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[wierd]

Just to advocate for the devil:

Putting your fingers in your ears, and going "Nope, cant hear you" is not exactly healthy either.  (In fact, I find that when it occurs, it makes it impossible for discussion to happen instead of circle jerking.)

[misko27]

Alternatively, I'll take the role of advocatus Dei and plea for a different line of argument: Calling someone out that you believe is unwilling to listen to reason and is merely trying to get attention is almost by definition ineffectual. You have a report button if you think that is the case, and Toady has a lot more tools at his disposal to mete out forum-justice. Troll or no, confrontation doesn't help, and increases the amount of disturbance generated; and drama is the least fun form of derail, after all.

Trying to drag things back on track, I heard that Trump was (supposed to) announce his plans for the not-a-war in Afghanistan today. Anyone know what became of that?

[hector13]

He called out Pakistan on harbouring terrorists and said they have to do more, and then brought in their arch-nemesis India and said they have to do more economically to help, among other things, to which I wasn't really paying attention

[smjjames]

Pretty much amounted to 'not going to give details because we don't want the enemy to know', changing from timeline based strategy to conditional based, no more nationbuilding (whatever this means in the context of Afghanistan), get others in the region more involved, basically be 'no more mr nice guy to Pakistan', a few other bits. Not much in actual concrete details. Gonna have to see what the relevant Congressmembers reactions are to gauge whatever it is.

Dems already saying that he has no strategy for Afghanistan, kind of the usual line from the Dems at this point without further information.

[hector13]

Beeb article.

It was kind of odd that it was a press conference to talk about it, but he seemed unwilling to talk about it.

[smjjames]

Beeb article.

It was kind of odd that it was a press conference to talk about it, but he seemed unwilling to talk about it.

Well of course he didn't want to talk about it, the details are hush-hush. Or so he says.

[sluissa]

Beeb article.

It was kind of odd that it was a press conference to talk about it, but he seemed unwilling to talk about it.

Honestly, coming from a more respectable source, this wouldn't be a bad plan, given what little we know.

I did respect Obama for trying to stick to his plan of withdrawing from Iraq and scaling back Afghanistan, but in hindsight, that probably wasn't the best plan to just give a flat date by which you're going to stop supporting your allies. It basically gives the enemy a point at which they can say "Ok, if we scale back, regroup and hold on until the US leaves on X date, then we'll march through unopposed." And that's almost exactly what ISIS did... maybe that wasn't their plan, but that was what happened. Taliban in Afghanistan are more than happy to play cat and mouse until the US is fatigued, so putting a time limit on things definitely gives them a boost.

I'm not too fond of him giving up on "nationbuilding"... but if he's going by the situation on the ground rather than some "afghans have to be ready to take over by this time" then he may just be rebranding the whole thing.

I hate to give him credit, and I'd be happy to blame it more on the military leaders selling this plan to him, but it could be a solid step in the right direction. I just hope the political support is behind it to give them what they need to reach the goals and that the goals are useful and not just more "let's just do the minimum we might get away with and try handing it over again."

[Sheb]

It's not necessarilly bad. Doesn't seem very new either too. Saying that Pakistan should do more has been said for years, and it's not clear how much more pressure he's willing to put in. Implicating India more is something that precedent US governement weren't doing openly, but it could backfire if it leads Pakistan to fear loosing Afghanistan to India.

I guess it would be fairly decent, it's just galling because he spent the campaign touting his "special secret plan to solve the issue". Not that we expected that to be just another pile of horsecrap, but it's worth keeping in mind it's another of his non-stop stream of lie.

[Chevaleresse]

I'm not really sure what people expected, really.

Honest question: are there any campaign promises Trump made that he's actually fulfilled? I know all candidates make a lot of promises they can't fulfill, but they're typically not outright lies like this.

[Max™]

He uh, drained the swamp by bailing it into the boat before shouting "fake news! sad!" as it sunk and then blaming everyone except nazis for it happening.

He's taking the money out of politics by putting it in his pocket.

He's uh... fuck, I'm drawing a blank here folks.

I think he's on the nutty libertarian side anyway what with his views on taxes. Or maybe anarchist.

I am libertarian, not really anarchist.

I'm a libertarian, as part of being an anarchist of any sort (naive hippie bullshit anarchist in my case) is holding freedom as inherently good.

You're a Libertarian, like the party, which are basically a weird mutation of anarcho-capitalist ideas grafted into the hollowed out shell of a dead Republican host body.

[Dorsidwarf]

Yeah the capital L is very important here.

[SaberToothTiger]

I find it amusing that a single poster has managed to completely derail the thread and piss off at least two other posters into blocking him. A fault of open discussion, lel

[Sheb]

1) He pulled out of the TPP
2) NAFTA is being renegotiated, although who know what's going to come out of it
3) The wall seems to be slowly being built, even though Mexico won't pay for it.

[Starver]

1) Is that a good thing?
2) Is that a good thing?
3) Is that a good thing?

1) No, because no longer does the US have a part to play in that trade block. Look how he needed to bribe China with beef (China is not a beef-eating country, but is looking for more due to a rise in internal demand. They're also taking from Australia, etc. And yet Trump is dressing it up as "you will take our beef", not "if you let use trade in other things, how about we also contribute?"
2) As said, who knows...
3) Don't be silly.

[Arx]

1) Is that a good thing?
2) Is that a good thing?
3) Is that a good thing?

They're just examples of campaign promises Trump is delivering on.