# Trump does something right **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 19, 2018, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374 "2018-12-19T16:17:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2018, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/101 "2018-12-24T21:59:13Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Good grief. Get your phone and go to Syria. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2018, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/102 "2018-12-24T22:05:48Z")
> [@MortSahlFan](#): > > Get your phone and go to Syria. Yeah, 'cause…that will do something or mean something. Great comeback! ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2018, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/103 "2018-12-25T13:02:01Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > I have to say, I’m not very open to the argument that (barely paraphrasing) “If you disagree with me, you’re okay with children getting gassed over there.” Try reading the thread before firing off a reflex response. Several people in this thread have specifically said they don’t care about children being gassed. The only reason I grouped them into one paraphrase is that I’m traveling, and quoting several people in one post is a pain on my phone. > [@](#): > > The guiding principle here is the Powell Doctrine: Don’t send troops solely for humanitarian purposes. A lot of children are getting gassed in a lot of places and we only have X number of troops to go around, and anyway, peacekeeping and nation building aren’t something they are famously good at doing. There are tens of thousands of US troops deployed on humanitarian / peacekeeping missions around the world. They should… stop now, because of an old quote? Otherwise what exactly is the logic here? And as for “a lot of children are getting gassed” how about we try to save as many as we can? Instead of engaging in the fallacy of absolutes? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2018, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/104 "2018-12-25T13:14:59Z")
Double post ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2018, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/105 "2018-12-25T13:41:03Z")
Oops and not “tens of” thousands ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/106 "2018-12-26T04:05:49Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Yeah, my opening sentence was meant more as an acknowledgement of what a shitty situation it is to be Kurdish than any sort of a ringing endorsement of American friendship, but if what we’re supposed to feel is “shame” for the way we’ve treated them, I can scarcely imagine what the rest of the world is supposed to feel. I don’t judge the decency of my behavior based on the actions of somebody else. I judge whether my behavior is decent against my own standards. We should feel shame that we are leaving the YPG/SDF in a precarious position without warning or any serious diplomatic effort to ensure their safety after 4 years of fighting side-by-side in Syria. It’s shameful. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/107 "2018-12-26T09:43:11Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > There are tens of thousands of US troops deployed on humanitarian / peacekeeping missions around the world. They should… stop now, because of an old quote? Otherwise what exactly is the logic here? > > And as for “a lot of children are getting gassed” how about we try to save as many as we can? Instead of engaging in the fallacy of absolutes? They should stop because humanitarian/peacekeeping missions are not what they do well. They shoot people and blow shit up better than any other military force in Earth’s history. They guard our coasts and keep our shipping lanes safe to an unprecedented degree. They should not be putting Band-Aids on centuries-old tribal conflicts that will re-ignite the day after they inevitably leave. Nor should they be at the beck and call of Afghan warlords who have old scores to settle. The Powell Doctrine (which should probably be called “the Weinberger Doctrine”) dates back to 1990, not that long ago. Nirvana had already released its first album, for comparison’s sake. I’m not trotting out the Monroe Doctrine or the Council of Trent. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/108 "2018-12-26T15:08:40Z")
That has nothing to do with Syria. Troops there are supporting an allied insurgency to fuck with Assad and Iran. That’s not a humanitarian or nation building effort. They are being removed at the request of an increasingly dodgy ally, who plans on wiping out the other ally. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2018, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/109 "2018-12-27T20:12:07Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I think it’s a good thing, or at least the best available course of action under the circumstances. Here’s why. > > The USA has a foreign policy establishment, consisting of certain politicians, unelected officials, media outlets, and think tanks who have guided and shaped all policies in the Middle East for the past generation. And they keep shaping terrible decisions. They’ve given us war, war, war and more war. They’ve given us war in Iraq and war in Afghanistan and war in Libya and war in Syria. They’ve given us bombing campaigns in Somalia and Pakistan and elsewhere. And where they don’t have the American military waging war directly, they have us providing weapons for other people’s wars, as is now happening in Yemen. > > So the foreign policy establishment is a bunch of evil bastards who like spending trillions of dollars waging war in the Middle East while showing, at best, indifference to whether large numbers of innocent people are killed. They’re also deeply entrenched. Every reformer who comes in and tries to reduce the number of wars, the amount of killing, and the massive spending on those wars and killing, eventually gets defeated. Obama took office ten years ago with an obvious mandate to change policy in the Middle East. Although he did initially pull American troops from Iraq, somehow during his administration we ended up waging yet more wars, and to top it all our troops were back in Iraq by the time he left office. > > So the foreign policy establishment is the problem and Trump is smart enough to know this, even if his critics are not. Suppose Trump were to announce that he wanted to withdraw troops from Syria, so he was going to consult with lots of experts and devise a careful strategy and reach agreements with our allies and set up a plan to have