT!
Turkey refusing to enter into talks with Syrian Kurds | Wednesday, October 16th 2019
So Trump’s actions ARE NOT WORKING unless you are for ISIS or Russia. ISIS has now started attacks. Russia is clearly the power broker in the mid-east. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE met with Putin. Clearly Trump going soft on Iran and now Turkey is having all middle east allies hedging bets.
@ Bear Klein:
Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted on Sunday. “This decision by President Trump will be a game changer – in all the wrong ways – for Turkey.”
That’s what I based my opinion on.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Sorry Adam but have to disagree as re “genius”… Lincoln was not naturally eloquent, except in a local, homespun, high-pitched voiced, man-to -man way. He wrote his speeches very carefully, too. But let’s assume he was. (the closest thing to genius in the White House was Thomas Jefferson-my opinion.) By your standard , however, one could say that Obama was a genius . …. And Reagan, who was an easy talker from his movie days. None of them was.
Lincoln,elected after 3-4 voting calls…. groped his way, with a highly geared up manufacturing economy, a population of about 25 mill., against a total of about 8 million agrarian plantation owners, small farmers, hillbillies-and slaves, (of whom there were about 3 million). , They had hardly any weapons of war, one or two poorly laid rail lines, no transport system, poor roads, just one real smelting and casting plant at Tredegar Iron Works. , no navy nor established army, no manufactured goods industry of any impact, and little else….except raw cotton and blockade runners..The vast majority owned no slaves whatever. ( the war was only partly about slavery, but PC much later has made it as the major cause).
It took him a few years of trial and error, before he found, a few generals who could command troops, make them fight and win…nearly always by attrition by superior forces. Grant was made Army Commander only in 1864 (due to his previous year’s successes), and the South had already been staggering on the ropes since early 1863.
His progress was basically the “Anaconda Plan”, designed by General Winfield Scott who retired at the war’s beginning. These forces were being constantly swollen by the huge numbers of European immigrants pouring in from Europe and almost instantly drafted for military training.
No doubt that Lincoln “learned on the job”… and his tenure is particularly noteworthy because of the most dire internal political situation that the US ever faced. If the South had pulled off the impossible and won. Lincoln would have sunk into the same obscurity that befalls most Presidents.
It was David and Goliath….and this time Goliath won..After all, Lincoln made a great Goliath, 6′ 4-5”, plus 15 inch high stove-pipe hat… A massively impressive spectacle.
(We always see him bearded, but he was clean shaven up to his last year of life).
@ Ted Belman:Lindsay Graham does NOT agree at all to what Trump is doing in Syria or what he is NOT doing.
Your comment is way out of context and NOT ACCURATE AT ALL!
“Lindsey Graham pledges to be Trump’s ‘worst nightmare’ on Syria if necessary.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is an outspoken supporter of the Trump administration. But on Wednesday, he fired off a series of criticisms aimed at President Trump, in response to the commander-in-chief’s previous statements about the senator’s foreign policy.
His comments came after the president dismissed Graham’s criticism at a press conference, saying that the South Carolina senator would want the U.S. to stay in the Middle East for a “thousand years.” He also claimed that Graham’s constituents wanted to bring U.S. troops home rather than leave them in Syria.
Graham, considered a foreign policy hawk, has been critical of Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops from Syria and claimed the president was responsible for Kurdish deaths after Turkey’s incursion into the country. Kurds worked with U.S. forces in recent efforts to beat down the Islamic State terror group in the region.
TED, If you follow the Link you can hear Trump berating Graham and rationalizing his leaving by bad mouthing the Kurds.”
https://www.foxnews.com/media/lindsey-graham-worst-nightmare-syria
Erodgan is traveling to Russia to speak to the new power broker in Syria Putin on the on going events.
Trump is limited to threats of sanctions, as the US House in an overwhelming bipartisan fashion rebukes Trump for bailing on the Kurds.
Yes, there are few here and there that are grasping at straws trying to find the pot at the end of the rainbow in Trump’s withdrawal but the straws keep being slippery.
Perhaps Erdogan and his Islamic buddies including ISIS are the master strategists?
>Rudaw cited a Monday article in Foreign Policy that quoted two anonymous U.S. officials who said Turkey’s Syrian allies are “deliberately releasing detainees affiliated with the Islamic State from unguarded prisons.”
