Trump's chaos: This Time Is Worse Than Usual. By BEN MATHIS-LILLEY

By Dilip -
...... Secretary of Defense James Mattis is, indeed, resigning in protest over Trump’s impulsive decision to withdraw forces from Syria. It’s a decision that, according to the latest reporting, was more or less dictated by the authoritarian leader of Turkey - who wants America out so that he can slaughter the Kurds, longtime allies of the U.S. who we are surprising/betraying by leaving so suddenly.


As the national security writer Marcy Wheeler points out, among the reasons that Trump has to be deferential toward Turkey are 1) Turkey might have dirt about former national security adviser Michael Flynn advocating corruptly for pro-Turkey policies while he was on Turkey’s payroll, 2) Trump needs Turkey to stop making noise about how the Trump administration allowed Saudi Arabia to kidnap, torture, and and murder Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul without any repercussions, and 3) Turkey’s interests in Syria overlap with those of Russia, another country that may possess incriminating material about corrupt behavior by Trump and Flynn that has been in the news recently because of Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation. The president is possibly being blackmailed! Very neat... read more:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/trump-white-house-chaos-mattis-shutdown-mueller.html

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