2 Replies to “Barry Webb on Turkey and the new order in the Middle East”
FYI: The Knob Creek shoot is a civilian target shoot held once a year, people with legally owned WW! and WWII machines and cannons show up and put on displays. For X numbers of dollars you can get to shoot machine guns and small cannon. The night shoot is put on as a visual display for the visitors, both the exhibitors and the “visitors” pay to get in with the exhibitors making their money back by letting people shoot their machine guns etc for money.
Most Americans who aren’t members of the firearms community have never heard of Knob Creek and some of the Firearms community have to stop and think before they recognize what and where it is. The thing that was so bad about the ABC report was that they had to edit out American voices talking and c heering what was going on.
I briefly heard a guy on the radio today denigrating Trump for pulling troops out of the “buffer zone” that Turkey wishes to establish in NE Syria.
This man was to me a perfect case of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand he kept emphasizing that only 1,000 US troops were in this area and that ONLY 6 US military personnel and one civilian had been killed this year (please tell their families how insignificant their loved one’s deaths are). And, on the other hand, he kept saying that pulling them out would be a complete disaster, a betrayal and that ISIS was going to come and blow up our cities…
The US has been in this region in a hot war for 16 years. If I had been interviewing this man I would have asked him how many more years should the US maintain a military presence in this region? Ten more years? 15, 50?
He then went on to compare the presence in the Middle East to troop numbers in Germany, S Korea and Japan. What he omitted is that NONE of the troops in the ladder countries are involved in a hot war. The worst that could befall them is dying in a training exercise or a car crash. Not ISIS overrunning their base and slaughtering everyone. Quite a difference.
In addition, the US has been told that the 30,000 ISIS troops in containment are on the verge of liberating themselves from the detainment camps that the Kurds are running and that if they do escape it will be the fault of the US. The Europeans have refused to take back their ISIS citizens being more than happy to let them rot, knowing full well that their escape valve is “blame the US”.
I wish Trump would be bombastic enough to call the Europeans on this. If you don’t want to take back your own citizens and spend the money for trial and incarceration then how about you send a contingent of 5,000 MPs to the region to take over the job that the Kurds clearly can’t do.
But that would take money that Europe is not willing to expend. There is no “virtue” in containing ISIS. Let the Americans pick up the bill in blood and treasure.
FYI: The Knob Creek shoot is a civilian target shoot held once a year, people with legally owned WW! and WWII machines and cannons show up and put on displays. For X numbers of dollars you can get to shoot machine guns and small cannon. The night shoot is put on as a visual display for the visitors, both the exhibitors and the “visitors” pay to get in with the exhibitors making their money back by letting people shoot their machine guns etc for money.
Most Americans who aren’t members of the firearms community have never heard of Knob Creek and some of the Firearms community have to stop and think before they recognize what and where it is. The thing that was so bad about the ABC report was that they had to edit out American voices talking and c heering what was going on.
I briefly heard a guy on the radio today denigrating Trump for pulling troops out of the “buffer zone” that Turkey wishes to establish in NE Syria.
This man was to me a perfect case of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand he kept emphasizing that only 1,000 US troops were in this area and that ONLY 6 US military personnel and one civilian had been killed this year (please tell their families how insignificant their loved one’s deaths are). And, on the other hand, he kept saying that pulling them out would be a complete disaster, a betrayal and that ISIS was going to come and blow up our cities…
The US has been in this region in a hot war for 16 years. If I had been interviewing this man I would have asked him how many more years should the US maintain a military presence in this region? Ten more years? 15, 50?
He then went on to compare the presence in the Middle East to troop numbers in Germany, S Korea and Japan. What he omitted is that NONE of the troops in the ladder countries are involved in a hot war. The worst that could befall them is dying in a training exercise or a car crash. Not ISIS overrunning their base and slaughtering everyone. Quite a difference.
In addition, the US has been told that the 30,000 ISIS troops in containment are on the verge of liberating themselves from the detainment camps that the Kurds are running and that if they do escape it will be the fault of the US. The Europeans have refused to take back their ISIS citizens being more than happy to let them rot, knowing full well that their escape valve is “blame the US”.
I wish Trump would be bombastic enough to call the Europeans on this. If you don’t want to take back your own citizens and spend the money for trial and incarceration then how about you send a contingent of 5,000 MPs to the region to take over the job that the Kurds clearly can’t do.
But that would take money that Europe is not willing to expend. There is no “virtue” in containing ISIS. Let the Americans pick up the bill in blood and treasure.