President Trump’s second State of the Union address touched sparingly on foreign policy, and where it did, offered little sign that US withdrawals from Syria or Afghanistan are still on track, or indeed that any wars will actually be ending.
Though Trump did give lip-service to the danger of “foolish wars,” he spent much more time and specificity hyping his major increases in military spending, and military buildup. To the extent he presented wars as potentially ending at all, he tried to spin them as military victories, with minor reductions to troop levels coming at some uncertain time in the future.
Trump did say that “great nations cannot fight endless wars,” and mentioned giving troops in Syria a “warm welcome home.” He remained vague on this however, beyond a reduction in troop levels, and the only possibility for ending a war was in Afghanistan, where it was dependent on negotiations.
Where specifics were touched on, Trump announced 3,750 more troops were being sent to the southern border, and promised again to invest heavily in a new missile defense system, vowing to “outspend and out-innovate all others by far.”
In general, though, policy proclamations were very run-of-the-mill, talking up the threat posed by Iran by complaining that “they do bad, bad things,” and bragging about ditching the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran.
Talk of diplomacy was also kept to a minimum, though President Trump did confirm the upcoming summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un would take place at the end of February in Vietnam.
President Trump did also address the “constructive talks” with the Taliban in Afghanistan, though once again he only talked of troop reductions, and made no mention of possibly ending that war outright.
Defense Priorities Director Benjamin H. Friedman urged a continued push toward ending the Afghan War, saying that Trump’s talk of “counterterrorism does not require continuing the war there.”
Other experts concurred, with Notre Dame Security Center Director Michael Desch saying it is “well past time to wrap up America’s longest war and bring the troops home from Afghanistan.”
This seemed to be the plan in reports surrounding US-Taliban negotiations, though a recent Senate vote expressed opposition to this pullout. This seems to have prompted a change, and the Trump Administration is now only suggesting a drawdown, and not an outright withdrawal from either Afghanistan or Syria.
Fraudster in Chief. Pretend to end some wars while setting up for more wars.
Tulsi Gabbard seems to have all the right enemies.
She does have the right enemies, but I’m not convinced she is anti-war. Especially anti-regime change or anti-interventionist. Worth keeping an eye on though when you consider the alternatives.
You are about as pathetic as it gets, are you honestly anti-war or just a troll? So now not even Tulsi Gabbard is anti-war enough for you? And congress will save us but you don’t know enough to know that Tulsi is one of the best there is? If Tulsi isn’t going to save you form the orange wonder then who the hell in congress do you think will idiot?
Tulsi and Rand Paul on an Independent ticket.
You may want to look a little deeper into her voting record and past stances on regime change.
Dave and I are rarely on the same page, but I don’t think being sceptical is unreasonable. Many have been conned by political figures in the past. Remember GW Bush and his “humble foreign policy” ? Or the Peace Prize POTUS that was against the Iraq war?..Then bombed away?
Perhaps a bit of scepticism is healthy.
That being said, Gabbard appears to be the leading choice for ending this mess.
When skepticism becomes “They are all the same” it’s destructive not constructive. Why? Because if they are, all the same, then you will never find anyone to elect who is on your side. 50% good is still better than 100% bad. What I see people like Dave and others doing is anti-war virtue signaling. Nobody is as good as “They” are. Dave is telling you that he is better than Tulsi or Rand Paul or anyone actually. He’s that good, just ask him. Thomas Knapp actually epitomizes this. He wouldn’t even vote for Ron Paul.
Do we have to support every policy a person has to understand “pragmatically” that we need to support them on the things they get right? How about for office? Well Dave and Thomas and a few others refuse to support anyone who isn’t good enough, but they are all the same? No, they are not, and thinking so verges on the conspiratorial to be honest. And again, how do you Square that belief with the idea that congress will save us? If someone like Tulsi isn’t going to help then who will?
Furthermore, this black and white thinking goes like this. “We won’t support anyone who continues to support the drone war, or the war on terror, or spying or etc. etc. etc.
