12-20-2019, 06:56 AM
(12-19-2019, 05:04 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:(12-18-2019, 12:06 PM)David Horn Wrote:(12-17-2019, 02:26 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: At any rate, the timing is good, as it is permitting President Trump to withdraw 4000 of the 14000 odd remaining US troops in Afghanistan without significant objection.
My single biggest issue with Trump in foreign affairs is the opaque motivation for his moves. We know he likes dictators more than democrats, so is this part of that paradigm? If not, then why now?
His motivations are opaque to you only because you refuse to acknowledge any valid motivations on his part. His motivation is completely transparent to me: he wants to get our troops out of "s---h---" countries as fast as he can. As illustrated by the massive blowback he got for withdrawing a mere 28 troops from the Turkish border in Syria, that isn't very fast, but he's trying.
The reason for "why now" is obvious: with this report out on how our involvement in Afghanistan is pointless, Trump has cover to withdraw a few thousand troops instead of just a few dozen. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump leaked the report himself.
Since secondary issues are unimportant to him (e.g. let the Kurds fend for themselves) and his sense of loyalty is extremely narrow, your analysis may be right. The long term damage to our strategic alliances may suffer irreparable damage, but he'll be out of office by then. Why should he care?
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.