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US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy

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Re: US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy

<img src="https://i.ibb.co/M9JMS4K/al-baghdadi-dead.jpg" alt="al-baghdadi-dead" border="0" height="400"></a>

He must be part feline.
 
Re: US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy

<img width=470 src=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/snl/images/f/f5/Chevy_Chase_on_Weekend_Update.jpg>
"This breaking news just in, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still dead."
 
Re: US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy

A former top US counterterrorism official explains what Baghdadi’s death means for ISIS

Michael Leiter, who led the National Counterterrorism Center during the Osama bin Laden raid, offers his thoughts on the Baghdadi operation.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the world’s most notorious terrorist, died during a raid by US military forces, President Donald Trump said in a Sunday morning press conference. The former ISIS leader’s death put an end to a years-long hunt and gives Trump another major victory in his fight against ISIS.

But Trump went further than just announcing the raid’s success. He answered questions after his dramatic remarks, divulging an astonishing amount about US intelligence and American military operations that could benefit American adversaries in the future. He displayed a deep misunderstanding of how ISIS works.

He also denigrated the ISIS leader, saying Baghdadi was “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way” to a dead-end tunnel. While Trump may view those comments as a smart way to delegitimize Baghdadi, many experts say that wasn’t the president’s finest moment.
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Some key observations:

Alex Ward:Instead of announcing the operation’s success and walking away, Trump answered a ton of questions about the raid. Was it troubling to you to see Trump divulge a lot of information like that?

Michael Leiter:Well, first Trump exaggerated Baghdadi’s importance. Second, he repeatedly used language which frankly feeds into the ISIS and the al-Qaeda narrative about the US being at war with Muslims in nations throughout the world, as well as solely caring about our own pecuniary, economic interests like oil. Third, he made it seem like the US will discard its alliances at the drop of a hat. That is a very troubling message to the allies and partners we need need to fight with us, like the Syrian Kurds.

There was also a clear lack of historical appreciation for how these organizations rise, take hold, and are potentially defeated. To the president it all became about finding and killing this one individual. That’s important, but it’s not how these terrorist groups are ultimately ousted.
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Alex Ward:Trump saying that Baghdadi was “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way” into the tunnel was striking. What were your views on that language?

Michael Leiter:Highlighting and repeating that language is not especially dignified for the United States. We should always take a higher moral ground, and talking about an individual’s death is not particularly productive.

What the president should’ve spent more time on was highlighting ISIS’s atrocities, like the killing of the Jordanian pilot. That’s appropriate: It shows that ISIS wasn’t at war with the West, it was at war with all peoples who are civilized, including Muslims who don’t adhere to their extremely strict view of Sunni Islam.

Ultimately, I think it reflects more on the president and how he’s willing to communicate. I don’t think any of that is productive in terms of diminishing ISIS’s message or keeping our allies aligned with our goal of undermining ISIS’s narrative.
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Alex Ward:Is there any chance ISIS followers will hear Trump’s telling of the raid and sour on Baghdadi?

Michael Leiter:I think it will inspire anger — if that language did not, other language will. The idea that Donald Trump’s presentation will somehow undermine ISIS’s appeal to its adherents is nothing short of laughable.

Alex Ward:Trump also made the case that Baghdadi was equivalent or even bigger than bin Laden in his press conference remarks. Is he right?

Michael Leiter:This is Trump talking about terrorism from his uniquely Trumpian perspective. Osama bin Laden was the principal leader for radical Sunni Islamic terrorism. He brought that movement together, he built an organization that had more a destructive force on the United States and Muslims throughout the world than any terrorist leader in history.

Baghdadi is an offshoot of that, and the most significant terrorist leader today. But any claim that Baghdadi was more important than bin Laden reflects a complete misunderstanding of the terror threat we’ve been combating for more than 20 years.
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Alex Ward:Trump gave a lot of information on the raid during his press conference. That was highly unusual, right?

