December 23, 2018

"How about you just admit you hate the President, love war and have been wrong for the last twenty years on every part of foreign policy?"

Rand Paul put in a strong performance on "Face the Nation" this morning. Here's the full transcript. Excerpt:
MARGARET BRENNAN: You've been on a tweet storm this morning saying, President's decision to pull out of Syria and cut our troop presence in Afghanistan in half, you said "the entire foreign policy establishment of Washington, DC, who two years ago were swearing Trump was going to start multiple nuclear wars. Now they're mad because he is stopping two wars. How about you just admit you hate the President, love war and have been wrong for the last twenty years on every part of foreign policy?" Who are you referring to because the defense secretary and the top diplomat handling ISIS both resigned over these decisions?

SENATOR RAND PAUL: You know, I think that we should look at some of the statements of the people who are advocating that we stay in Afghanistan forever and that we also stay now in Syria with no sort of determined end. General Mattis, even General Mattis said that there's no military solution to Syria, and he's also said there's no military solution to Afghanistan. How do you think our young soldiers feel? I have members of my family that are going over there soon, how do you think they feel being sent to Afghanistan when your generals are saying there's no military solution? So I think the burden is really on Mattis and others who want perpetual war to explain why if there is no military solution we're sending more troops.... 

We've been there seventeen years. We think now we are going to take one more village and we'll get a better negotiated deal?... That was the strategy of Vietnam for years after year after year in Vietnam was to take one more village and we'll get a better negotiated deal. No, they waited us out and the Taliban are going to wait us out. They know we will eventually leave and leave we must. I mean I don't think we have enough money to be paying to build and rebuild and build and rebuild Afghanistan. The President is right and I think the people agree with him. Let's rebuild America. Let's spend that money here at home....

We took ninety-nine percent of the land [from ISIS], they're on the run, can the people who live there not do anything? We spent trillions of dollars arming the entire Middle East, arming Afghan army, can they not do anything? Do we have to do everything? We defeated ISIS. But now you have the-- the hawks in the administration and throughout Congress saying, "Oh, now we have to wait until Russia and Iran leave Syria." Well, that was never our goal and it's never going to happen. So those people are advocating for perpetual war....

That's what you call mission creep. The mission has now changed, that we're going to wait till Iran leaves and Russia leaves. Well, the President told them that's not his mission and that was never the mission. The mission was to wipe out ISIS and we did succeed. And the thing is it's incredibly bold to win a war and come home. That's what the people want. If you poll the American people, it's sixty to seventy percent of people ready to get out of Afghanistan. And I'll bet you the same of Syria if you ask the people. It's only the people in Washington, the armchair generals, that want to keep us at war forever and people, Americans, are tired of it. We want that money here at home and we want to create jobs, roads, bridges here at home not in Afghanistan.

MARGARET BRENNAN: The concern raised by people like Brett McGurk who-- who was the President's diplomat handling the anti-ISIS coalition is that if you move out too quickly, if you agree we're going to draw down, at least have a plan on how to do it. At least, do it in a way that doesn't abandon allies. And, in fact, he warned in his resignation letter that this could create a vacuum that would allow terrorist groups like the Islamic State to re-emerge and in other-- other words, we'll have to go back in a few years.

SENATOR RAND PAUL: That will always be true....That statement will be true in fifteen years. The place is a mess. I mean, they've been fighting each other for a thousand years. Sunni and Shia have been fighting each other since Battle of Karbala in 832 AD.... They're going to fight each other until the end of time. It's all of them. It's-- it's an inter-complicated mess that has to do with Sunni extremism versus Shia extremism, and also some other various battles in between. But if we wait until there's... no potential for anybody fighting each other when we leave, we will be there forever. But here is what we need to do. And here is the real problem, we have so politicized the relationship with Russia that there isn't a Democrat in the land that is for any kind of negotiation with Russian ally because they know it's an anti-Trump position to be heaping on Russia. Russia is a big player. If we don't talk to Russia about Syria, we will never come to a resolution. Iran is a player. We actually have to talk to Iran about... Syria, as well. Assad is a player. We... can't just say Assad is going to go. He won the war. These people have their head in the sand and they just want to send two thousand troops there. They become a trip wire to a possibility of a much-expanded war involving Russia and Iran. And that would be a huge mistake...  I don't think the American people want another big war in the Middle East.

MARGARET BRENNAN: The Pentagon and State Department say there are tens of thousands of ISIS fighters still in Syria. How can you credibly say mission accomplished? Do you think ISIS has been defeated?

SENATOR RAND PAUL: Right. I think the numbers are wildly inflated and nobody knows. I think there are maybe ten thousand so-called radicals. And these are radicals. They are in Idlib and they are surrounded by Turks, Syrians, Kurds others. And I don't think they're going anywhere. And right now there's not a lot of heated battles going on. But my question is why do American young men and women always have to lay our lives down? To the people of Iraq, are they incapable of doing anything? And here's the thing. Muslims need to ultimately police Muslim lands. When Americans are there and we kill someone who lives there, they see it as a religious affront and they see it as the Pagans have come to take their land and for everyone we kill, we create ten to a one hundred more. So it isn't working. We have-- have supplied them all with money we've given them uniforms we've given them weapons. They need to step up and they need to eradicate these violent people from their midst.

214 comments:

1 – 200 of 214   Newer›   Newest»
n.n said...

The Jordanians, Saudis, and Israelis have agreed to cooperate with Russia, and presumably her partner, Syria, to share responsibility for the security in that space. There is a reduced probability that an evacuation of American forces will leave a vacuum inviting the progress of ISIS in Syria, as it did in Iraq, where Americans shortly resumed cooperation with Iraqi forces to stem its migration.

Bob Boyd said...

Hitler's comes to power in America and suddenly these Progs can't bear the thought that we don't have our troops in other countries? What's up with that?

Shane said...

I think it is entirely reasonable to agree that this pull out is not an ideal outcome, but also agree that the President is making the right call here, based on our best interests.

There is no peaceable end in sight in this region and that will not change unless we commit to a forever presence, jeopardizing our soldiers forever.

Everyone freaks at Trump's words, but his actions have been far more reasonable and rational. Until we have no presence there, it is entirely reasonable to believe this is nothing but words, designed to gauge the reaction of hostiles there. There is no withdrawal, until there is a withdrawal.

Sebastian said...

Thank you, senator.

Anyway, the Trump critics can get Congress to authorize the use of force in Syria and to authorize a continuation of the use of force in Afghanistan. Since the anointed know that Trump's position is ridiculous, it should be easy to override his veto.

n.n said...

these Progs can't bear the thought that we don't have our troops in other countries

We're still in Iraq. We never left. We're not in Libya, and our presence in Syria did not temper the first-order forcings of catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform a.k.a. "refugee crisis". Hopefully, the alliance of local power brokers and proximate shareholders will effect a near-term and sustainable peace in the region. Then there is Nigeria, Somalia, Ukraine, and numerous other nations where we operate with variable amount and number of forces. We should probably send them to Guatemala to fix whatever is forcing reform in that "neck of the woods."

John said...

suddenly these Progs can't bear the thought that we don't have our troops in other countries?

Huh? Since when is the right wing establishment “progs?” Explain that one to me. Or is “prog” just a catch all term for people you disagree with?

YoungHegelian said...

Strange how critics now dumping on Trump for leaving ME matters in a mess were much more subdued when 1) Obama laid waste to Libya & then left it in anarchy & 2) when Obama hurriedly exited us out of Iraq using the pretense of not even trying very hard to reach a status of forces agreement with the Iraqis.

I wish these DC food fights were really about policy & not personalities.

John said...

Anyway, the Trump critics can get Congress to authorize the use of force in Syria and to authorize a continuation of the use of force in Afghanistan.

What would that do? It certainly wouldn’t compel the President to act, would it?

Yancey Ward said...

If Trump said you should take one shit a day, Margaret Brennan would be critiquing it.

n.n said...

Saudi Arabia and UAE sending troops to help Kurds in Syria
Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia reach understanding with Russians on handling Hezbollah and Iranian activity, while Saudis plan Afghan peace talks

Trump seems to have a mind for conservation of life and order, presumably cooperating with regional allies and shared interests to mitigate the collateral damage of CAIR and prevent the progress of another ISIS in that region.

YoungHegelian said...

@John,

What would that do? It certainly wouldn’t compel the President to act, would it?

Not necessarily, but it would at least put the Legislative branch on the record as to what they think is the moral course. As opposed to hiding in the corner & letting the President invade another country with merely a wink and a nod from Congress as happened with Libya.

