I see that some American soldiers were killed and wounded along with one interpreter while they were doing something in Syria with the current rulers of Syria's armed forces. I am sorry to see that. That said, Syria is just about the last place on the planet where we need to have any American soldiers at all. It is a famous dead zone much like Afghanistan and Pakistan where there is nothing worth preserving, nothing worth saving, nothing worth defending and nothing that is ours.
I believe that President Trump tried to order our forces out of Syria in his first term but the contemptible slime in the Pentagon and State Department fought that every inch of the way and left our troops there on a pointless and useless mission that served no benefit to anyone, least of all Americans. Every single soldier there needs to go.
We have done the thing we do best to preserve the flow of oil and that is pretty much guaranteed one way or another and you all know that we simply don't need it. It used to serve our purpose to help the oils flow to Europe and the Far East but not so much anymore. In fact, I cannot think of any reason to worry about the flow of oil out of the Middle East. If they want to sell it, they have the means to guard it and we'll profit from selling them more weapons to do it with. In the meantime, suggest to your representatives that they should urge the total withdrawal of American forces from Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and the rest of north Africa.
When the little Barbary pirates decide that the time is ripe to sneak back out and do their thing, we will still be there, just based and supported out of the northern north African bases in Italy and Greece. Who knows, perhaps the north Africans living in Marseilles would like to support an American battle group visit every month or two. With the French you never know and with the new pseudo-French it is impossible to know.
15 comments:
We need OUT of the middle east completely.
We need our soldiers and sailors out of everywhere that is not America.
I am neither Muslim nor Egyptian, but I am much in favor of maintaining US presence (a base) somewhere in the Alexandria to Port Said crescent, as well as another around Sevastopol should this detente with Vladimir Vladimirovich become reality.
It's also my strongest belief that we have to re-assess our obligations (treaties) with what was formerly Europe (very shortly).
There are very few places where we NEED US troops on the ground. If a "message" needs sending to someone somewhere we have the means of delivering it without risking US troops.
Marseilles was our last port call on my '91 Med cruise on CV 59. Got a small tattoo as a souvenir.
--Tennessee Budd
It's not easy to get off the tiger you saddled. So many of America's problems have been shown to be FROM American efforts (mostly CIA) to meddle with the world in general and the middle east in particular.
Dan if you like I can post plenty of links so we can discuss instead of the toilet flush comment and run tactic.
We created ISIS. We decided the Shah needed to GO and a more pro-American leadership installed in Iran. Sorry the Mullahs managed to replace that installed government. We trained, armed and installed Kaddafi, Noriega and Saddam. Gee how did that work out? And so on.
We'd do best to withdraw from all outside the USA events and HONOR the words of our founding fathers until the messes WE created resolve on their own.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-20-02-0440-0002
SNIP The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign Nations is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with20 perfect good faith. Here let us stop.
Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence therefore it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations & collisions of her friendships, or enmities.
Pity so few "college educated" have the linguistic skills in English to understand Washingtons comments today.
But then again Orville's 1984 spoke of doublespeak and newspeak to dumb down the peons as to prevent coherent revolts and such.
Time to let Europe either sink or swim. We have kept them free long enough.
The U.S. presence in Europe includes over 40 active bases and sites, primarily concentrated in Germany, Italy, and the UK, alongside rotational deployments, totaling roughly 84,000 personnel. To that add another 50,000 personnel and at least 100 bases across the Asia-Pacific region.
The number of people in the US military-industrial complex is huge, involving direct DoD staff, military personnel, and millions in private industry; approximately 4 million people are directly or indirectly employed across the Pentagon, defense contractors, and related supply chains. Aerospace & Defense industry alone supporting over 2.2 million workers.
The US industrial military complex President Eisenhower warned us about back in 1961 is not going to just magically disappear. Not under Trump, or any other administration.
War is, and always has been, good business for the US.
