Category Archives: Donald Trump

Not All Politicians Buy The Blame-Assad Bull

America, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Middle East, War

A few independent-minded, mainstream politicians are questioning “whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime was responsible for last week’s chemical weapons attack on civilians that prompted US missile strikes.” Like Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, they actually want evidence other than Nikki Haley waving a picture of a kid and Ivanka weeping.

One is Independent Australian MP Andrew Wilkie, also a former senior intelligence analyst. Wilkie “was ‘skeptical’ about who was responsible for the April 4 attack. ‘I’m actually skeptical about some of these claims,’ he told ABC radio on Tuesday. His comments come after US Defence Secretary James Mattis said ‘there is no doubt’ the Assad regime was responsible for planning and orchestrating the deadly attack.”

Wilkie has a history of showing good sense. Via ABC.Net.Au: He “resigned from the intelligence agency Office of National Assessments in 2003 in protest over Australia’s role in the Iraq War, said the Federal Government should have ‘learned from the past.'”

“I think we should be very cautious in Australia and not be too quick to automatically endorse what the US is saying,” said Wilkie.

You’d think!

Hard to believe that after Iraq, against which I railed in columns for years (“Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Culture”), starting in September of 2002, American leaders are back to doing the same.

When you quote truth disgorged by a liberal, GOPers pounce. But truth is truth no matter who says it.

Princeton’s Joyce Carol Oates captured the US’s appetite for destruction:

“[T]ravel to any foreign country,” Oates wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in November 2007, “and the consensus is: The American idea has become a cruel joke, a blustery and bellicose bodybuilder luridly bulked up on steroids … deranged and myopic, dangerous.”

UPDATED (5/3): What Ivanka Wants, Ivanka Gets

Business, Celebrity, Democrats, Donald Trump, Feminism, Gender, Labor

“What Ivanka Wants, Ivanka Gets” is the current column, now on The American Thinker. An excerpt:

“Donald Trump must get those kids out of the White House,” a blunt South African observer of our politics barked at me, weeks back. “You’re looking more and more like us.” She was alluding to the nepotism on display in the Trump White House.

Since the president started strafing Syria, it has become evident that Trump’s favorite offspring needs to be booted from the People’s House. The British press, more irreverent than ours, seconded the broad consensus that Ivanka had nagged daddy into doing it. For The Kids: The First Daughter was, purportedly, devastated by the (unauthenticated) images of a suspected gas attack in Syria.

Brother Eric Trump confirmed it: “Sure, Ivanka influenced the Syria strike decision.” White House spokesman Sean Spicer didn’t deny it.

Eric had headed back to the Trump Organization, as he promised during the campaign. Ivanka just wouldn’t go.

Who could fail to notice that the first daughter, a cloistered, somewhat provincial American princess, has been elevated inappropriately in the White House, while first lady Melania, a cosmopolitan steel magnolia, has been marginalized?

That Ivanka, now her father’s West Wing adviser, drove the offensive in Syria is but a logical deduction.

Ivanka promises that she and her poodle, Jared Kushner, are in compliance with the law. Clever lawyers told her so. Legalistic assurances pertaining to the 1967 Anti-Nepotism Statute mean nothing. Law is hardly the ultimate adjudicator of right and wrong.

Donald’s daughter has no place in the White House, no matter how cutely she “argues” for her ambitions:

“I want to be a force for good.” (Who defines “good,” Ivanka? Limited and delimited government means that it’s not you.)

“I want to pursue my passions.” (Your passions, Ivanka, are not necessarily the people’s passions—or even within the purview of their government.)

Whether she’s tweeting about the accomplishment that is the war on Syria or about inflicting her kids on China’s first couple, Ivanka’s tweets have the insipid emptiness of a contestant in a beauty pageant.

“Proud of my father for refusing to accept these horrendous crimes against humanity.”

“Proud of Arabella and Joseph for their performance in honor of President Xi Jinping and Madame Peng Liyuan’s official visit to the US.”

Such provincialism and solipsism were certainly part of the Obamas’ international persona. Barack and Michelle gave the queen of England an iPod, customized with images and audio from Mr. Obama’s inaugural and DNC addresses.

Wily Arabs are hip to White House dynamics. They know who’s running the White House and whom to flatter. For doing their bidding, Syrian rebels—”we don’t know who they are,” cautioned the Old Donald—have even given President Trump an honorific:

Abu Ivanka al-Amriki: father of Ivanka the American.

