Speaking today on NBC’s Meet the Press, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump cautioned against further intervention in Syria, noting that the US largely has no idea who these rebels they’ve been funding and arming are, and predicting that Syria would go the way of Libya and Iraq, toward more chaos, if Assad was ousted.
Pressed on whether this meant he believed the region would be more stable with Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein still in power, he confirmed it was “not even a contest,” saying Libya isn’t even really a country anymore, and ISIS came out of the removal of Saddam in Iraq.
Trump said he was glad Russian President Vladimir Putin is ‘bombing the hell out of ISIS” in Syria, but predicted that he would get bogged down in such an effort just as everyone else who has tried to go into the Middle East on such interventions has.
Though Trump denied that he “trusts” Putin, he did say he believes the Russian leader would be targeting ISIS, because of concerns about ISIS expanding northward into Russian territory.
Trump has been campaigning, like materially all of the Republican field, as a hawk, but is showing a lot more nuance in recent weeks, including unveiling an economic plan that would cut the defense budget, with an eye on massive savings to be achieved by eliminating corruption and fraud in spending.
Indeed, at this point Trump’s protestation that he’s “militaristic” probably needs reexamining, with his aversion to military adventures in the Middle East putting him in a position that starkly contrasts with the rest of the candidates out there.
What's fascinating is that all political campaigns try to find space where they can differentiate themselves from opponents, and of course to do so in a way that's populare with the voters. So, this tells us that when running against a member of the Bush royal family, this is a place to go. Of course, if Bush The Annointed gets to the fall election, Hillary can't do this at all, while Bernie would have to ditch years of pro-war stances to do so. Still, its interesting that a high-dollar campaign is deciding that his makes sense as something to tell the voters. Of course, it doesn't mean much about Trump. After all, a guy named Obama found his running room against Hillary in 08 by pretending to be to her left. A bit of nonsense that a fair number of Democrats still mistakenly believe.
One of the major reasons why the US gets bogged down in these matters is that it is in the interests of some that it does get bogged down! A long standing conflict actually I preferable to arms dealers…….Long periods of sustained weapons sales is the pipe dream companies live for! There is the long held problem of retired Generals and Colonels going onto the defence contractors payrolls after they retire! As for Politicians war is generally good for re-election (don't rock the boat half way through a war)!
Whilst there is probably a similar problem in Russia it is nothing in comparison to the scale of it in the US!
Russia is also helping an ally to fix a problem and want it to be fixed ASAP, hence the activity, but also note that there are going to be troops on the ground, Iran has sent troops as has Russia, what we are seeing are typical Russia activities First we will see Russian Ground attack fast jets, then we will see Heavy Helicopter Gunship along with Light armoured Vehicles, and don't forget the leader is a Chechnian rebel the Russians have fought with him before! Interestingly we now know that he trained by the US for that role in the first instance in Georgia in 2008, America a state sponsor of Terrorism exposed! Just think under the Bush doctrines the Russians could have both attacked and taken over Georgia (the Georgians however threw out their despot US installed leader) and in fact under the United States own doctrines attacked the US for being a state materially sponsoring terrorist attacks!
So what is the Obama response to Russia? Obama will transfer the role of arming the ai-Nursa Front rebels to the Pentagon from the covert program currently run by the CIA. The press has been able to bury U.S. involvement in arming former al-Qaedaal and now al-Nusra Front rebels. Russian intervention and direct involvement in the Syrian war by the Pentagon should make hiding this mess by the corporate press much more difficult.
At long last Trump is talking sense. Perhaps he has made himself more familiar with recent history in the Middle East. One is never too old to learn. Keep it up Trump and one day you might make it to the White House and make it really WHITE.
After listening to Ben Carson on Hannity tonight, it is obvious that he's been getting indoctrinated on foreign policy and Putin by the NeocoMs.
He sounds like Fiorina, Cruz, Rubio and the others except for Trump now.
This is one of the few times Trump has made much sense in his statements. He shows a remarkable grasp of the reality of the situation today in Syria. Much better obviously than Clinton who wants a no fly zone and "safe corridors." How could you enforce a no fly zone in a country where you lack permission to fly in their air space and are in violation of international law?
Because you're the US and the Ruler of the Friggin' World!!!!!
The first thing I agree with Trump on.
I’m starting to like Trump’s foreign policies.
The idea the Trump would move to, or be able to, limit Pentagon corruption is ludicrous in light of his public bragging about buying politicians. Just how many politicians, police, judges, gangsters, etc does he own?
Maybe what makes Trump different is that he doesn't necessarily believe his own propaganda and understands how the world actually works, unlike the other candidates who live in some kind of deluded fantasy world.
The root issue is that, while most of us understand how the world actually works, we continue to elect representatives who act as if they do not.
The point that Trump sidesteps is, granted that the US should never have intervened in any of those places (or, since we're talking about Putin, Ukraine), what is it now going to do to make good the damage it has done?
The US fake democracy is the reason for Middle East being in such turmoil as it is today, with Israelis Netanyahu in one hand, the Saudis support for barbarism, in the other and support for fake Islamic Turkish Erdogan regime democracy is yet another. Barack Hussein Obama become president to continue the contract signed by Bush militarism regime to remove Saddam, Kaddafi and government of Syria and in proces the Iranian government if they could. To become head of a government, one needs to have promised to certain people to do something, David Cameron promised the far right and English rich and influential people to save their social economic interests by making the poor to pay the costs, Obama although been giving the American people the Obama care, but in regard to regime changes in Middle East his been THE supporter of Saudis, Turkish, Israelis policies, so as David Cameron and that Swedish King and to some point in time even European social democrats been supportive of such policies. so, what Trump is saying is true, but question remains, would he, as Obama and others been saying, consider the US fake democracy to be the leading democratic force with its falsified, double standard, double face principals to continue its policies against nations around the world or his words are based on a old political words with no or opposite action. What he's saying sounds very familiar as many of US democrats or republican presidential candidates been saying in the past.
Mr. Trump makes sense. Even a broken clock is (right) twice each day.
Broken clocks are right at least twice a day
He's outnon-interventioning Rand PAUL.
I propose that we draft Ron Paul for Donald Trump's vice president.