Congress has not exactly shown itself a beacon of moral courage in these foreign adventures of late. At least scream & yell some about the President needing an AUMF from Congress before he gets to kill brown people in some foreign land.

Wince said...

What's the downside, again: a power-shift that wasn't in the cards already?

And with that power comes long-term responsibility for pacification and rebuilding that the US can now eschew.

ABC News:

Also Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he "deeply regrets" Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and warned it could have dangerous consequences.

Macron showered praise on U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who quit in the wake of Trump's unexpected move. "An ally should be reliable, coordinate with other allies. Mattis understood this," Macron said during a trip to Chad.

Macron said that the troop withdrawal endangers Kurdish fighters, who were instrumental in the U.S-led coalition's fight against IS militants.

"We should not forget ... what we owe to those who died on the ground fighting terrorism," he said, referring to the SDF. "The SDF is fighting against the terrorism that fomented attacks against Paris and elsewhere ... I call on everyone not to forget what they have done."

Macron did not say what France's military will do next in Syria. Kurdish officials met with a French presidential adviser Friday, and one asked France to play a larger role in Syria following the American withdrawal.

Laslo Spatula said...

I made a few comments a couple of years ago that the Left was going to misplay the Trump Presidency.

They had a Republican President coming in that was already against the Iraq war, against intervention, for gay marriage before any of the Big Player Left were willing to commit, and loved the publicity of a Big Deal. And: many conservatives believed he wasn't really a conservative, anyway.

The Democrats, with a charm offensive ( I know) could've easily picked up a lot of low-hanging fruit, played to his Ego and scored some Big Deal Photo Ops that would position them as Big Players, and make them seem attuned to flyover America without actually having to like flyover America.

They could have got DACA-Plus in exchange for a token border wall that they could slow-walk and keep out of the discourse until the next Democratic President.

Meanwhile, the conservatives that supported Trump would be disheartened -- Lucy pulled the football again -- and the Dems would be positioned for the next Presidential election as capable of handling Big Problems.

The likes of Bill Kristol would still hate Trump, but would serve as the anti-Trump henchmen from inside the tent while the Dems played nice -- the Weekly Standard as Cocktail Party Pact.

They'd let Trump bask in mild respect, knowing that he was an anomaly -- neither fish nor fowl -- and would be gone after four years, with a lot of Left Victories already in place.

Instead, they signed off on Hillary's Russian Excuse, doubled-down on Donkey Kong Orange Hitler, and the left saw that there were no adults in the room, so anything goes.

Cognitive dissonance, sure, but look at that Donkey Kong Orange Hitler score!

I am Laslo.

Bill Peschel said...

Didn't some great statesman ask "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Syria? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

You know, if the Democrats want us to stay in Syria, why not introduce a declaration of war in Congress? They know where the forms are.

MayBee said...

So are we saying Trump isn't going to win the Nobel Peace Prize like Obama did?

Bob Boyd said...

@ John

Actually there are many progressives in the Republican party and that's nothing new.
But that's not who I was talking about.
I was making a tongue in cheek comment about the left wing media voices, who have called Trump Hitler and are now suddenly big advocates of having our troops in other countries. Hitler was pretty big on putting his troops into other countries. There was a bunch trouble about it a few years ago, as you may recall. Just seemed ironic to me.

MaxedOutMama said...

I think Trump's statements about stopping all the foreign adventurism had a lot to do with his election. He said we would knock ISIS down. We did. This is hardly precipitous - two years into his term! Also it provides more pressure to get some sort of resolution on Afghanistan.

I'm all for the move. There is a reason that the Constitution places the military under civil control. Congress never declared this war, and any reasonable objective we have for being there is now gone.

I'll never LIKE Trump - his personality is too antithetical to mine. But he is a pretty good president, and I'm glad I voted for him. And truthfully, if just about all he ever did was ratchet down the NK thing, and move us further out of the ME, it would have been worth voting for him. I am still really surprised by how well he is doing on foreign policy!

Eliminate the negative, accentuate the positive, and don't mess with Mr. In Between. That's always been great advice, and still is.

Bob Boyd said...

"He said we would knock ISIS down."

Good point. If the left said they approved of Trump withdrawing our troops from Syria, it would be an admission of a Trump success. The narrative is that Trump has no successes ever, only chaos and failure.

MayBee said...

Rand Paul is excellent.

MayBee said...

We could send the Nazi Christmas Trees to Syria to hold the areas we leave.

Humperdink said...

So Mattis quits. And according to the wizards of smart in DC, insanity and chaos prevail in the White House, specifically their foreign policy team.

Remind me again of Mattis's nickname.

Hagar said...

Margaret Brennan is a nasty piece of work, but she is only doing what she is paid for - like everybody else at CBS News.

That we are still in Iraq in support of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards there makes no sense whatever, and I expect Trump will shortly pull out from there too.

A realignment is needed, and until Iran gets sufficient nuclear capability to be a threat, American power may be best applied by supporting our allies with one or two carrier task forces off shore.

Drago said...

I am Laslo.

12/23/18, 4:07 PM


Laslo's stellar hitting streak continues unabated.

chuck said...

Also Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he "deeply regrets" Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and warned it could have dangerous consequences.

I laughed, Macron is so much the little yap, yap dog. Of course, France is perhaps the only unreformed colonial power left in Europe, so we'll see how they play the game. I don't expect much. Italy didn't manage so well in their former colony Libya once they helped convince the US to take down the old regime.

Drago said...

John: "What would that do? It certainly wouldn’t compel the President to act, would it?"

It would certainly represent Congress doing its job to express its sentiments.....ON THE RECORD.

Instead of sniveling and caterwauling from the sidelines and refusing to commit one way or the other.

The fact that they won't tell's me everything I need to know.

David Begley said...

Sen. Paul, “The place is a mess. I mean, they've been fighting each other for a thousand years. Sunni and Shia have been fighting each other since Battle of Karbala in 832 AD.... They're going to fight each other until the end of time.”

Exactly. Those people are insane barbarians. Now that we have our own oil, screw them. Let them kill each other.

Jupiter said...

The same people who want to send Americans to get killed by Muslims in Syria and Afghanistan are also intent upon bringing Muslims from those shitholes here to kill Americans. They are at least consistent.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The leftists on this site scattered like rats.

harrogate said...

As a committed liberal, I say “hear, hear” to this transcript and to Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria.

If only the neocon ideology could be permanently eradicated, from both parties, the country would be a much better place.

rcocean said...

I'm astounded at the MSM reporter letting Sen.Paul talk for so long. Usually, when its a Republican they interrupt and start a debate after 5 sentences.

The establishment is ALWAYS in favor of war and sending money and troops. Hell, we'd still be Vietnam and running the Philippines if they had their way.

~ Gordon Pasha said...

"The whole of the Balkans are not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier." ~ Otto von Bismark

rcocean said...

Its hilarious that Mattis says he was going to leave in two months, and Trump just told him to hit the road.

David Begley said...

Laslo:

On a DACA for Wall deal, apparently Newt has been reading the Althouse blog. I predicted last week that Trump will offer Schumer a DACA deal for the $5b. Then he will agree to $30b for Chuck’s Gateway Tunnel. Chuck will reject both. Trump then addresses the nation from the Oval and pins everything on the Dems.

Trump planned this whole thing out to the last detail.

rcocean said...

Good God, have we really been in Afghanistan for 17 Years!

WW II Plus US occupation of Japan = 10 years.

Robert Cook said...

I never watch the Sunday Morning interview/commentary shows, but today, I did happen to see this interview and I thought Rand Paul was totally right on with everything he said. The interviewer, (who I did not know),was clearly trying to undermine his position, sending a very clear pro-endless-war message. Her facial expressions and tone of voice said as much as her actual words. Good for Sen. Paul for telling it like it is.

Humperdink said...

Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Halfghanistan (ha), Libya ..... there is no end game for the US in any these places.

The Godfather said...

The liberals’/Democrats’ reaction is no surprise – if Trump does something – anything -- it’s wrong, stupid, disastrous, pro-Putin, Hitlerian, and so forth. But some of us old Cold War conservatives have a moment of cognitive dissonance when Trump pulls out of a battle zone. For 45 years (1945-1990) America’s geopolitical adversary was the USSR, and we were constantly worried that some American president was going to wimp out rather than stand up to the threat. The Soviets built a wall through Berlin, and the US did nothing. Ike had a plan to unseat Castro in Cuba, but Kennedy pulled the air support and the mission failed. Sure, Kennedy and Johnson sent a lot of troops to fight and die in Viet Nam, but the last image from that war was US helicopters taking off from the roof of the US embassy while our “allies” desperately tried to get on board.

