Category Archives: Foreign Policy

‘Trump’s National Security Strategy is Decidedly Non-Trumpian’

Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, IMMIGRATION

Well of course. Trump’s National Security Strategy is largely neoconservative.

Strategically, the Trump administration’s NSS “is thematically consistent with many previous administration’s strategies,” the official who’s read the full draft said. “In fact, it even shares many similarities with” the Obama administration’s 2015 Strategy. … [recognizing] that promoting economic prosperity is core to sustained U.S. global leadership; both highlight the value of preserving an open and liberal international order that has often times benefited the United States; and both underscore the importance of preserving core American principles and values. “What’s most striking is how disconnected the Trump NSS is from the words and actions of the president himself …
… the United States will always stand with those who seek freedom … [and] continue to lead in championing human rights. …
“the United States must continue to attract the innovative and the inventive…[and] create easier paths for the flow of scientists, engineers, and technologists into and out of public service.” [The last sentence is commensurate with Trumpism as it’s vague. What does it means? Who? Immigrants? Hi-tech immigrants must go into government? WTF!?]

“The draft NSS does contain a few uniquely ‘Trumpian’ themes, including multiple references to ‘sovereignty.’”

It states that “the United States affirms its sovereign right to determine who should enter the country and under what circumstances.” It also discusses physical border security, such as through “a border wall, the use of multilayered technology, the deployment of additional personnel” and through the use of “enhanced vetting of prospective immigrants, refugees, and other foreign visitors.”

Another classically ‘Trumpian’ theme is the idea that, while the liberal international order has helped advance U.S. interests in some cases, it has also hurt the United States. The NSS’s second pillar, “Advancing American Prosperity,” notes that “we oppose protectionism, but take the view that globalism and multilateralism have gone substantially too far to the point that they are hurting U.S. and global growth. Our partners and international institutions can and should do more to address economic and trade imbalances, including overcapacity in industrial sectors.”

Bad Things Legitimized Under Trump, On The Welfare & Warfare Fronts

Business, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Republicans, Taxation, War, Welfare

Has anyone notice that:

1. Transfer programs, welfare, have gained populist legitimacy under President Trump?

[Expanded] is the child tax credit … allowing families who owe no federal income taxes to still claim up to $1,400 of the $2,000 child tax credit, up from $1,100 in the original version.

2. The taxpayers most stiffed are now individuals, more often than not from humble beginnings, whose talents and hard work have netted them a high income. A glance at the Bell Curve explains why this cohort has no political clout: they’re a statistical minority.

Also legitimized under Trump is permanent warfare. You can say, “our forces in Africa,” and nobody, left or right, will question our sacred military’s right to be in over 100 countries conducting maneuvers. America’s borders remain porous.

3. “All of the individual tax breaks will expire at the end of 2025.” In other words, tax cuts for businesses are forever, tax cuts for individuals merely temporary.

UPDATED (2/12): Yemen: Iraq All-Over Again, But Without The Ground Forces

Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Neoconservatism, Republicans, UN, War

“‘Yemeni Journalist: Saudi Arabia’s Total Blockade on Yemen is Death Sentence for All.'” But, apparently, some lowlifes on my Twitter feed are dancing with joy like the 9/11 rooftop dancers. Yes, maybe it’s Fake News. Seriously, if you wish this on Yemeni kids; I wish this on yours.

Maybe the dumb f-cks of the US government want more refugees pouring into the US, this time Yemeni ones. The Saudi’s, our bosom buddies, are barricading Yemeni ports. No aid gets through. They’re dying.

Veterans, however, seem to demand that we prop-up their warfare state:

UPDATE (2/12):

Mainstream Media Discovers Tulsi Gabbard, The Only Decent Democrat In Politics

Democrats, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Politics

“Tulsi Gabbard: Young, Unique, Reagan Democrat” was written as far back as December 24, 2015.

But I had first discovered this impressive Democrat on 2015/05/28. “Tulsi Gabbard Is Not A Total Ass,” I wrote soberly about an interview the Hawaiian Congresswoman gave to CNN. I was still in disbelief that a decent Democrat existed.

In the book, “The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed,” I went on to hope that a President Donald Trump give Democrat Tulsi Gabbard an appointment in his future administration. (He did the opposite, appointing a neoconservative, that global village idiot, Nikki Haley, who hated him.)

“Luring the only decent Democrat currently in public life to a Trump administration may prove strategic, in scooping up Bernie Sanders’ voters. Being a Democrat generally comes with the presumption of asininity, which is why Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is unusual. She’s an Iraq War veteran, who serves on the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees. She’s poised, articulate, beautiful—and she never whinges like Michelle Fields. Tulsi stands firm against gratuitous wars, opposes the deposing of Bashar al-Assad, and despises Debbie Wasserman Schultz, despicable DNC Chair and handmaiden to Hillary.”

Finally, years on, mainstream media has caught on to Tulsi’s star power. In the November 6, 2017 Issue, The New Yorker has a profile of this “charismatic, unorthodox Democrat,” whose “opposition to U.S. intervention abroad” is quite libertarian:

…less than two weeks after the election, Gabbard agreed to meet with Trump to make her case for a noninterventionist foreign policy. A few months later, she flew to Syria and met with Bashar al-Assad, who is presiding over a brutal civil war; she and he seemed to agree that the United States should not intervene to stop it …

“What Does Tulsi Gabbard Believe?”

If Tulsi Gabbard topples the old Democrat guard, which she had fought during the 2016 election, Republicans are in trouble.