Michael Leiter:I am rather confident that the president was more forthcoming than many in his administration would’ve liked. We had similar problems after the bin Laden raid and that caused significant angst in the intelligence and operations community because more was disclosed than the operators would’ve liked.

We should disclose things that are important for people to understand why we were impressive in our approach, but that does not include divulging operational details that might make something like this harder to do next time.

Alex Ward:Wait: Trump giving away some of the information he did might make future operations like this harder?

Michael Leiter:Talking about how many aircraft, where the aircraft are flying in, how they’re breaching a building, other technology they can bring to bear, knowledge about the tunnels and the mapping of those tunnels, these are operational details which are only about preening. They do not provide valuable insight into the US decision-making and potentially do provide potentially insight to our adversaries in the future.
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Yes this is opinion.
 
Re: US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy

Someone didn’t get enough direct praise yet.

“ BREAKING: President Trump said Monday that he is considering releasing portions of the video of the U.S. military raid that led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi over the weekend. Trump described the raid in northwest Syria with great detail when announcing al-Baghdadi’s death in an address on Sunday morning.

“We’re thinking about it. We may,”
 
Re: US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy

good lord. 25A this guy before he gets people killed.
 
Re: US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy

dxmnkd316 said:
good lord. 25A this guy before he gets people killed.
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Sadly, the 25th Amendment requires the Cabinet and VP that's now full of lackeys to say he's incompetent and for Trump not to disagree. All he has to say is "I'm fine" and power shifts back to him. It's there so when the President is getting a colonoscopy, someone's there to fire the nukes during the two hours he's out, based on the Bush administration.
 
Re: US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy

US deploying more troops around Syria oil fields after killing of Isis leader
Trump has said he hopes to secure a US share of Syrian oil revenues, which is potentially a war crime

But of course. Also LWT had a great piece on the Syrian eff up but every minute of it will be lost on Trump's #FAPs.

General Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said on Monday that US forces would remain in Tanf along the Iraqi border, and more were being sent to the oil fields operated by the US energy corporation ConocoPhillips around Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria.

Video footage from the region showed US military convoys re-entering Syria, days after Donald Trump had ordered them out in advance of a Turkish invasion. The change of mind reportedly came after Pentagon officials persuaded the president that it was essential to protect east Syrian oil resources.

“Keep the oil, I’ve always said that. We’ve secured the oil,” Trump told a police chiefs’ conference on Monday. The president has said that his aim would be to secure a US share of Syrian oil revenues, which is potentially a war crime.
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The defense secretary, Mark Esper, claimed that the objective of the deployment was to guard the oil fields to prevent the revenues benefiting Isis but also to keep them out of Syrian regime or Russian control, so that the benefits went to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

“We want to make sure that SDF does have access to those resources in order to guard the prisons, in order to arm their own troops in order to assist us with the defeat Isis mission,” Esper said.

Trump has defended his decision to abandon the SDF, saying it was not America’s job to police a longstanding conflict between Turks and Kurds, but Esper said that the US troops remaining in Syria those who remain would be “staying in close contact with the Syrian Democratic Forces, who have fought alongside us”.
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Eff the Kurds, eff The Constitution...
 
Re: US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy

I heard again this morning that American companies have no interest in that oil. It's too dangerous. The market is down. They have plenty from other sources. So, what is his deal exactly?
 
Re: US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy

ScoobyDoo said:
I heard again this morning that American companies have no interest in that oil. It's too dangerous. The market is down. They have plenty from other sources. So, what is his deal exactly?
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War profiteering to own the libs, duh.
 
Slap Shot said:
US deploying more troops around Syria oil fields after killing of Isis leader
Trump has said he hopes to secure a US share of Syrian oil revenues, which is potentially a war crime

But of course. Also LWT had a great piece on the Syrian eff up but every minute of it will be lost on Trump's #FAPs.





Eff the Kurds, eff The Constitution...
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Bet those Kurds start fragging a lot of American soldiers
 
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