Even after the Cold War, the same kind of thing kept happening. Clinton had bin Laden in his sights but didn’t pull the trigger. Obama refused to negotiate a status of forces agreement with Iraq, so that US troops had to be withdrawn, and we Cold Warriors thought that was, at best, an unforced error. Obama sold out Kaddafi, and when the chickens came home in Benghazi, well we didn’t buy the claim that that was just a demonstration that got out of control. When the Muslim Brotherhood took over Egypt, that was fine with Obama, but not with us.

But the Cold War is over. We’re in a different war. I understood the need to defeat ISIS when it really looked like it was becoming a radical “Islamic State”. But that’s over, for now. I would have supported efforts to unseat the Syrian dictatorship, but that opportunity – if it ever existed – is past. I haven’t read any plausible arguments why a long-term US military presence in Syria will serve our national interests. If someone has those arguments I’d like to hear them.

Phil 314 said...

Lazlo at 4:07 nails it.

It’s not principle, it’s Party.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The left and the media, and there is no doubt the media are an arm to the democratics - will do and say anything opposite of any prior position as long as they can position themselves as Trump antagonists.

Humperdink said...

Obama's end game in Libya was to depose Gaddafi. And he and Hildebeast executed that plan.
Unfortunately, that was not the end of the game. That was the first quarter. And the game continues unabated.

langford peel said...

If we didn’t need his vote in the Senate Rand Paul would be a great Secretary of State. Or Defense. Or Homeland Security.

Just about any job in the administration.

Except White House gardener.

narciso said...

Yes Syrians were soviet trained, often the top officers as with the Algerian army had tours at the Frunze school, that's why there was some what of an irony when Brahimi, the mouthpiece of the eradicateur faction of the junta, lectured bashir on his countries counterinsurgencies,

now Saudi and Emirati officers and enlisted personnel are likely to be less restrained against the leading Allawite army officials and related shabiha militias, but those are the breaks,

Matt said...

There is a 4 panel cartoon going around the internet. The first two panels show an aide rushing into President Washington's office, breathlessly saying something to the effect of "President Washington! President Washington! There's trouble in the Middle East!" The 3rd panel shows Pres. Washington looking confused. The 4th panel shows Pres. Washington saying "Who gives a shit about the Middle East?".

I think that sums up a lot of people's opinions on the various Middle Eastern shitholes. Fuck them all. Let them kill each other and DON'T let them come here. We don't need them. Islam has nothing to contribute to the advancement of humanity.

mockturtle said...

Hurrah for Rand Paul! Common sense is so damned uncommon. And, yes, M.O.M. is right: Trump got many votes because of his stand against no-win wars and nation building.

walter said...

Certainly the UN can step in and manage things...

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Except White House gardener.

*Snicker*

The Gipper Lives said...

Hitler won't invade the Sudetenland--Impeach him at vunce!

Michael McNeil said...

We're still in Iraq. We never left.

We did leave — thanks to Obama. That's how ISIS was able to cakewalk across half of Iraq, while the Iraqi Army fled in terror before a force a fraction of their size. We came back.

narciso said...

well as Michael oren, there was some contact mostly through missionaries in that era, ironically, the fellow who shaped policy toward the kingdom, in the 40s, was the son of such missionaries who ended up proselytizing his own countrymen on the virtues of king saud, his grandnephew ray close, was station chief in Riyadh during the oil embargo, and later retainer to the royal family and founder of the anti Iraq echo chamber, vips, which was behind the plame matter during the bush years, ironically they are critical of the deepstate alliance against trump,

Mark said...

So, on the one hand, the GOP is saddled with Establishment do-nothings like Ryan. Then there are the amoral libertarians (like Paul) -- who are not only counterfeit conservatives, but are one of the worst political trends of the last 20 years, just as bad as their mirror-twin of progressivism.

langford peel said...

If being an amoral libertarian will get us out of the endless wars of the Deep State most of America would sign up.

Humperdink said...

"Amoral libertarians"? People are getting creative with their ad hominem attacks. Kudos to you. *cough*

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Here are his tweets.

A giant F U to the establishment and the Maddow-Clinton Media hack hypocrites.

Quayle said...

Yet more evidence that our society is hopelessly in the grip of pride (which comes before the fall.).

The competition with “the other guy” is the only focus and concern. All else must bend to that competition. It is deemed better to flip flop, deny any former position or thought, bent all truth, ignore all facts, and let the world burn down if necessary, to keep “the other guy” from appearing to be right or appearing to win a point.

That is the real danger to our society: Pride.

narciso said...

well I remember when paul was carrying the brief of awlaki, the American trained Yemeni engineer who saw himself as the johnny apple seed of Salafism, and he had his recent rant re the kingdom, which seem at cross purposes, but on this score,

Mark said...

All these people living in a September 10 world -- and thinking it is a virtue -- oblivious to the fact that -- yes, we are in a perpetual state of war, and have been since even before 9/11. They might ignore that reality, but the enemy does not. And they will continue deadly hostilities whether we want to play or not.

And we will continue to be in a state of war -- with the need for active forward deployment of troops -- for the rest of our lives, given that this war has been going on for 1400 years.

narciso said...

back then, he was falling the lead of alkarama, which was funded by the emir of qatars' own foundation, whose chair was in turn funding al queda's Yemeni branch,

Jupiter said...

Robert Cook said...
"Good for Sen. Paul for telling it like it is."

Indeed. Could we perhaps hear a little praise from you for the President whose policy Sen Paul is supporting? Or is that a bridge too far?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

As a Republican said, this is why libertarians get 1% of the vote. Leaving allies out to dry just because you couldn't keep a measly 2k troops to keep Iran and Putin from carving up the country and fucking with the Kurds and Israel just shows that America's word doesn't mean shit.

And under Trump, we already knew that to be the case.

No one cares what Rand Paul says. Why do you?

Jupiter said...

Mark said...

"And we will continue to be in a state of war -- with the need for active forward deployment of troops -- for the rest of our lives, given that this war has been going on for 1400 years."

If the US were seriously contemplating steps that might advance our position in that war, I would be willing at least to consider them. But the harsh truth is that we live in a country so utterly saturated with Leftist propaganda that a majority of Americans actually believe that Islam is a religion and deserves our respect, rather than being a gangster ideology that should be eradicated, like the Mafia, the Crips, and the Hells Angels. Given that willful blindness, the presence of US military forces in the Middle East serves no useful purpose.

langford peel said...

Shorter Mark: the endless war can never end and you deplorables have to send you children that die to assuage the neocons ego.

It won’t matter a whit to the vicious sand monkies but it matters on the cocktail circuit.

You can learn all about on the next Weekly Standard Cruise to nowhere featuring Bill Kristol and Jonah Goldberg.

Mark said...

Get your head out of your ass peel and quit trying to put me into your petty little narrative. This is all bigger than stupid 2018 politics.

langford peel said...

If 2I is so measly why do we have to stay and die?

If Iran and Russia win what do they win? Syria? Good luck.

We got plenty more shithole countries where that came from.

Hey maybe we can get Russia to invade Haiti.

Humperdink said...

"And we will continue to be in a state of war -- with the need for active forward deployment of troops -- for the rest of our lives, given that this war has been going on for 1400 years."

When I first read this, I thought it sarcasm. Mark is not joking here. Wowee.

Tell us Mark, what is the end game?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

So I guess the take here among the shrewd so-called foreign policy experts in the Althouse comments section is we either have to stay totally committed forever or let the place go to Putin and Iran at the expense of our Kurdish, Sunni, Israeli allies. No middle ground.

Ok. I guess the world to them can only get so complicated.

Maybe we can have no allies at all. That would really be putting America first. Let's go to war with the world. Alliances are bad! Leave everyone to create whatever geo-strategic military scenario they see fit!

Yes, it has allure. But so did our foreign policy pre-1941.

Oh shit. I'm reminding these dupes of history. My bad.

They don't do history, let alone present or future. They do fantasy.

Jupiter said...

Mark said...

"And we will continue to be in a state of war -- with the need for active forward deployment of troops -- for the rest of our lives, given that this war has been going on for 1400 years."

If the proposal under discussion were the restoration of the lawful Greek Christian government of Constantinople, I might agree. But the proposal is for Americans to get killed protecting one collection of Muslims from another collection of Muslims. That is called lose-lose-lose.

Jupiter said...

Note that Of Course! the Left is in favor of patriotic Americans getting killed to protect Muslims from each other. Of Course! They would like to kill every patriotic American, and replace us all with Muzzies. I just wish the feeling were mutual.

Rabel said...

MARGARET BRENNAN: "The Pentagon and State Department say there are tens of thousands of ISIS fighters still in Syria."

