Brad_ATX 13,654 Posted October 10, 2020 Share Posted October 10, 2020 I wish I could make this stuff up. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/taliban-on-trump-we-hope-he-will-win-the-election-withdraw-us-troops/?__twitter_impression=true Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homersapien 11,357 Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 Makes perfect sense. Communication Breakdown Are U.S. troops coming home from Afghanistan? The mixed messages reveal an administration’s total incoherence. By Fred Kaplan, Oct 15, 2020 When it comes to foreign policy, there is no such thing as “the Trump administration.” There is only President Donald Trump, jabbering random wishes or pronouncements at campaign rallies or on Twitter, and his array of advisers scrambling to make sense of the maelstrom. Hence the spectacle on Oct. 7 when national security adviser Robert O’Brien told an audience in Las Vegas that U.S. troops in Afghanistan would be cut to 2,500 by the beginning of next year—followed, just hours later, by Trump tweeting that all the troops should be home by Christmas—followed four days later by Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, telling NPR that he hadn’t endorsed either decision and that the military was still operating on the assumption that troops would be cut to 4,500. Legitimate arguments could be made for any one of those options. The thing is, the U.S. government should decide on one before its various leaders blurt out all three in public. It turns out O’Brien hadn’t consulted with anyone in the Pentagon before making his remarks, and Trump hadn’t consulted with anyone anywhere before he upped the ante. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work. The bureaucratic process is often viewed as a wonky enterprise—the baroque and insular workings of inside-the-Beltway mavens, the blob, the swamp, the deep state—and there’s something to the critique. But as the chaos in Trumpland regularly reveals, there’s a reason for having this process—a reason even President Barack Obama, who had some disdain toward the foreign policy establishment, relied on the process routinely, even incessantly: A president—a nation—can’t really make foreign policy without it. Presidents—by which I mean all post-WWII presidents until this one—have met with their Cabinet secretaries and other senior officials of the National Security Council to discuss major issues and crises for two main reasons. First, these officials bring to the table different—often conflicting—interests, perspectives, and sets of facts. Exposure to these differing views can change minds, spur new ideas, sometimes lead to wiser decisions. Second, the process builds consensus: Once the president decides on a policy, the others know what the policy is, saw how it was reached, accept that contrary views were at least considered, and carry it out. (Or they can resign.) This is an idealized picture, of course; often, bureaucratic backbiting continues. But the picture describes what really happens a remarkable percentage of the time, except for the part about someone resigning in protest—that rarely happens. The problem with a president going rogue—not simply disagreeing with his advisers (which is entirely his or her right), but failing to consult them—is that the whole machinery goes off the rails. Often, when it comes to Trump, nobody around him knows even what the policy is. Confusion within the bureaucracy is the least of our problems. The whole point of having a foreign policy is to tell the rest of the world, allies and adversaries, what that policy is—to spell out, through words and actions, our interests, objectives, commitments, and capabilities. If nobody in the U.S. foreign policy machinery knows what the president wants, if the president himself bases his bluster and mutterings on a clichéd and ill-informed view of the world, then foreign leaders won’t know what he wants either—won’t know which pledges and threats can be taken seriously or dismissed. This can lead to serious miscalculations, and miscalculations can lead to war. Trump’s disinclination to consult with others, to deliberate, to talk through the pros and cons of various options, may make him more prone to these out-of-control spirals to conflict. He avoids seeking the advice of others because he doesn’t think it’s necessary. “I know more about ISIS than the generals do,” he once famously claimed. “My primary consultant is myself, and I have a good instinct about this stuff,” he said regarding foreign policy broadly. Also: “Nobody knows more about trade than me.” “I know more about drones than anybody.” And on it goes. It seems he really believes this. There are few things more dangerous than a very powerful man who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. Thankfully, Trump has revealed in the past four years that, his belligerent rhetoric notwithstanding, he doesn’t have an appetite for war. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t stumble into one; in fact, given more time, he’s more prone than many of his predecessors to do just that. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/everyone-in-the-trump-administration-is-saying-something-different-about-troop-withdrawals.html?via=taps_top Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NolaAuTiger 3,295 Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 On 10/10/2020 at 4:24 PM, Brad_ATX said: I wish I could make this stuff up. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/taliban-on-trump-we-hope-he-will-win-the-election-withdraw-us-troops/?__twitter_impression=true Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUFAN78 3,894 Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 34 minutes ago, NolaAuTiger said: homerfidy report fake news? Shocking! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_ATX 13,654 Posted October 17, 2020 Author Share Posted October 17, 2020 1 hour ago, NolaAuTiger said: If I could read Arabic, this would help me more. Because the clarification here isn't very clear. What was the misinterpretation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitanTiger 20,472 Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 10 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said: If I could read Arabic, this would help me more. Because the clarification here isn't very clear. What was the misinterpretation? CBS News made the initial report on it. They've since added this update to the top of their story: Editor's Note: A statement in this article was incorrectly attributed to Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. It was told to CBS News by another senior Taliban leader. CBS News has corrected that attribution and added additional statements from the interview with Mujahid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitanTiger 20,472 Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 So to answer the question @AUFAN78 asked, "no, not fake news." A Taliban senior representative did express hope that Trump would win because they hope he'll pull the US out of Afghanistan. Just not the one the quote was initially attributed to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUFAN78 3,894 Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 7 hours ago, TitanTiger said: So to answer the question @AUFAN78 asked, "no, not fake news." A Taliban senior representative did express hope that Trump would win because they hope he'll pull the US out of Afghanistan. Just not the one the quote was initially attributed to. CBS? Yep, trust every word they say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitanTiger 20,472 Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 While every news source will have to correct a story from time to time, CBS News gets pretty high marks. Whereas the popular cable news channels like CNN, MSNBC and Fox all fall into the Left or Right bias categories, they also all have a "Mixed" rating for factual reporting. CBS News on the other hand has a Left-center bias (AllSides.com also rates them as "lean left") and "High" for factual reporting. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cbs-news/ Not that I'd expect you to understand such things. You probably think Alex Jones gets a bad rap and should have a prime time slot on Fox. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_ATX 13,654 Posted October 17, 2020 Author Share Posted October 17, 2020 2 hours ago, TitanTiger said: While every news source will have to correct a story from time to time, CBS News gets pretty high marks. Whereas the popular cable news channels like CNN, MSNBC and Fox all fall into the Left or Right bias categories, they also all have a "Mixed" rating for factual reporting. CBS News on the other hand has a Left-center bias (AllSides.com also rates them as "lean left") and "High" for factual reporting. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cbs-news/ Not that I'd expect you to understand such things. You probably think Alex Jones gets a bad rap and should have a prime time slot on Fox. I mean, it came from the "Seek Truth" guy, so you just know he's highly educated on the topic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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