JUST the Stolen Documents/Mar-A-Lago/"Judge" Cannon Trial

[old salt]

Things had stabilized by 2009.
Bush is responsible for what we did 2000 - 2008, Obama for 2009 - 2016. Trump for 2017 - present.
They inherited what their predecessor left them. They're responsible for what happened on their watch.
By saying it's all the same, you blithely ignore all the Bush got us into, & then what he did to fix things by the time he left office.

Not ignoring what Bush did. I'm saying it's all fruit from the same line of thinking. Until our thinking changes, all that's different is where our troops are located, which part of the ME are our troops in, and in how great of numbers.

What you're doing here is pointing at 1988 and saying, "see, we're pretty stable". I'm saying nope, this is just a relatively calm period. It will go to *hit, because it always does. And because we have troops everywhere, we thoughtlessly commit troops to new dangers (Syria, Saudi Arabia) with no more thought than it takes to breath in and out.
If it does while Trump's in office, he'll bomb the attacking country to rubble, but he won't invade or occupy.
He's resisted pressure from the (D)'s & (R) Hawks to do just that in Syria. Look at the grief he took for pulling 28 Green Berets on tethered goat trip wire posts in Syria. You went nuts when he sent forces to Saudi Arabia recently, ignoring the fact they're defensive forces to deter & defend against potential Iranian missile attacks on our air & naval forces already in the Gulf States to bomb ISIS & the Taliban, while keeping the straits open.

Things had stabilized by 2009.
You ignore all that Obama did to make things worse. He enabled -- the Arab Spring, the ouster of Mubarek, Syrian civil war, bombing then ignoring Libya, trying to cover up Benghazi, & most of all -- allowing the rise of ISIS, then doing too little, too late to counter it. While financing the IRGC & their proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq & Yemen, by ramming through JCPOA without enduring bipartisan support, knowing it would collapse with a (R) President.

While you're blaming Obama for anything you can think of, I hear he's also responsible for the poor script of the new Star Wars Trilogy. Is that true?

Benghazi? Yep. Lying about Benghazi? Yep. Bombing Libya? Yep. Responsible for both. The rest of your made up nonsense? Nope.

Financing the IRGC? Nope. That was you, and the rest of the geniuses who thought that we HAD to remove Saddam, without one thought about what that would do to the balance of power in the region. I thought we were talking about Trump & Obama. Neither started the Iraq-Iran war.Look in the mirror for that brilliant move. "Oh no, a murderous tyrant in the Middle East that America bankrolled!!! Well, we can't have that, can we".Not if they close the choke point straits to the Persian Gulf & Red Sea (access to from Med via Suez).Now blame Trump for backing the Shah or Desert One in '79.

If you told aliens about the "strategy" to first install the Shah, then bankroll Saddam to buffer the ensuing revolutionaries in Iran, then remove Saddam as said buffer via force, and then feign surprise when....shocker....Iran is left the only large power in the region? They'd immediately conclude that dogs are running things on earth, as we are their pets.... because no one is that stupid. Yeah. That's all Trump's fault. He agrees with much of your irrational rant but doesn't have a wayback machine to the '50's for a hindsight wisdom do over.

Things had stabilized by 2009.
Trump's dealing with what his predecessors left him & doing exactly what he told us he would do.
You complain about what you say are his mistakes, but you don't say (specifically) what they are.

First of all, I already have over the last 3 years.

Second of all, I don't have to. You do. You're the one telling us that your reading of foreign policy is partisan free.

So let's hear it. 20 mistakes Trump has made. Should be the easiest request you've ever fulfilled here.
They're all rhetorical. Undiplomatic style points. I already told you -- the 2 premature Syrian pullout announcements, which he walked back. The Greenland purchase gaffe (although a good idea) & insulting our staunch Danish NATO allies (which you give me no credit for criticizing at the time).

Where's the difference ? We also have troops in Japan, S Korea & throughout Europe.
We're not at war.

We're not at war? Dude. Do I REALLY need to give you a casualty list?