The Pentagon: A spokesman for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria estimated in December 2017 that fewer than 3,000 ISIS fighters remained in both countries. Since then, defense officials have said consistently that roughly 2,000 ISIS fighters are trapped in Syria’s Middle Euphrates River Valley.

Army Col. Sean Ryan, a spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, repeated the 2,000 figure when briefing reporters on Tuesday [Nov.27, 2018].

Margaret lied.

langford peel said...

I will you keep you out of the narrative if you will support the God Emperor keeping us out of shithole quagmires.

Otherwise pound sand chicken hawk.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If 2I is so measly why do we have to stay and die?

How many are "dying?" All we were supplying was logistical support, anyway. Trump is afraid of another Lebanon marine barracks bombing. I don't think that will happen.

Did we suddenly decide to not have CIA presence in every other country in the world, also? Nobody gave me the memo. But hey, at least Trump's boss Putin can meddle with every other country's affairs - including our own. Somehow they get to have cyber armies everywhere and Trump can't even figure out how to keep the only stable, freedom-promoting force in the ME of the Kurds to keep from us not having their backs in the most hands-off way. What a loser!

If Iran and Russia win what do they win? Syria? Good luck.

Here goes the next Hizbullah-Israel war once again that I guess we're now suddenly going to say is no big deal. Right. I guess all that alliance-building you did with the Saudis and other Sunnis in an Israeli alliance contra Iran was just a ruse.

Trump is a half-ass on everything. All bluster.

Drago said...

Mark: "And we will continue to be in a state of war -- with the need for active forward deployment of troops -- for the rest of our lives, given that this war has been going on for 1400 years."

Apparently, Mark is on a crusade to convince everyone we are in an active war with Islam and will be for as far as the eyecan see.

Precisely what the left/libs criticized Bush over.

Very well. Mark, could you provide even a vague description of what victory in this civilizational war would look like?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

They would like to kill every patriotic American, and replace us all with Muzzies.

Muslims gave the world astronomy, algebra, chemistry and a rudimentary understanding apparently of alcohol - hence the word.

Not yet sure what the right-wing lunatic "Jupiter" has given the world but I'll make sure to stay tuned.

What have right-wingers given the world? I mean, apart from the Great Depression, chaos in Europe, WWII, and everything else that the left has to do to clean up their goddam messes?

Rabel said...

"All we were supplying was logistical support, anyway."

Marine artillery battalions are not considered "logistical support."

langford peel said...

Israel has no problem with us leaving Syria. They will work when the Saudis much more effectively than our bullshit rules of engagement.

They will treat these terrorist they way they should be treated .

Like reporters.

FullMoon said...

"Muslims gave the world astronomy, algebra, chemistry and a rudimentary understanding apparently of alcohol - hence the word. "

A common misconxeption

William said...

Rand Paul was rational and persuasive. He sold the President's views far better than the President himself did.......Maybe this is the right course. I just don't know. If it doesn't work out at least the wasted lives won't be American lives.....Where's the Middle Eastern Rand Paul? So many in that part of the world seem to think suicide in order to inflict mass murder is a virtuous act. How do people get so fucked up?.......The Afghans killed an entire British expeditionary force in 1838. Graveyard of empires? Hardly. The zenith of the British Empire came several generations later, and Britons live far better today than they did in 1838. Afghans, on the other hand, are still wife beating, little boy fucking sods who live in ignorance and misery. You would think that some Afghan somewhere along the way would get the idea that there's a better way to handle things than by murdering your enemies.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If you train and arm the Kurds well enough to prevent this from happening again, fine.

If you didn't, then it will be fun watching The Tattered Toupee contend with another ISIS revival by mid-2020.

Have fun. I guess "deplorable" votes count more than presidential election votes in general.

I hope it blows up in his face as nicely as the recent yearlong market "correction" with the DJIA circling the toilet bowl as it has and Midwest auto workers wondering what happened to those magical jobs of theirs the Orange Emperor promised.

This is what happens when you elect a total phony with no vision. Enjoy the redeployment to stateside military parade patrol while it lasts!

Drago said...

PPPT: "Muslims gave the world astronomy,..."

LOL

I guess PPPT never heard of the Chinese, the Mayans, the Harrappans and in particular, the Greeks.

You know, the Greeks. Whose books were all teanslated into arabic.

But whatever it takes to make the islamo-supremacists feel good about themselves, including European lefty judges outlawing criticism of Islam and an American lefty judge deciding that Female Genital Mutilation is just all right with him.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Israel has no problem with us leaving Syria. They will work when the Saudis much more effectively than our bullshit rules of engagement.

Bullshit. How?

The only thing the Saudis know how to kill are women and children. And unarmed employees of American companies in their Turkish embassies.

Apparently those are your priorities.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Rabel @ 7:01

Good catch.

The hack-D press will lie, do lie, and lie often. For the narrative.

harrogate said...

Of course, Ann will not admit that she herself is as much the recipient of Paul's derision as anyone.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

I recall a time when all these right wingers were praising the Kurds and were all for the US helping them. Then came Trump who threw them under the bus because he wanted to make Putin and Erdogan happy.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

There's nothing "islamo-supremacist" about acknowledging that it wasn't just the Greeks and Chinese who developed astronomy.

Hey, hate them all you want. That's not actually a policy though, you know. As emotional as you are.

Europe and the West wouldn't know what "a Greek" was if the Arabs hadn't translated the works that they'd forgotten and you've never read.

But what's the point. You never read anything, anyway.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I recall a time when all these right wingers were praising the Kurds and were all for the US helping them.

Right-wingers have no honor. They'll throw anyone under the bus.

Cutting and running is the only game they know. Look at how much their "working class billionaire" president gave to Wall Street, before throwing the Dow into a tailspin. But at least he got to cut working Americans' healthcare. That was a huge win.

I know the insurance companies and hospitals sure appreciate it.

Michael McNeil said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Robert Cook said...

"Indeed. Could we perhaps hear a little praise from you for the President whose policy Sen Paul is supporting? Or is that a bridge too far?"

Yes, I applaud for pulling our military out of Syria. (Or, I will, once they're out. Trump says a lot of shit that isn't true, so I'm hoping he will pull us out of Syria. And he needs to keep going...take us out of Afghanistan, our of Iraq, etc., etc.)

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Trump will never take us out of Afghanistan. Or Iraq.

Mark my words.

Has Putin claimed them, yet? No?

Then Trump will stay there.

You fools never learn.

Michael McNeil said...

Actually, the “father of algebra,” so called, was a Greek, Diophantes, who lived and worked during the 3rd century AD in Alexandria.

Then there was the Hindu mathematician Brahmagupta (flourished around 628 AD), who also made important advances in what is now known as algebra — as well as inventing the number zero (the integer 1 less than 1) together with negative numbers and their arithmetic.

No, what al-Khwarizmi was was an effective popularizer of elementary algebra. For that service he perhaps deserves the epithet “father of algebra” (in lieu of Diophantes).

However, as mathematical historian Carl B. Boyer points out in his fascinating History of Mathematics (quoting…):

In two respects the work of al-Khwarizmi represented a retrogression from that of Diophantus. First, it is on a far more elementary level than that found in the Diophantine problems and, second, the algebra of al-Khwarizmi is thoroughly rhetorical, with none of the syncopation found in the Greek [Diophantes'] Arithmetica or in Brahmagupta's work. Even numbers were written out in words rather than symbols! […]

Nevertheless, al-Khwarizmi's Al-jabr [the origin of the word “algebra”] comes closer to the elementary algebra of today than the works of either Diophantus or Brahmagupta, for the book is not concerned with difficult problems in indeterminate analysis but with a straightforward and elementary exposition of the solution of equations, especially of the second degree.

(/unQuote)

(Carl B. Boyer, A History of Mathematics, Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons, 1989, p. 228)

Humperdink said...

"Mark my words."

What a laugh. No one marks your words. Most people just scroll right by them.

J. Farmer said...

Has Putin claimed them, yet? No?

Then Trump will stay there.


I have to admit I find it kind of bizarre how Russia is depicted as some kind of victor in Syria. The Syrian regime has been a close partner of Russia for decades. The Russian naval facility at Tartus has been there for nearly 50 years and protecting it is a major strategic interest for Russia. They are involved in helping to prop up the Assad regime and target is Sunni jihadist enemies.

In other words, Russia is expending its own military and financial resources to maintain a status quo relationship with Syria and to help the government defeat Sunni jihadists.

And yet we are to believe that this is a great victory for Putin and a humiliating defeat for America. It's absurd on its face.

Robert Cook said...

"You would think that some Afghan somewhere along the way would get the idea that there's a better way to handle things than by murdering your enemies."

