ISIS kills 4 Americas after POTUS telegraphs our intentions.

ISIS kills 4 Americas after POTUS telegraphs our intentions.

ISIS kills 4 Americas after POTUS telegraphs our intentions.

What do you get when you discuss troop withdrawal, lack a clear perspective of Islamic Terrorists, and have a Congress so focused on pursuit down the Russia Rabbit Hole that it is willing to forgo American lives?  You get Americans killed. Congratulations DC. I hope the hand you use to pat yourselves on the back doesn’t leave a bloody handprint on your clean suit.

Gee, Narcissi…you sound a little upset.

No, I’m beyond upset. We’ve seen this play before, and it didn’t end well. This week it ended with the deaths of 4 Americans in Syria.

ISIS is the human variant of bedbugs

Somebody needs to tell the Veep that this type of talk riles the crazies.

“Thanks to the courage of our armed forces, we have crushed the ISIS caliphate and devastated its capabilities,” Mr. Pence said. “As we begin to bring our troops home, the American people can be assured, for the sake of our soldiers, their families and our nation, we will never allow the remnants of ISIS to re-establish their evil and murderous caliphate — not now, not ever.”

Okay Mike, how are you going to stop it? This isn’t a conventional enemy, and never was. The comment inspires the enemy to fight harder, longer, and be more versatile than politicians think possible. And your boss, likes to think he fired the one guy who actually looked into the faces of these freaks. Mike, this is your “Mission Accomplished” moment, and it’s not good.

Matthew Levitt, the Fromer-Wexler fellow and director of the Reinhard program on counterterrorism and intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy disagrees. In “War on the Rocks“, he and Aaron Zelin bring up very good points about why your approach is wrong. Their basis for this thinking is the expansion of ISIS after your two predecessors made statements similar to yours (Bush, Obama).

The president’s decision to declare victory in Syria and pull out U.S. forces recalls the mistakes that Presidents Bush and Obama made by underestimating earlier ISIL iterations…. Obama’s derisive labeling of ISIL that same month as the “J.V. Squad,” in comparison to al-Qaeda, occurred merely six months before the group seized territory the size of Britain spanning parts of Iraq and Syria. Trump’s abrupt withdrawal suggests a similar overconfidence. Yet it is arguably worse.

Just like bedbugs, ISIS is hard to eradicate. So, what is the plan to kill them off?

The vermin is spreading

Islamic Terrorists are not just brown people from the Middle East. Radicalized Islamic Terrorists come from almost every nation. In “New Face of Terrorism in 2019” Foreign Policy’s Vera Mironova writes,

The wars in the Middle East have transformed militants from Russian-speaking areas, who previously focused on fighting repressive governments at home, into global terrorists. By 2017, at least 8,500 fighters from former Soviet republics had flocked to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State. That experience gave many of these jihadis their first taste battling U.S. and NATO troops, and it left them looking for vengeance, convinced that future operations should be aimed at the West.

Ahmed Chataev, for example, who allegedly organized the attack on Istanbul’s airport, apparently first cooked up plans to strike Western targets while fighting in Iraq and Syria. A phone conversation leaked last year between Chataev and another Russian-speaking terrorist, Islam Atabiev, revealed that the two were planning to collect intelligence on several U.S. consulates and restaurants popular with Americans in Turkey and Georgia.

The Russian Islamic Terrorists fought beside their brethren in Syria. Color me shocked. Many of these Islamic Terrorists hold passports issued by Russia. A country that is “well-known for providing passports to radicals from the Caucasus on the grounds that letting would-be jihadis leave the country is easier than dealing with them at home.”

The Russian’s are coming, the Russian’s are coming!

Given the opportunity to craft solid legislation and funding to protect American citizens and her warriors, newly empowered Democrats focus on “Trussia.” Unfortunately, their focus with Russia is the one that relates to uncovering collusion with Trump. The Russian ISIS fighters who learned their tradecraft fighting in Syria are not the concern of the Democrats.  Eliot Engel (D-NY), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, will create a new subcommittee devoted to investigating President Trump. Donald Trump is a bigger threat than Islamic Terrorists. The terrorists who hold passports readily accepted in the USA, and look European are a lessor threat than the POTUS. Marta Hernandez posted an excellent overview of this sub-committee swap (here).

