Read this - and that's an order!

Andrew Sullivan, a 'never-Trumper' of the first order, has come out in support of President Trump which is a bit like 'the Moggman' saying 'Jezza' isn't all bad!  In an exceedingly 'punchy' article at Zero Hedge, he lays into the political/military establishment in Washington saying, in effect, that not only are they stupid but monumentally stupid because they persist in repeating their stupidity over and over again.  He is responding to the outrage expressed by the Washington elite(?) at Trump's (apparent) decision to withdraw American forces from sundry hell-holes round the world in which they have floundered, bravely but uselessly, for decade after decade.

I confess that I still can't make up my mind about Trump.  His manner (and even his manners) leave me totally confused.  However, his stated (but not yet enacted) promise to withdraw American forces from the political/military swamps they occupy struck me as long overdue.  As Mr. Sullivan states with brutal clarity, the Washington elite is 'shocked, I tell you, shocked' by this overturning of their decades old plots and stratagems which, including Vietnam, have achieved virtually nothing except filling the spaces in Arlington cemetery.

Please read Mr. Sullivan, he tells it so much better than I can.

 

 

Comments

[Whitewall]

The Normals, who put Trump in office, are the ones whose sons and daughters make up the rank and file members of the military. They have asked why are we deployed to so many worthless hell holes and to what purpose. Asking the DC policy Elite so many questions they don't want to discuss makes the entire establishment squirm. Accountability terrifies the Elite.

[thud]

Trump for all his faults is as much on 'our' side as anyone in the past 20 years, he needs all our support as his job becomes more difficult everyday with attacks from all sides.

[Loz]

The "normals", if they are services folks and families, are just doing what any public sector monopoly workers would do: Keep the pay and conditions but do less work.

We'll see what happens if ISIS and proxy supporters Turkey and Saudi revive, and Iran and its axis cuts a deal with them to lay off each other in the ME and focus both strains of Islamism / Jihadism back on Uncle Sam and the West.

Vlad would like that muchly.

Imagine a 911 per annum, alternating Shia Jihadist one year, and Sunni Jihadist the next. No-one touches Vlad coz he's in on the deal, as when the US was in on the deal. If the US or West cheeses him off he activates a sleeper cell in the West and guides the Hairies of whichever persuasion has least on its plate at the time onto the target.

We pay those boys and girls to do a job: get over there and mess them up, keep 'em fighting each other, so they're not over here doing the same to us.

This is a 100 years war, not 17, so we'll be back in there soon enough. Only it'll be harder starting from scratch.

Unless Trump can either (1) get Israel and Saudi working actively as the regional policeman, or, (2) somehow preserve the ME in conflict with itself remotely, the withdrawal is a mistake. I don't see either happening.

Instead of a handful of Marines' bones it'll be thousands of civvy bones.

SoD

[thud]

They are already over here so the we should fight them there argument is bollocks, I'd prefer we killed the ones we have at home, easier on transport costs!

[Bob]

Andrew Sullivan shows the iron resolve one would expect of our most prominent ex-Brit, gay, Catholic, Tory opinion writer. We'll have to wait and see if Senator Lindsey Graham, who has adopted Trump as a father figure since John McCain went to his reward, has managed to talk him out of the withdrawal.

[Loz]

Trump is up to something, I think, something more than the tweet stream ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-troops-syria-trump-pull-out-senator-lindsay-graham-a8705531.html%3famp

Lindsey Graham went into a meeting a hard Remainer preparing for a table fisting row.

He came out saying, "Ah, ok, I've been told stuff. It's not as it seems, it isn't going to be bad."

Wtf is that, do you think? JK, any insider?

Whatever it is, Mattis must have known, and though a soft Remainer he didn't like it.

Bolton is still in there, and he's a hard Remainer.

As I've described before, has Trump cobbled together the Israelis and the Saudis into an invasion force to Blitzkrieg across southern Syria to the Euphrates and link up with the Kurds and finish off ISIS?

Then keep this land bridge which blocks Iran from Syria and run a pipe through it to suck the dirty old crude out of Kurdland east of the Euphrates and into the global markets, thereby providing a substantial, albeit not total, funding for this Kurds, Israeli, Saudi alliance project?

So called "Mad Dog" would've crapped his pants at the thought and run to the hills with his pension. Bolton would've hollared "Yee-haaar, ride 'em cowboy!" and signed up for the possie for nuthin'. Graham would've volte-faced pronto, stunned. And that has been their actual reactions!

Did Trump twist the Saudi's arm after the Khasoggi scandal and say, "I'll dump you if you don't do it"?

And is Israel simply backed into a corner where this is the only option?

Interesting times.

SoD

[Bob]

Concerning policy, it's always a mistake to read more into Trump's actions than what appears on the surface. According to most reporting Graham simply managed to talk Trump down from a precipitous withdrawal. Of course the qualifier is that he sees everything through the lens of politics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSZ9E9143cw

[Whitewall]

https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/12/europe-2018-a-year-of-failed-multiculturalism/

Will their leaders learn anything? No.

[AussieD]

"This is a 100 years war, not 17, so we'll be back in there soon enough"

Wrong. It has been going on for 1400 years and propping up one mob of Hairies over another lot is a waste of the lives of our service personnel.