Why? We haven't.

Of course, we have to manufacture endlessly multiplying, apocalyptic, ravening enemies who want to kill us all to justify our War Department and its confiscatory budget, making arms merchants and affiliated corporate entities ever richer at the expense of the Americans who are having our pockets picked by these 1% of the 1% parasites.

langford peel said...

As Chivngton properly noted “Nits make Lice.”

If we can off load this unpleasantness to surrogates more the better. We can keep our hands clean while these filthy animals kill each other like crabs in a bucket.

Let’s even go old school. Send them some blankets with smallpox.

We know how to pacify savages. America has done that before. We just lack the will these days.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

And that's why your DJIA is stagnant, your Midwest auto jobs evaporating, your debt expanding and head is shrinking, Humpterdink.

Seriously. Hump is like a parody of a WWE actor with a muscle car - who thinks he's got some influence over and insight into the goings-on at the highest levels of American government.

He is the dictionary definition of insignificant.

Don't worry, Dink. Trump loves the poorly educated.

But whether the poorly educated will continue dictating the future is an open question. And one that increasingly looks like it's closing shut on your dumb ass.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I have to admit I find it kind of bizarre how Russia is depicted as some kind of victor in Syria.

That's because you're a slow learner, Farmer.

Just because Trump claims America shouldn't go to war - right, I'm sure he'll figure that one out - doesn't mean America should have no alliances or capability to attract them.

Your inability to figure out who does and says what in the Trump-Putin's poodle axis is amusing. You could go to a gay wedding and couldn't figure out on the basis of who was french kissing whom how to identify the couples.

FullMoon said...

President Pee-Pee Tape said... [hush]​[hide comment]

And that's why your DJIA is stagnant, your Midwest auto jobs evaporating, your debt expanding


Worry about you own shithole country, USA will be just fine

Drago said...

PPPT appears to have abandoned his laughable islamo-fascist suck-up manuever of handing, without merit, so many of humanity's intellectual developments to the whack job 8th century mentality islamo-fascist.

Wisely.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

America is so lucky to have a guy like Drago to remind them that all it takes to be great is to hate Muslims.

Not great enough? Hate Muslims more.

Drago's got the answer to everything. Politically speaking, at least - assuming you're a FOX News broadcaster.

langford peel said...

We don’t need one sided alliances where we provide all the blood and treasure and our so called allies only supply contempt for America. From South Korea to Germany to France none of them are worth a fart in a hurricane. Poland and Israel are just about our only reliable allies and that is because they realize that Germany is the real enemy.

Otherwise our so called alliances don’t mean shit.

J. Farmer said...

@President-Pee-Pee-Tape:

That's because you're a slow learner, Farmer.

By all means enlightmentment. Russia is spending lives and money to prop up the Syrian regime and battle jihadists. Please explain how this is a great strategic victory to Russia while being a strategic defeat for America.

Just because Trump claims America shouldn't go to war - right, I'm sure he'll figure that one out - doesn't mean America should have no alliances or capability to attract them.

The troop withdraw from Syria "doesn't mean America should have no alliances" and will not effect any of the US' current (over) commitments to allies across the globe.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

langford peel for 1930s foreign-policy revivalism.

Hell, why not? The right-wing kicked off that decade with their big old dump of 1929 anyway.

The left expects that the right will keep giving the country more fuck-ups like this for the left to get us out of. That's just what the right's all about.

Original Mike said...

"What a laugh. No one marks your words. Most people just scroll right by them."

No kidding.

FullMoon said...

President Pee-Pee Tape said...

langford peel for 1930s foreign-policy revivalism.

Hell, why not? The right-wing kicked off that decade with their big old dump of 1929 anyway.

The left expects that the right will keep giving the country more fuck-ups like this for the left to get us out of.

You not in this country. Mind your own business.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The troop withdraw from Syria "doesn't mean America should have no alliances" and will not effect any of the US' current (over) commitments to allies across the globe.

Look, everybody! General Mattis!

Decades of experience Farmer takes with him to dictate that abandoning the second of only two pro-democracy U.S. allies in the region after we made promises to the Kurds will teach other countries to trust us and take our word seriously!

The Kurds are like the only good thing to come out of the Middle East in decades. No wonder you want to abandon them.

Very wise. Kind of like the isolationist policy we held toward Europe 80 years ago. Good thing that worked out so well!

FullMoon said...

You= you're

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Moonshine has taken to sputtering even more monosyllabically than usual.

America was made here, not where Mooooonshine is.

His teachers would be lucky if he even knew how to spell the name of this country.

Humperdink said...

How would one mark P-cubed-T's words anyway? With an X? Whiteout? Oopsie ... racist.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Don't worry Moonshine. Even if they started a draft once again you should realize that being a carpenter who can't measure is not exactly a highly sought military skill. So you're safe.

langford peel said...

We were not at war in the 1930’s. We had the WPA and the TVA to build vital infrastructure. We let the animals kill each other overseas. If we had come to an accommodation with Japan we would never had been in the war in the first place. They would have spent their time killing communists in China and Vietnam.

If only FDR hadn’t been so Anti Semetic and allowed unlimited Jewish immigrants maybe there would not have even been a holocaust.

J. Farmer said...

@President-Pee-Pee-Tape:

Decades of experience Farmer takes with him to dictate that abandoning the second of only two pro-democracy U.S. allies in the region after we made promises to the Kurds will teach other countries to trust us and take our word seriously!

Syria's Kurds are not "allies" of the United States anymore than the Libyans' whose protection was used a pretext to make war against Qadaffi. The reason the Kurds were under threat in the first place was because the US and our gulf Arab partners decided to plunge into the Syrian Civil War and provide money and arms to Sunni radicals to make war against the Syrian state. This is what led to the rise of ISIS in the first place.

Syrian Kurds are attempting to build a de facto Kurdish state in northeast Syria, and Turkey simply will not tolerate that. Protecting the Kurds in this matter would bring us into direct military conflict with Turkey. Sound like a good idea to you?

langford peel said...

President Trump wants to bring our boys home, protect our borders and build up our infrastructure. Just like the 1930’s.

Happy Days could be here again.

Now if only he could bring back the separate drinking fountains we would be getting somewhere.

Spiros Pappas said...

Close all military bases in the Middle East.

FullMoon said...

PPPT is fecal freak

Spiros Pappas said...

Trump is ending an era of ingrained racism against the Arabs.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

RP would be president now if not for his bizarre hair. I know, Trump's hair is bizarre, but at least it's bizarre in a consistent way. Paul's hair is a new kind of bizarre every day.

Spiros Pappas said...

Look:


https://mic.com/articles/91071/how-the-british-screwed-up-the-middle-east-in-10-classic-cartoons#.odzycZrcC

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF!!!

Drago said...

PPPT: "Look, everybody! General Mattis!"

Why should anyone listen to a general that obama fired and all the lefty media laughed at going out the door and 151 democrats in the House said was not worthy to fill the SECDEF role?

Can that many democrats and "Sort of a god" and Nobel prize-winning obama be wrong?

LOL

To even think it is racist.

narciso said...

Well they have been betrayed as many times by us, this lead to their seeking support from the Iranians and the Soviets in not necessarily that order.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

FDR wasn't anti-semitic. He hired more Jews than any president before him. And put up with lots of criticism for it. So much so that when Fritz Kuhn spoke to the Bund to express solidarity to Hitler in front of 20,000 adoring ethno-nationalist fans, he called the New Deal the "Jew Deal" and FDR as "Frank D. Rosenfeld."

FDR was constrained to increase immigration due to the same isolationist sentiment that kept us involved in Europe before it was too late. These isolationist sentiments were of a piece with the prevailing "America-First" nationalism of the day - not anything that was coming from FDR or the left.

The right got to keep their call on that one. Behold the veto power of politics.

Drago said...

PPPT: "FDR wasn't anti-semitic. He hired more Jews than any president before him."

LOL

Some of his "best friends" were Jewish!

narciso said...

Well morgenthau s nephew who was the brother of the former da would take issue with his diary, of course fdrs anti japanese animus went back 20 years or more.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Dreck-O's said some pretty damn ignorant things in his life, but the idea that Jews in America - shut out from university admissions because of strict quotas - were looking to continue being shut out of high-level cabinet positions and thought FDR just looked at them as "tokens" instead of highly qualified personnel who shouldn't keep the daily right-wing prejudice from seeing them that way is really just about the stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone say.

Black Americans also switched their party affiliation to the Democrats in droves as FDR was the first president who wasn't too prejudiced to keep from hiring so many of them, as well. Not for the positions Jews were educated well enough to attain, but staff positions in the functioning of the WH nonetheless.

