Trump orders rapid withdrawal from Syria in apparent reversal

Trump orders rapid withdrawal from Syria in apparent reversal

By Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne, CNN
Updated 10:23 AM ET, Wed December 19, 2018

Washington (CNN) Planning is underway for a "full" and "rapid" withdrawal of US troops from Syria, a US defense official told CNN Wednesday.

The decision, which would be a reversal from previously stated US policy, was made by President Donald Trump, who has long signaled his desire to get out of Syria, the official added.

On Wednesday morning, the President tweeted, "we have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency."

Even though the US will continue to maintain troops in Iraq with the capability of launching strikes into Syria, a US withdrawal of ground forces would fulfill a major goal of Syria, Iran and Russia and risks diminishing US influence in the region.

The US has about 2,000 troops on the ground in the country, where they are primarily training local forces to combat ISIS. The US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have had some recent success against the terror group and are on the cusp of capturing the last major town held by ISIS east of the Euphrates.

Estimates vary as to how many ISIS fighters are left in Syria. In the town of Hajin, the terror group's last redoubt, the coalition estimated some 2,000 ISIS fighters were present. But a Defense Department inspector general report put the number of ISIS members in Syria and Iraq as high as 30,000.

The US has forces in Iraq ready to launch attacks in Syria if necessary. In the last few weeks, the US-led coalition fighting ISIS has carried out hundreds of air and artillery strikes targeting ISIS in Syria. Some of those strikes were launched from neighboring Iraq, where the US has over 5,000 troops. Hundreds of US troops have also been training local forces at At Tanf in southern Syria, where Russia-backed pro-regime forces are seeking to oust the US presence.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning told CNN that, "at this time, we continue to work by, with and through our partners in the region."

The US-led coalition recently denied any change to the US presence in Syria.

"Any reports indicating a change in the US position with respect" to the US military presence in Syria "is false and designed to sow confusion and chaos," the coalition said in a statement earlier this month.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this month that the US needed to train thousands of local fighters to ensure a lasting defeat of the terror group.

US forces were recently directed by Secretary of Defense James Mattis to establish observation posts along the Syria-Turkish border as part of an effort to reduce tensions between Turkey and America's Kurdish allies in the fight against ISIS.
News of the planned withdrawal was earlier reported by The Wall Street Journal.

CNN's Devan Cole contributed to this report.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/19/polit...wal/index.html

ORDER RAPID DEPORTATION OFF ALL THEIR REFUGEES OFF OUR SOIL!!!

SET A WEEKLY QUOTA

THEY NEED TO GO HOME, REUNITE WITH FAMILY MEMBERS AND REBUILD WITHOUT OUR MONEY!

WE SPENT ENOUGH! NO MORE...NOT ONE MORE DIME!!!

STOP BRINGING REFUGEES HERE!

In Drastic Reversal, Trump Orders Full Withdrawal From Syria After "Victory Over ISIS"

https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defa...?itok=VqL4YdHn

"We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign." — White House statement

Wed, 12/19/2018 - 14:22
6.8K SHARES

update 2: A troop withdrawal appears already underway after a Pentagon official said it would happen "quickly".
White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders has issued a formal statement on troop withdrawal from Syria: "We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign."
Moments after President Trump confirmed reports of US pullout via Twitter saying "We have defeated ISIS in Syria," Pentagon officials said the president "ordered full US troop withdrawal from Syria," and that this will be "rapid" — apparently already beginning, per a Reuters breaking report: "All U.S. State Department personnel are being evacuated from Syria within 24 hours - official."

The full White House statement issued Wednesday late morning:


View image on Twitter https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Duyl2epW...jpg&name=small

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...uMb_normal.jpg Kaitlan Collins ✔ @kaitlancollins

Sarah Sanders: “We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign...”

32
10:45 AM - Dec 19, 2018

Meanwhile Israel's ambassador to the U.N. has vowed to continue combating Iran in Syria if US forces leave. Russia has alternately said "Syria will stabilize" should the thousands of American troops stationed there exit.
***
update: It's official, within an hour after the first headline the president tweeted "We have defeated ISIS in Syria" and in reference to reports of a planned US troop withdrawal from Syria which unnamed officials say is to be initiated "immediately," he added that the terror group's defeat was "my only reason for being there".

