Don't see the point of this post, unless it was just seen as an opportunity to have yet another crack about blond blue eyed Christians and a spot of self-loathing.

Dear David f.,

I wake up every morning and switch on the news with
the hope that I'll hear Putin has died or been removed
from office due to "ill health." My hope lies with
the Russian people to deal with this man. Unfortunately
I may have a long time to wait.

I don't trust Putin. Predicting what he will or will not do
is risky. I don't know what else the West can do - apart
from what they are already doing. No one wants a nuclear
war.

As for Trump? Hopefully his political career is well and
truly over. But I won't be laying any bets on it.

Dear Foxy,

The fear is that, for Putin, nuclear war may be preferable to defeat.

david f wrote: "I think Trump was wrong in removing US forces from Syria."

I well remember that when Trump was elected the woke left considered him a warmonger who would initiate WW3. In the end he became one of the few presidents to ever NOT start any war. So, of course, he was then considered to be wrong to not be a warmonger.(Irrespective of what he did, he was wrong in some eyes) The America First policy of Trump was aimed at getting the US out of foreign adventures where it had no national interest.

In the end, the Trump philosophy was that there was no good reason for a boy from Albuquerque to fight and die for the good of a boy from Aleppo. I don't understand how you can argue with that.

The US was in Syria because of a series of errors by Obama and Hilary. Trump was simply repairing those errors.

The US has no nation interest reasons for expending the lives of its youth in the Syrian civil war just as it has no nation interest reasons for expending the lives of its youth in Ukraine. This is nought to do with the colour of the respective combatant's skin.

The "Rolling Stone" magazine has a different take on
why the US under Trump withdrew from Syria.

"Trump has personal business interests in Turkey
but he's promised this decision is protected by his " great
and unmatched wisdom."

The article is worth a read:

http://rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-turkey-kurds-isis-erdogan-895555/

"The article is worth a read"

It's in Rolling Stone...it's never worth a read. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus).

What we see from the article is that the usual suspects, none of whom are likely to suffer from sending US soldiers into harm's way, were completely opposed to Trump removing troops from harm's way when there was no national interest reasons for them to be there. Did these authors or any others opposed to the withdrawal ask the troops how they felt about not be required to fight in a cause that had nothing to do with the US? Does anyone care? Trump did.

So, Foxy, should we mark you down as someone who is OK with kids from Albuquerque fighting any dying for kids in Aleppo?

My view and that of the Trump doctrine, is that US soldier citizens exist to defend the US. And that's it. The same applies to Australia. We should never be sending our kids into harm's way that doesn't benefit Australia - why do we still have troops in Sinai, Cyprus?