Dreck should go to a Holocaust or Jewish history museum and tell them how backward he thinks FDR was to break the American elitist position of hiring so many Jews to those positions and making them so prominent in American life.

narciso said...

Well brackenridge long who was FDRs ambassador to Italy who was pro Mussolini as Kennedy was pro Hitler was assigned to the relevant bureau at foggy bottom

narciso said...

You should read winik 1944, a real life horror tale

Humperdink said...

PPPT: "FDR wasn't anti-semitic. He hired more Jews than any president before him."

In 1939, the ship St Louis, full of Jews, denied porting in the US.

“Sailing so close to Florida that they could see the lights of Miami, some passengers on the St. Louis cabled President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking for refuge,” the Holocaust museum noted. “Roosevelt never responded.”

PPPT is quite a student of history.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/01/29/a-ship-full-of-refugees-fleeing-the-nazis-once-begged-the-u-s-for-entry-they-were-turned-back/?utm_term=.d33b5409694f

Birkel said...

FDR also managed to be pro-communist and pro-fascist because he was, himself, a Leftist Collectivist. I can see why P3T would love him so.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

“This marks a dramatic reversal in the image of a president who won more than 80 percent of the Jewish vote in all four of his successful campaigns, who surrounded himself with Jewish advisers and was portrayed by Hitler’s propagandists as Jewish (and not in a good way). Roosevelt brought thousands of Jewish professionals into government, prevented Hitler from overrunning Britain and Palestine (thus saving their large Jewish populations), chose to fight Germany first after the United States was attacked by Japan, and paved the way for New York’s first Jewish governor and senator.

Presidential scholars have consistently ranked Roosevelt as the best chief executive in the nation’s history for his handling of the Great Depression and World War II. But even among liberal Jews who still hold him in high regard for those achievements, his reputation has been tarnished as he has been viewed increasingly through the prism of the Holocaust. What started out in the late 1960s as legitimate historical revisionism—looking critically at what the Roosevelt administration and American Jewry did during the Holocaust—has morphed into caricature, with FDR often depicted as an unfeeling anti-Semite.”


Laurence Zuckerman

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

FDR turned away no more Jewish refugees from entering American shores than the isolationist Republicans would have, as well. Since when are Republicans these days (or then) pro-refugee? Someone must not have given Dumb-Dumb Dink (who claims he doesn't read what I write anyway) the memo on that. The prejudice these days is different, the idea is the same.

What's clear is that many millions more Jews wouldn't have died in a genocide had the Republicans not given us 1929, the global depression that led to, and the turn of devastated governments around the globe including in Europe to the very fascist ethno-nationalist movements that Nazism was the vanguard for.

Dink is quite a student of nothing. BUT TRUMP LOVES THE POORLY EDUCATED!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Birkel is pro-Nazi because the Republicans gave the world the Great Depression which as every historian knows is what allowed for the rise of Hitler.

No Republican 1920s ===> No Great Depression ===> No Hitler.

n.n said...

We did leave — thanks to Obama. That's how ISIS was able to cakewalk across half of Iraq

Yeah, you're right: premature evacuation. Still, the change in states was so smooth, and unreported, that it was as if it never happened at all. Hopefully, the regional stakeholders in cooperation with Syria and Russia will follow the momentum, where previously they deferred to American judgment and commitment.

Birkel said...

Historians congratulate FDR for his handling of the Great Depression.
Economists recognize that his price controls deepened and prolonged the Great Depression.

But that only mattered if you were part of the 25% of the work force that was unemployed during the worst of the Depression: 1935 (three years into FDR's term) or 1937 (the first year of FDR's second term when his New Deal policies were finally found constitutional after the court packing plan was announced) being equally bad.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Dink can pretend the Republicans leading the isolationist movement wouldn't have turned away the hundreds or even thousands aboard the St. Louis (a pretty dubious assertion), but he can't pretend that without the Great Depression his Republicans gave us there would have been a Hitler and the many millions more that he killed directly.

So he can blame the St. Louis on FDR. But the Republicans gave us the Great Depression and Hitler. No Great Depression, no Hitler.

I'd say FDR comes out ahead in that contest.

Shouting Thomas said...

One of the reasons I voted for Prez Trump was his campaign promise to withdraw the U.S. from pointless foreign entanglements.

Thank you, Prez Trump, for keeping your campaign promise.

Birkel said...

Like every other Republican who has ever breathed, I am literally as bad as Hitler.

At some point it loses its sting.

Birkel said...

What FDR actually did is not a problem because hypothetical Republicans in P3T's imagination would have done just as poorly.

Literally impossible to argue with that.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Historians congratulate FDR for his handling of the Great Depression.
Economists recognize that his price controls deepened and prolonged the Great Depression.


He should have learned more from the right-wingers who brought it about in the first place, eh?

Just like their deregulation gave us 2008.

Man, if only you guys loved avoiding depressions as much as you like standing around and bitching about how to recover from them, then maybe there wouldn't be any depressions in the first place.

Republicans advising on fixing depressions is like arsonists advising the fire department on how to put out the 5-alarm blaze they started.

n.n said...

Actually, the massive misalignment was forced by Democrats and FDR's policies, that prevented clearing the accounts thereby realizing a depression. Still, FDR's public smoothing functions did grant some respite from the fallout forced by gross central mismanagement.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Like every other Republican who has ever breathed, I am literally as bad as Hitler.

At some point it loses its sting.


And yet, it's still true. Just like the lost sting of every teacher that whacked you upside the head and told you how stupid you were.

FIDO said...

Trump could cure cancer and Margaret would complain about Trump causing unemployment in the medical field and hating doctors.

This media is awful and I am happy to ignore them.

Shouting Thomas said...

We have a chance here to undo an abuse of power that has bedeviled the U.S. since the end of WWII. That abuse is virtual declarations of war issued unilaterally by presidents.

Congress alone has the power to declare war.

Prez Trump has given us a space to end these abuses of power by presidents and offered Congress the opportunity to properly exercise its power.

If Congress wants to fight a war in Syria, it should declare war and take the responsibility upon itself.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Hitler came to power the same year FDR was inaugurated, so it's fun listening to Burkholderia go on about how FDR "worsened and deepened" the depression that swept his friend Hitler into office in the first place, courtesy of the Republican Great Depression.

Birkel said...

P3T,
If you had demonstrated even a rudimentary understanding of economics, I would merely pity you. As it is you are the most laughable regular commenter on this blog. Your insanity is a gift that keeps giving. Your ineptitude could not be more manifest.

Frankly, even your name calling is third rate.

Of all the people I enjoy winding up on this blog, you are a self-winding, self-chewing toy that needs no help.

I command you to dance, imbecile.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If Congress wants to fight a war in Syria, it should declare war and take the responsibility upon itself.

Is that what Drumpf did when he campaigned on a promise to escalate the conflict in Syria by "knocking the hell out of ISIS?"

What a convenient use of war powers you'd grant him.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Yeah, but you're a Hitler-lover, Burkholderia.

Go on. Tell us how you'd like to blame the Democrats for 1929.

narciso said...

Very weak tea, even Michael tomasky isn't this clueless, well not nearly so.

n.n said...

hypothetical Republicans in P3T's imagination would have done just as poorly

The value of a capitalist (e.g. retained earnings) system is that it is highly dynamic, and with proper oversight to mitigate the progress of monopolies and practices, is theoretically limited to near-frame perturbations, whereas central systems produced depressions and even great leaps. Still, there is something to be considered with public and private smoothing functions, and central coordination and organization with respect to efficiency and stability. Each system can be judged in context, as a rule, and as an exception. For example, with respect to medical care, there are two possible scenarios to judge affordability: high cost and high pricing, where the former may require smoothing functions (e.g. welfare, insurance), and the latter may be evidence of a monopoly or practice.

Shouting Thomas said...

Ritmo, you have too many psychological and moral problems bedeviling you to waste your time here.

Find a way to solve your problems so that you don't spend every night here hurling insults and working yourself into a frenzy.

I've never encountered a person who is as desperately in need of a basic Christian education as you.

Go to church. Read the Ten Commandments. Learn about the Christian moral system. It's a start to finding a way out of the mess you're in.

It is possible for people to learn to bring peace and good will to their minds. You don't have to continue to live in torment.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It's possible Trump could cure cancer but first he should try to stop being such a cancer.

Shouting Thomas said...

I fully expect, Ritmo, that you will respond as you always do with a torrent of insults and abuse.

I've got to practice because I'm playing organ for Mass tomorrow morning.

Fume away. I won't be reading a word of it.

narciso said...

