Beware Trump's Impending War in Syria

[blackascoal]

While the world has been paying attention to the bumbling failures of the Donald Trump .. the smell of war is rising.

Congress Needs to Stop Trump’s Escalation of the War on Syria
The president’s plans will only fan the country’s*flames.

excerpts

During the 2016 GOP presidential primaries and on through to the end of last year’s general election campaign, candidate Donald J. Trump repeatedly derided the fact that the United States had spent upward of $6 trillion dollars on wars in the Middle East because we, in his words, “have nothing to show for it.” One might then have reasonably expected Trump to begin the process of unwinding our overstretched positions in the region when he became president.

But alas ..

On March 9, The New York Times reported that the United States is sending 400 troops to Syria to bolster the small number of American troops that are already on the ground there. A week later, March 15, The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon has drawn up plans to send a 1,000 more troops within the coming weeks. Meanwhile, in anticipation of the coming (and perhaps final) stages of the operation against the Islamic State, the administration has decided to send “an additional 2,500 ground combat troops to a staging base in Kuwait from which they could be called upon to back up coalition forces battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.”

The administration, in keeping with Obama and Bush administration policy, is still relying on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) as legal justification for the use of force in Syria. But as Slate’s Joshua Keating has pointed out, the 2001 AUMF “specifically applied to the perpetrators of 9/11 (al-Qaida) and those that harbored them (the then-Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan).” There is nothing in the language of the AUMF that authorizes military operations in Syria.

And once again, an administration is embarking on a military intervention in the absence of virtually any debate. Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations tweeted that he found it “Truly amazing that nobody in DC cares about the US troop increase and mission expansion in Syria.”

Well, not quite nobody.

On Tuesday afternoon, members of the House Progressive Caucus gathered on Capitol Hill to announce their support for HR 1473, the “Prohibit Expansion of US Combat Troops into Syria Act.” The bill, which was introduced by California Democrat Barbara Lee, seeks to “prohibit the deployment of members of the Armed Forces to Syria for purposes of engaging in ground combat operations, and for other purposes.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/co...-war-on-syria/

Truth is, nobody can stop Trump from deeper engagement in this war-of-choice .. and the impediments that democrats now seek should have been in place when Obama destroyed Libya, his war-of-choice.

The Clinton-haters claimed that she was the warmonger and greatest danger. Yet, she would not be standing on the doorsteps of war less than 90 days into her administration.

I guess everyone wants to be a war president .. but this one will be led by a clown.

[blackascoal]

Trump Is Dragging Us Into Another War... And No One Is Talking About It
While Americans have been focused on the ACA and Trump’s ties to Russia, Trump has been busy expanding the American troop presence inside Syria.

Without any official notification, Trump sent 500 new American troops into Syria, ostensibly to take part in the upcoming assault on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa. News reports suggest this deployment may just be the tip of the iceberg, with some saying that the plan is for hundreds more American troops to be added to the fight in the coming weeks. No one actually knows how many troops are inside Syria now, because the administration has largely tried to keep the build-up a secret.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0f633072b37db

Trump’s War on Terror Has Quickly Become as Barbaric and Savage as He Promised

From the start of his presidency, Donald Trump’s “war on terror” has entailed the seemingly indiscriminate slaughter of innocent people in the name of killing terrorists. In other words, Trump has escalated the 16-year-old core premise of America’s foreign policy — that it has the right to bomb any country in the world where people it*regards as terrorists*are found — and in doing so, has fulfilled the warped*campaign pledges he repeatedly expressed.

The most recent atrocity was the killing of as many as 200 Iraqi civilians from U.S. airstrikes this week in Mosul. That was preceded a few days earlier by the killing of dozens of Syrian civilians*in*Raqqa province when the U.S. targeted a school where people had taken refuge, which itself was preceded a week earlier by the U.S. destruction of a mosque near Aleppo*that also killed dozens. And one of Trump’s first military actions was what can only be described as a massacre carried out by Navy SEALs, in which 30 Yemenis were killed; among the children killed was an 8-year-old American girl (whose 16-year-old American brother was killed by a drone under Obama).

In sum: Although precise numbers are difficult to obtain, there seems little question that the number of civilians being killed by the U.S. in Iraq and Syria — already quite high under Obama — has increased precipitously during*the first two months of the Trump administration. Data compiled by the site Airwars tells the story: The number of civilians killed in Syria and Iraq began increasing in October under Obama but has now skyrocketed in March under Trump.