Saying Trump knows what he was doing in Syria sounds faith based and short on supporting facts. Trump master ploy of opening the door for Turkey’s invasion and his betrayal of the Kurds have led until now to 160,000 or more Kurds fleeing their homes and so far about 500 dead. This includes the slaughter of civilian’s by Turkey’s allied Syrian Terrorist Army. It almost looks like ISIS and the Turks planned this together. If not they are jointly working against the Kurds.
ISIS is back, Russia is stronger, Iran is bolstered and the USA is reeling from the betrayal of allies by POTUS Trump. It now looks weak and unreliable to foe and friend.
@ Edgar G.:
Thanks Edgar for your elegant words.
I have always given Trump the benefit of the doubt because he has earned it. I avoid being part of the mob who are so quick to judge him. If that wasn’t enough, I had the benefit of being somewhat informed by Mudar who immediately told me that this would not turnout well for Turkey. Sen Graham has since agreed.
Remember when the US Ambassidor to Iraq gave Hussein a “greenlight” to invade Kuwait, things did not turn out well for him either.
The US has never promised the Kurds, independance. In fact when Kurdistan in Iraq had a referendum favouring independance, the US was very angry with them and allowed Iraq to clip their wings.
What brought the US and Kurds together was their mutual interest in defeating ISIS. That has largely been accomplished. The partnership has never been more than that.
Nevertheless I have for many years been advocating for Kurdish independance. I saw American presence in Syria east of the Euphrates R as a very good thing for America and Israel. Their presence there presented an obstacle to Iranian expansion and it also gave the US a seat at the table for any talks on the destiny of Syria. I am very dissappointed that the US has now said we don’t care about both of those things or at least that’s how it appears. Remember Trump has just moved his troops to south of the safe zone.
So the question is, did Trump squander those assets or has he made an investment in something that wil show even greater benefits.
As many people including Clare Lopez have pointed out, Turkey is no friend.to either the US or Israel.
I wish that Trump had gone about this differently by providing for the protection of the Kurds. Because of the invasion many people have been killed.
Adam Dalgliesh Said:
You may be more prescient than you know. Where did you get this idea from?
This quotation , from the English-language edition of Deutche-Velle’s website, offers an interesting European perspective on the Turkish-Kurdish disaster.
Despite Kelly’s statement that the Trump administration opposes the Turkish invasion, the Atlantic claims that in the closed-door meeting of the Security Council, the U.S. joined with Russia in opposing the proposed European resolution censuring Turkey.
This quote is from Stripes.com. It again suggests that Trump and the military were more on the same page than the MSM claimed when he announced the troop pullout from parts of northeast Syria and his alleged “green light” to Turkey.
I am inclined to agree with Edgar’s position of this, if I understand him correctly. Also Michael S.,s position. I explain my thinking more fully under Seth Frantzman’s article on this site.
I don’t know exactly where Ted stands on this. His comments on the Trump-Erdogan-Kurdish nexus have been relatively brief.
I don’t think Trump is a genius, or has any pretensions of being one. I am not sure we have ever had a genius Presiden, except possibly Abraham Lincoln. As Thomas Jefferson pointed out in his eulogy for Washington after his passing, he was no genius, but rather a man of solid, reliable prectical judgment. I think Lincoln probably was a genius, because of his great eloquence and very solid judgment about nearly everything as President, despite almost no formal education.
While Trump is no genius, his decisions concerning Turkey and the Kurds are carefully thought out, well-informed, and motivated by a clear set of strategic goals. I don’t know if his strategy to replace Erdogan with a better, more pro-Western and pro-American Turkish government by giving him enough rope to hang himself, and while giving the Kurds sufficient arms to defend themselves, will work. But I don’t know that it will fail, either.
@ Bear Klein:
Bear…as I believe I’ve said more than once, you remind me of the old ditty “He Played His Ukulele As The Ship Went Down”. When you state your opinion, you have a very admirable trait in that you stay with it, unlike others. it shows your complete confidence in yourself.
But a problem arises when you are deeply entrenched in one position, and the “opponent” suddenly changes “direction”. Trump, unlike every politician before him, does not often “leak” his intentions, so as to see the reaction…He leaks them to put his opposition haring off in the wrong direction..
We just saw a brilliant, and still ongoing, display of “The Art Of The Deal”, adapted to politics… To show how far we are “behind the curve”. Erdogan realised he was in trouble days ago already, whilst the world was still busy blasting bombs at Trump, and in response to his less than truculent request for a meeting, Pence and Pompeo were due to be meeting him on Thursday, (tomorrow).