And I've followed tomasky since he was at the village voice,

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It doesn't torment me to point out the harms others do.

There are Catholic schools around me but I would never attend them. (That is your proper birth-denomination, right Tommy boy? Before becoming more Christian one must choose the sect that the other sects don't want to destroy and kill, and I know you're no fan of liberal Christianity).

Anyway, those Catholic schools - I'm not interested in pedophilia, let alone its advantages as a moral system so maybe once you clean out your own house then maybe you can make a more inviting plea to indoctrinate me into it.

Thanks!

Also, I've read the Ten Commandments. They're not very long, or complicated. I'm not sure they all hold equal value. But I don't steal, murder or bear false witness. Do you envy your neighbor's wife or ass? Do you honor the sabbath and make no graven images and all that jazz?

I see you bear false witness a great deal and I think it's one of the worst sins to commit nowadays, given where people are at. The amount of harm caused by that is immense.

Your leader does it every ten minutes.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Fume away. I won't be reading a word of it.

Oh, that's a relief. And for a second I thought you were approaching me as an equal. In a Christian way.

I now see that was BS. You did the same thing you usually do of talking down to others and trying to boss them about.

And you wonder why people can't learn much about Christianity from you. Wow!

Inga...Allie Oop said...

I can see Shouting Thomas on a corner yelling to all passers by, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindu, “Repent, go to church, learn about the Christian moral system!” Does Shouting Thomas think no other of the world’s religions or even atheists or otherwise non religious people have a “moral system”? Such arrogance and ignorance.

Birkel said...

I can see Royal ass Inga and P3T demanding never-ending war in Syria.
Bill Kristol and other LLRs agree.
Strange bedfellows.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Right. A 2,000 troop "war."

Whatever you say, Birkel.

I can see Birkel call to abandon allies to the slaughter in order to score domestic political points. Yes, I can definitely see that.

I can see right through it, too.

Birkel said...

Allies?
You mean the Turks?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If you don't know who are allies in this have been then it's less shameful to admit you're too ignorant to have had the conversation in the first place than to continue pretending that you know enough to do so.

Birkel said...

The Turks are our NATO allies.
That is a treaty agreement.

Now, we can discuss the relative merits of Turkish inclusion in NATO but they are our allies.

Who else can you name that we have a formal alliance to defend in this matter?

William said...

I think at some point in time FDR will lose his appeal for libs. It has happened to Jefferson, Jackson, and Wilson. Why not FDR?.... FDR managed WWII successfully, but he delegated most of the actual management of that war to Stimson, Marshall, Eisenhower, and MacArthur. These weren't New Dealers....,,There were Republicans who criticized his handling of the St. Louis. J. Edgar Hoover criticized his internment of Japanese Americans. When Harding was in Congress, he sponsored anti-lynching legislation. FDR never did anything that would cause him to lose the vote of a single Southern segregationist.......So far as recent horndog Presidents go, he never had the flair of JFK, Clinton, or Trump, but it should be noted that he used his daughter to arrange his appointments with his mistress. When discovered, this caused a bitter quarrel between the daughter and Eleanor. Arguably, FDR's affairs were more damaging to his family than those of the other horndogs.

Birkel said...

Leftist Collectivists have not given up on Woodrow Wilson.
They still applaud his racism as applied through eugenics and abortion.
And Princeton maintains their school of public policy in his name.

narciso said...

Much like numidia was briefly romes ally and then subsequently after jugurtha. Now Qatar which is our main airbase is a Dodger one, Bahrain retains the naval base privilege.

narciso said...

Ah you remind me brackenridge long was a delegate for Wilson in 1912, from st. Louis that got him into govt.

glenn said...

I’m getting whiplash.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Burpel thinks that NATO's mission is for us to permit the Turks to destroy the Kurds who stabilize the ME and did the brunt of the fighting against ISIS.

Genius stuff, guys.

Birkel said...

P3T thinks we should go to war with a treaty ally.
That will show our allies what is what, amirite?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Only Burp is stupid enough to think the Turks would attack us or the Kurds while we're there with them.

narciso said...

How does he walk and chew gum at the same time.

narciso said...

So it turns the lead al queda (hts) redoubt is in Idlib province guess who runs that?

J. Farmer said...

@President Pee-Pee Tape:

Only Burp is stupid enough to think the Turks would attack us or the Kurds while we're there with them.

Turkey has already been engaged in conflict with the People's Protection Units (backed by the US) in Afrin since January of 2018.

Ken said...

"That was the strategy of Vietnam for years after year after year in Vietnam was to take one more village and we'll get a better negotiated deal."

The US won the Vietnam War. Nixon and Kissinger understood how to defeat the NVA and did. That's what the 1973 Paris Peace accords were: the NVA surrender. But democrats betrayed the accords and the South Vietnamese and refused to provide material support to the South Vietnamese after the surrender, leaving them defenseless and voiding the US win. Now democrats and RINOs perpetuate the myth the US militarily lost the war to cover their betrayal.

Ken said...

Further, the reality is there is both a military and diplomatic solution to all the things Rand, et al, claim there isn't. They just don't have the fortitude to implement it and see it through. It's violent and terrible and will work. It's fine if you don't want to do the violent terrible thing. Just don't pretend it doesn't exist. Also, acknowledge the half-assedness of the current strategy of thinking just a little violence, you know, as a pretend show of force, is somehow going to be effective.

narciso said...

But is there the will, initially there was at the outset of the Afghan war, but then the Taliban regrouped in Pakistan, thanks to their isi sponsors.

Birkel said...

TFW J Farmer comes to my defense.
Trippy, man.
Trippy.

Anonymous said...

Sergeant Ritmo is strapping up to lead Inga’s rapist grandson into battle right now!!

Unknown said...

If anything, Trump exposed what shit our betters really are.

gadfly said...

Blogger Bob Boyd said...
Hitler's comes to power in America and suddenly these Progs can't bear the thought that we don't have our troops in other countries? What's up with that?

So, after Syria and Afghanistan, we can withdraw troops and shut down installations in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Iraq, Cuba, Niger, and Kuwait. That will allow us to afford building a 60 foot high stainless steel fence along both borders.

Once that is accomplished , there will be no more "world's police" duties and isolationism will be complete. Xenophobia will control our thoughts even more and we can completely eliminate abiding foreigners and dual language labels and we will no longer be required to put up with negative trade balances.

All manufacturing will become domestic and if we don't have raw materials inside our territories, we can do without or find a better way. Donald Trump's reality will fully be realized and his enforcers will need only to choose uniform shirts not colored brown.

Did I mention that Great Depression II will arrive with the Nazis? Buckle up when riding your new Chevy tricycle manufactured under government supervision at Lordstown!

Drago said...

Reading gadfly on economics is equivalent to reading David Hogg on the Constitution.

LOL

rightguy said...

3P-T is like some jabbering, nonsense-generating character from a Monty Python skit like "I came here for argument!"/ "No you didn't!". You should neither read nor respond to his posts. Its quite enough just to weigh them.

Birkel said...

gadfly starts his economic analysis by placing himself in the ointment and huffing deeply.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

Lot's of good stuff here. Hatred of Trump unites people around alleged policy positions, often contradictory of what they have said many times in the past. Someone could ask some Scandinavian: just to be clear, Trump isn't going to win the Nobel Peace Prize? Also given the tendency toward Muslim fundamentalism/opposition to what we call progress, support for terrorism: does the presence of the U.S. military in these countries make the situation better, or worse? If the most dangerous jihadis are now focussed on their own governments, isn't this a good thing for the West?

Ironclad said...

I am reading the downward slant of this posting with Pee Pee vomiting "wisdom" that is mostly insane homilies about how everything we know is wrong and how the world would be SOOO much better if only one side ruled (his that is). The one about how the Arabs "helped" civilization made me cringe - dude, you DO realize that the writings they allegedly "preserved" were also found in monasteries in Europe - at least the ones that they were not raiding for slaves.

By the way - where is the tape that justifies your name - or is it as baseless as your screeds?

Alison said...

I highly recommend using the Chrome browser so you can add the"killfile" extension. I never have to see comments from those I have killfiled. It's awesome.

Michael McNeil said...

The one about how the Arabs “helped” civilization made me cringe — dude, you DO realize that the writings they allegedly “preserved” were also found in monasteries in Europe — at least the ones that they were not raiding for slaves.

No shit. Not to speak of what was preserved in the “New Rome” — Constantinople — largest and most glorious city in the world during the bulk of the Middle Ages.