That’s great right? Nice and pure, true to ideology and pragmatically #ucking useless. We will not see an end to the war on terror, or spying or any return to normal behavior until we end the ground wars. They hate us because we are over there and denying that they hate us, is not an option, (true or false) that is “on the table” by anyone that has any chance of being in charge of anything. Any president who told the security complex to dismantle in the middle of this mess would be impeached.
The only path out of this quagmire starts at ending the ground wars. Anyone who can pull that off will have moved down that path to the next fork in the road, where we can choose again. Do we want to continue spying on everyone? Can we end the war on terror, etc. etc.
The few people out there who are arguing to get out of the ground wars and to do it now are the ones we need to support, the better their record and the more trustworthy they are matters. Perfection does not, not if we are serious. People who demand the perfect, have the same net effect as those who are so apathetic that they don’t even know the wars are going on. What’s the point of learning all of this and doing #uck all about it? They won’t get out and protest, they won’t vote for the lessor of two evils, they sit around and put down the people who support Trump’s efforts to get out.
That makes them no better than Congress who just sanctioned Trump. If it’s wrong for Congress to sanction Trump then how the hell is it right for anti-war people to effectively do the same to people calling for us to get out? WTF??? Ragging on people who are moving us in the right direction is exactly what congress did with their vote and it’s exactly what anti-war “skeptics” do when they automatically assume “They are all the same”. And by all the same I mean, “All war mongers” until proven otherwise. They might as well be actively supporting the Senators who voted to Sanction Trump because it’s very close to the same thing. It’s a show of ZERO support and it’s hurting our chances of ever getting out of these wars. If Trump gets no support or if the anti-war people slam him no matter what then he doesn’t have anyone supporting him. How is that going to help?
“Dave and Thomas and a few others refuse to support anyone who isn’t good enough, but they are all the same? No, they are not”
No, they’re not all the same.
Some are worse than others. I look for one that’s at least fairly good. I won’t say I NEVER vote for the lesser evil, but I try to find something worth supporting before I resort to that.
I was skeptical of a Paul campaign within the Republican Party, but open to it until I got his first fundraising letter. Anything about foreign policy in that newsletter? Not a word. Anything about the war on drugs? Nope. How about the Federal Reserve? Uh-uh. Nothing on taxes. Nothing on ANY of the issues that he appeals to libertarians for support on.
His three talking points were: 1) I’ve fought and I’ll fight to stop teh furriners from coming here; 2) I’ve fought and I’ll fight to stop teh gays from getting married; and 3) I’ve fought and I’ll fight to keep teh wimmin from having abortions.
I disagree with him on the first two issues and don’t vote based on the third.
And I had candidates available to support who were just as good as him on foreign policy, just as good as him on the war on drugs, just as good as him on the Fed, just as good as him on taxes, not the towering dumpster fire that he was on immigration and marriage, not obsessed with abortion — and talking about the issues I wanted to see talked about.
So I supported one of those candidates instead of supporting him.
It was just happenstance that I ended up not having to make excuses for supporting him after he outed himself as a liar on the “newsletter affair.” Which, frankly, took me completely by surprise because I had always defended him when people claimed that all the wrong people supported him, arguing that didn’t mean he supported them back.
That’s an awfully high horse you’re on Mr Knapp.
How is supporting candidates I agree with and not supporting candidates I don’t agree with “being on a high horse?”
It should be obvious that your supporting candidates or not has nothing to do with my comment.
Sorry, I don’t have my secret decoder ring on. I assumed you were writing in English and in response to the comment right above yours.
Yep, you pretty much prove my point. You are pissed about a news letter so why support a guy who wants to end the wars. Honestly, when Paul isn’t good enough nobody is. So the rest of your argument is nothing more than one big difference without a distinction. Since nobody you support will ever win anything you might as well sit it out with
the rest of the apathetic voters.
But I’ll give you full credit, at least you are a vocal opposition. People who sit out elections and sit on their asses bitching have the same exact net effect
as the lazy bums who couldn’t find Iraq on a map.
