1. No ceasefire
2. I ain’t meetin’ with Pence.

He’s into some next level shit, and this is not good.

Can’t blame him about the Pence thing, though. I don’t know whether I could stay awake for five minutes talking to Mike Pence.

14 thoughts on “So Erdogan says …

  1. oops that’s “a little teenage nostalgia for the old folks”. When I’m forgetting my Zappa lyrics that’s a bad sign.

  2. 1. Nothing will get to the Trumpbots. They’ll bitch but won’t do anything.
    2. This would fuck up things all over the world and encourage very bad people to do very bad things. Just like it just encouraged Erdogan.
    3. What are you smoking? I might want to try some for “a little nostalgia for the old folks” (FZ). And put on a little Rubber Soul, Aftermath, John Barleycorn, Highway 61 or some Byrds/Yardbirds/Hendrix/Who/Kinks or even Szell or Furtwangler and have a good old time.

  3. I’m all for Trump removing troops throughout the country. Remove stationed soldiers in the DMZ in Korea, Japan, Germany, everywhere else. This is about the only thing that will piss off the Republicans enough to pull support. Let them fight!

  4. Trump certainly deserves his share of the blame for this, but I think this went down a little differently than I originally thought. Initially, I thought Trump was so desperate to pull troops out that he asked Erdogan to promise not to go after the Kurds and took whatever Erdogan said at face value. Now, it sounds more like Erdogan told Trump he was going to invade and said he wasn’t going to let the presence of US troops on the border stop him. The whole reason those troops were still there was to act as a shield/trip wire protecting the Kurds from the Turks. Rather than call Erdogan’s bluff (if it was a bluff) Trump pulled out our troops.

    If that is how it went down, I still think Trump made the wrong decision. But it is far less black and white. If Erdogan hadn’t been bluffing and US troops were killed it could have provoked a war with a NATO ally. I find it hard to believe Erdogan would risk a military conflict with the US, but believe it or not, I am NOT privy to the same intelligence and analysis as the president of the United States. The problem of course is that I just don’t trust Trump’s judgement. On top of that, I think if Trump hadn’t been publicly disagreeing with Mattis and Bolton about pulling out our troops, Erdogan wouldn’t have thought Trump would blink. But ultimately Trump’s motivation may actually have been (at least in part) the protection of American lives.

    I miss Kemal Ataturk.

    1. “I am NOT privy to the same intelligence and analysis as the president of the United States.”
      You are aware that he listens to none of it and doesn’t read any of it, aren’t you?
      Erdogan wasn’t ever going to attack US troops. Our National Dumbass got played. And now he’s trying to weasel out of it by claiming that “the Kurds are no angels”. A completely contemptible scumbag.

      1. Clearly Trump watches way too much Fox News, but hyperbole aside, he does get intelligence briefings. There are people around him, such as his new national security adviser, whose name I can’t recall at the moment, who I am reasonably sure do pay attention to those briefings. As I said, the problem is that I don’t trust Trump. More specifically, I don’t trust Trump’s understanding of the issues and situations that arise in foreign policy (or any policy really) and thus can’t trust his decisions. I think he made the wrong decision here. But at the same time, I have to leave open the possibility that there is something he knows (or at least his advisers know) that supports his decision.

    1. Why don’t you run for President? Sounds like you are one of the undiscovered, underappreciated geniuses of american history. If only we had someone like you to vote for. T Jeff had nothing on you bro.

      1. So you think Trump is doing a good job, Moderate Dem? Or you just here to say stupid stuff like “Don`t criticize a movie unless you can direct a better one”?

  5. If there’s ever any major shit that blows up in Europe the Turks will pull an Italy 1914. They’ll claim Russia was attacked by NATO and drop out of the alliance. Shortly thereafter they’ll join the Russians to pick up bits of Greece and Bulgaria. Second biggest army in NATO. You better believe this shit is not good.

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