US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1856

On October 12 2019 11:53 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:

Being a former Marine, a lot of shit that happens to the military irks me to high hell. I know a lot of former military that aren't onboard with a lot of the shit we do these days. This, I'm sure, is one of those moment where the vets come out against it. We'll see how it plays out, but this is one of those groups you don't wanna piss off. If they bring up the McCain thing during the real debates, I'm 100 that they'll grab a very large group of voters.

On October 12 2019 16:48 Biff The Understudy wrote:

Insulting a hero and POW while himself dodged all military responsibilities didn't seem to hurt him in 2016; why do you think it will be different this time?

It's established that Trump is a phenomenal asshole, and as someone said earlier in this thread, his supporters like him for that. Even when he shits on them. Go figure...

(CNN)The commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces told a senior US diplomat, "You are leaving us to be slaughtered," demanding to know whether the US is going to do anything to protect Syrian Kurds as Turkey continues its military operation targeting America's Kurdish allies in Syria.
"You have given up on us. You are leaving us to be slaughtered," Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi told the Deputy Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, William Roebuck, in a meeting Thursday, according to an internal US government readout that has been obtained exclusively by CNN.
"You are not willing to protect the people, but you do not want another force to come and protect us. You have sold us. This is immoral," Mazloum added.

He insisted the US either help stop the Turkish attack or allow the Syrian Democratic Forces to strike a deal with the Assad regime in Damascus and their Russian backers, allowing Russian warplanes to enforce a no-fly zone over northeast Syria, thereby denying Turkey the ability to carry out airstrikes. The US does not want the Kurds turning to the Russians, administration officials say.
"I need to know if you are capable of protecting my people, of stopping these bombs falling on us or not. I need to know, because if you're not, I need to make a deal with Russia and the regime now and invite their planes to protect this region," Mazloum said.

On October 13 2019 03:36 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
The Kurdish SDF commander has lost faith in the cooperation with the US, and is asking if he should seek support from Assad/Russia instead. It must be hard to keep believing in the US cooperation in the zones of Syria that Turkey is not aiming for while the guys near the border are getting bombed.


source

On October 13 2019 03:55 Gorsameth wrote:
"We don't want you to make a deal with our enemy, but we aren't going to stop our ally from bombing you either"

The problem is that the Americans in the field can't have an actual talk with the Kurds because no one knows what the American policy is because Trump is operating without a plan.
Maybe the Kurds could pool their money and hire the American army like SA did...

On October 13 2019 07:17 Doodsmack wrote:
Yeah this could be a real catastrophe in the making. Whole point of allying with the Kurds was to fight terrorism by training up local allies rather than sending in a bunch of US troops. Trump does not understand that strategy even a little, but Erdogan probably convinced him on the phone that withdrawal would end the US's "endless war." Trump now trying to claim he doesnt approve of the invasion, even though his announcement of the withdrawal stated that it would allow Turkey to carry out it's long planned invasion. This flip flop by trump on the invasion is just further proof that he had no understanding of the US's existing strategy and what would be the consequences of withdrawal Hes a stupid person who is not willing to put in effort to learn.

https://twitter.com/RichardEngel/status/1183080487243407361

On October 13 2019 08:44 Vivax wrote:
I saw an interesting theory that claimed that Trump wants to be impeached so he could claim that it was the deep state deposing him through lies and slander. So he decided to go even more ham for a bit, but oddly enough nobody in congress gave enough of a damn about his tweets.

Would be better for his image than resigning. You only resign when you admit you fucked up. If that's true the dems should have an interest in keeping him glued there hoping for something bad to happen before he takes his obligatory flight to Austria.Or Greenland, but the Danish won't have him I think. And if he comes here he'll have a hard time making new friends.

The US ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, is expected to tell Congress this week that President Donald Trump relayed to him directly in a phone call the content of a text message that Sondland sent denying quid pro quo, The Washington Post reported Saturday, citing a person familiar with his testimony.

Sondland's text message was sent to the top US diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, who raised concerns in a text to Sondland about the US withholding nearly $400 million of US military and security aid. This text message exchange has become a major focal point of the impeachment inquiry into the President.

Sondland is expected to testify to Congress that he has no knowledge of whether Trump was telling him the truth at the time, the Post reports. "It's only true that the President said it, not that it was the truth," the person familiar with Sondland's planned testimony, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomatic matters, told the Post.

The congressional testimony by Sondland, a key witness within the State Department and to the President's action in the ongoing impeachment inquiry, could prove damaging to the President and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, the Post reports. Sondland intends to testify to the House under subpoena Thursday, according to his lawyers.

On October 13 2019 13:07 Ben... wrote:
This could get pretty ugly. The Washington Post is reporting that Sondland, who will be testifying early next week under subpoena after the State Department and White House attempted to block his attendance of the hearing, is apparently going to say some damning things in his testimony regarding his texts. This is in reference to the rather conspicuous text he sent Bill Taylor that mysteriously said out of nowhere that what they were doing wasn't a quid pro quo after Taylor started questioning what was going on. This text was sent under the direction of Trump himself and was dictated to Sondland by Trump. It sure is looking like Sondland won't sacrifice himself to protect Trump. We'll have to see what happens.

Here's a CNN article on it since Washington Post has their article restriction stuff:

Washington Post: US envoy to the European Union to tell Congress Trump relayed to him 'no quid pro quo' text

It does increasingly look like Trump's legal defense for this debacle will end up amounting to the equivalent to someone arguing that they didn't rob the bank they held up at gunpoint and took money from because they didn't explicitly say "this is a robbery".

It also looks like Giuliani might be in some hot water. Only the best people.

On October 13 2019 04:56 Wombat_NI wrote:
It’s a complete shitshow. Perhaps the military and intelligence hawks had too much influence in previous administrations, but the pendulum has swung way too far in the other direction so that all this expertise is being ignored on the whims of a narcissistic lunatic.