I have no problem with people who don’t vote actually. Some people will never take the time to know the issues, so they shouldn’t vote. Other people don’t vote because they think the “boycott” works. Well maybe, if you are loud about it. But I’ve never heard of a silent boycott being worth a damn. If you are not out in the street with millions of other
people a boycott of the election system does nothing more than hand over your power. But so does voting for a third party who never wins.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for campaigning for the losing team. I’ve done it enough times in my life, that’s for sure. I used to be very active, when it comes to losing campaigns I was an expert. The trick was that if you were going to lose anyway, lose big.
Ron Paul was the biggest loser ever and he’s done more to help end our wars than anyone else around. There are millions more non-interventionists in this country thanks to him. Sadly, news letters are obviously more important than supporting a guy who did more to spread non-interventionism than anyone else in our lifetimes.
The problem is that when only 10% of the population believes in your ideas you have to spread those ideas before election day. On election day, you as a voter, have a different choice to make. You can effectively sit it out or “protest” by voting third party or you can try and stop someone from taking power who should never have it.
You joked about me saving you from pantsuit. Well that pantsuit is a war criminal who destroyed a ton of lives, I doubt her victims think it’s too funny.
I thought you might like this link. Catlin doesn’t think much of anyone who won’t support Maduro. It’s an odd position to hold because clearly using her logic she should be all in for Trump.https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/02/no_author/i-oppose-interventionism-but-but-nothing-stop-being-a-pro-bono-cia-propagandist/
“Yep, you pretty much prove my point. You are pissed about a news letter so why support a guy who wants to end the wars.”
Why bother responding to what I write if you can’t be bothered to read it first?
The “newsletter affair” happened AFTER he asked me to support him because teh immigrants, because teh gays, and because teh abortions. Since I didn’t agree with him on the first two and don’t consider the third a decisive political issue, and since he didn’t say fuck-all about “ending the wars,” that was that. He just wasn’t my candidate. No biggie.
I didn’t “sit on my hands” in 2008. I managed the Libertarian nomination campaign of a candidate who campaigned on “ending the wars,” worked for the Libertarian nomination campaign of another candidate who campaigned on “ending the wars,” and when the Libertarian Party decided to nominate a pro-war non-libertarian, was the vice-presidential candidate of a ticket that campaigned on “ending the wars.”
I didn’t say YOU sat on your hands, talk about not reading. And yes you refused to vote for Paul and you just claimed the newsletters influenced your thinking on why to support him or not going forward. You run him down over it so obviously it had some significance to you. It had zero to me other than as a litmus test to see who cared more about liberty and who cared more about past problems that may or may not be problems. I don’t think he is a racist but even if he were I would continue to support him because his policies are better for everyone, regardless.
But whatever, at least you are vocal and as I said I can respect that. Same for people who boycott elections and who are very vocal about it, out in the streets or writing articles etc. What I can’t see is bitching about everything but never doing anything about it, including voting for anyone who stands a chance of winning. At that point they might as well just be part of the apathetic masses who get to remain in ignorant bliss. What’s the point of understanding how horrible all of this is and not doing something to change it?
“and you just claimed the newsletters influenced your thinking on why to support him or not going forward.”
No, I just mentioned that they saved me some embarrassment. Prior to his presidential run, I had defended him from “he can’t be any good, David Duke re-prints his column” accusations with the basic “anyone’s free to run his columns, show me any evidence of mutual support there.”
I decided not to support him when he told me that he was going to campaign on immigration, gay marriage, and abortion. He had nothing to offer me on that.
I did also believe that a GOP campaign would not be an effective means of promoting liberty (and 10 years on, its primary effect seems to be to have flooded the Libertarian Party with people who think that “libertarianism” means “anti-immigration, anti-abortion, and anti-gay-wedding-cake baking”).
It was AFTER deciding not to support him that the “newsletter” thing happened. That saved me from getting tarred with that particular brush, although I did owe people apologies after it turned out that the newsletters had in fact actively promoted Duke et al. And it revealed that whatever else Paul is, he’s a liar. Which is always good to know when you’ve been letting yourself think that a politician is different.