Do you think I'm angry about our ME policies for kicks? Or do you think I'm mad because US soldiers keep getting shipped home beat up in one way or another?
Factor out the non-combat ones & compare them to totals from all theaters. Analysis will show that it's a risky profession & we take casualties in non combat ops & training.

We are now enabling our allies who are.

Yep. That's where it always starts. Then mission creep. Then you start in with the "we can't leave" nonsense. Rinse. Repeat.

Do you not see any difference in the nature & scope of our current operations from when we were actively engaged in large scale ground combat ?

It depends on what you mean by "large scale ground combat", but yes, I can see the difference. But out of the last 30 years, how many months were spent at "large scale ground combat". Two? Three? We were either invading, occupying, or surging in Iraq & Afghanistan with large formations, until starting drawdowns in Iraq (2008) & Afghanistan (2012).
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/unit ... fghanistan
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/iraq/doc/costwar1.jpg

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ho ... e-n1079531
The Defense Department told NBC News Now that there were about 13,000 troops in Afghanistan, 5,200 troops in Iraq and 3,000 in Saudi Arabia. It didn't give an answer for the estimate in Syria.

Trump just announced drawdown to 8,500 in Afghanistan. 500 - 800 now in Syria. 28,000 in S Korea, ready to fight tonight.

Desert Storm lasted a month. Invasion of Iraq lasted a month. After that? It was either leaving Iraq, or "nation building/making a country stable".
I can't believe you don't understand the nature of our ops now, compared to our invasions & occupations of Iraq & Afghanistan. I'm done trying to explain them to someone with a closed mind. So consider this our final discussion on this topic.

I have no clue what you think the Afghanistan War was/is----large scale ground combat? Small scale skirmishes? You tell me.
Training & enabling Afghan Security Forces & isolated, low risk Special Forces snatch & grab (& kill) raids, at time & place of our choosing, with overwhelming intel & backup -- just like we've been doing in Iraq & Syria since ISIS emerged. It's our new way of war.

Triumphs ? The rise of the Caliphate ? All his "triumphs" were temporary, designed to fall apart after he left office, because he committed to crank ideas that were not supported & could not be sustained. ...or are you referring to the Rose Garden celebration of war hero Berghdahl.

If you can't see that Bergdahl was section 8.....I don't know what to tell you. Sane men don't walk through Afghanistan unarmed, with American clothes on. He stood to post. I could give a *hit if it was for only a day. He still did it. I'm glad we got him home.Obama dragged his parents before the cameras in the Rose Garden & Susan Rice went on tv telling us a deserter was a war hero. We lost 6 or 7 soldiers trying to find him. Bring him home, but don't tuen him into a hero, then take credit for saving him.

You know full well Obama had foreign policy victories, just as every other President, including our current President. Just stop with this silliness.
He OK'd the raid to take out OBL. Good call.

[old salt]

Trump turned Syria policy on its head. It’s working out better than critics thought
by Jamie McIntyre, Washington Examiner
November 28, 2019 11:30 PM

Two months later, you don't hear as much about Syria in the news, mainly because the worst-case predictions failed to come true.

Trump upended the chessboard in Syria, creating momentary havoc. Still, as the dust settles, the U.S. alliance with the Kurds has survived, joint operations against ISIS have resumed, coalition partners have hung tight, and 1,000 U.S. troops have been withdrawn.

Chalk some of that up to the ingenuity of U.S. military commanders who have an uncanny knack for turning Trump's spur-of-the-moment policy pronouncements into a workable strategy.
By appealing to Trump's business instincts, the Pentagon was able to convince him to swap out mechanized units for special operations forces, ostensibly to guard oil fields, but also to pursue ISIS.

As much as the administration pushed back on the idea that the U.S. president gave Erdogan his blessing for establishing a buffer zone in Syria, it was clear Trump was unhappy with the Pentagon's plan.

The United States had been working with the Turkish military to establish joint patrols in the northern border regions to ensure that Kurdish YPG fighters, which Erdogan views as terrorists, did not threaten Turkey.

