August 2016 - US contractors in Syria March 2017 - 400 more troops US Troops to Syria October 2016 - What US Special Forces are doing in Syria Remember - (1) We've had troops in Syria for years (2) Tillerson didn't rule out a military response to North Korea, either. "We're weighing all options" is basically Rex's version of "no comment." Just as a gentle reminder, back when your dad and I were kids? The Soviets blew fuckin' airliners out of the sky. Had a rep from Georgia on it and everything. They did this because we - "allegedly" - had a bunch of spy gear on it (flight 007 indeed). Wasn't even the first time. Hell, the Turks blew a Sukhoi out of the sky not 18 months ago. You give the average angry man on the street an option right now and he'll say "we gotta do something!" Give that guy half an hour with Wikipedia first, on the other hand, and "something" becomes "uhmmmmumblemumblemumble" because there are no easy options in Syria. That's one reason it's such a pigfuck. Does Trump have half an hour's worth of attention span for Wikipedia? Prolly not. But there's a long list of people under him that know shit Wikipedia doesn't. Syria has every possibility of being the downer Iraq was only without that awesome "Mission Accomplished" photo op. Trump may not realize that but everyone else does. The successful playbook is to dump shit-tons of guns'n'money on the Kurds, bait the Russians into playing in Syria and let them send in troops. Doing something active with the uniformed military? No upside. None.
I hope there's a long list of people who know better. I read that piece about how much Jared Kushner gets assigned for merely being a loyal lieutenant. The White House is running a skeleton crew absolutely everywhere. I love the Kurds. I just wonder if Donald Trump even knows what Kurds are.Does Trump have half an hour's worth of attention span for Wikipedia? Prolly not. But there's a long list of people under him that know shit Wikipedia doesn't.
It's one thing that we all "knew" that Trump would make foreign policy decisions based on gut-level reaction. It's another to see it happen. I'm chilled. Edit to add: I'm not sure what the right response is, by the way. Assad is using banned chemical weapons, something Obama ostensibly thought was worth drawing a red line in the sand over. Did we presumably give him the OK to make good on that promise? The fact that Obama didn't is a separate matter, but military strikes in retaliation of chemical warfare was/is within the political mainstream. It's just that with Trump, I'm not sure if this a reasoned move on the part of the military apparatus, or because Trump was shown some pictures of gassed Syrian civilians and he made the call himself. Fuck.