The U.S. Senate could have President Hubris
by the short hairs if it wished
Headline: “Turkey Begins Syria Incursion, Targeting Militia Backed by U.S.”
Mitch McConnell (left)
Is Donald Trump trying to make Election 2020 closer than a barber’s shave? We get it that America is tired of overseas wars but pulling out of Syria precipitously betrays the Kurdish people who may be the most sincere players in that troubled part of the world. Our most loyal ally against ISIS et al. Trump’s overnight move may backfire politically. You can screw the Kurds like Chamberlain and Daladier screwed the Czechs but don’t diss the Republican Senate, which likes to think has a foreign policy portfolio.
Face it: the House of Reps can impeach any time it wants for any reason it can conjure. Trump’s firewall has been the Republican Senate. Mitch McConnell may wish to remind the President of that fact, if you get his drift.
At some point, will Republican nabobs — including Ron Johnson — decide to very visibly sit on their hands? (“You may have a valid point there, Chuck Todd. As I was saying to my good friend Mike Pence the other day …”)
The Wall Street Journal’s Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger may be crediting Trump with more downfield vision than is warranted but the result is remains valid:
It is clear that Mr. Trump’s interest in Ukraine was to take out Joe Biden, whose campaign has been based exclusively on offering relief from the never-ending Trump political wars. … If Rudy could dig up enough dirt to drive down Mr. Biden’s chances of being the nominee, Mr. Trump’s expectation was that the Democrats would default to the unelectable Elizabeth Warren. Faced with the prospect of voting for Sen. Warren and her lynch-mob politics, Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and personality would recede as issues.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: It must have occurred to more than one Republican that Mike Pence is Donald Trump without the itchy twitter finger or the political IEDs.
What do YOU think?
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
50 Americans withdrawing and everyone running around with their head chopped off. Am I missing something?
If everyone is so uptight about it, Congress has the power to declare war, correct?
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P.S. Turkey is in NATO, so it is our ally. So, we are supposed to fight against our ally to help the Kurds. The pretzelness of it all is leaving me confused.
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Those 50 soldiers were a trip wire that was the ONLY thing preventing Erdogan from crushing the only real friends we have in the region outside of Israel. And our NATO “ally” Turkey has refused to let us launch attacks from their territory ever since Desert Storm, and repeatedly threatened US interests over the Kurds. Where was Turkey when it came time to face off against ISIS? Iraq? Iran? They’re to busy trying to blame Israel for everything.
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Andy McCarthy wrote an enlightening piece today which throws a LOT of shade on the NR’s official position.
Inter alia, he blows up the “Kurds are our best friends” line with the simple truth: the Kurds have always acted in the best interests of the KURDS, not of the US.” (That shows they have more common sense than GWBush and Obama combined.) He adds that half of the Kurds are Marxist/Leninist and there IS a connection to the other half of them.
Worth the read. Go find it and learn something.
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NATO is obsolete since 1989. Get rid of it. Turkey is neither ally nor enemy. The Syrian Kurds are not the Iraqi Kurds. They are very different. Let Russia, the Turks, the Syrian Kurds, Hezbollah, Assad et al fight it out.
I can only hope they all lose. They are not worth one American life or one more dollar after the $50 billion we’ve spent there.
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“It is clear that Mr. Trump’s interest in Ukraine was to take out Joe Biden,” Classic begging the question. Any reading of what is actually in the various transcripts shows no markers of intent re: Biden – that’s just the media putting their interpretations into Trump’s words.
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