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...00m_normal.jpg Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.

84.7K
9:29 AM - Dec 19, 2018

Minutes after the WSJ first broke the story, The Washington Post confirmed the following through a defense official:

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that has not yet been announced, said the decision would include the entire force of more than 2,000 U.S. service members. It was made on Tuesday, the official said.
President Trump has long promised to conclude the campaign against the Islamic State and has questioned the value of costly and dangerous military missions overseas.

he WSJ just reported a monumental and historic reversal in White House policy on Syria, revealing Wednesday morning the Pentagon is preparing to withdraw all forces from northeastern Syria "immediately":

In an abrupt reversal, the U.S. military is preparing to withdraw its forces from northeastern Syria, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday, a move that throws the American strategy in the Middle East into turmoil.
U.S. officials began informing partners in northeastern Syria of their plans to begin immediately pulling American forces out of the region where they have been trying to wrap up the campaign against Islamic State, the people said.

https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defa...%20Syria_0.jpg
US forces in Syria, via ABC NewsThe WSJ notes the complete 180 reversal in policy, which just days ago was reiterated by officials as an "indefinite" American presence in Syria in order to "counter Iran" while bolstering Kurdish and Arab SDF forces in the East (the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces), comes following a phone call last week between President Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
For the past week Erdogan has threatened to launch a full-scale cross border assault on US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria, which Turkey has long considered an terrorist extension of the outlawed PKK. This would potentially bring American troops and advisers under fire, who've found themselves in the awkward position since entering Syria of training Syrian Kurdish militias on the one hand, and coordinating broadly with a NATO ally on the other.
Perhaps Trump finally took full stock of the fact that the prior planned "indefinite" presence of some 4000 American troops was recipe for a quagmire sure to be Washington's next Afghan or Iraq style "endless war"?
As one recent intelligence study put it: "The prospect of US being militarily involved in Syria, caught in middle of one of most complex conflicts in recent memory, with shifting objectives & ambiguous endgame, has been met with congressional indifference and public apathy."
Will America finally exit Syria? Is Trump belatedly making good on his campaign promises?


https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...ia-immediately

Sr. admin official: 'A mistake of colossal proportions'

https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/asse...arge-tease.jpg

BREAKING NEWS
Resistance to Trump's move to withdraw US troops from Syria was strong among some in the administration



In Syria withdrawal, Trump discards advice from allies and officials

By Kevin Liptak, CNN
Updated 8:48 PM ET, Wed December 19, 2018

Washington (CNN)Seated at the head of his Situation Room conference table, President Donald Trump was adamant: American troops must come home from Syria. He had just announced as much to a crowd in Ohio. The assembled military and national security advisers told him the move was rash and unwise. So he gave them six months.

Eight months later, planning for the withdrawal is now underway -- against the advice of those same officials, who warned in April that Russia and Iran would gain stronger footholds in Syria when the US presence there evaporates.

On Capitol Hill, even some of Trump's GOP allies were warning of a grave mistake.

"My sense is that it's been a shock through the administration that this was made," Senate Foreign Relations chairman Bob Corker told reporters on Wednesday after returning from the White House, where he had traveled to meet with Trump but was told as he waited the meeting was canceled.

"It's hard to imagine that any president would wake up and make this kind of decision with this little communication, with this little preparation," Corker said. "I mean, my understanding is that we're beginning to move out right now."
Hurried discussions continued Wednesday about the timing and pace of the troop withdrawal, which the White House said has already begun. The announcement lacked the formality of previous presidents' declarations they would remove troops from war zones: the White House did not schedule any presidential remarks nor provide any concrete details of the decision.

Trump issued his first public comments on the decision Wednesday evening in a video message posted to Twitter, in which he pointed to the sky to reference US military personnel who have been killed in Syria.

"We have won against ISIS," Trump said. "We've beaten them and we've beaten them badly. We've taken back the land and now it's time for our troops to come back home. I get very saddened when I have to write letters or call parents or wives or husbands of soldiers who have been killed fighting for our country."

He added later, "So our boys, our young women, our men, they're all coming back and they're coming back now. We won, and that's the way we want it." Trump then pointed to the sky and said, "And that's the way they want it."