But that did not accomplish Turkey's primary goal: clearing a large area of Syria for the resettlement of up to a million refugees who fled to Turkey over the years.

Trump was sympathetic to Turkey's refugee problem, and he also bristled at the idea of using U.S troops as a sort of cop-on-the-beat to keep the peace. "We're policing. We're not fighting, we're policing. We're not a police force," Trump said in defense of his decision the day after his Erdogan call.
"We don't have to defend the borders between Turkey and Syria," Trump said at a rally in Tupelo, Mississippi, last month. "They've been fighting for a thousand years."

By mid-November, Gen. Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the Kurdish forces in Syria, had reconciled to the new reality and said his forces would continue to guard ISIS prisoners and fight ISIS alongside U.S. troops.

"With the Americans, we started a project together. We are partners," Abadi told a CBS news correspondent. "Once this job is done, they can leave. We don't want the Americans to stay here for 400 years," but he added, "If the Americans break their promise again, the trust will be gone forever."

Then in the week before Thanksgiving, the U.S.-led counter-ISIS coalition announced the resumption of large-scale operations against ISIS, conducted in conjunction with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in Deir ez-Zor province, where ISIS was regrouping.

A coalition press release said multiple ISIS fighters were killed or wounded and said the "repositioning of Coalition troops to eastern Syria" had led only to "a brief pause" in operations against ISIS.

At the same time, Vice President Mike Pence made an unannounced visit to Iraq to bring Thanksgiving greetings to the 5,000 or so U.S. troops based in Irbil, the capital of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

Pence was there to shore up U.S. relations with the Kurds, which have been strained by the Turkish incursion into Syria.
But Pence said when he met with Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani, he did not sense any lingering bad feelings.

"I don't think there was any confusion now among the leadership here in the Kurdish region that President Trump's commitment to our allies here in Iraq, as well as to those in the Syrian Defense Forces, the Kurdish forces who fought alongside us, is unchanging," Pence said. "I could tell, in speaking to President Barzani and his team, that they know the American people are with them."

[MDlaxfan76]

Have you ever heard Pence not spout total, self-serving baloney?

Nah, the Kurds "know the American people are with them"...it's the President who betrayed them!

[Trinity]

Macron just slapped the stupid off Trump in their joint presser. (He’d have done better in front of Nadler.) Trump also says we don’t support the protesters in Iran.

[old salt]

Trump should lighten up on Macron. France might be below the 2% projection, but they spend effectively, aren't afraid to fight, maintain the ability to project power & do their part in maintaining global security. The French have taken the lead in the GWOT in N Africa, where they just lost 13 souls in a helo midair collision. They maintain an aircraft carrier that has helped fill our carrier gaps in the E Med & ME. Their pilots were strapped in, with live ordnance, ready to launch, when Obama did his Rose Garden stroll & backed down on striking Syria for crossing his WMD line in the sand. They still have SOF in NE Syria, working with ours, the Brits' & the Kurdish SDF.

If Macron can shame our EU allies into being more assertive, self-reliant & doing more -- that's a good thing for NATO.

Note for afan -- this post is a foreign policy criticism of Trump.

[a fan]

That's three criticisms in three years. But I guess that counts, eh? Works for me.

You won't hear any more from me on R's and D's when it comes to old salt's take on Trump foreign policy. Just as I promised.

[old salt]

That's three criticisms in three years. But I guess that counts, eh? Works for me.

You won't hear any more from me on R's and D's when it comes to old salt's take on Trump foreign policy. Just as I promised.

.....That's good news for my time management. My pack will appreciate the increased dog park time.
I could fill pages on my disagreements with Trump's rhetoric, style & "statesmanship" , but what's the point ?
He won't change. I prefer to focus on the underlying policies & the results.

[njbill]

Trump should lighten up on Macron.

Trump is mad Macron refused his request to open an investigation on Joe Biden.

[a fan]

That's three criticisms in three years. But I guess that counts, eh? Works for me.

You won't hear any more from me on R's and D's when it comes to old salt's take on Trump foreign policy. Just as I promised.

