Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Some observers are likening Trump’s abrupt departure from Syria and President Barack Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. The two events show no resemblance whatsoever, and the frequently-made charge that Obama could have stayed in Iraq is incorrect. Here’s the difference. 1. Obama did not betray America’s allies in Iraq, […]
Dem Leadership brands as “Shameful” Pence’s Agreement for Turkey “Pause” in Kurdish Areas
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Mariam Khan at ABC News reports that yesterday speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority Leader Chuck Schumer lambasted the pause in fighting by Turkey negotiated by vice president Mike Pence “sham ceasefire.” They added, “President Erdogan has given up nothing, and President Trump has given him everything,” […]
Blaming Victims, Trump attacks Syrian Kurds as “Communists,” “No Angels,” PKK as worse than ISIL
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Dispatches from the Great Trump Clown Parade, which would be gut-busting hilarious if it did not involve real-world dark horrors, including the displacement of some 130,000 Kurds along with deaths and woundings, and the escape of over a hundred ISIL detainees. An unprecedented bipartisan congressional resolution was passed Wednesday against […]
Russians, Syrian Army take over Manbij and its US Bases, Blocking Turkey
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) took control of the city of Manbij on Tuesday, with Russian gendarmes taking up patrols of the city as US special operations forces abandoned two military bases in the region, which were also taken over by Russians. The SAA and the Russians appear to have […]
Why? 3 Possible reasons Trump is threatening Turkey with Sanctions after Greenlighting Syria Invasion
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump is slapping sanctions on Turkey for invading northern Syria after Trump told Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan that it would be all right for him to invade northern Syria. It is really difficult to be an analyst of foreign affairs in the age of Trump, because we try to understand […]
Trump’s Saigon Evacuation Moment, as US Troops Flee and Syrian/Russian Forces are invited in by Kurds
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – For us oldsters, one of the iconic photographs of the twentieth century was the last US military helicopter taking off from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon, with desperate people hanging off it, fearful of what would happen to them when they fell into the hands of the […]
Kurds consider Asking for Russian No-Fly Zone as Moscow demands Foreign Armies leave Syria
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A CNN exclusive by Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne reveals that Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi told the US, “I need to know if you are capable of protecting my people, of stopping these bombs falling on us or not. I need to know, because if you’re not, I need to […]
Turkey Shells position of US Special Forces in Syria, almost Provokes Firefight
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tom O’Connor , James LaPorta AND Naveed Jamali at Newsweek report that the Turkish military subjected a position occupied by between 20 and 100 US special forces personnel embedded with the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) to heavy artillery fire. Turkey has invaded northeast Syria for the purpose of ethnically […]
How the Roberts Court’s ‘Citizens United’ allowed Parnas and Fruman to Buy influence in America
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As I pointed out last week, the most powerful intervention in US politics allowing foreign influence in US elections, which contributed to Trump’s victory in 2016, was the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, (2010) decision. Like Michaelangelo’s God creating Adam with a pointing finger, SCOTUS created out […]
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