You Will Anyway: More on the Erdoğan call

Friday, December 21, 2018

More on the Erdoğan call

A senior US official has revealed the US decision to withdraw from Syria was made following a Trump-Erdogan phone call last Friday, despite Trump administration denials.

Fox News, quoting a senior Pentagon official on Thursday, reported that Mr Trump’s withdrawal decision was made “last Friday after speaking with Turkish President Erdogan.” In that call, the Turkish leader told Mr Trump that Turkish forces were planning an incursion into Syria to go after the Kurdish militants and warned US troops in those areas “to get out of the way.”

[...]

However, publicly, the Trump administration is refuting this narrative. On Wednesday and in a phone call with reporters, a senior US official insisted that the US President “made his own decision”.

“It was not something he discussed with President Erdogan. He has informed President Erdogan of his decision…. this was not a topic of discussion. It was informational” the US official said.
The National

Sure, sure. We know. Trump knows everything better than everybody, and he makes all his own decisions.

The White House stopped issuing readouts of Mr Trump’s phone calls with foreign leaders in July.

Perhaps in part at least because they were embarrassing.

Contradictory reports about the scope and timeline of a US withdrawal emerged on Thursday. US officials told Reuters that the withdrawal means an end to the US air campaign, but US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared to indicate otherwise. “The US intends to continue that counter-terrorism campaign, continue the fight against ISIS, whether it stems from Syria or other places” Mr Pompeo told Fox News in an interview.

Chaos.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.