We used to do Bright Star every other year as I recall but I'd be surprised if we're still sending a brigade to parade around the desert in Egypt and there is no point at all in basing our troops in Egypt. I keep thinking Egypt is going to destroy the dam upstream of Aswan but they have shown either more restraint or a ruthless acceptance that they could not prevail on the battlefield or the world court of public opinion. It would suck mightily to base a brigade of anything in Egypt because there is nothing there literally except poverty and corruption.
I liked the tales of Dan Gallery and his wonderful stories about Cap'n Fatso in the Med. :)
We no longer teach our children anything at all as far as I can tell and then these windbags show up in Foggy Bottom and the upper ranks of the CIA and they promptly overrule the men who have been at the pointy end of things in the diplomatic endeavors and the regime surveillance thing and run them off and get us involved in their own special regime change idiocies.
I don't believe any of the 3 men you mentioned were "ours" but they were rational men who could be reasoned with and the accommodations they signed onto would remain valid unless overturned by others.
-I attended seminars at Penn State to learn Arabic while I was moored there waiting to go to school in Newport and one of my fellow seminar students was the son of the last Consul-General in Libya and he was blunt and honest when he said that the vast bulk of Libyans liked and supported Qadaffi and thought he was good for Libya and the people. We then under Obama and Clinton through out our agreement with him and had him killed.
Norriega may have been a School of the America's grad but I'm not sure he was ever our man in Panama. He was however a very strong nationalist and our State Department hates them all in this hemisphere.
Saddam was never our man in Baghdad. He was Ba'athist and the very worst kind of thug. He was rational though and we had agreements with him that he mostly abided by. Like the Russians though he knew that if he was ever perceived by his people as anything but totally ruthless his days were numbered in hours. He had to keep pushing all through Southern Watch and the ridiculous farce of the UN weapons inspections because it was instant death if any of his enemies perceived him as weak.
No we let our guys go to the wall unsullied by help from us. Mubarak was our man in Egypt and we threw him to the wolves.
The US is perhaps the clearest example that countries have interests but no friends.
I think they like what they have now so they should be happy.
I think we will find that there is other good business now that no longer involves the United States being at the forefront in pushing arguments into fights and wars and sending our men and women off to fight for the leeches.
You know we got our entire real force in Europe down to just the 173 Airborne for a number of years. We didn't have a single US tank anywhere in Europe. We were well on our way to pulling the plug on NATO and I suspect the French and Germans were very unhappy about it. Germany totally let itself go and could not claw its way back into a position of armed might and France was tied up in colonial France.
I find it amusing to watch them trying to scramble behind Poland's army and shelter there from the Russians because they know damned well that President Trump will move no faster than George Bush when it comes to moving US forces abroad for the next war. Remember how long Desert Shield lasted and then consider what those concentration points would look like now under constant missile and drone barrages launched by the Russians or partisans.
History is what the "winners" get to write. On the internet history is changed as time passes. See older history books vs current versions taught today.
Saddam was very well equipped with American weapons during his attacks on the Khomeini regime Iran's religious revolution against the western installed government.
We made sure he had chemical weapons even while "condemning their USE" in that nasty bit of history.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-153210/Rumsfeld-helped-Iraq-chemical-weapons.html
Your comment reminded me of Kissinger's comment:
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."
Many gems from that rather evil man.
Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.
Henry A. Kissinger
Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.
Henry A. Kissinger
I haven't really delved into the history of too much of Saddam. The lowlights were enough and I was there for some of the worst of it. As I said, he was not our man but he was indeed a man we supported in the war with Iran. I think that was the worst of the old guard acting out in the wake of Reagan and our playing around with the Contras. On the gripping hand, we really didn't care who came out on top in the war and you can see how untrue that is after what happened to the Stark and what happened to the Samuel B. Roberts.
Saddam must have known exactly who he was dealing with and letting April talk him into attacking Kuwait was just pure madness.
I haven't read the real histories yet because I don't think they've been written. When I think that one has been, I'll read it and see what really went on.
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