Comments

1

Given the years of The Stranger leading the charge to protect the Kurds and asking Americans to volunteer for the armed forces to protect them I understand the shock of Trump's removal of troops.

Question: how many employees at The Stranger had to Google Kurds to know who they were in the past three days?

2

@1 One might compare them to the proud, knowledgeable conservatives who's depth of learning and consideration leads them to the wise conclusion that its cool if the Turks kill a few thousand.

3

@1
"a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria would only benefit Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime."
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

“I feel very bad for the Americans and allies who have sacrificed to destroy the ISIS Caliphate because this decision virtually reassures the reemergence of ISIS. So sad. So dangerous."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

"DISGRACEFUL if we sat idly by while Turkey slaughters the Kurds, as public reports suggest that Turkish leader Erdogan explicitly told President Trump he intends to do."
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas

“If reports about US retreat in #Syria are accurate, the Trump administration has made a grave mistake that will have implications far beyond Syria.”

“It would confirm #Iran’s view of this administration & embolden then to escalate hostile attacks which in turn could trigger much broader & more dangerous regional war."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

“HUGE mistake.”
“They've never asked us to do THEIR fighting-just give them tools to defend themselves. They have been faithful allies. We CANNOT abandon them."
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee

4

“charged with first-degree murder for lighting a fire in a mobile home that killed five people: two children and two adults.“

MATH!!!

6

Re Boeing, it's just another example of the corporate drive to save money biting a huge corporation in the ass. Their moves to Illinois and S Carolina to save money resulted in shoddy quality control and shortcuts. I wonder if anyone is making a balance sheet with money saved by the moves versus money spent on fines and delays. And then there are the human lives lost...

My dad was a lifer as an engineer in Boeing management and he retired before the moves. He's heartbroken by this shit.

7

Ideal outcome: A stint in juvie for the 9-year-old, hard time for the parents.

8

The 9-year-old’s parents need to be spayed and neutered immediately.

9

The Turkish attack on the Kurdish regions of Syria will drive another refugee wave into the EU to further fuel Putin’s nationalist stooges there.

This was Putin’s genius plan during the Syrian conflict to have Assad push refugee waves to the EU (and have his stooge in Hungry scoot them along to Austria) and now he’s got Turkey AND Trump helping him.

However, the Kurds will fight to the death. Literally. Without US air support the Kurds will die. So they absolutely WILL turn to asymmetrical terror campaigns. Shit will get so gnarly.

The only good to come from this massive strategic blunder is a large block of the US military — various Special Forces branches — who worked with the Kurds for a couple decades are now explicitly seeing Trump as a back stabber and traitor. Which of course he is. The Pentagon is very unhappy right now.

It’s ironic. Trump actually just created The Deep state to work against him.

10

Good to see the looney left finally understands that the USA is a force for global good and stability and that we need a strong and robust military for that, especially today to protect our Kurdish allies.

Donald trump is a disgrace to American exceptionalism.

11

I don't know much about the Kurds and I don't really support our intervention in the middle east but betraying your allies and letting them get massacred might have a detrimental effect on other allegiances.

13

Honoring our debts to the Kurds is an issue that crosses all party lines. The decision to abandon them will bring shame on the United States of America and further cement the notion that our country cannot be trusted.

15

We’ve already fucked over our allies in Iraq and Afghanistan repeatedly, and that’s saying nothing of our long history of destabilizing and overthrowing governments in Central and South America, so it’s not like betraying the Kurds is a huge shock.

Anyone who trusts the people in the US government to act honorably is a fool, unfortunately.

16

The fact that America is the only nation that can and are willing to police the world is a big part of why our military budget is so enormous.

You can't demand America protect all people, all waters, and all continents and then also demand a tiny military budget. Just the facts of life.

Personally, I would love it if other countries bothered with their own defense, and the defense of other world communities, but they won't, so here we are. The peoples and nations of the Middle East should be joining together to stop this incipient massacre of the Kurds, but they won't, so now they have to depend on Donald Trump.

17

"Good to see the looney left finally understands that the USA is a force for global good and stability..." --We'll Beleive ANYTHING!

Good to see FOX is not only watched but believed.

Good for Autocrats Dictators and scum Bags.

18

What a relief! Here I thought it was the corruption of our institutions, unbridled capitalistic greed and austerity that were causing societal breakdown, It turns out it was the Ruskies all along. Thank you for setting us straight, anonymous intelligence sources!

19

“I have a little conflict of interest ’cause I have a major, major building in Istanbul...It’s a tremendously successful job. It’s called Trump Towers — two towers, instead of one, not the usual one; it’s two. And I’ve gotten to know Turkey very well. They’re amazing people, they’re incredible people. They have a strong leader.”
djt 2015

20

@16 My god that was a magnificent pile of idiocy, ignorance, jingoism, and dog shit. As usual.

We are not there to "protect" the Kurds. We asked them TO HELP US, dipshit. Which they have dutifully done for over two decades. they have been on the form lines of dirty work for over twenty five years. Getting gassed for us. Fighting terrorists for us. Dying and protecting OUR soldiers.

You really believe we "police" the world? As in act for the benefit and protection of the poor innocent people of the world? Christ. That is some serious buying into Orwellian double speak.

We do not go out and "protect" anyone. Or rarely we do. We, America, have global strategic interests.

Sometimes those interests may coincide with the interests of given local population. Sometimes those interests may even coincide with the interests of average Americans or a stated American principle. But very, very rarely. Like almost never.

Sometimes we utilize our military purely for domestic political theater. Sacrificing hundreds, thousands, often tens of thousands of lives just so a political can look tough.