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https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...00m_normal.jpgDonald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump

After historic victories against ISIS, it’s time to bring our great young people home!

56.6K
3:10 PM - Dec 19, 2018

36.1K people are talking about this

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A 'total surprise'

In conversations over the past several days, top presidential advisers have counseled Trump that withdrawing personnel from Syria would amount to a retreat from the region and allow adversarial nations to gain influence. Those cautioning against a rapid and immediate withdrawal included Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Resistance to the move was strong among some in the administration. A senior administration official told CNN's Jake Tapper that the President's decision to withdraw US troops from Syria is "a mistake of colossal proportions and the President fails to see how it will endanger our country."

"Senior officials across the administration agree that the President's decision-by-tweet will recklessly put American and allied lives in danger around the world, take the pressure off of ISIS -- allowing them to reconstitute -- and hand a strategic victory to our Syrian, Iranian and Russian adversaries," the official said.

Diplomatic sources from two countries in the region said their countries were not consulted or informed, and described the news of the planned withdrawal as a "total surprise."

Trump did alert one key ally two days ahead of the announcement: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a phone call with Trump on Monday, and a subsequent conversation with Pompeo on Tuesday, the US leaders assured him the Americans had "other ways of expressing their influence in the area," according to a statement from Netanyahu's office.

In a closed-door lunch with Senate Republicans, lawmakers gave Vice President Mike Pence an "earful" about the decision, according to Corker.

Speaking afterward, Corker said he felt badly for the vice president, who was acting as an emissary to angry lawmakers.

"He had talking points," Corker said. "There's no way he could really defend. He did what a loyal soldier would do."

Trump's top ally in the Senate, Sen. Lindsay Graham, was firmer.

"I want you to tell the President directly that this is a huge mistake," he said he told Pence. "You are putting in motion ISIS getting a foothold again. They are not defeated."

Pence addressed the issue by saying Trump "made a commitment to get out of foreign entanglements," Graham said. But the vice president himself ignored reporters' questions on the matter, instead staring ahead blankly as he departed.

It was an astonishing level of pushback from Republicans who, time and again, have avoided overt criticism of their party's leader. It reflected deep unease among national security experts and advisers about the decision to abruptly withdraw troops from Syria without consulting members of Congress or gathering consensus among the administration's national security team.

It was Trump's decision

An administration official briefing reporters on Wednesday insisted anyone caught off guard by the decision hasn't been paying attention. But the official did not dispute that some of the President's top advisers were opposed to the withdrawal.

"The President's statements on this topic have been 100% consistent from the campaign through his announcement today, so I think the notion that anyone within the administration was caught unaware, I would challenge that, quite frankly," the official said. "It was the President's decision to make and he made it."

Still, the decision only highlighted discrepancies among administration officials over the future of the roughly 2,000 troops deployed in the country.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this month that the US needed to train thousands of local fighters to ensure a lasting defeat of the terror group.

Only last week, the US special envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition Brett McGurk said US forces would remain in Syria even after the terror group was defeated.

"I think it's fair to say Americans will remain on the ground after the physical defeat of the caliphate, until we have the pieces in place to ensure that that defeat is enduring," he said on December 11.

And in September, Bolton told reporters on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly that US troops would remain in Syria to counter Iran.

"We're not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders and that includes Iranian proxies and militias," Bolton said.

Pressed about whether Bolton's comments were still applicable, the senior administration official suggested previous statements no longer applied.

"The issue here is that the President has made a decision, and so previous statements ... he gets to do that, that's his prerogative," said the official, briefing reporters during a call organized by the White House.

The official could not provide a timeline for the withdrawal of US troops nor say whether the US would continue to carry out airstrikes in Syria, instead referring questions to the Pentagon.

"It's not information I have," the official said.

If administration officials and Trump's allies in Congress were distressed by the decision, however, there was little excuse for them to be surprised. Trump has long railed against foreign entanglements begun by his predecessors and vowed this spring to bring American troops home.

"We'll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon," he said in April, comments that prompted a hurried effort at the Pentagon and in the National Security Council to convince the President that an immediate withdrawal could throw the region into chaos.