our troops out within two years. What would happen? The establishment would spend those two years plotting to undermine Trump’s strategy and force him to stay in Syria. Heck, in two years Bill Kristol would have founded a new magazine devoted to explaining why Republicans must support 30,000 troops at permanent bases in the country. > > The only way to beat the establishment and actually end a war for once is to move quickly and not give the bad guys time to organize. That’s what Trump is doing. No, let’s be clear; Trump’s an idiot with no understanding of foreign or domestic issues. Trump is not smarter than the foreign policy establishment. If Trump has managed to do something right, it’s because he stumbled into it and is doing it for the wrong reasons. But that said, I’m willing to say he’s doing the right thing. I won’t oppose it just because Trump did it. In my opinion, Syria is another Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam; an ongoing occupation by American troops in a hostile region with no end goal on the horizon. We shouldn’t fight any wars where we can’t even figure out what a victory would look like. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/110 "2018-12-27T20:46:48Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > No, let’s be clear; Trump’s an idiot with no understanding of foreign or domestic issues. Trump is not smarter than the foreign policy establishment. If Trump has managed to do something right, it’s because he stumbled into it and is doing it for the wrong reasons. > > But that said, I’m willing to say he’s doing the right thing. I won’t oppose it just because Trump did it. In my opinion, Syria is another Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam; an ongoing occupation by American troops in a hostile region with no end goal on the horizon. We shouldn’t fight any wars where we can’t even figure out what a victory would look like. Occupation?? I don’t know what some of you are even thinking. The US isn’t occupying Syria in any way, shape or form. This isn’t anything like Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam! The end goal IS in sight…ISIS is on the ropes and will probably be down for the count in months at the outside. I would oppose it if Trump said it was a good idea based on simple reflex, but this patently is a VERY STUPID IDEA NO MATTER WHO IT CAME FROM. Good grief. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2018, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/111 "2018-12-28T05:28:05Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Occupation?? I don’t know what some of you are even thinking. The US isn’t occupying Syria in any way, shape or form. This isn’t anything like Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam! The end goal IS in sight…ISIS is on the ropes and will probably be down for the count in months at the outside. I’ll agree there’s a gray area between where an American military presence ends and an American military occupation begins. But one does tend to flow into the other. Our current situation in Syria is roughly equivalent to our situation in Vietnam around 1963 - which says nothing encouraging about the future. As for defeating ISIS, I suppose in a narrow sense we might succeed in that. We could probably retake the territory being held by the current organization. But can anyone seriously claim the problem will be solved with that? A lot of those fighters will just go back underground. At some point ISIS will just re-appear, albeit perhaps under a different name. And even if by some miracle we somehow managed to completely eliminate the threat of fundamentalist terrorist groups in Syria, all we would have done is secure Bashar Assad in power. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2018, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/112 "2018-12-28T17:49:18Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’ll agree there’s a gray area between where an American military presence ends and an American military occupation begins. But one does tend to flow into the other. Our current situation in Syria is roughly equivalent to our situation in Vietnam around 1963 - which says nothing encouraging about the future. > > As for defeating ISIS, I suppose in a narrow sense we might succeed in that. We could probably retake the territory being held by the current organization. But can anyone seriously claim the problem will be solved with that? A lot of those fighters will just go back underground. At some point ISIS will just re-appear, albeit perhaps under a different name. > > And even if by some miracle we somehow managed to completely eliminate the threat of fundamentalist terrorist groups in Syria, all we would have done is secure Bashar Assad in power. How is Vietnam in 1963 roughly equivalent to Syria today??? There were between 11,000 and 16,000 troops deployed into South Vietnam as advisors to help build up the South Vietnamese military and keep the regime in power. Today there are around 2000 special forces deployed to Syria to coordinate air strikes and coordinate with the local groups fighting ISIS. I’m not seeing any real parallels outside of the fact that we have troops deployed outside of the US. I think we ARE succeeding in destroying ISIS…in fact, we are on the verge of succeeding in that goal. We don’t have a goal to overthrow Assad, merely prevent him (and his Russia and Iranian allies) from crossing a few lines wrt human rights war crimes…and I think that 2000 troops is a fricking small price to pay for that in any terms. I get that many in this thread ‘don’t care’ about stuff like that, but it’s a small commitment in terms of manpower and in terms of cost and we get a huge return for that money. Now, if someone were suggesting we ramp that up and actually go after Assad directly in some sort of Iraq war II thingy, I’d be with you guys and I’d oppose that. But this? I don’t get the protest on this except from the pro-Trump does everything right side, which I know you aren’t on. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2018, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374/113 "2018-12-28T21:44:23Z")
So, looks like the Kurds are handing off Manbij to Syrian government control rather than defending it from Turkish takeover thanks to this. > **[Syria war: Government forces 'enter Manbij' amid Turkey threats](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46701095)** > > Kurds withdraw and invite Syrian forces to replace them amid fears of a Turkish attack. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-does-something-right/826374.md?page=5)