We didn't kill 2.5 million Vietnamese because it was good for them or to protect them. We did it... Christ, nobody knows why we did it. Not even the war criminals Robert McNamara or Henry Kissinger.

We didn't invade, murder, torture and occupy most of latin America to protect anyone. We did it for United Fruit. We did it for a canal. We did it becuase somebody whispered communism and unionized fruit laborers.

We didn't bomb the fuck out of Iraq, invade it, occupy it, destroy it's infrastructure, and gut it's financial sector creating over a decade of 30-70% unemployment, killing over 100,000 innocent people in Iraq to protect the Iraqi people. We did it because Saddam Hussien foolishly overstated his oil reserves (and we believed him) and then threatened Saudi Arabia and to leave the Petrodollar and go to the Euro.

No, mostly we intervene to protect the very narrow set of interests of vaguely American corporate hegemony, many times not even American business interests, usually the financial interests a tiny segment of players.

And we have an oversized military initially because of the strategic position we occupied accidentally at the end of WWII. And then the defense industries rather liked that position since it made them rich, so it gained it's own momentum. It became our only acceptable century long socialist jobs program.

Eisenhower didn't warn the world — coining there term "the Military Industrial Complex" — for nothing.

No. Criticizing the bloated expensive obscenity that is the American military does not contradict why we should honor our deal with he Kurds.

Even somebody as stupid and stubborn as yourself surely sees the value in honoring treaties we have made with an ally in an intractable tumultuous strategically critical region of the world.

Sure you see why honoring promises strengthen our security making it LESS necessary to use the bloated over funded military shoes ass you kiss, have never served with in and don't understand. Surely you get that?

And that aligns perfectly with not desiring bombing the fuck out of children on the whim of sociopathic right-wingers.

21

Not just our interests, the rest of the world, not just Israel, but Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and on and on and especially Iran were only too happy to see the US invade Iraq.

22

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fethullah_G%C3%BClen

Turkey was on track to join the EU and was highly prosperous and secular before this man, his American aristocrat counterparts, and his political progeny including Erdogan sold the country out.

23

Look, it's cute that you don't realize most of the bots are Russians, Iranians, Saudis, Chinese, and Pakistanis trying to subvert all elections in NATO countries.

And I do mean all of them.

Don't just block bots, report them.

24

Okay. So now I know that come January 2020 I should avoid flying on American Airlines. Thanks for the heads up.

25

@22 Turkey under the Attaturk program also violently repressed muslims, particularly in rural areas. Prior to heading parliament, Erdogan was a political prisoner-- he was jailed solely for leading a political party. He came to power via democratic elections, in a landslide, in which his party took 2/3 of all seats in parliament. All observers agree that the elections were clean.

He's since turned out to be just another self-dealing Oligarch, of course, with extra Dictator spice. But he never could have risen to power if the regime he supplanted hadn't been deeply flawed, generating deep and widespread resentment throughout the country.

26

You know, if you want to send our military all over the place to save the world maybe first start by enlisting at your local recruiters office? Be willing to spill your blood before asking others to do so.

27

@26 Yes, that's a fine and oft-spoken suggestion for our right-wing punditry. We can't really take the opinions of chickenhawks seriously, right?

28

@26 Does that apply to Trump and his toadies who openly forsake the military's and Congress's national security directives, enabled by your fat idle fingers? Drop the ham sandwich, Proud Radical, and savor the gritty dirt of truth. You can still wash the muck off your face and out of your mouth.

29

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_Nr31Lv6H8

30

All is finally revealed. Trump decided to fuck the Kurds because they didn't help us during WW2. You know I'm not making this up.

31

@26 Look, dumbfuck. Nobody is making some bleeding heart appeal to go out of our way and "protect" the Kurds.

What don't you get? We asked THEM to help US, dipshit. They have been helping us for nearly thirty years. We OWE them.

We signed a treaty with actual legal obligations to them that we would help them become independent. But. No.

As is typical, proud so-called "conservatives," like your self are stabbing them in back. Reneging on promises and hanging them out to dry to get slaughtered.

Just like Bush I did after Gulf War I when Hussien gassed the Kurds. Just like Nixon did to the Montagnard. Betrayal and treason: its a solid proud conservative tradition. More of a tradition than actually being conservative!

Anyway. I'm sure you joined up in 2003 when it was so important to "save Iraq" right? Riiiiight.

32

@30 HAHAHA. Trump's good buddies the House of Saud were not exactly stalwart allies during the war.

Most of the Arabs sided with the Nazis. Or feigned "neutrality." Good 'ol Suadi Abd al Aziz was working arms deals with Hitler and only half-assed sided with the Allies at that last minute once it was clear they were winning. But he didn't actually DO anything.

33

Jesus tap-dancing Christ on a cracker, people. I'm sorry to go there, but you've made me serious. Remember how afraid we all were of ISIS and having even one of them end up in our country? Well THESE were the very people who were being burned alive, subject to disjointedly applied Sharia, and utter devastation of their freedoms and way of life so we could have the leisure of using them as personal bogeymen and igniting mosques and terrorizing the melanin-unchallenged for the sake of assuaging your terror of your neighbors and yourselves. These are the people who have been subject to the worst of all the world has to offer, the gas, the slaughter, the struggle to maintain an identity and to trust anyone to keep them from suffering the most inhumane fates. Do we stand for nothing? Do we have no sense of decency or honor anymore such that pretenders can set the agenda for the entire nation? Enough!!!

34

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_s-Qk07KxA


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