When military brass sought to dissuade him, he grew frustrated and complained at length about the amount of American money being spent in the region, which he said had produced nothing for the US in return, according to senior administration officials.

'Beside themselves'

https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/asse...xlarge-169.jpg

Trump orders rapid withdrawal from Syria in apparent reversal

Despite his annoyance, Trump eventually agreed to hold off on immediately pulling troops from the war-plagued nation, even after airing his displeasure with top national security officials. At one stage, Dunford asked the President to state explicitly what he wanted to see happen in Syria, according to an administration official.

The President responded by saying US troops need to finish their mission against ISIS in Syria within six months, a timeline military officials -- including Mattis -- warned would be too short, according to the administration official.

Trump responded by telling his team to just get it done.
One person familiar with the meeting said attendees left "beside themselves" about how a hasty withdrawal and cutting of funds for recovery projects like restoring water and power and rebuilding roads could affect the future of Syria, and make it more likely that ISIS could return to prominence.
Derek Chollet, a former US assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration, said much of Washington, including administration officials, lawmakers and Iran hawks have been the victims of "wishful thinking" when it comes to Trump.

"We've learned over and over, on issue after issue, that the President has his views, his instincts and that the administration is more often than not on a different page," Chollet said. "He's shown time and again he doesn't listen to logic or reason."

Advocates of a traditional hawkish GOP foreign policy have been "rationalizing that Donald Trump was going to ratchet up the pressure on Syria," said Chollet, now an executive vice president at the German Marshall Fund, when Trump has long said he would pull out of the country, which has been ravaged by a civil war that started in 2011.

"He campaigned on this, he talked about it at a rally," Chollet said of Trump's desire to end US involvement in Syria. "This has been hiding in plain sight. He has been consistent on this issue."

CNN's Jeremy Diamond, Nicole Gaouette, Manu Raju, Ted Barrett and Elise Labott contributed to this report.

https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/exclusive-look-inside-san-diego-shelter-for-migrant-asylum-seekers

SEND THEIR REFUGEES BACK!

THEY CANNOT STAY HERE.

GO HOME TO REBUILD WITH NO U.S. MONEY!

WE ALREADY SPENT TRILLIONS AND LOST U.S. LIVES!

GIVE THEM NOTHING BUT ONE-WAY TICKET HOME!

6 TRILLION DOLLARS was blown on all of these SHIT HOLE Country's; building up their Infrastructure, playing Nation building in foreign lands while OUR Country turns into a SHIT HOLE; they blew the legs off of our fathers, brothers, sons, daughters and mothers that are in the armed forces who get sent home and treated like dirt. ILLEGAL ALIENS get better care than the Veterans at the Local V.A. Socialist Healthcare Office.... its not like we won anything as a conciliatory prize or Generals that lead America to victory shooting spectacular hip shots. 3rd world goat herders held the Greatest Army in the world to a standoff while bleeding America dry; welcome to dirt broke AmeriKa who screams bloody hell over 5 billion dollar wall

Exactly. So thrilled to see Trump turn this table over. He didn't tell anyone, he just did it. I love this President so much I could burst wide open!! And my guess is, Afghanistan better get ready to come home, because you're next. These wars have all been about feeding this massive military industrial complex, it's disgusting, so glad this President is determined to destroy that apple cart and gravy train.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Airbornesapper07

6 TRILLION DOLLARS was blown on all of these SHIT HOLE Country's; building up their Infrastructure, playing Nation building in foreign lands while OUR Country turns into a SHIT HOLE; they blew the legs off of our fathers, brothers, sons, daughters and mothers that are in the armed forces who get sent home and treated like dirt. ILLEGAL ALIENS get better care than the Veterans at the Local V.A. Socialist Healthcare Office.... its not like we won anything as a conciliatory prize or Generals that lead America to victory shooting spectacular hip shots. 3rd world goat herders held the Greatest Army in the world to a standoff while bleeding America dry; welcome to dirt broke AmeriKa who screams bloody hell over 5 billion dollar wall

---

Not only that, WE pay our money to rebuild and THEY blow it right back up again!

STUPID GOVENMENT!!! STAY OUT AND KEEP THEM OFF OUR SOIL.