Circle the wagons

To bring it all back to a point, this week we lost 4 Americans to an ISIS suicide bomber in Syria. It was at least the sixth major attack by the ISIS in less than a month, one of the deadliest days that the American coalition suffered in Syria. ISIS, emboldened by the mere idea that the US is leaving Syria is flexing their muscles, attacking areas that are under American protection. A restaurant routinely visited by US forces while on patrol, wasn’t a random location. It required intelligence gathering and planning. Up-thread the bolded text highlights Russians talking about using this ISIS tactic.

Meanwhile, the President and Vice President perpetuate the narrative that the Caliphate is destroyed, and what’s left of ISIS is no longer our problem. They completely disregard the advice and opinion of their advisors and outside experts who disagree with that assertion.

And this brings us to Democrats in Congress. A group so filled with animosity to Trump that their already myopic vision is clouded by their desire to nab him for doing something. Illegal, unethical, immoral…they don’t care. Their vitriol is overshadowing their responsibility to American Citizens.

The new year is starting to look a lot like the previous years where we telegraph our strategies, and engage in political battles. With the inclusion of ISIS’s expansion to the mix, the only carnage will be borne by the citizens who were left to the wolves by their government. This will allow the politicians to keep their suits clean of blood while they pat their own backs.

 

Featured Image: USAF Public Domain

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"CC" to her friends. Recent escapee from Northern VA to the Great State of Texas. I'm a Pro-LIfe, Pro-Gun, Libertarian type... There is very little that fresh lime juice and good tequila can't fix.

20 Comments
  • Joe R. says:

    Pinning this attack to the President’s talk of pulling out of Syria is b.s. We haven’t removed troop one.

    If the enemy does anything in such situations (as we saw under Ohole) they usually sit quietly on their hands until the Obama-bug-out is complete.

    The enemy decided to attack, and they did. Maybe they did it because Ohole didn’t suckle them enough.

    • I disagree that the Presidents chatter had no impact on this attack. ISIS doesn’t need a single military person to leave the battlefield to motivate and step- up their attacks. If anything, the prospect of loosing high value targets will have them increase at an even faster pace before the opportunity is gone.
      Then they will come here.
      Additionally, the Kurdish Defense Force’s potential release of captured ISIS fighters is a huge motivator for increased attacks.
      A President’s comments absolutely play an influential part in attacks. And just because we haven’t brought home a single person, doesn’t mean their mission hasn’t been scaled back. If they are preparing to leave, then they are transitioning duties over to those groups who stay. Nothing I’ve read has indicated the Syrian or Turkish governments have a single focus of eradicating ISIS. The SDF (Kurdish fighters) is primarily responsible for securing the previously held ISIS territories within the Syrian borders. DJT’s announcement has shifted the SDF priorities to protecting itself from Turkey.
      If you have reliable sources that shed different light or support your statement, I’d love to read them.

      • Joe R. says:

        If you’re tapped in to isis, I think there’s a few alphabet agencies that would love to talk to you.

        Simple fact, isis is a long-game PITA like al-qaeda, It’s just as likely that this attack was done planning in late November.

        Maybe the POTUS just wanted to have the enemy consolidate a little bit so that he can nuke them from orbit. We’ve destroyed all of the ‘clots’ of them, maybe he’s just trying to get them to bunch-up, in the middle of the street, with their fists in the air . . . shouting something stupid about AMERICA. . .

    • Nicki says:

      Dead wrong, Joe. Sorry. ISIS has been emboldened by the promise to withdraw. We have seen this before in the area, and while attention is focused on anything BUT ISIS, the group is increasing its attacks. And it promises to get even worse with the SDF talking about releasing the foreign fighters in their custody in order to focus resources on fighting that asshole Erdogan. Trump stated a few days ago that he was starting the pullout while threatening Turkey with economic ruin if they do their planned incursion against the Kurds. What better time to hit American forces than while they’re moving or getting ready to move?

      “Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms,” he said. “Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone…Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey.”

      • Joe R. says:

        Same comment as above.

        • Nicki says:

          Good to know you’re so tapped into POTUS and will support him no matter how many stupid moves he makes.

          *rolls eyes*

          Have a nice day.

          • Joe R. says:

            If the President DJT hasn’t been the best, in your mind, as a Commander in Chief, who’s handed it to all of America’s enemies, in your recent memory, then there’s no point in responding.

            History stands watch, and I’ll wait to see what happens. I certainly believe that the rank and file would rather serve under this President than any in the last 60 years, and if the world breaks open we can have-at.

            Roll your eyes back.

            Thanks.

            • Nicki says:

              ROFLMAO!!!!!!

            • GWB says:

              You’re not old enough to remember Reagan, then.