.....That's good news for my time management. My pack will appreciate the increased dog park time.
I could fill pages on my disagreements with Trump's rhetoric, style & "statesmanship" , but what's the point ?
He won't change. I prefer to focus on the underlying policies & the results.

Me too! I was just incredulous that you were agreeing with policy after policy----especially since Trump policies change by the tweet, and no one can tell you what Trump's actual policies are from day to day.

But whatever. We're good here. Enjoy the extra doggie-miles...happy to enable that!

[cradleandshoot]

That's three criticisms in three years. But I guess that counts, eh? Works for me.

You won't hear any more from me on R's and D's when it comes to old salt's take on Trump foreign policy. Just as I promised.

.....That's good news for my time management. My pack will appreciate the increased dog park time.
I could fill pages on my disagreements with Trump's rhetoric, style & "statesmanship" , but what's the point ?
He won't change. I prefer to focus on the underlying policies & the results.

OS, just out of curiosity. How many poopie bags do you need for your average outing? Once them doggies start runnin they start to a poopin. That is my experience at least.

[old salt]

...no one can tell you what Trump's actual policies are from day to day.

VDH & I can, but not day to day, it usually takes a few weeks to become obvious, after the COC catches up & adjusts. ..

[old salt]

That's three criticisms in three years. But I guess that counts, eh? Works for me.

You won't hear any more from me on R's and D's when it comes to old salt's take on Trump foreign policy. Just as I promised.

.....That's good news for my time management. My pack will appreciate the increased dog park time.
I could fill pages on my disagreements with Trump's rhetoric, style & "statesmanship" , but what's the point ?
He won't change. I prefer to focus on the underlying policies & the results.

OS, just out of curiosity. How many poopie bags do you need for your average outing? Once them doggies start runnin they start to a poopin. That is my experience at least.

2 dogs. 1 bag each. Our routine -- as soon as we arrive, my guys patrol the entire fence line inside the enclosure, checking their "pee mail" to see who's visited. I follow them, on turd patrol, with one of these , which our dog park provides & maintains. I pick up whatever they leave & any other targets of opportunity that others may have missed (paying it forward).

[a fan]

...no one can tell you what Trump's actual policies are from day to day.

VDH & I can, but not day to day, it usually takes a few weeks to become obvious, after the COC catches up & adjusts. ..

Conceding a point.....thank you for taking the high road.

Cheers, and good on ya for staying on poop patrol. We've got neighbors who don't do that.

[CU88]

That's three criticisms in three years. But I guess that counts, eh? Works for me.

You won't hear any more from me on R's and D's when it comes to old salt's take on Trump foreign policy. Just as I promised.

.....That's good news for my time management. My pack will appreciate the increased dog park time.
I could fill pages on my disagreements with Trump's rhetoric, style & "statesmanship" , but what's the point ?
He won't change. I prefer to focus on the underlying policies & the results.

OS, just out of curiosity. How many poopie bags do you need for your average outing? Once them doggies start runnin they start to a poopin. That is my experience at least.

2 dogs. 1 bag each. Our routine -- as soon as we arrive, my guys patrol the entire fence line inside the enclosure, checking their "pee mail" to see who's visited. I follow them, on turd patrol, with one of these , which our dog park provides & maintains. I pick up whatever they leave & any other targets of opportunity that others may have missed (paying it forward).

Love the term "pee mail"!

[old salt]

US tanks roll into Lithuania, for an extened deployment, to plug the critical corridor between Russian ally Belarus & the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, ...while NATO leaders snicker at Trump. Anticipate a surge in requests for Lithuanian fiance visas.

https://www.stripes.com/news/us-tanks-a ... t-1.600424

More than 500 U.S. soldiers and dozens of tanks and heavy fighting vehicles will deploy to Lithuania in the coming days on an extended mission to bulk up NATO’s eastern flank, the Baltic country’s military said Wednesday.

The troops are being dispatched as part of U.S. Army Europe’s Atlantic Resolve campaign, which involves rotating hundreds of troops to locations up and down eastern Europe in an effort to deter Russian aggression in the region.