I don’t think President Donald Trump’s dispiriting deviation of policy on Syria signaled a lack of core beliefs. What the folly of bombing Syria signals, very plainly, is that what Ivanka wants, Ivanka gets. Republicans and Democrats likely know it but won’t say it. The former because Ivanka is a woman. Republicans dare not wage war on a woman, much less if she wages war on Syria. The latter because Ivanka is a Democrat by any other name. …”

… READ THE “DISPIRITING” REST. “What Ivanka Wants, Ivanka Gets” is now on The American Thinker.

UPDATE (5/3):

World-Class Idiot Nikki Haley On How To Make Syria Great Again

Democracy, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, UN, War

Nikki Haley is no longer a provincial idiot, but a world-class idiot who speaks for Donald Trump when she pontificates on how to make Syria great again:

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, STATE OF THE UNION: Is regime change in Syria now the official policy of the United States?

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: So, there’s multiple priorities. It’s — getting Assad is not the only priority. So, what we are trying to do is, obviously, defeat ISIS. Secondly, we don’t see a peaceful Syria with Assad in there. Thirdly, get the Iranian influence out. And then, finally, move towards a political solution because at the end of the day, this is a complicated situation. There are no easy answers and a political solution is going to have to happen.

But we know that it is not going to be — there is not any sort of option where political solution is going to happen with Assad at the head of the regime. It just — if you look at his actions, if you look at the situations, it’s going to be hard to see a government that’s peaceful and stable with Assad.

TAPPER: Well, of course, it’s hard to. Is it the position of the Trump administration that he cannot be ruler of Syria any more? Regime change is the policy?

HALEY: Well, regime change is something that we think is going to happen because all of the parties are going to see that Assad is not the leader that needs to be taking place for Syria.

Haley also told CNN last week the — rather last week the strike could be followed by more action if necessary.

HALEY: He won’t stop here. If he needs to do more, he will do more. So, really, now, what happens depends on how everyone responds to what happened in Syria and make sure that we start moving towards a political solution and we start finding peace in that area.

UPDATE (4/9): What Does President Donald Trump’s 180 Degree Change On Syria Signal?

Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, History, Iraq, Middle East, War

I don’t believe President Donald Trump’s 180 degree change on Syria signals a lack of core beliefs. David Frum believes this. He writes:

Some have described this reverse as “hypocritical.” This description is not accurate. A hypocrite says one thing while inwardly believing another. The situation with Donald Trump is much more alarming. On October 26, 2016, he surely meant what he said. It’s just that what he meant and said that day was no guide to what he would mean or say on October 27, 2016—much less April 6, 2017.

I don’t usually psychologize, but I have a strong hunch that Ivanka has been elevated excessively in the president’s home and inappropriately in the White House. President Trump treats his daughter like the First Lady. Melania and her son don’t get the respect due to them. Melania is the European version of a steel magnolia. Ivanka is a spoiled, cloistered, provincial American princess.

Ivanka, liberal know-it-all that she is, has inveigled her way into the People’s House. She pushed her husband along too. Look at Jared Kushner. He’s a weak man, bossed about by this lovely looking woman. No doubt, Ivanka is a charmer. Jared’s past, moreover, suggest he’s driven by the need for respectability. (See “What’s Jared Kushner Up To?”)

When it comes to his daughter Ivanka, Donald Trump can’t say no. Ivanka is a celebrity, a trendy youngster, taken with being a “force for good.” She and Jared won’t gain access to celebrity infested world forums like Davos with Donald’s America First agenda. Time for a change.

So what does President Donald Trump’s 180 degree change on Syria signal? Simply that what Ivanka wants, Ivanka gets.

TWEETS:

UPDATE (4/9):

My Ivanka assessment above confirmed. Fire the Kushners.:

4/8:

As Bannon goes, so goes the promise of America First.

How stupid are Americans? Ask Da Rebels.

The Kushner brats.

Rebels give Trump an honorific:

Kushner front and center.

Infiltration:

The Sunni powers are pleased with POTUS. Ivanka happy. Hobnobbing opportunities.

Do we miss Saddam? Yes! Will we miss Assad? Yes. Has the US learned anything? No.

Almost forgot: We’ve gained another enemy.

Today, Tomi Lahren would be the one sexing up war:

Secede from politics?

Neocons rejoice: