Ex-NATO commander: Allies wondering if Trump was blackmailed to pull troops out of Syria

Source

A former commander of NATO said allies of the U.S. are asking whether President Trump was blackmailed by Turkey to pull U.S. military forces out of Syria.

In a CNN segment Monday, Wesley Clark, a retired Army general and former Democratic presidential candidate, said there was no apparent strategic logic for the move that critics view as an abdication to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"You have to ask why was the decision made?" Clarke said on Christmas Eve. "People around the world are asking this and some of our friends and allies in the Middle East are asking, did Erdogan blackmail the president? Was there a payoff or something? Why would a guy make a decision like this? Because all the recommendations were against it. And it looked like all the facts were against it, too."

"We're not quite finished with we're not taking a lot of casualties over there," he added. "The Kurds have been reliable allies. Why do this right now?"

Trump declared last week the U.S. had defeated the Islamic State and announced the rapid withdrawal of all U.S. ground troops from Syria, where they have been assisting local Kurdish and Arab forces to fight the terror group.

With American forces departing, the U.S. will leave 10,000 Kurdish troops open to attack by Turkey. A senior U.S. official told Jennifer Griffin of Fox News that Trump's announcement Wednesday came after Erdogan told him in a phone call to pull out of Syria because Turkish forces were preparing to assault people tied to the Kurdistan Workers Party, a separatist group the U.S. calls a terrorist organization.

Trump, who made it a campaign promise to wrap up the fight against the Islamic State and bring U.S. troops home said Erdogan assured him Turkey would clean up what was left of the terrorist group.

"President @RT_Erdogan of Turkey has very strongly informed me that he will eradicate whatever is left of ISIS in Syria....and he is a man who can do it plus, Turkey is right 'next door.' Our troops are coming home!" Trump tweeted Sunday after another phone call with Erdogan.

Trump's decision has prompted high-profile exits from top officials in his administration, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Brett McGurk, the special envoy to the counter-ISIS coalition.

I sincerely hope this isn't true.

Nothing would surprise with this administration...............

I heard it was less blackmail and more a business deal. Just as potentially shady.

It certainly raises some red flags seeing as he ignored all of his military advisers on the matter.

@sonicare: It fits the apparent MO of some other moves he's made. Do you have details on what the business deal in reference to is?

Are they a major force there or they're just there to do some cheerleading? Or, are they a sacrificial lamb (acts like a trigger) like the troops in SKorea?

Putin told him to.

I mean look at Trump in the background of this image wishing he was a the cool kids table.

Yeah Putin didnt have to blackmail, he likely just asked and Trump immediatly said yes

Trump is comprised. I don’t know how, but there’s dirt on him that’s allowing him to have his strings pulled.

Always nice to see soldiers returning home after supporting ISIS. Israel won't like it which is a win for everyone

What do we gain from staying in Syria?

1. The common argument is we can learn Russia's military capability, but do you think Russians are that dumb to expose their entire hand of military power for Americans to observe? No, of course not. We've been there long enough to know what Russians are using and they're not exposing their whole hand.

2. There are two sides in Syria. a) Muslim extremists and b) Muslim extremists. If we help one side, radical Muslims win. If we help the other side radical Islam still wins. Uhh, not much of a win.

We've been in the middle east for 19 years. It's a long an expensive war that didn't yield much of a return, but it did send a clear message that if you attack America, American forces will invade your country. The message has been received, it's time to leave.

So any American President that decides to end a war is automatically compromised? Uhh, okay. Oh wait, only right wing presidents that end wars are compromised right? lol. That's the CNN narrative. ORANGE MAN BAD, no matter what he does, IT'S BAD. 100% BAD, ALL BAD.

Of course, it´s not true.

Despite what you may hear from your own media and from the typical American "Vietnamguiltridden" clouded pundit.

There was no valid reason to stay in Syria and Trump did the only correct thing.

And it´s funny that the west cant see that the whole Syria civil war with all its civilian casualties and ISIS is on the west, if the west had stopped meddling in affairs that is not theirs to meddle in, The whole Syria thing would have been over in 6months or would have been a few demostrations which would have done in days.

@Jacanuk: I was against entering Syria in the first place. As for the claim here, it is not something I want to believe before seeing more evidence.

Same here. I was against bombing Libya, Going into Iraq and also even contemplating helping the Syrian rebels live out their pipe dream.

Also if Turkey had something on "Trump" why wouldn´t they use it during the mega-crisis that made Turkey go into it´s the worst recession in decades and devalued their own currency so bad that the President was out and begging it´s citizens to stop hiding Dollars and go buy Turkish Liras.

A crisis that is still not fully over, and all because Turkey would not release the American priest.