The looming arrival of U.S. forces was welcomed by Lithuanian officials, who have lobbied for more frequent and longer American troop rotations since Atlantic Resolve began in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
“We have sought a larger, long-term U.S. military involvement in Lithuania and the region consistently and patiently,” Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis said in a statement. “Therefore the deployment of the U.S. Army battalion for a longer period of time is good and awaited news and a result of our efforts and investment.”
The U.S. military is “a vital factor of deterrence” in the Baltic region, Karoblis said.

Unlike past deployments of Army battalions to Lithuania, the current mission is for a long-term deployment rather than an international exercise, the Lithuanian defense ministry said. The unit — the 1st Battalion, 9th Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Hood, Texas — is expected to be in the country through spring 2020, it said.

The unit is part of a broader brigade rotation into Europe involving the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, which deploys in October, U.S. Army Europe said.

The 9th Cavalry will bring with it 30 Abrams tanks, 25 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles and 70 wheeled vehicles, the defense ministry said. They will be based out of a training area in Pabrade, a small town near the country’s border with Belarus.

Lithuania will provide lodging and logistical support during the deployment, the ministry said.

For the U.S.-led NATO alliance, the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been an area of focus during the past couple of years. All three have multinational alliance battlegroups, which were deployed on a year-round basis in 2017 to deter Russian aggression.

A U.S. battlegroup is also positioned in northern Poland, near the Russian military hub Kaliningrad, which is wedged between Poland and Lithuania. NATO forces in the area are focused on defending the Suwalki Gap, a vulnerable, 45-mile-wide corridor regarded as a likely battle zone in the event of a conflict with Russia.

Speaking of Lithuania, this typically precedes the arrival of little green men :
Russian Trolls Are Hammering Away at NATO’s Presence in Lithuania

[Kismet]

Its not NATO leaders fault - common sense is when one acts like a clown people often have a good laugh at said clown immediately following.

What's the over/under that TrumptyDumpty even knows that his armed forces are deployed in the Baltics? or where the Baltics are located?

reminds me of that famous movie line

" You think too much of me, kid - I'm not that clever." - Virgil Sollozzo

Shortly after uttering said line, we was deep-sixed into the next world by Al Pacino.

[old salt]

Trump's NATO accounting :

IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY: Call it arrogance, or ignorance, or maybe just a negotiating tactic, but President Trump — in making NATO funding his signature issue — consistently misrepresents the 2% of GDP defense spending benchmark as “payments to the alliance, instead of a measure of how member nations are building up their own capabilities.

The point is not to line NATO’s coffers, but to make sure when NATO embarks on a mission, each member has something to contribute to the fight.

“When we speak about NATO, it's not just about money,” French President Emmanuel Macron pushed back against Trump in their joint appearance. “The first burden we share, the first stock we pay is our soldiers' lives,” Macron said pointing out that France, which is just below the 2% goal, is one of the countries with troops on the ground with the U.S. “When I look at the situation in Syria and Iraq, France is definitely present.”

IT’S WHAT THE MONEY BUYS: While spending 2% on the military is one measure of each nation’s commitment to its own defense, the goals adopted by NATO members in 2014 included a second, arguably more important pledge to spend at least 20% on equipment. If, for example, a country meets its 2% goal by spending money on military pensions, that does nothing to increase NATO’s warfighting capabilities.

Bulgaria’s agreement to purchase eight Lockheed Martin F-16s pushed its numbers for 2019 to 3.25% of GDP, and 59% on equipment. But what really counts is if Bulgaria’s fleet of F-16s are manned by trained pilots able to fly real-word missions, shouldering some of the burden now carried by countries like the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, and Canada.

On this measure NATO countries are doing considerably better. While nine countries (including the U.S) meet the 2% goal, 17 meet the 20% goal for equipment.

IT’S NOT ABOUT HIM: “Look at this gentleman. When I came in, I was angry at NATO. And now I've raised $130 billion,” Trump bragged yesterday in one of his many impromptu news conferences.