And again, good for you. The virtue signaling never gets old.
The best armor you can ever have is a HEALTHY dose of skepticism.
Wow, one of the biggest lines of the night was when he said, (paraphrasing). We can’t be a nation that is great and endlessly at war. But I guess that’s just lip service and so are the actual negotiations going on and his trip to Vietnam to meet with Kim. So was his announcing that our troops will be coming home from Syria.
For #ucks sake what do you people want him to say? Don’t you guys report on this and know how close we are to getting out, you would think that NOW of all times would be THE time to support Trump. Instead we get a $hit article like this.
What I heard was him trying to keep the hawks at bay and reassuring the nation that he we are tough enough to handle getting out of these wars., he’s telling them. Look; I gave you more money than you asked for to rebuild the military, so we should be tough enough to handle anything. I moved the embassy to Israel so I obviously am not planning to toss Israel under the bus. He’s projecting strength so that we don’t need to fear getting out of the wars. How hard is that to understand?
Honestly, I’m about done with this click bait crap. Yes it’s “lip service” what the hell else is a speech? Was he supposed to also physically fly over and bring them home while giving the speech? Otherwise it’s “lip service” which is also exactly what “Diplomacy” is and he’s got More Diplomatic measures going on to end our wars than we can shake a stick at, and still it’s reported as nothing more than “lip service”. Well Lip Service is better than Bomb service.
And no there is no evidence that Trump’s position on Afghanistan has changed, saying that we will still have troops there going after terrorists is not a change of the goal-post because it’s assumed that he means during the 18 month ceasefire period. That went without saying, we were not going to have a year and a half ceas-fire and not still hit ISIS or AQ while we are there. Who would think otherwise? And who thinks the “War on Terror” will ever end if we don’t get out of these ground wars first? They hate us because we are there, not because we are free. Have we forgotten that?
Honestly, this is so sad. If any other president had made this speech anti-war people would normally be very happy indeed.
It’s amazing the guy is ending wars in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea and that’s not good enough because he has imposed sanctions on Iran and Venezuela. Nothing like letting the perfect get in the way of the possible.
And what’s also incredible is that Obama was treated better around this place for just signing a nuclear deal that didn’t do anything in the first place. One would think that one deal made up for the failed surge in Afghanistan, expanding the drone wars, the war in Yemen, Syria and Libya, etc.
But sure, you guys are right, we would be so much better going back to Obama or another Clinton, hey maybe without Trump we would have gotten lucky and Jeb would have won or maybe Cruz. Would they be paying “lip service” to ending the wars with a massive push for diplomacy? Probably not but if they did I’d still be happy and I wouldn’t confuse a speech that calls for ending the wars with one that calls for starting new ones.
You seem to have forgotten the last stream of con men who have said roughly the very same thing while the empire continued to expand.
What’s funny is how personally you take the fact no one trusts what ANY president says anymore. Especially one who does business with known mobsters, is famous for not paying his bills, and brags about screwing over his clients.
He either never intended to stop these wars, or he can’t. That’s why I’m skeptical about his intent. Add to that his past disregard for anything resembling humility and shady business deals and you see how people might not trust him.
No I haven’t forgotten a thing. If he didn’t actually have very real negotiations going on and if he hadn’t make his intentions clear as a bell then sure. But the fact is that he does have a HUGE diplomatic push on right now, so Right NOW is the time to support him. And no you haven’t heard it all before, because nobody has done this in the last 19 years. Hell we haven’t had a president refrain from starting a new war in decades. But sure, you heard it all before, so long as you ignore what is actually going on that is.
And you say, nobody trust any president anymore, well speak for yourself, except that would mean that you don’t get to speak for me or people like Rand Paul who seem to trust him regardless of your absurd declaration that Nobody trusts any president anymore. And by the way, you can bitch about how he does business all you want, at least he actually created jobs and built real things. He’s ruthless that’s a fact but nobody would have gotten where he is if they hadn’t been. I’ll take a ruthless businessman who is trying to get us out of these wars over the constant string of honest politicians who never do anything but get us into more wars.
