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Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
- Thread starter CdnGuy
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Trump’s latest proposal, issued via tweet, for a 20-mile safe zone — which Erdogan says Turkey will establish — similarly seems to have been made with no process or analysis. This area would encompass all Kurdish areas of eastern Syria. There is no force ready to take over, nor time to build one, as American troops prepare to leave. And entry of Turkish-backed opposition forces would likely displace thousands of Kurds, as well as threaten vulnerable Christian communities interspersed in these areas.
The strategic consequences of Trump’s decision are already playing out: The more Turkey expands its reach in Syria, the faster our Arab partners in the region move toward Damascus. It’s not a coincidence that Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates reopened embassies there shortly after Trump said we were leaving. These countries, as well as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, believe that engaging Damascus can help dilute Russian, Iranian and Turkish influence in Syria, and they are discounting contrary views from Washington. The SDF, recognizing that it may soon be on its own and surrounded by hostile forces, has accelerated its talks with Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Turkey, a NATO ally, turned to Russia within days of Trump’s decision, dispatching senior officials to Moscow to work out next steps in Syria. Israel, our closest ally in the region, confronted a new reality with America soon absent from the field in Syria. Only Russia and Iran hailed Trump’s decision. Whatever leverage we may have had with these two adversaries in Syria diminished once Trump said we would leave.
These trends will worsen if the president does not reverse course: Our partners will stop listening and make decisions that run contrary to our interests. Our adversaries will play for time, knowing the United States is on its way out. The Islamic State and other extremist groups will fill the void opened by our departure, regenerating their capacity to threaten our friends in Europe — as they did throughout 2016 — and ultimately our own homeland.
Ideally, Trump will halt any withdrawal until he receives accurate appraisals of risks, the status of the Islamic State and the feasibility of Turkey, or anyone else, replacing us. To ask the Pentagon to design and execute a withdrawal plan absent such an assessment is folly. It is not enough for senior officials to walk back or place conditions on the decision. That must come from the president.
Absent this wiser but unlikely alternative, U.S. officials will try to suggest that the decision doesn’t matter. In recent weeks, they have argued that all our goals in Syria — including the ejection of Iran and political change in Damascus — can still be met, despite Trump saying that Syria is https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/no-different-from-my-original-statements-trump-denies-changes-to-syria-exit-plan/2019/01/07/d93922f2-128f-11e9-90a8-136fa44b80ba_story.html?utm_term=.41cd919a3c5e (worth) but “sand” and “death” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/they-can-do-what-they-want-trumps-iran-comments-defy-the-position-of-his-top-aides/2019/01/03/86a69d56-0f71-11e9-84fc-d58c33d6c8c7_story.html?utm_term=.4632b30c4521 (and) that Iran’s leaders “can do what they want” there. This disconnect between ambitious objectives stated by senior U.S. officials and Trump’s own views to the contrary is further undermining American credibility.
WASHINGTON — Congressman Will Hurd of Texas is an increasingly lonely voice in the “build the wall” Republican Party of Donald Trump. A 41-year-old former undercover CIA officer, Hurd represents one of the largest congressional districts in America, Texas’ 23rd, a https://censusreporter.org/profiles/50000US4823-congressional-district-23-tx/ of land roughly the size of Georgia that stretches from San Antonio to El Paso.
Hurd’s district includes 820 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, more than any other member of the House of Representatives. But if you’re expecting Hurd, who was narrowly re-elected to a third term last year, to support President Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” and stand with the decision to partially shut down the federal government over the fight, you’ve got it all wrong. Trump’s border crisis is a “myth,” Hurd tells Rolling Stone, and a wall made of cement or steel slats is a “third-century solution to a 21st-century problem.”
“What I always say is building a wall from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security,” Hurd says.
The BuzzFeed article makes it clear that Sater’s GRU contact got back involved after Cohen’s conversation with Peskov’s assistant.
All of which is to say that when Cohen called Peskov’s assistant, he would have told her that he was speaking on behalf of Donald Trump, that Trump remained interested in a Trump Tower in Moscow (as he had been in 2013, the last time Putin had dangled a personal meeting with Trump), and that on Trump’s behalf Cohen was willing to discuss making a deal involving both a sanctioned bank (whichever one it was) and a former GRU officer.
So it’s not just that Trump was pursuing a real estate deal while running for President. He was pursuing a real estate deal involving a sanctioned bank — possibly one sanctioned for its involvement in Crimea — and involving someone with ties to the intelligence agency that was preparing to hack Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager.
Cohen told Peskov’s assistant Trump was willing to negotiate that deal while running for President. The assistant wrote all that down (how Mueller knows this is an interesting question on its own right). And then she or Peskov passed on at least the content of the notes to get Putin’s office to contact Sater.
And all that happened before Trump performed unexpectedly well in the Iowa caucuses on February 1.
LAST YEAR, I ARGUED THAT — PEE TAPE OR NO — THE KOMPROMAT PUTIN HAS ON TRUMP CONSISTS OF A SERIES OF RECEIPTS OF TRUMP FORMALLY COMMUNICATING HIS WILLINGNESS TO ENTER INTO A CONSPIRACY WITH RUSSIA, RECEIPTS THAT WOULD BE DEVASTATING IF PUTIN RELEASED THEM.
What Cohen plea deal makes clear is that Putin pocketed the first of those receipts — a receipt showing Trump’s willingness to work with both sanctioned banks and the GRU — even before the first vote was cast. Even before GRU hacked its first Democratic target (though APT 29 had been spying on the Democrats since the previous summer).
Discussing a real estate deal is not, as Trump has repeated, illegal. If that’s all this were about, Trump and Cohen might not have lied about it.
But it’s not. Even before the GRU hacked John Podesta, even before Don Jr told his June 9 visitors that his dad would consider lifting sanctions if he got elected, Michael Cohen let a key Putin deputy know that Trump would be happy to discuss real estate deals that involved both partnering with the GRU and with sanctioned banks.
And Putin has been sitting on that receipt ever since.
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Swiper
Banned
it’s fake news. it’s hilarious how you socialist liberals just eat up anything you’re told. keep following the herd you sheep. try to think for yourself for once.
who’s the asshole now? [emoji2]
I dunno.... you? Did I win?
Swiper
Banned
maybe all the people who are so gullible they fall for all the fake news like yourself?
Lol! Says the most gullible among us!!
Swiper
Banned
yeah I’m not the one who falls for all the fake news like the phony doctor and that other liberal socialist including yourself. must be so embarrassing.
You have created a little world for yourself. You can make shit up all day to make yourself feel better.
You can tune in to many thought perverting stations like fox and keep your head screwed just right.
You can tune in to many thought perverting stations like fox and keep your head screwed just right.
Swiper
Banned
what did i make up? what are you talking about? put down the bottle and sober up before you post. you’re making zero sense.
I think you make up plenty. You have to in order to support an asshat
like trump after all this time. Most folks that voted for him see their error. Others like you eat his spoon feedings without question... and call yourself an independent thinker. It’s laughable
like trump after all this time. Most folks that voted for him see their error. Others like you eat his spoon feedings without question... and call yourself an independent thinker. It’s laughable