We must compliment the acumen of TED, who, although beset on all sides, steadfastly asserted his faith that Trump was “doing something” more than was visible.
People as a rule are all to ready “to run with the hare, and hunt with the hounds”. and nowhere more than on a blog site where almost anything (in good taste) is allowed. ….
@ Edgar G.:
Edgar,
You didn’t mention me who, along with you and Ted, have sat back and given the US President the benefit of the doubt.
I’ve been out of state for a month, and have just been catching up on the news. The last I tuned in here before going on our trip, Israpundit was consumed with concern about the “Deal of the Century” that hadn’t even been published yet. It was supposed to be revealed after the “Israeli Election” — supposedly an event that was supposed to happen on a certain day last month; but in reality, a continuing process that may drag on for years. The election came and went, the “Deal…” was revealed (no surprise to anyone — it turned out to be yet another partition of Israel, the only difference being that it more accurately reflects the status quo than previous proposals), and the “Pundit” conversation shifted to the latest anti-Trump media rage. All told, I got a month’s rest from a bunch of hot air.
Jack Rail made one statement that underscores a core issue here:
“Everybody thought we had to keep our troops around so the Turks wouldn’t invade Northern Syria and kill off all the Kurds.”
That’s the main point, which none of the anti-Trumpers (including otherwise sensible Bear Klein) seem to get: President Trump, from the days even before he got elected, has declared an end to eternal American meddling in other countries, in order to “repair the world” (tikkun olam). He has set out not to repair the rest of the world, but to repair America — to make it great again. He declared to all, that this is what he would do, and he has been busy doing it.
God bless and keep you, fellow pundit.
@ Edgar G.:
I hope you’re right.
@ Laura:
Hang on Laura, it’s so obvious that things are developing that we know nothing about, and wouldn’t recognise-if we saw them- until after the fact….or by the insight of a truly honest reporter with a strategic mind.
@ Joe S:
I’ve gone beyond being “surprised” at the die-hard believers that everything that Erdogan, a “messianic” Muslim,, AND slimy politician, passes “judgement” on, is from The Creators Mouth…..,
As they say…”some people has it, some people ain’t has it”
I think TED and I have been the only two on the whole site who have constantly defended Trump s being “brilliant”, and NOT STOOPID, as the hoi polloi snapped at his heels at every little twitch he made…in his “to be criticised” non-politically-smooth “ordinary guy” terms.”..Too coarse” to be a politician that guy…. Results don’t count…
Ted, being who he is, provided vicarious enjoyment for those who could attack him with impunity… Me, they overlooked……Thank G-d. Because when I’m attacked, I jump right back for the throat, and get myself over-involved…which I do NOT want to do. right now… Ted is polite and mildly “benevolent” as befits a respected publisher.
Why shouldn’t the Kurds have independence? They certainly have far more right to an independent state than the so-called “palestinians”.
When Trump says he wants us out of involvement in the Middle East what makes you so sure that also doesn’t include Israel? I stand by my comment that the conservative movement would turn against Israel if that’s what Trump did. Since when is it a conservative or American value to throw away allies that fought and died along with us? I do not like the isolationist direction of the modern conservative movement. In the long run this will create more danger for us. We’ve come a long way since Reagan and his principled support of pro-American freedom fighters and peace through strength doctrine.
Who says we should fight on behalf of the assad regime? I couldn’t care less that Turkey is attacking Syria. This is about the safety of the Kurds who lost thousands fighting isis. Why is Trump twisting this around to suddenly make this about us getting involved in Turkey vs Syria?
Also I don’t see Trump actually preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons any more than his predecessors did anything about that.
I had been pleasantly surprised and hopeful about Trump’s Middle East policies, now I’ve become disappointed. If he won’t stand with the Kurds, why would he stand by Israel when push comes to shove? I hope I’m wrong, but Trump hasn’t shown any consistency or loyalty.
The writer seems to have forgotten the part where President Tayyip Erdogan told U.S. President Donald Trump that Turkey will never declare a ceasefire in northeastern Syria and that it will not negotiate with Kurdish forces it is fighting in its offensive into the region.
The Silver Lining some are seeking in Trump’s horrible actions are a fictitious illusion.
Trump’s actions are the opposite of good. They benefit ISIS, Turkish aligned Islamist radicals, Iran and Russia.
“The slaughter going on in Syria is not a consequence of American presence, it’s a consequence of a withdrawal and betrayal by this president of American allies..”