What’s particularly notable is that the number of airstrikes actually decreased in March (with a week left), even as civilian deaths rose — strongly suggesting that the U.S. military has become even more reckless about civilian deaths under Trump*than it was*under Obama:



This*escalation of*bombing and civilian deaths, combined with the deployment by Trump of 500 ground troops into Syria beyond the troops Obama already deployed*there, has received remarkably little media attention. This is in part due to the standard indifference in U.S. discourse to U.S. killing of civilians compared to the language used when its enemies kill people (compare the very muted and euphemistic tones used to report on Trump’s escalations in Iraq and Syria*to the frequent invocation of genocide and war crimes to denounce Russian killing of Syrian civilians). And part of this lack of media attention*is due to the Democrats’ ongoing hunt for*Russian infiltration of Washington, which leaves little room for other matters.

But what is becoming clear is that Trump is attempting to liberate the U.S. military from the minimal constraints it observed in order to avoid massive civilian casualties. And this should surprise nobody: Trump explicitly and repeatedly vowed to do exactly this during the campaign.
https://theintercept.com/2017/03/26/...s-he-promised/

... just don't act surprised when the horror hits you.

[NOVA]

Danger, danger, danger......Trump might draw a.............RED LINE

Duck and cover....

[signalmankenneth]

Danger, danger, danger......Trump might draw a.............RED LINE

Duck and cover....

[blackascoal]

Some 500 U.S. military personnel have been on station in Syria—special operations forces, bomb squad members, trainers, and commandos. Another 400 Marines have just arrived. Introducing additional combat units would relieve the pressure on other governments to maintain their efforts. For instance, Turkey has a 400,000 man military and could do much more. The Gulf State could devote both ground and air forces.

Greater U.S. involvement also would reinforce the meme of Christian America versus Muslims. It would more directly entangle Washington in the complicated conflicts among anti-ISIS combatants. And, most important, it would expand Washington’s role in yet another Middle Eastern conflict. And the more deeply involved the U.S. gets, the more difficult it will be to extract itself.

While direct combat would be the worst policy, lesser intervention would create many of the same risks while providing even fewer potential benefits. Arming the so-called moderate insurgents so far has proved to be of dubious value; often these forces have surrendered personnel and weapons to the radicals. Arming insurgents with anti-aircraft weapons would risk leakage to radicals interested in downing Western passenger planes. Creating no-fly or safe zones would bring the U.S. directly into the war against not only ISIS but also Syria and Russia.

Yet none of these measures would guarantee the fall of the Assad regime, let alone creation of a democratic, humane Syrian government friendly to America and the West, as desired by Washington. And having further inflamed the conflict, the U.S. would find it even harder to back away. If the American people liked the outcomes in Iraq and Libya, they would love Washington’s participation in the bitter, bloody, multi-sided Syrian civil war.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0c3276fb781a2

Get ready .. America is off to war again .. and led by a clown who wanted tanks at his inauguration.

Now you know why his administration is full of generals.

[cancel2 2022]

i went to that site and there was headlines about mothersday all over it and I freaked the fuck out before remembering that it's (usually?) in may in USA. but apparently it's mothers day today in the uk.

It's hard to believe that you have a mother!

While the world has been paying attention to the bumbling failures of the Donald Trump .. the smell of war is rising.

Congress Needs to Stop Trump’s Escalation of the War on Syria
The president’s plans will only fan the country’s*flames.

excerpts

During the 2016 GOP presidential primaries and on through to the end of last year’s general election campaign, candidate Donald J. Trump repeatedly derided the fact that the United States had spent upward of $6 trillion dollars on wars in the Middle East because we, in his words, “have nothing to show for it.” One might then have reasonably expected Trump to begin the process of unwinding our overstretched positions in the region when he became president.

But alas ..

On March 9, The New York Times reported that the United States is sending 400 troops to Syria to bolster the small number of American troops that are already on the ground there. A week later, March 15, The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon has drawn up plans to send a 1,000 more troops within the coming weeks. Meanwhile, in anticipation of the coming (and perhaps final) stages of the operation against the Islamic State, the administration has decided to send “an additional 2,500 ground combat troops to a staging base in Kuwait from which they could be called upon to back up coalition forces battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.”