Trump continues to push a narrative where nothing was happening until he arrived on the scene. “It was going down for close to 20 years. If you look at a chart, it was like a rollercoaster down, nothing up.”

It is true that the over-reliance on U.S. military might led many European countries to allow their militaries to atrophy. But the problem was addressed in 2014 at NATO’s Wales summit, when the spending goals were set, and countries were given 10 years, until 2024, to meet it. Since then NATO spending has been steadily rising, beginning before Trump’s election in 2016.

But NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is happy to give much of the credit to Trump, knowing full well that its an easy way to tell the American president what he wants to hear. Now Trump believes Stoltenberg is one of his biggest fans.

IT’S NOT ABOUT BACK DUES: Trump’s latest complaint, which he raised several times yesterday, is that it’s not enough for NATO countries to spend more now, but they need to make up for past underspending, labeling the laggards “delinquent.”

“For instance, if you have a country that's paying only 1%,” Trump argues. “Now we go to a new year and they don't pay, and now we go to yet another year and they don't pay. Well, now, I ask you, do they have to pay for the back years, OK? Now, so why is it that they owe us for this year, but every time a new year comes out, they don't have to pay? It's wrong. It's not right.”

But defense spending is not like dues or rent, where countries are in arrears. What’s past is past, and what counts is now. It’s pointless to try to go back in time, and increase readiness retroactively

THE MONEY DOESN’T GO TO NATO: Plus this is money that countries spend on themselves, not remit to NATO. There are no back payments to be made, only new funds for new investments in current military capabilities.

THE US DOESN’T PAY MORE WHEN OTHERS SPEND LESS: Unlike the situation in South Korea or Japan where Trump is asking allies to foot more of the bill to host U.S. troops, the level of defense spending by NATO nations has little to no effect on the U.S. defense budget.

If Trump gets South Korea to pay the U.S. $5 billion a year to offset the cost of keeping 28,500 American troops forward deployed, the U.S. saves that money. But if NATO countries spend $5 billion more, the U.S. is not going to shave $5 billion from its budget.

What it does do is relieve the U.S. of having to to most of the heavy lifting in the event of a military operation.

Good Wednesday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre

[old salt]

Its not NATO leaders fault - common sense is when one acts like a clown people often have a good laugh at said clown immediately following.

The above post is much like the vapid mean girl backbiting of Trudeau, Macron, Johnson & the ditzy Brit Princess.
NATO "leadership" on display. Tut tutting about Trump, rather than engaging on the tough issues,
like who's gonna help Turkey & Jordan with their Syrian refugees & who's going to imprison the IS detainees.
New Baltic Defense Plan unveiled (shifting US tanks from TX to Lithuania). Our troops spend the holidays in the field in Lithuania & Poland (rather than back home in TX with their families) while sniveling NATO freeriders mock our CinC.
Meanwhile, Australia's buying new F-35s & selling Canada their worn out early model F-18's.
This is what NATO does best. Good times for the Royals.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Its not NATO leaders fault - common sense is when one acts like a clown people often have a good laugh at said clown immediately following.

The above post is much like the vapid mean girl backbiting of Trudeau, Macron, Johnson & the ditzy Brit Princess.
NATO "leadership" on display. Tut tutting about Trump, rather than engaging on the tough issues,
like who's gonna help Turkey & Jordan with their Syrian refugees & who's going to imprison the IS detainees.
New Baltic Defense Plan unveiled (shifting US tanks from TX to Lithuania). Our troops spend the holidays in the field in Lithuania & Poland (rather than back home in TX with their families) while sniveling NATO freeriders mock our CinC.
Meanwhile, Australia's buying new F-35s & selling Canada their worn out early model F-18's.
This is what NATO does best. Good times for the Royals.

Doesn’t make Trump any less of a clown.

[jhu72]

Awe, the mean girls were making fun of her and her reaction was to cry about the mean girls and then run home to mommy. Poor little Trumpella. What a loser. I thought we had a real tough guy, a man's man as president, and we got a sensitive little girlly man. What an embarrassment to this country.