Trump is standing up to damn near everyone and we should have his back. By the way, weren’t you the one saying Congress would save us? LOL They just voted to rebuke him and you think you are an expert on who to trust?
Just because you or anyone else got burnt believing in our past presidents does not mean my judgment is as poor as yours or theirs. I didn’t fall for any of them, so don’t assume that I know as little about politics as you and your friends.
If they’d just give him the Nobel Peace Prize he would be more serious about military drawdowns, like Obama. bwa ha ha
They would except evidently CITIbank owns the Nobel committee and since Goldman Sachs won the presidency back from them in 2016 Trump will just have to wait.
“Yes it’s “lip service” what the hell else is a speech? Was he supposed to also physically fly over and bring them home while giving the speech?”
Good question. What is a speech? Well, from a person who stands by their word, does not lie every other second, does not serial exaggerate everything to ludicrous proportions, actually studies issues before opening his mouth (as opposed to forming his opinion by watching Fox) and therefore does not have to backtrack on almost everything he says … from such a person, words may mean something.
From our current president, however, words are utterly useless.
“What I heard was him trying to keep the hawks at bay and reassuring the nation that he we are tough enough to handle getting out of these wars., he’s telling them. Look; I gave you more money than you asked for to rebuild the military, so we should be tough enough to handle anything. I moved the embassy to Israel so I obviously am not planning to toss Israel under the bus. He’s projecting strength so that we don’t need to fear getting out of the wars. How hard is that to understand?”
That spin job would have made Sarah proud. If spending more than the pentagon asked for and kissing Sheldon Adelsen’s and Bibi’s ass by moving the embassy to Jerusalem is a way of projecting strength I’d really hate to see what would be a sign of weakness/stupidity.
It’s clear once Justin is gone (may he be with us for a long time) that this site will degenerate into yet another leftist hate Trump website. If for no other reason than this is apparently what most of the TDS suffering readership and donors want. Pathetic.
Trump won’t be president forever. I hope and am pretty sure Justin will last much longer than the current con man in the oval office so you fan boys will be watching Trump fire D list celebrities within the next 5 or 6 years……
As far as I understand, this site supposes to be antiwar. But if you are looking for Trump’s cheerleading site, why don’t you try Breitbart?
BTW, can you explain what standing against interventions, militarism and military spending has to do with leftism? I always thought it is called antiwar.
“Leftist?” Really? I’ve followed this site since the 90’s and leftist it has never been. Perhaps yer confusing libertarian with brownshirt conservative? This site has never supported the latter.
This site? Leftist? I don’t even need to qualify that absurdity with an answer.
And I feel it is you who suffer from TDS. The real derangement is that you feel this self-serving opportunist con man actually has yours or America’s best interests at heart. I’m not saying any of the other lying sacks of horse dung in Washington do, either, but Trump fits right in with them.
Sad!
The People’s Reps/Senators seem to be more warmongerish than the President.
More “tribute” from the NATO nations. Do those people ever get a chance to vote whether they want foreign troops in their lands?
Besides the usual “shall we stay, or shall we go” the GOP has established it’s 2020 ad nauseam campaign for the defeat of “socialism”. There will be no discussion on the theft and dismemberment of government resources by corporations and the 1%, just a linking of any dem to the left of Clinton to the sanctioned and sabotaged Venezuela.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have to protect Israel. We have to protect other things that we have. But we’re- yeah, they’ll be coming back in a matter of time. Look, we’re protecting the world. We’re spending more money than anybody’s ever spent in history, by a lot. We spent, over the last five years, close to 50 billion dollars a year in Afghanistan. That’s more than most countries spend for everything including education, medical, and everything else, other than a few countries.
— CBS “Face the Nation” Feb.3 interview transcript.
America you have been trumped. Its never been about MAGA its ALL about MIGA! Just look at who his biggest financial supporters are, Sheldon Adelson, and the rest of the neo con crap that has enslaved the USA to this demonic agenda!