The administration, in keeping with Obama and Bush administration policy, is still relying on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) as legal justification for the use of force in Syria. But as Slate’s Joshua Keating has pointed out, the 2001 AUMF “specifically applied to the perpetrators of 9/11 (al-Qaida) and those that harbored them (the then-Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan).” There is nothing in the language of the AUMF that authorizes military operations in Syria.

And once again, an administration is embarking on a military intervention in the absence of virtually any debate. Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations tweeted that he found it “Truly amazing that nobody in DC cares about the US troop increase and mission expansion in Syria.”

Well, not quite nobody.

On Tuesday afternoon, members of the House Progressive Caucus gathered on Capitol Hill to announce their support for HR 1473, the “Prohibit Expansion of US Combat Troops into Syria Act.” The bill, which was introduced by California Democrat Barbara Lee, seeks to “prohibit the deployment of members of the Armed Forces to Syria for purposes of engaging in ground combat operations, and for other purposes.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/co...-war-on-syria/

Truth is, nobody can stop Trump from deeper engagement in this war-of-choice .. and the impediments that democrats now seek should have been in place when Obama destroyed Libya, his war-of-choice.

The Clinton-haters claimed that she was the warmonger and greatest danger. Yet, she would not be standing on the doorsteps of war less than 90 days into her administration.

I guess everyone wants to be a war president .. but this one will be led by a clown.

It is an unending diatribe with you, Clinton and Obama went into Libya​ without any post war plan.

Sent from Lenovo K6 Note

[NOVA]

unproven

The claim that Trump wanted a “full Soviet-style inaugural parade, with tanks, missiles and missile launchers” was widely aggregated by other online outlets, but we’ve so far been unable to locate any corroboration of it other than the unnamed “source involved in inaugural planning” reference by the Huffington Post.

http://www.snopes.com/trump-military-inaugural-parade/

[Cypress]

It's hard to believe that you have a mother!

It is an unending diatribe with you, Clinton and Obama went into Libya​ without any post war plan.

Sent from Lenovo K6 Note

I believe the point BAC is making, is that the Orange Clowns sycophants - those who have built shrines to him in their houses, and post here regularly - have made it a selling point that Drumpf was the peacenik in the race. A regular flower child in comparison to the alleged war mongering Hillary.

A fantasy that was always ridiculous at face value, given that the Orange Clown was always taking about bombing the shit out of stuff, torturing prisoners, stealing Iraq's oil, and engaging in nuclear arms races.

[cancel2 2022]

I believe the point BAC is making, is that the Orange Clowns sycophants - those who have built shrines to him in their houses, and post here regularly - have made it a selling point that Drumpf was the peacenik in the race. A regular flower child in comparison to the alleged war mongering Hillary.

A fantasy that was always ridiculous at face value, given that the Orange Clown was always taking about bombing the shit out of stuff, torturing prisoners, stealing Iraq's oil, and engaging in nuclear arms races.

Yes, that may well be true, but he never voted for that misbegotten war, whilst your heroine aka Ma Clinton did, deal with it.

Sent from Lenovo K6 Note

[NOVA]

I believe the point BAC is making, is that the Orange Clowns sycophants - those who have built shrines to him in their houses, and post here regularly - have made it a selling point that Drumpf was the peacenik in the race. A regular flower child in comparison to the alleged war mongering Hillary.

A fantasy that was always ridiculous at face value, given that the Orange Clown was always taking about bombing the shit out of stuff, torturing prisoners, stealing Iraq's oil, and engaging in nuclear arms races.

Only in your mind Cy....only in your mind.....

Now you're watching the liberal moron Democrats trying to start a war with Russia.....for another imaginary reason.....while the N. Koreans threaten to

actually start using nukes.....

[cancel2 2022]

Trump Is Dragging Us Into Another War... And No One Is Talking About It
While Americans have been focused on the ACA and Trump’s ties to Russia, Trump has been busy expanding the American troop presence inside Syria.