As Byzantinist J. B. Bury (planner of the famous “Cambridge Medieval History”) put it in his introduction to the series' volume on the later Roman Empire (quoting…):

[New Rome] guarded safely the heritage of classical Greek literature which has had on the modern world a penetrating influence difficult to estimate. That we owe our possession of the masterpieces of Hellenic thought and imagination to the Byzantines everyone knows, but everyone does not remember that those books would not have travelled to Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, because they would not have existed, if the Greek classics had not been read habitually by the educated subjects of the Eastern Empire and therefore continued to be copied.

Here we touch on a most fundamental contrast between the Eastern Empire and the western European states of the Middle Ages. The well-to-do classes in the West were as a rule illiterate, with the exception of ecclesiastics; among the well-to-do classes in the Byzantine world education was the rule, and education meant not merely reading, writing, and arithmetic, but the study of ancient Greek grammar and the reading of classical authors.

The old traditions of Greek education had never died out. In court circles at Constantinople everyone who was not an utter parvenu would recognise and understand a quotation from Homer. In consequence of this difference, the intellectual standard in the West where book-learning was reserved for a particular class, and in the East where every boy and girl whose parents could afford to pay was educated, were entirely different. The advantages of science and training and system were understood in Byzantine society.

(/unQuote)

Ralph L said...

Yeah, but look what happened to Byzantium. It got sacked by the uneducated Crusaders and never really recovered.

JAORE said...

"Muslims gave the world astronomy, algebra, chemistry and a rudimentary understanding apparently of alcohol"

Let's assume this is true (it's not).

What have the brilliant minds of the Muslim world done to build on this awesome foundation over the ensuing centuries?

Tom Grey said...

The hypocrites who call Trump Hitler are mad that he's leaving.

I'm glad.

Rand Paul is right -- there was always going to be the need for the locals to take over.

This is the time.

What's not asked in detail enough is the US support for the Kurds, who have no country yet. But are getting more and more willing to fight for one.
They deserve one more than the Palestinians...
Will be interesting to compare treatment and lifestyles.

chickelit said...

What have the brilliant minds of the Muslim world done to build on this awesome foundation over the ensuing centuries?

Clearly they lost their collective mojos and became just a buncha wahanabees

Michael McNeil said...

Historian of mathematics Carl B. Boyer assesses the overall contribution of Arabic civilization to the science of mathematics thusly (quoting…):

Arabic mathematics can with some propriety be divided into four parts: (1) an arithmetic presumably derived from India and based on the principle of position [i.e., decimal notation]; (2) an algebra which, although from Greek, Hindu, and Babylonian sources, nevertheless in Muslim hands assumed a characteristically new and systematic form; (3) a trigonometry the substance of which came chiefly from Greece but to which the Arabs applied the Hindu form and added new functions and formulas; and (4) a geometry which came from Greece but to which the Arabs contributed generalizations here and there. […]

In connection with (4), there was a significant contribution about a century after Alhazen by a man who in the East is known as a scientist but whom the West recalls as one of the greatest Persian poets. Omar Khayyam (ca. 1050–1123), the “tent-maker,” wrote an _Algebra_ that went beyond that of al-Khwarizmi to include equations of the third degree.

(/unQuote)

As Arab civilization declined in the later Middle Ages, the last-gasp of Arabic mathematical culture was displayed by al-Kashi, who — writing in both Arabic and Persian, far from classical centers of Arabic civilization, in central Asia (Samarkand) — extended the (by now already ancient) decimal system so it could, for the first time, express decimal fractions (e.g.: writing pi as 3.14…).

In the course of accomplishing this feat, al-Kashi computed and wrote out 2Ï€ to 15 decimal places! To wit: 6.2831853071795865

As Boyer points out with regard to al-Kashi's great contribution to mathematics (quoting…):

No mathematician approached the accuracy in this tour de force of computation until the late sixteenth century. (The following mnemonic device will aid in memorizing a good approximation to Ï€: “How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.” The number of letters in the words will provide the values for the successive digits in 3.14159265358979, and these will be found to be in full agreement with al-Kashi's value for 2Ï€.) […]

With the death of al-Kashi in about 1436 we can close the account of Arabic mathematics, for the cultural collapse of the Muslim world was more complete than the political disintegration of the empire. The number of significant Islamic contributors to mathematics before al-Kashi was considerably larger than our exposition would suggest, for we have concentrated only on major figures, but after al-Kashi the number is negligible.

It was very fortunate indeed that when Arabic learning began to decline, scholarship in Europe was on the upgrade and was prepared to accept the intellectual legacy bequeathed by earlier ages.

It is sometimes held that the Arabs had done little more than to put Greek science into “cold storage” until Europe was ready to accept it. But the account in this chapter has shown that at least in the case of mathematics, the tradition handed over to the Latin world in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was richer than that with which the unlettered Arabic conquerors had come into contact in the seventh century.

(/unQuote)

(ibid., pp. 244-245)

––––

Ah, but my Computations, People say, Have squared the Year to human Compass, eh? If so, by striking from the Calendar Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday.

Omar Khayyam (Rubaiyat in the FitzGerald version)

walter said...

Al Sharpton:
"We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”

J. Farmer said...

Al Sharpton:
"We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”


Ah, the good old days of Afrocentrism. Wakanda, forever!

J. Farmer said...

@Gadfly:

Once that is accomplished , there will be no more "world's police" duties and isolationism will be complete.

We have soldiers on the ground in dozens of countries but withdrawing 2,000 troops from Syria means "isolationism will be complete." Just when I thought the world "isolationism" could not be more evacuated of meaning.

Scott M said...

scholarship in Europe was on the upgrade

That's a cumbersome little phrase...

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Gadfly hates Trump so his brain goes full jell-o Red herring mush over anything Trump does.

Robert Cook said...

"The US won the Vietnam War. Nixon and Kissinger understood how to defeat the NVA and did. That's what the 1973 Paris Peace accords were: the NVA surrender. But democrats betrayed the accords and the South Vietnamese and refused to provide material support to the South Vietnamese after the surrender, leaving them defenseless and voiding the US win. Now democrats and RINOs perpetuate the myth the US militarily lost the war to cover their betrayal."

That's not a victory. That's a truce. Beside, why were we in Vietnam to begin with? We had no purpose there, and the entire war was a criminal act, and a squandering of lives and money.

tcrosse said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tcrosse said...

Now democrats and RINOs perpetuate the myth the US militarily lost the war to cover their betrayal.

Ludendorff said something similar about the Stab in the Back which led to the Armistic. Others picked that up and ran with it.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Andrew Sullivan speaketh on said subject. Be sure to know he still prefers corrupt war monger Hillary.

Drago said...

Robert Cook: " Beside, why were we in Vietnam to begin with? We had no purpose there, and the entire war was a criminal act, and a squandering of lives and money."

I guess we had as much right to be there as the Russians, Chinese, Cubans and the rest of the Cookie Commie Hall Of Fame.

Tina Trent said...

Would it be too much to ask the deranged presentists here to learn something, anything, about the European causes of World War II? Something real?

Contrary to popular belief, Trump did not factor into the decision to go or not go to war. Every nation was isolationist with regards to Hitler. The recent memory of machine gun and trench warfare's human toll, plus the understanding that America's wealth and blood had been spent spectacularly to prop up Britain and France's empires, plus the (correct) understanding that the League of Nations and European diplomacy was the sort of toxic quagmire we now identify with the Middle East, not partisan politics, is what fueled the America First movement.

What World War I taught us was that weapons now permanently outpaced humans' capacity to contain enemies on battlefields, something soon unbearably borne out in 30 million Soviet dead -- more than 2/3 civilians. One in five Poles dead -- five million dead Polish civilians. Even before this slaughter, the slaughter of World War I was alive in people's minds. So was the endless procession of wars Europe had engaged up to that war.

Isolationism in America transcended party lines and class lines, though it had particular appeal to those who would actually serve as machine gun fodder. Yet the number of men who refused to serve when called despite their opinion of the engagement was vanishingly small -- and that impulse arose from the same faith in nation that impelled isolationism itself. How about this for a general rule: if you know nothing about something, say nothing?

Pokerone said...

There is a killfile add-on for Firefox that works well. 3P-T was my first choice to hush.

Hagar said...

guess we had as much right to be there as the Russians, Chinese, Cubans and the rest of the Cookie Commie Hall Of Fame.

That was kind of the deal. The US Government has never been quite rational about communism - or Communism - and the "Domino Theory" was gospel. Communism had to be stamped out wherever and however it raised its head.

If we had known then what we know now, Kennedy would have pulled out what few forces we had in Viet Nam and let the Vietnamese, Russians and Chinese fight it out among themselves.

But that was not possible in American politics at the time, and the Kennedys were politicians.

«Oldest ‹Older   1 – 200 of 214   Newer› Newest»