The Turkish currency and debt crisis of 2018 (Turkish: Türkiye döviz ve borç krizi) is an ongoing financial and economic crisis in Turkey with international repercussions due to financial contagion. It is characterised by the Turkish lira (TRY) plunging in value, high inflation, rising borrowing costs, and correspondingly rising loan defaults. The crisis was caused by the Turkish economy's excessive current account deficit and foreign-currency debt, in combination with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's increasing authoritarianism and his unorthodox ideas about interest rate policy. Some analysts also stress the leveraging effects of the geopolitical frictions with the United States and recently enforced tariffs by Trump administration on some Turkish products such as steel and aluminum.

Nah, I get why the west wants to continue their wet dream of also removing Assad, but that battle is lost and just staying there to help the Kurds is just not a long-term viable solution.

But hey, doing all that gave us some new enemies and reasons to give up some liberties. So it wasn't all for nothing :P

Ya, messing with Libya gave the allies Manchester and several other terrorists and messing with Syria has given Europe the biggest refugee crises seen since world war 2, luckily though Europe was not afraid to be bullied a bit by Turkey and work with them to block the borders.

So again this former NATO guy is just showing his lust for war and not peace and that it´s good he is former, not current, because if nato is filled with people lusting for war and terrorism then Europe is screwed.

Isn't UK, US and France that has been quite war hungry towards the middle east? It would be nice to have some more peaceful people at the top, but it means less money spent on consumer goods by the military. And some people hate that.

Yup, especially France is against the African side.

They sold weapons to the Syrian rebels long before NATO and the allies went in, same goes for Libya and other African nations.

But it would be nice if the US and NATO and Europe stopped trying to reform the Middle-East against the peoples' wishes and tried to let them be alone, maybe it would not cause more terrorists but less.

How do we justify spending so much on the military if we leave the middle east alone? :P

I'm not against the idea. I don't know much what happened before the Iraq war, but I was against that one. And about everything else we have done there since then.

China and Russia are still there and will always be the main reason to spend on the military.

Israel could overrun most of the middle east in a week with their military if needed.

To develop newer weapons yes, but not as much reason to spend on firing bullets in foreign countries.

Nope, true warfare would be lower and just having the normally stationed troops overseas would be a nice change.

And they could spend the money saved on making America great again.

Don't care either way.

We're out of Syria and that's a good thing!

Could give a little to NASA.

I don't remember where I read it, but long term, like 30 years long, investing money in NASA is/was one of the best investments for US government to make.

Ya, that would not be a bad idea but NASA is not entirely dead, it´s just become a more global effort with the new lunar orbit station being worked on.

And let´s not forget China, manned mission to the moon in the next 5 years which means we can finally get rid of those stupid conspiracies stories about NASA never being there.

@Jacanuk: yeah, I'm looking forward to China's manned mission to the moon and more. People say China this, China that, but China is really trying to help people like Africa, central asia, Southeast Asia, and south Asia.

China is not that bad and their government is also not entirely wrong, the only reason why mainstream and the "left" hate China is because of their way of governing and censorship. But ask the Chinese and they are less divided and majority enjoy the current governing.

So ya I am looking forward to their space missions they have a lot of good things coming.

Sure if you ignore the human rights violations.

China going there won't stop those conspiracy theories. Flat earth believers aren't giving me any hope of that helping at least.

They are taking some things to the extreme. Aren't their launching their social ranking system in 2020? They have a stupid amount of cameras with facial recognition software as well. I guess the plus side of that is criminals being taken rather fast I guess. But you are being monitored almost everywhere.

Muslims native to the north west of the country are being persecuted and we almost hear nothing about it in western media due to Chinese government being rather good at silencing the whole thing and somewhat lack of focus from journalists.

True, some nuts are just nutty :) but even though it´s been proven again and again that the landing was real.

Can you honestly say that you would be a bit more secure in the landing if China live streams them going past the American flag?

China isn't "helping" those regions, they're buying them.

I think the flag these days is pretty much the flag of France (I hope you get the joke here). :P

I don't like cons too much but I'm thankful ja_canuck is here to shut these dumb ass liberals up when they step out of line. Getting out of Syria, or any middle eastern country is a good thing, I don't care who does it, whether he was bribed or not. In fact, it would be a blessing if the US stopped spending so much on the military and spent it on other things. The military budget is $850 billion....you'd think that they could cut back on that and appropriate a one time cost of $20 billion to a border wall. Let's face it, the wall probably will make illegal border crossers think twice before making a journey even if it's not completely effective. People say the wall is a big time waste of money, the military is on a whole different level of waste.

Trump is doing a good thing by pulling out of Syria. You don't even have to be a trump supporter to see that

Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

trump increased the military budget............

you mean like this: https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/31/asia/china-kenya-belt-road-bri-intl/index.htm