Trump boasting on TV how we CATCH thousands of illegals...yeah, only to have DHS release them all over the country :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRT22pwZI2s

Youtube Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRT22pwZI2s

Trump Orders Full Withdrawal of Troops from Syria. What this Really Means!

23,130 views
2.2K 41 Share
https://yt3.ggpht.com/a-/AAuE7mASHb_...ffffff-rj-k-noThe Red Elephants Vincent James
Published on Dec 20, 2018

Mattis just quit. Was NEVER on the Trump Train.

It's hard for me to imagine that generals especially top generals could be upset over a President's decision to withdraw troops from Syria where we should have never been to begin with and Afghanistan after 17 years. What happened to that beautiful forest of WWII Generals who not only wanted to win and win fast, they wanted to come home, and wanted the troops who worked under them to come home. I DO NOT GET OUR ARMED FORCES LEADERSHIP.

EIGHT YEARS OF O'VOMIT LEADERSHIP AND TORE DOWN OUR MILITARY AND GAVE PINK SLIPS TO THE BEST IS HOW.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Beezer

EIGHT YEARS OF O'VOMIT LEADERSHIP AND TORE DOWN OUR MILITARY AND GAVE PINK SLIPS TO THE BEST IS HOW.

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It didn't help that Obama, McCain and Hillary were ISIS Warlords arming the shit out of TERRORISTS

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Beezer

EIGHT YEARS OF O'VOMIT LEADERSHIP AND TORE DOWN OUR MILITARY AND GAVE PINK SLIPS TO THE BEST IS HOW.

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Oh .... so the good ones got fired or demoted or held static at levels that would eventually force them to quit or retire. Well, that sure explains THAT!

Yes, the traitor in chief...Barry Sotero gave out Pink Slips. Then let the gays and illegals join. Depleted the budget.

Drew the "red line" in the sand...but he is color blind...was really a "YELLOW LINE"...wink, wink :D

Then look at Yemen, Benghazi, and all the other corrupt shit Obama and Hillary did.

The pallets of CASH to Iran.

The Fast and Furious! Nothing done.

Pay to Play...good grief...the list of corruption against this country is long.

They need to go to GITMO.

McCain, Mattis, Graham, these old war mongers need to retire. We need to get game on, get in...bomb the crap out of them...then get out! PERIOD!

These wars are a joke, PC, and let's tell the enemy every move. LOL

KEEP SELLING ALL THOSE WEAPONS TO THOSE BARBARIANS YOU MORONS...SELL THEM NOTHING AND GET OUT OF THERE!

Is U.S. Geopolitical Strategy Experiencing A Monumental Shift?

Thu, 12/20/2018 - 21:05
49 SHARES
Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

The defining question about global order for this generation is whether China and the United States can escape Thucydides’s Trap. The Greek historian’s metaphor reminds us of the attendant dangers when a rising power rivals a ruling power - as Athens challenged Sparta in ancient Greece, or as Germany did Britain a century ago. Most such contests have ended badly, often for both nations, a team of mine at the Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has concluded after analyzing the historical record. In 12 of 16 cases over the past 500 years, the result was war. When the parties avoided war, it required huge, painful adjustments in attitudes and actions on the part not just of the challenger but also the challenged.
– From Graham Allison’s article: The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War?

For the past two years, my geopolitical assumption has been that the Trump administration would more or less continue along with the reckless, shortsighted, and disastrous neocon/neoliberal interventionist foreign policy of the past two decades focused on undeclared regime change and proxy wars across the world, especially the Middle East. Given his strange obsession with Iran, I figured he’d start a conflict there and that this conflict would end up a bigger disaster than Iraq.
I assumed this mistake would coincide with continued massive deficits, a unwieldy debt load and most likely a recession. In turn, I believed this would lead to an embarrassing and chaotic unraveling of the U.S. empire. At that point, other nations like China would opportunistically take advantage of the huge power vacuum left over.
Based on a variety of events over the past few months, I’m no longer convinced this is how it’s going to unfold.

https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defa...lism-image.jpg


First, the article published by Bloomberg back in October, The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies, really grabbed my attention. If you haven’t read it, I strongly suggest you go do that, as I was immediately blown away by the implications. To summarize, the story purports that 17 sources in both government and the corporate world claim Chinese spies inserted a malicious microchip into Supermicro servers and that this affected nearly 30 companies, including tech behemoths Amazon and Apple. Equally incendiary, the article reported that Amazon and Apple knew about it, but never let the public know. Apple, Amazon and others vehemently denied the Bloomberg story, and we still don’t know the truth. As I noted at the time:

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...0MK_normal.jpg Michael Krieger @LibertyBlitz

· Oct 4, 2018
Replying to @LibertyBlitz
Bottom line, someone is lying. Either the 17 sources Bloomberg has completely invented a story, or Amazon and Apple are both lying about a genuinely huge national security story and the roles they played in it.

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...0MK_normal.jpg Michael Krieger @LibertyBlitz

In other words, we've got a seriously ****ed up situation on our hands because one of these things must be true. Someone is lying and lying BIG.

9
1:01 PM - Oct 4, 2018

Either China really did compromise hardware and U.S. tech giants are actively covering it up, or unnamed sources invented a story to make China look nefarious in order to up the ante in the growing dispute between the two nations. We still can’t be sure which one is true, but the end result is pretty much the same. Greatly increased tensions with China.
While I knew the Bloomberg story had wide-ranging implications, it wasn’t enough to make me seriously consider a distinct geopolitical forecast.
Then came the second major event, which was the arrest of Wanzhou Meng, the CFO of China’s telecom giant Huawei earlier this month. Importantly, she’s much more than just an executive at a giant Chinese company, she’s “the daughter of the telecom giant’s founder, Ren Zhengfei. An ex-officer with the People’s Liberation Army, Ren is one of the country’s most revered business figures.”
It’s also worth mentioning that she was arrested while Trump was sitting down to dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit. I can’t even imagine the level of anger this must have caused on the part of the Chinese. This made me realize that the “trade war” is just a prelude to a much bigger confrontation.
Moving along, yesterday we learned of a sudden plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria. I want to make it clear we don’t know if this is just talk or will actually happen (for a skeptical take see this), but if it does occur, it will make it increasingly likely that U.S. foreign policy has undergone a massive and monumentally significant shift. A shift away from failed regime change boondoggles in far flung areas of the world Americans don’t care about, to a very major and probably long-lasting confrontation with China itself.
If this is in fact the case, it’s impossible to overstate its significance.
In my view, such a shift would signal that the U.S. has acknowledged the unipolar imperial world completely dominated by America is over and unrecoverable, and therefore resources will shift away from the silly dream of full spectrum global dominance into a managed retreat. A managed retreat would be considered preferable since it could be done on U.S. terms as opposed to having the terms forced upon it. In other words, it would be a proactive foreign policy based on reality, rather than a reactive one forced upon it by circumstances.
This isn’t to say any of this will be good or pleasant, but from the realpolitik perspective of those preoccupied with U.S. power in a post unipolar world, it’s the most likely move. A realization that wars in the Middle East achieve no long-term objectives for the U.S. may finally have occurred. They just weaken the country, get the public annoyed and waste enormous amounts of money that could be spent elsewhere. Meanwhile, other countries just sit back and wait for America to fall over so they can pick up the pieces. Finally, it’d be almost impossible to sell the public on another major conflict in the Middle East. Selling the public on China as an adversary will be much easier.
Today we saw further evidence of things heating up, as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray announced the unsealing of an indictment against two accused Chinese hackers. As Ben Hunt of Epsilon Theory observed.

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...c6_normal.jpeg Ben Hunt ✔ @EpsilonTheory

This is what you do to solidify domestic public opinion before waging a war, trade or otherwise.
CBS News ✔ @CBSNews

"Today's charges mark an important step in revealing to the world China's continued practice of stealing commercial data," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein says. https://cbsn.ws/2Bvad0e


