{"id":178376,"date":"2018-12-19T19:22:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T00:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/12\/19\/a-stopped-clock-is-right-twice-a-day\/"},"modified":"2018-12-19T19:22:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T00:22:00","slug":"a-stopped-clock-is-right-twice-a-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/12\/19\/a-stopped-clock-is-right-twice-a-day\/","title":{"rendered":"A Stopped Clock is Right Twice a Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
ISIS\/ISIL\/Daesh\/Whatever has been eliminated as a proto-nation state\/caliphate.<\/div>\n

It is now a diffuse terrorist organization, and as such, the only remaining justifications for keeping 2-3000 (and probably more off the books) troops on the ground are promulgating regime change and doing the House of Saud’s dirty work in their hundreds of years long battle with Iran.<\/p>\n

As such, I think that Trump’s announcement that they are pulling ground troops from Syria<\/a>, effective immediately, is a good thing, even if is (probably) being done for the most base of reasons:<\/p>\n

The United States will move quickly to withdraw all forces from Syria, the White House abruptly announced Wednesday, as President Trump defied warnings from his top advisers and upended plans for a continued mission against the Islamic State. <\/p>\n

The move plunged U.S. allies into uncertainty and created the potential for greater regional instability even as it provided Russia and its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a chance to cement greater control over the country. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur boys, our young women, our men, they\u2019re all coming back and they\u2019re coming back now, we won and that\u2019s the way we want it,\u201d Trump said in a video message on Twitter, an unusual format for the president. \u201cThat\u2019s the way we want it, and that\u2019s the way they want it,\u201d he said, pointing to the sky in an apparent reference to American soldiers killed in Syria.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To quote John Kerry, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”<\/p>\n

The decision also delivers on the president\u2019s repeated threat this year to pull out troops. Since before taking office, Trump has promised to conclude the campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and questioned the value of costly and dangerous military missions overseas.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee, respectively, warned in a statement that the decision would benefit Russia and Iran, Assad\u2019s other major patron.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I use the tears of the regime change Mousketeers to sweeten my coffee.<\/p>\n

Of course, the wing of U.S. officialdom known as, “The Blob,” are doing their level best to prevent a sudden outbreak of peace<\/a>: <\/p>\n

President Donald Trump may have declared the so-called Islamic State \u201cdefeated,\u201d<\/a> sparking talk of a U.S. withdrawal from the former ISIS stronghold of northeastern Syria. But administration officials, several of whom were taken by surprise, indicated an effort was underway to stop or slow a pullout.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Yet the official added a harder-edged warning suggesting that military force against Iran in Syria remained an option: \u201cIran knows the U.S. stands ready to re-engage at all levels to defend American interests.\u201d <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

OK, Mr. Anonymous Official, name 3 significant American interests in Syria, and you cannot use, “Iran’s there,” or, “Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud’s dick won’t suck itself.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISIS\/ISIL\/Daesh\/Whatever has been eliminated as a proto-nation state\/caliphate. It is now a diffuse terrorist organization, and as such, the only remaining justifications for keeping 2-3000 (and probably more off the books) troops on the ground are promulgating regime change and doing the House of Saud’s dirty work in their hundreds of years long battle with …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[489,394,378,696,373,454],"class_list":["post-178376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-civil-war","tag-foreign-relations","tag-middle-east","tag-syria","tag-terrorism","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}