Without any official notification, Trump sent 500 new American troops into Syria, ostensibly to take part in the upcoming assault on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa. News reports suggest this deployment may just be the tip of the iceberg, with some saying that the plan is for hundreds more American troops to be added to the fight in the coming weeks. No one actually knows how many troops are inside Syria now, because the administration has largely tried to keep the build-up a secret.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0f633072b37db

Trump’s War on Terror Has Quickly Become as Barbaric and Savage as He Promised

From the start of his presidency, Donald Trump’s “war on terror” has entailed the seemingly indiscriminate slaughter of innocent people in the name of killing terrorists. In other words, Trump has escalated the 16-year-old core premise of America’s foreign policy — that it has the right to bomb any country in the world where people it*regards as terrorists*are found — and in doing so, has fulfilled the warped*campaign pledges he repeatedly expressed.

The most recent atrocity was the killing of as many as 200 Iraqi civilians from U.S. airstrikes this week in Mosul. That was preceded a few days earlier by the killing of dozens of Syrian civilians*in*Raqqa province when the U.S. targeted a school where people had taken refuge, which itself was preceded a week earlier by the U.S. destruction of a mosque near Aleppo*that also killed dozens. And one of Trump’s first military actions was what can only be described as a massacre carried out by Navy SEALs, in which 30 Yemenis were killed; among the children killed was an 8-year-old American girl (whose 16-year-old American brother was killed by a drone under Obama).

In sum: Although precise numbers are difficult to obtain, there seems little question that the number of civilians being killed by the U.S. in Iraq and Syria — already quite high under Obama — has increased precipitously during*the first two months of the Trump administration. Data compiled by the site Airwars tells the story: The number of civilians killed in Syria and Iraq began increasing in October under Obama but has now skyrocketed in March under Trump.

What’s particularly notable is that the number of airstrikes actually decreased in March (with a week left), even as civilian deaths rose — strongly suggesting that the U.S. military has become even more reckless about civilian deaths under Trump*than it was*under Obama:



This*escalation of*bombing and civilian deaths, combined with the deployment by Trump of 500 ground troops into Syria beyond the troops Obama already deployed*there, has received remarkably little media attention. This is in part due to the standard indifference in U.S. discourse to U.S. killing of civilians compared to the language used when its enemies kill people (compare the very muted and euphemistic tones used to report on Trump’s escalations in Iraq and Syria*to the frequent invocation of genocide and war crimes to denounce Russian killing of Syrian civilians). And part of this lack of media attention*is due to the Democrats’ ongoing hunt for*Russian infiltration of Washington, which leaves little room for other matters.

But what is becoming clear is that Trump is attempting to liberate the U.S. military from the minimal constraints it observed in order to avoid massive civilian casualties. And this should surprise nobody: Trump explicitly and repeatedly vowed to do exactly this during the campaign.
https://theintercept.com/2017/03/26/...s-he-promised/

... just don't act surprised when the horror hits you.

This is just ocean going bullshit.

Sent from Lenovo K6 Note

[Darth Omar]

This is just ocean going bullshit.

Sent from Lenovo K6 Note

But they needed something after the Russian conspiracy finally petered out lol.

[blackascoal]

It's hard to believe that you have a mother!

It is an unending diatribe with you, Clinton and Obama went into Libya​ without any post war plan.

Sent from Lenovo K6 Note

You ignorant limey asshole, I have a daughter in the military, and I'm the one who critically exposed what Obama and Clinton were doing in Libya before your boy Amanda did.

Stupid fuck .. none of this is any of your business.

Can you read bitch? ... and the impediments that democrats now seek should have been in place when Obama destroyed Libya, his war-of-choice.

[cancel2 2022]

You ignorant limey asshole, I have a daughter in the military, and I'm the one who critically exposed what Obama and Clinton were doing in Libya before your boy Amanda did.

Stupid fuck .. none of this is any of your business.

Of course it is my business. The aftermath of Syria and Libya was a huge migrant crisis, did they head to the US or Europe, you arrogant twat? Fuck you with pink ribbons and a cherry on top!!

Sent from Lenovo K6 Note

[Cancel 2018.2]

I believe the point BAC is making, is that the Orange Clowns sycophants - those who have built shrines to him in their houses, and post here regularly - have made it a selling point that Drumpf was the peacenik in the race. A regular flower child in comparison to the alleged war mongering Hillary.

A fantasy that was always ridiculous at face value, given that the Orange Clown was always taking about bombing the shit out of stuff, torturing prisoners, stealing Iraq's oil, and engaging in nuclear arms races.

Pretty sure that is not true. He was against Iraq, but he always said he was going to fight ISIS.

How is this not a continuation of Obama's 'war'?