              • Nicki says:

                I know, right? I had just arrived in this country a year prior from the USSR when Reagan was inaugurated, and I was pretty much in awe of him!

              • Joe R. says:

                I very well do. And DJT is a better president, and history will bear that out. And he’s got another ~ 6 years left to do more.

                For one thing though, he’s ushered in a bigger (and more pointed) military build-up, and that alone is a 15-30 year “Peace-at-the-edge-of-our-sword” PAX ROMANA kinda positive dividend that cannot yet fully be counted, and that’s not including all of the other little Commentarii de Bello Gallico fires he’s lit all over the world.

                And it’s about damn time.

                So Reagan? Yes. Great man, great president, and this one will smoke him (and, by logic, he should, he’s seen it done (i.e., Reagan)).

                • Nina Bookout says:

                  Joe, you might want to slow your roll.

                  Ronald Reagan was indeed a terrific President. One who did much for our standing across the world, and along with alliances that he built, helped cause the Soviet Union to implode.

                  HOWEVER, to say that Trump is greater than Reagan right now is disingenuous.

                  First of all, he’s only been in office barely 2 years and only has 2 more years to go. And no, DO NOT tell me he’s gonna win in 2020. NONE of us have that crystal ball available so stop it.

                  Trump is not Reagan. Period. Trump is Trump. And believe me, there are some things I like about him, but a lot of other things he does makes me want to #headdesk far too much.

                  NC is correct. Trump is not doing us any favors when he tweets things about our military. He needs to stop. And oh yeah… Trump tweeting is NOT better than Reagan. Period. Full Stop.

                • NC says:

                  Morning Joe!
                  ** “I certainly believe that the rank and file would rather serve under this President than any in the last 60 years”

                  I can certainly attest that this statement isn’t entirely accurate. I’ve spent the last 26 years living with and around Marines. The many that I know tend to say nothing, or quietly mumble. It’s not an overt love, and certainly not the option that he’s best president.
                  [Recent Poll: Troops surveyed had a 44 percent favorable view of Trump against a 43 percent unfavorable view. Women, minorities and officers had significantly lower opinions of his tenure, and men and enlisted service members offered more support.] https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/10/17/troops-see-rising-political-tension-in-the-ranks-poll-shows/
                  The recent issues with SecDef Mattis may further influence a negative trend amongst those who support POTUS.

                  You may know that the DoD has been suffering under the long time Continuing Resolutions and then Sequestration. It heavily impacted the budget. Trump came in with a big check book, and wanted the Christmas Wish list. It wasn’t quite the lottery he promised, and he actually tried to walk back his promises. SecDef intervened and the original budget request was sent in to the House. The military is already working on budgets two years out, so the effects may not be seen for a while. Regardless, it’s an aging fleet that needs an infusion. But it needs consistency. A Yo-Yo cycle is worse than a skinny one.
                  https://breakingdefense.com/2018/10/breaking-trump-orders-dod-to-take-surprise-33b-budget-cut/

                  **”So Reagan? Yes. Great man, great president, and this one will smoke him (and, by logic, he should, he’s seen it done (i.e., Reagan)).”
                  I don’t think so. Regan is tied with Washington, Kennedy, Clinton from a Gallop Poll in 2004. 12% positive rating. I don’t think anyone will catch Lincoln’s 18%. Though we could use a guy like him asap in our Republic. (https://news.gallup.com/poll/11887/ronald-reagan-from-peoples-perspective-gallup-poll-review.aspx)
                  A recent poll of “in your lifetime” has Obama at 31%, followed by Regan, and trailing far behind @ 10% is Trump. He’s in the top three for recent memory, but I don’t think history will be kind to his overall rating.
                  http://www.people-press.org/2018/07/11/obama-tops-publics-list-of-best-president-in-their-lifetime-followed-by-clinton-reagan/

                  ***”he’s ushered in a bigger (and more pointed) military build-up, and that alone is a 15-30 year “Peace-at-the-edge-of-our-sword”
                  No, he’s promised a build up, but see above comment about consistency. A one time bonus isn’t how the military operates.
                  Second point about this new “my way” approach. This isn’t 1948, we don’t stand as the lone superpower with an ability to flex our muscles. China is surpassing us (again, the Obama years hurt) in leaps and bounds. They have so much off the published reports spending it’s not even funny. Their build up in the Pacific and parts of Africa, and their Blue Water Navy are very real considerations.
                  They have stated their intentions to regain and retain control of contested areas, and they have done so despite pressure. They are rebuilding an Empire. To combat that approach we need our Strategic partners. Those partners are on uncertain footing with Trump. Hopefully our historical ties can influence some stability, because there is no way we can fight a war without them. Just in numbers China has over a Billion people. That translates into enormous support back home, and a deep pool of bodies to fill a battlefield. The joke is that you may be one in a million in the states, but in China there’s a 1000 more just like you.
                  http://www.atimes.com/a-sleeping-dragon-rises-chinas-military-buildup/

                  You cite history as a watcher. It’s not a secret comms portal to ISIS I possess. It’s history and logic. I have a hypotheses (opinion) I find sources to either refute or support that hypothesis. The sources I cited are clearly NOT partisan, and focus on defense. Masters in the field agree that with the release of thousands of ISIS prisoners, the attacks will ramp up. Those prisoners are released because the SDF is not able to hold them while worrying about Turkey and Syria on their flanks. POTUS announcement put them in a bad spot, and those prisoners cannot be repatriated because they are unwanted by their home countries. So they are back on the battlefield.
                  The difference between Iraq and Syria for the USA is that our ROE and role is completely different. One was a War, declared by Congress per the Constitution (and treated as such), while the other isn’t. Syria isn’t a war, and we aren’t there in that capacity. So our forces have different SOFA restrictions and ROE.
                  The similarity is that we are leaving behind an enemy with the desire to engage in conflict at every level. Civilian, Commercial, Economic etc. The key difference in Iraq is that they were more decimated than they are in Syria. They will rebuild faster and come back harder.

                • Joe R. says:

                  1) Don’t quote Military Times, and then claim to be non-partisan. Same with Military.com, et al, etc., etc., etc.

                  2) I go back to my original two comments. We haven’t pulled anyone out of there. Stirring things up is how you break the stalemate of a mop-up action. We’ve wiped out the ‘clots’ of them, now we want to have the rest coalesce into a nice pile for us to whack. That we’ve gotten another look at all the other player’s “tell(s)” in the meantime (without flipping a card) is a bonus.

                  3) Better than Reagan? Yep. For the mere fact that he’s called upon and invoked the name of the LORD (whose Son is named JESUS and whose SPIRIT is called HOLY, cause too many out there are screwed up about that.) more public times than the entirety of Reagan in his 2 terms.

                  4) (and most importantly) The OPs pinning the attack on DJT because he mentioned a “pull-out” denies the enemies’ history and TTPs, which, as stated above, has been to plan such attacks an inordinate amount of time before they execute, and therefore such planning would likely pre-date the recent attack sufficiently to not be able to link the two.

  • GWB says:

    A restaurant routinely visited by US forces while on patrol, wasn’t a random location.
    Hmmm, this sounds like they screwed up a fundamental part of their Force Protection, then. That’s a failure of local leadership, NOT Trump’s foreign policy. And if attacks have ramped up over the last month, then it sounds like an intel failure, too.

    Meanwhile, the President and Vice President perpetuate the narrative that the Caliphate is destroyed, and what’s left of ISIS is no longer our problem.
    Why should it be our problem? Unless you’re willing to eradicate fundamentalist islam entirely, you’re ALWAYS going to have some islamist group “inspiring” morons and a*holes to commit terror attacks around the world. And we *have* effectively destroyed the ISIS component of the hydra in that region. You want to hang out forever, cutting off more heads as they appear? Sorry, NO.

    They completely disregard the advice and opinion of their advisors and outside experts who disagree with that assertion.
    And? Some people should be ignored. Why do you assume these folks are not in that group? There are LOADS of “advisors” and “outside experts” all across the spectrum. An appeal to authority here is rather silly.

    we telegraph our strategies
    And? We don’t live in Prussia. It’s a shift in our foreign policy, and it’s exactly the sort of thing we declare openly here (we even argue about it!). Now, if he blind-sided the military leadership so they couldn’t prepare, that’s a legitimate issue. But not that we “telegraphed” our foreign policy change.
    (Do you really think this is something where the a*holes wake up one morning and say, “Hey! Where’d all the Americans go?”)

    the only carnage will be borne by the citizens who were left to the wolves by their government
    Which gov’t are you speaking of here? Ours? Because that’s a slander, if so. If we have citizens in that country who are “left to the wolves” then they’re idiots – they’re in a friggin’ war zone. If you mean our military folks, then you’re very wrong about “leaving them to the wolves.”

    From Nicki:
    What better time to hit American forces than while they’re moving or getting ready to move?
    So, the answer is to never move? Oy vey.

    Look, we need OUT. We need OUT of the Middle East, in general. Unless you advocate conquering it all and running it as part of the Great American Empire, then we’ve been there too long, already. EIGHTEEN YEARS in Afghanistan. (We’ve really been in Iraq for twenty-eight years now!) Leave these people to their own devices. If they try to bring their sh** to our neighborhood, then we bounce their rubble a few times, salt their fields, and COME HOME.

    I am not an isolationist. But this sort of thing will turn me into one.

    My bona fides? I’ve studied military history and strategy for almost 5 decades. I’ve been in or working with the military for 35 years. I’ve been right more than I’ve been wrong (by a huge margin) when it comes to “You are not going to like the outcome of that.”
    Ignore the warnings about perpetual war at your peril. It’s consuming our blood, our treasure, and our principles.

    (BTW, I think we should support the Kurds in their efforts to start their own country. We should have done it after we crushed Hussein in ’91, and we had the infrastructure in place to make it happen. And we condition it on not letting the PKK run the place.)

    Oh, and my plan on 9/12 was to land in Iraq, drive to Baghdad and shatter the country, then do a hard right turn toward Afghanistan. And, as we make that move, let Iran know that we are coming through their country, and if they don’t like it, then we can do to them what we did to Iraq, we march through Afghanistan, laying waste, and continue right into Pakistan and up to the Kashmiri border. We give the Indians a tip o’ the hat, a hearty “You’re welcome!” and then back to the sea and HOME. And as we sail by Saudi and the Gulf States, we give them a stern look that says, “Do NOT make us come back!”

    With all the complaints I heard about that strategy (“Oh noes! The Iranians won’t like us!” “Oh, the Iranians will fight us!” – as if that didn’t happen in Iraq. “Oh, the Pakistanis have nukes!”) is the situation right now any better than what that approach would have wrought? I don’t think so.

    Sorry, CC, you’re wrong with this.

  • Nicki says:

    So, the answer is to never move? Oy vey. – That is NOT what I said. But moving quickly with little forethought allowing ISIS to regroup is a bad idea, especially when you broadcast that you’re moving and have started to move equipment several days prior to the attack.

    I’m not a big “INVADE ALL THE THINGS” gal either, but if you’re going to go in there to take on a group like ISIS, you’d better finish the job! They may have lost a lot of territory, but they’re far from over.

    My bona fides? 10 years in the IC, with several in CT, and several years in the military. Not much more I can say on that issue, so take that for what it is.

    There are right and wrong ways to do things. And yes, we SHOULD support the Kurds, not abandon them to that terrorist asshole Erdogan who has been shitting himself with glee at the thought of us turning away so he can stage his little incursion.

    • GWB says:

      But moving quickly with little forethought
      Again, if Trump kept this from Mattis, then it’s on him. But, if it wasn’t promulgated downward because Mattis thought he could stop it, then it’s on Mattis. Or any number of other combinations and levels of leadership.

      especially when you broadcast that you’re moving
      Unless you want foreign policy to be an un-debated state secret, you have to accept that it WILL be broadcast. BEFORE you actually move.

      and have started to move equipment several days prior to the attack.
      That sounds like they had a plan in place and were executing it. That’s beyond Trump’s purview.

      If you want to “finish the job” with islamic militants, you’re going to HAVE to adopt my approach. Because until the people in that religion with power and money stop supporting the fundamentalists and shut them down, the only way you’re going to stop it is to kill them ALL.

      Do NOT let the Sunk Cost Fallacy drive your foreign policy. F* it. Let them stew in their own insanity until such time as a large enough contingent wants to adopt Western Civilization. Then we supply them and support them as they carve out a decent place.

      I’m not opposed to having, say, a base in Iraq. Someplace we can leverage to reach out and break any bad guy’s stuff and kill his people is good. But, if it’s going to spend it’s time fighting every islamist insurgency in the area, then I say not even that.

      (BTW, all of this is pointless if we don’t also adopt strategies that make it difficult for those folks* to come over here – stopping education visas, chain migration, open borders, diversity-mania, etc.)
      (* “those folks” means the sort of people who believe in strict sharia law and turning the world into a giant caliphate, or destroying the Great Satan. It also includes folks who worship communism.)

      • Nicki says:

        Again, if Trump kept this from Mattis, then it’s on him. But, if it wasn’t promulgated downward because Mattis thought he could stop it, then it’s on Mattis. Or any number of other combinations and levels of leadership. — Mattis gave the order to obey the C-in-C before he left. He’s the consummate professional.

        Unless you want foreign policy to be an un-debated state secret, you have to accept that it WILL be broadcast. BEFORE you actually move. — I want military movements and ops to be an undebated state secret. And there’s quite a bit more to this that ABSOLUTELY should have been a state secret, and certainly not broadcast over fucking Twitter.

        That sounds like they had a plan in place and were executing it. That’s beyond Trump’s purview. — They followed his orders. Period. And they didn’t have a whole lot of time to do a whole lot of planning, given the Twitter announcement. The folly of announcing major policy changes on Twitter and not even considering what your security advisers and IC has been telling you for fuck knows how long is absolutely stunning to me. But hey… I just work here.

        Frankly, I wouldn’t mind killing them all, but that wouldn’t play well on the 24-hour news cycle, now would it?

        • GWB says:

          I want military movements and ops to be an undebated state secret.
          No military moves were telegraphed. A STRATEGY was “telegraphed”. Sorry, but the concept of moving all of our forces out of a foreign country is NOT an operational move – it’s a matter of foreign policy. You don’t get to keep that a secret.

          Just like we couldn’t keep the invasion of Iraq a secret. Because our constitution requires that Congress declare war (or at least fake it) before we invade some other nation. What we didn’t telegraph was the operational aspects of the military action. And, as far as I know, Trump hasn’t tweeted anything in violation of OPSEC.

          broadcast over fucking Twitter
          Was there anything but a policy announcement sent over twitter? Because I never heard about it or saw it, if there were.

          And they didn’t have a whole lot of time to do a whole lot of planning, given the Twitter announcement.
          Really? So, you’re stating that you know that neither Mattis nor any of the commanders in the chain of command knew this was coming (despite Trump “telegraphing” it over a year before, I think), and they had to make up a withdrawal plan lickety-split the day Trump announced (without a desired-by date associated, mind) and execute it ASAP?
          I call bullshit.
          And, if the commanders from CENTCOM/EUCOM on down didn’t have an operations plan for withdrawal on the shelf, then they f*ed up BIG TIME. You ALWAYS build a plan for withdrawal. Now, it might be old and outdated (and commanders that leave old OPLANs on the shelf to molder are NOT good military commanders) but there had better be one there.

          The issue of Trump “ignoring the experts” is separate from him announcing the policy on Twitter – or TV or radio or a blog or through the WaPo or NYT or any other method of reaching his employers (the citizens).

          that wouldn’t play well on the 24-hour news cycle, now would it?
          Nope. Because our society has adopted the “violence never solved anything” and “why can’t we get them to like us?” concepts, and can’t handle pissing off the rest of the world.
          I’m hoping Trump is helping to tear the scabs off those wounds so we can heal them properly in time.

          Guess what? When you get involved in wars (like a civil war in Syria, or Libya) that don’t directly involve American interests, you get into wrestling a pig. There is no way you’re coming out of it clean, and the pig will enjoy it. This is why you don’t get involved in foreign wars (I believe Washington called them “entanglements”).
          And, also, when you *do* have to get involved in foreign wars, you go in, kill the bad guys, break their stuff, then you GO HOME.

          Your anger over this arises from confusing policy (above the strategy level) with operational maneuvering.

          • Nicki says:

            Actually, that’s exactly the problem. Announcing out of the blue on Twitter that we’ve defeated ISIS and are withdrawing is telegraphic at the very least that this is happening immediately. And while there are always plans in place to withdraw nominally, it takes some time. That’s why it took several weeks to move equipment out, and it’s a rush job at that.

            “So, you’re stating that you know that neither Mattis nor any of the commanders in the chain of command knew this was coming…” — You’re oversimplifying quite a bit, but that’s essentially correct.

            Announcement of an order of a full and rapid withdrawal IS NOT the same thing as an announcement of foreign policy. That’s also why Sanders had to walk it back again the next day and add a bit more nuance to the Twitter announcement. I’m sorry you disagree, but this is fact. I’m grateful that he at least didn’t give the date and time on Twitter.

            And I absolutely agree about not getting involved in foreign entanglements, especially lengthy wars. But we already are there. We are already entangled. And there is quite a bit more on the line than abandoning the Kurds and the false narrative that ISIS is somehow defeated.

            And believe me, my anger over this confuses nothing. I just can’t get into specifics, because my name is not Hillary Clinton.

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