Then there’s the ongoing crash in financial markets. Many people think this is just the market reacting to interest rate hikes in the midst of an economic slowdown and a realization that corporate profits have peaked. While that’s undoubtably a big part of it, I think there’s more.
I think gold is the real canary in the coal mine, and gold is starting to signal serious problems on the geopolitical front. I’ve noticed for a few weeks that gold had started to trade strong, in sharp contrast to the past seven years. While it reversed and went lower after the hawkish Jay Powell did his thing yesterday, it did something unexpected today. As the stock market continued to plunge, gold reversed all its losses and closed at a new near-term high. Gold is seeing beyond the simple economic issues and into the geopolitical realm in my opinion.
But what is gold telling us? I think it may be confirming the thesis outlined above. Which is that U.S. foreign policy is pivoting away from aimless wars all over the place in order to sustain the impossible dream of unipolar empire, and toward a more singular goal focused on preventing China from dominating the globe in the decades ahead. If successful, the coming multi-polar world may be characterized by a bifurcated global economy, as outlined in a very interesting piece from Strategic Culture, America’s Technology and Sanctions War Will End, by Bifurcating the Global Economy.

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Video at the tweet

51
12:14 PM - Dec 20, 2018
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https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...0MK_normal.jpg Michael Krieger @LibertyBlitz
· 14h

I believe financial markets are at the early stages of pricing in a major and prolonged confrontation between the U.S. and China.

More on this in an upcoming post.

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...0MK_normal.jpg Michael Krieger @LibertyBlitz


Globalization as we have all known it is dead and buried and it isn't coming back. The future global economy will look completely different and will likely be far more balkanized.

11
12:09 PM - Dec 20, 2018

Of course, there’s no way to know if I’m right about any of this. Just because it looks this way today doesn’t mean it will play out that way in the future. Nevertheless, I’ve now seen enough to seriously consider that we may be entering an entirely new geopolitical environment dominated by vastly increased tensions between the U.S. and China. If so, it will likely last a lot longer than you think as leaders in both China in the U.S. will be looking for a scapegoat as their crony, financialized economies struggle under unpayable debt and unimaginable levels of corruption.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...numental-shift

Trump Orders Major Afghan Drawdown: 7,000 Troops To Return Home In Coming Weeks

TRUMPS NEEDS TO ORDER THEIR REFUGEES ARE SENT BACK!

SET A WEEKLY QUOTA AND SEND THEM HOME TO REUNITE WITH FAMILY AND REBUILD WITHOUT OUR MONEY!!!

Mitch McConnell piles on to Defense Secretary James Mattis' rebuke of Trump

https://aol-releases-assets-producti...3/S37U2q2L.pngSARAH GRAY
Dec 21st 2018 5:31AM

• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican of Kentucky, issued a strong statement following the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis, saying he is "particularly distressed that he is resigning due to sharp differences with the president on these and other key aspects of America’s global leadership."
• 
  
• His statement echoes Mattis' resignation letter, which stresses the importance of maintaining US alliances.
• 
  
• President Donald Trump's decision to pull troops out of Syria — which analysts say is a boon for our adversaries, Russia, ISIS, Iran, and the Syrian regime — was reportedly the last straw for Secretary Mattis.
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican of Kentucky, issued a strong statement following the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis, saying he is "particularly distressed that he is resigning due to sharp differences with the president on these and other key aspects of America’s global leadership."

His statement echoes Mattis' resignation letter when stressing the importance of maintaining US alliances.

"I believe it’s essential that the United States maintain and strengthen the post-World War II alliances that have been carefully built by leaders in both parties," McConnell said in his statement. "We must also maintain a clear-eyed understanding of our friends and foes, and recognize that nations like Russia are among the latter."

https://o.aolcdn.com/images/dims?thu...ce4b3701d2effd

In Mattis' resignation letter he said, "while the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies."

Like McConnell, Mattis also name-checked Russia: "It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model gaining veto authority over other nations' economic, diplomatic, and security decisions to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies."

Trump's decision to pull troops out of Syria — which analysts say is a boon for US adversaries, Russia, ISIS, Iran, and the Syrian regime — was reportedly the last straw for Secretary Mattis. Kurds in Syria, US allies in Syria, are furious about the withdrawal, as they fear a Turkish incursion.

"So I was sorry to learn that Secretary Mattis, who shares those clear principles, will soon depart the administration," McConnell continued.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/12/21/mitch-mcconnell-piles-on-to-defense-secretary-james-mattis-rebuke-of-trump/23624398/