The message should be loud and clear "Kill each other all you like but if you come near us prepare to check out the stock of virgins" No ifs, no buts, no maybe.

[Loz]

Here you go Thud ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/31/royal-protection-officers-paid-100k-salaries-bringing-claim/

£100k salary to wield a fire arm (but lost in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria). Get your arse into the royals - the childless "middle" can pick up the tab!

That adds to the underground train drivers on £60k basic upto £100k with overtime, 43 days a year holiday (and they don't drive the train, they only press the button to open the doors).

And then there's the doctors on £100k+ (yet £1.7m per annum negligence claims).

After all that, people still: -

1. Think the problem with the public sector is underfunding.
2. Wonder why the "middle" can't afford or risk having children.
3. Want the armed forces to do less for the money.
4. Love the NHS.
5. Are happy with Dad's Army and the Bolsheviks whose economics are both pro public sector as being the only choice at the ballot box.
6. Want to remove the only block on more of the above by leaving the EU.

The Gaffer is all upset because he thinks I hate my country.

And yet all I want is to see Blighty not become the Venezuela of Europe.

SoD

[Loz]

7. Wonder why Blighty's productivity is 20% off Germany and 10% off FRANCE, of all places.
8. Wonder why debt is £1.5T and rising.
9. Wonder why thousands of white girls are handed to Asian rape gangs for use as masturbation toys.
10. Think SoD, Libertarians, and Thatcherites are from the planet Zog.

For a nice round 10.

Happy New Year!

SoD

[backofanenvelope]

I don't think Libertarians and Thatcherites are from the Planet Zog. But you are.........

[Loz]

On the southern Syria blitzkrieg by the Kurdish, Israeli, and Saudi coalition (KIS from now on) I've refreshed my research ...

The Trophy Active Protection System - which renders armoured fighting vehicles (tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and infantry fighting vehicles) by swatting incoming missiles out of the air with a radar guided shotgun like blast of pellets) and is proven in battle and developed by Israel - is now installed on just about everything armoured in the Israeli inventory.

The go button was just about to be pressed.

Then a wee problem ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG-30

That nasty little Vlad slipped a counter-to-the-counter weapon into the fray - by George and all the Saints, he's a pesky one that Vlad!

As you can see from the pic in the wiki link, it fires a precursor projectile from the skinny pipe on the side which triggers Trophy into action against the precursor projectile, then leaving the armoured vehicle open to the main projectile (which is itself a tandem charge to defeat explosive reactive armour bolted to the vehicle).

Ouch! Lots of dead Israelis! Plan Blitzkrieg on hold while the counter-counter-counter measure is designed, developed and deployed.

Luckily this is more or less "merely" a tweak to the software of the Trophy system. It's name in "Trench Coat" ...

http://sturgeonshouse.ipbhost.com/topic/1511-active-protection-system-aps-for-tanks/

It fires up to 17 of the shotgun blasts at the various incoming missiles - a "shotgun of shot guns", if you like - thereby taking out the precursor and the main projectile and up to 15 others in the same engagement.

Aw, sucks Vlad!

Military all ready to go.

And the politics - with the Khashoggi scandal scrubbing the foot dragging of the Saudis now in play, and the withdrawal of practiced veteran Saudi troops from Yemen in hand - should be good to go in 2019.

And as an after thought:. What or who is going to backfill the space left by Saudi troops leaving Yemen?

Well, when the Saudis charge across southern Syria and front up ISIS, why bother to fight their Sunni Hairy brethren?

Instead, say, "Hey guys, you want a Caliphate? You want to be left alone by Saudi and US forces, and maybe given a helping hand by them while you battle the infidel Shia Hairies?"

"Hell yeah!" comes the answer!

"Well hop onto this here C-130 and take a ride to your new Caliphate, your dream come true - East Yemen!

You've got buddies there already, Houthi Shia infidels to your West and Iranian Shia infidels to your East - knock yourself out boys (and girls)!

And you've got Saudi to the North to keep you in guns and ammo, and the US patrolling the sea to the south to snuff Iranian supplies to your Shia enemies."

Tidy- up complete.

Now MBS can build his "Vegas of the ME" in Southern Syria, with the help of Kurd and Israeli alike with ISIS out of the way.

Israel gets its land barrier between Iran and Syria.

The Kurds get a homeland protected by two big buddies.

Uncle Sam removes boots from sand.

What's not to like (unless you're Assad, Vlad, or Shia Hairy).

SoD

[Loz]

Hey JK, when are your "friends" gonna get in touch and ask me to stop spilling the beans?!

There's a price, of course. Nice little two bed flat with ensuite in Boston, public sector desk job for ten years helping out y'all with my Microsoft skills, and a pension thereafter if I make it.

Jeez, I might even rally old Percy, lead a late charge, and Fluffbun can pump out a couple of grand-SoDs (or grand-DoDs)!

Even Bob would like that - being born in Boston they'd grow up voting Democrat!

Hehehe!

SoD

[Whitewall]

SoD,
Brother you are on a roll this morning! I have a cousin who lives with her family outside Boston-Hingham to be specific. She says the work is available if you can stand the inhabitants. Try Boston a year, which only means you have come to the United States. Get well away from New England and the Northeast and you will begin to find America. There's a big difference.