What follows has really happened, believe it or not.
In mid-December 2018 President Trump announced, out of the blue and apparently without consulting his advisors (military or other), that he was withdrawing, with immediate effect, the two thousand US military personnel presently stationed in Syria.
This unexpected announcement created near chaotic consternation not only at the Pentagon, but also among the US’s allies fighting ISIS in the Middle East, especially among the Kurdish Forces spilling their blood side by side with that of the US soldiers.
A week or so later, John “Mustache” Bolton, Trump’s Security Advisor, tried to walk back Trump’s announcement by intimating that the withdrawal was not going to be immediate and that it was dependent on “certain conditions”.
Meanwhile, the physically ever-expanding Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, kept reassuring the folks in Egypt that the US fully intends to maintain a strong presence in the Middle East within the Alliance that exists to fight ISIS there.
On January 11, 2018 the US Military in Syria began to withdraw its equipment.
All this, while the Government of the United States was at a virtual standstill owing to a Trump-initiated government shutdown.
So what was the Senate, controlled by its brave GOP members, doing about all this?
Nothing.
They, and their leader Mitch “Smoothy” McConnell, were not to be found anywhere.
I guess they were gathered somewhere in a place where they could go on kissing the butt of their leader “Golfer” Trump in safety.
Presumably, that’s what they are getting paid for.
We are in an age of the Absurd – the USA is controlled by a cadre of extreme ass-kissers in thrall of a king-makler president who threatens their comfy assured seats in the senate by unleashing his rapid, wilfully ignorant “base” if they do not tow his demonstrably insane, irrational policies. It is as though Tristan Tzara and a gang of German DaDaists got together and decided to throw a surrealist putsch to amuse the party faithful. America has become Lindbergh’s wet dream – isolationist, no-nothing, bombastic and morally empty. If there are any good people left in the USA, they need to set aside partizan issues and unite to save what is left of their country.
I’ve reached the point where I can hardly bare to listen or watch ‘Trump’, he makes my skin crawl.
He does not know what ‘truth’ is. He certainly does not know how to form a ‘cohesive’ foreign policy.
He will not listen to advise so will not have anyone in the White House who has any to give. His minions must do his bidding.
His is incapable of empathy to anyone but a tyrant.
Everyday he’s in power he takes the us all further away from decency & civility & closer to anarchy & despair.
Jacob, I couldn’t agree with you more. Unfortunately for us all, we’ll have to put up with this man for a while longer, but hopefully not too long.
Ros, Hang in there, we’ve arrived at the beginning of Trump’s end
The beginning of Trump’s end? How many times in the last 2yrs have we heard this? Every week a new
Revelation more damning than the previous. The sad truth is that Trump was and will in 2020 be elected
By mainstream USA. He is nothing more than the reflection of their society and unfortunately changes in
Societies are measured in generations not months and years.
Nice to hear from you Geraldine,
I have a very strong suspicion that our mutual ‘friend’ Michael Cohen will come up with yet another whopper (or, perhaps, whoppers) like Trump’s submission to Deutsche Bank in which Trump overstated the value of one of his assets by in excess of two-hundred-and-sixty million dollars when applying for a multi-billion dollar loan. I understand that telling tall tales like this to a bank is a felony in the US.
I agree that changes in societies are measured in generations, not months or years, but I am hopeful that the US criminal courts system will not hesitate to put paid to Trump’s political career in shorter order than decades.
It is principally the Kurdish forces who faught most effectively against ISIL. It is largely they who chased ISIL out of northern Iraq, despite being left under-armed for fear of Turkish reaction to any improvement in their armament. Even if they did it partly as a measure of self-defence and the hope of US and other Western Allies’ acceptance of the basis of a free Kurdistan, they deserve better than to be abandoned to what will most likely result in Turkish agression.
This is the kind of American and, I fear, European behaviour that results in the rise of anti-Western extremist groups in the Middle-East and other places. Let us remember that the Americans sponsored and financed the Mujahadeen against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and then abandoned the country in ruins to its own devices as soon as the Russians were out. – Enter the Taliban and AL Qaida.
Again, after the defeat of Sadam Hussein, they removed Iraq’s political and army leadership without replacing them with experienced, competent people acceptable to the whole community, creating radical secterian divisions – Enter ISIL.
As if this weren’t enough, the unacceptable foreign and domestic policies, (if they can be called that)of Trump, and the spinelessness of the Republican Congress will ensure not only the rapid rise of Chinese world power but also the reluctance of anyone to be America’s ally.