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1/31/2019, “Senate rebukes Trump’s plan to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, Afghanistan," Washington Post, Karoun Demirjian
“The vast majority of Senate Republicans backed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday in a rebuke of President Trump’s rationale for withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan....The measure is a striking reprimand of the president.”…
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Added: 2/5/2019, Mitch McConnell is proud of his efforts to keep US troops in Afghanistan: “I’m especially proud it includes my amendment reaffirming the importance of our nation’s ongoing missions in Afghanistan and Syria.”
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Added: Additional 2019 article on Senate’s rebuke of Trump’s request to withdraw troops from Afghanistan:
2/19/2019, “in a move widely reported as a stinging rebuke of President Donald Trump, the U.S. Senate voted 70-26 to warn against a “precipitous withdrawal” of troops from Syria and Afghanistan. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the author of the legislation, staunchly proclaimed that his chamber “will not shrink” from its important role in foreign policy.”..2/19/19, “Congress May Make It Impossible to End a War,“ defenseone.com, Charles G. Kels
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Added: The Pentagon simply ignored Trump: “The Pentagon and the national security apparatus have ignored, circumvented, or otherwise subverted his orders to withdraw troops from foreign theaters, notably Syria and now Germany.”
8/31/2020, “Voting in a de facto military state," Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News
“Unsurprisingly, [as of 8/31/20] we have seen virtually no progress toward [2016 candidate] Trump’s [promised] objectives since he took office in January 2017.
The Pentagon and the national security apparatus have ignored, circumvented, or otherwise subverted his orders to withdraw troops from foreign theaters, notably Syria and now Germany. Relations with Russia have dramatically worsened. NATO still pretends it has a function in the post–Soviet era.…
In spring 2017, when the military contradicted his early efforts to deescalate in Syria, Trump…granted the Pentagon
“total authorization” to act as it saw fit.
With after-the-fact capitulations such as this, Trump has made himself a pushover for the hawks and Deep Staters who surround him….
Foreign policy took up several important planks in Trump’s platform, readers may recall. He campaigned promising to reduce the military’s presence abroad, end our wars of adventure, ease NATO into the history books, and make a constructive relationship with Russia out of the unnecessary hostilities Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, his secretary of state, left behind.
These positions won him votes….
Whoever wins this election, Joe Biden or Donald Trump, the answers before us are grim. For those who vote, the choice lies between a mentally impaired restorationist and a paralyzed captive of what some of us call the Deep State….
Between Biden and Trump, US voters have no alternative to our anxious empire’s lawless conduct abroad…war and more war, destructive interventions….
The wars and occupations will grind on, the extravagant Pentagon budgets will remain, the reigning Russophobia will remain.”…
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Added: July 30, 2020, “Why Trump (and the GOP) Must Do Better,” Jack Kerwick, American Greatness
“But Trump said he was the one guy who could smash “circumstances”: “The author of The Art of the Deal promised to make America great again. He never added the qualifier that he would restore the country’s greatness only if Republicans and Democrats liked him....This is in no way intended as a justification for the Republicans’ dishonesty and cowardice….My point is simply that it is Trump who made history precisely because it is Trump who styled himself “the outsider,” the businessman, who would shake up the Swamp of D.C. and reverse America’s misfortunes.”…
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Added: Everyone knows you can ignore what Trump says because he almost always folds:
May 23, 2018, “Trump Almost Always Folds,” The Atlantic, David A. Graham…
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Added: Among comments to 8/31/2020 Patrick Lawrence article:
“AnneR, September 1, 2020
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Thank you, Patrick, for this – highly depressing, of course-overview of our so-called “choices” for Nov. 3. Enough to make one scream…
Nothing will change, whether Biden or the Strumpet are in the WH and not just because of the Deep State. Both fundamentally believe or go along with the notion that the US – by right of might – determines the world’s direction.”….