RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel: The Hamas/Israel Situation is...

Speaking of Afghanistan, if I recall it wasn't Biden who forced the then government of Afghanistan to release over 5,000 Taliban prisoners some of whom were designated as terrorists; it wasn't Biden who reduced US troop levels in Afghanistan below the level recommended by his own generals (although the president at the time did claim to know more about military matters than generals); and it wasn't Biden who originally committed to withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan by May 2021. Speaking of Ukraine, it wasn't Biden who referred to Putin as a genius based on his decision to invade Ukraine.

 

Yeah? Who?

 

I can only hope that scenario does not play out.

 

As long as you're going to try to read, figure out who negotiated the Afghanistan capitulation agreement, arranged for the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners and reduced our troop level down to 3500 (from a high of 100,000.)

 

I know. Unfortunately the execution (literally) was abysmal

 

What should the execution have been? There were 2,500 US troops in Afghanistan, 20 or more terrorist organizations and several hundred thousand Taliban fighters. Should we have brought back 50,000 or so more troops on a temporary basis? Would that have worked or would they have been stuck there for a few more years or more?

 

That man's IS nuts if he thinks the hostage crisis in Iran was the "real" reason why he got clown stomped in the 1980 election.

 

I’ll bite. What was the specific Israeli intelligence he gave to Hamas via Russia?

 

Right. And my question was, what was the intel?

 

Ronna McDaniel's purpose was to signal to the GOP it was alright to attack the president politically during this crisis. They have not disappointed. They turn into hyenas preying on the dead during crises. It's what they do.

 

If they told you, they'd have to kill you.

 

I suspect that’s a roundabout way of saying, “We have no idea what it was?” And if that’s the case, then it’s silly to imply that whatever it was had present-day national security implications for Israel. In 2017, the U.S. was (grudgingly) cooperating with Russia to defeat ISIS. If the intel was related to ISIS intentions (as some sites are reporting), then that strikes me as an appropriate sharing of information that Biden, Obama, Clinton, and both Bushes would have done under the same circumstances. Israel might have preferred the U.S. not to share that intel based on how they got it, but I doubt Trump shared (or even knew) how Israel got it.

What I suspect, though, is that some would like to imply that whatever the intel was enabled the Hamas attack in some way, such as the exact number of rockets fired simultaneously to overload the Iron Dome. If there is evidence of that, then great, but my instinct is that’s ludicrous. First of all, the meeting took place in 2017, and I’ve never seen intelligence that was still good six years later. Second, that’s not data that Israel would be likely to share even if they knew the number; Israel does well to act in its interest, and telling the U.S. that is not in its interest. Third, since we paid for Israel to develop the technology and (for reasons that are still unclear to me) also had to pay Israel to share the technology with us, I doubt there’s any limitation to that system we didn’t already have a grip on, so Israel sharing it with us is irrelevant to this argument. Fourth, anyone who ever played Missile Command in the 80s already understood there was a limit to how many rockets the system could engage at once; Hamas didn’t need intro to deduce that 1000s of rockets simultaneously was probably beyond that limit, and they had to do was stockpile for a few years. Fifth, I can’t see why Russia would care or Trump would care enough to tell them even if everything above wasn’t the case.

So unless someone has something specific to argue about whatever this “intel” was, then this specific point about Trump is silly and clearly meant to deflect bonafide criticism of the current Administration. And there are enough real issues with Trump’s judgment to focus on that one should not need to make things up.

 

It’s so comforting to believe that foreign policy is being shaped by someone’s interpretation of prophecies of end times and the desire to make happen. Gershom Gorenberg wrote a book about it.

 

IIRC, Trump blew an Israeli mole in Isis by describing the location s/he was in and certain other characteristics to Lavrov, which they easily reverse engineered. Though egregious and reason no. 5,182 why he should have been removed from office and barred, it wouldn’t have anything to do with what happened Saturday

 

Even though the Rapture isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Bible.

 

Since I claim no expertise on the region, I cannot say how accurate the book is. However, I read and enjoyed the book End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount by Gershom Gorenberg. I felt like I learned from it.

The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount a book by Gershom Gorenberg

 

Agree. Great book. Should be mandatory reading