Category Archives: War

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:

‘War, War And War Some More’ For Some Time

Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Neoconservatism, War

Do we have a president “whose words and actions are untethered to principle,” as Andrew J. Bacevich contends?

Consider the range of issues where President Trump has backed away from actions that as a candidate he had vowed to take, more often than not on ‘day one’ of his presidency. The US remains fully committed to the Nato alliance that Trump previously denounced as ‘obsolete’. The ‘One China’ policy of previous administrations remains intact, as does the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor. That Trump will abrogate the North American Free Trade Agreement appears about as likely as Mexico paying for any ‘wall’ along the American border. The US embassy in Israel has not moved to Jerusalem and is unlikely to do so any time soon. Trump’s ‘secret plan’ to defeat Isis differs little from Obama’s plan, apart from more bombs and a handful of additional US troops. And Trump’s longed-for friendship with Vladimir Putin has yet to bloom. The Trump administration neither acknowledges nor provides any rationale for these shifts. Over the course of a single news cycle, positions once said to represent the President’s considered view simply become inoperative. Without explanation, the gunboat sent to Agadir weighs anchor and goes home, leaving behind bewilderment and relief.
In other circumstances, we might chalk up the disparity between what a president says while a candidate and then does on the job to mere politics. Or see it as evidence of an individual sobered by responsibility and ‘growing’ in office. Yet such explanations do not apply here. …
Like Wilhelm II, Trump is given to bluster and to striking poses. His compulsion to look tough is apparent. So too is his need to command attention and his affinity for military pomp. He loves generals.

We know of Syria, because the offensive there was launched, today, to great fanfare. But, says a Spectator writer, there’s been “War, war and war some more” for some time. This reality has been concealed by the Russia parallel reality created by Fake News media.

It’s often said that the Trump administration is ‘isolationist’. This is not true. In fact, we are now witnessing a dramatic escalation in the militarisation of US foreign policy in the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan. This has not been announced but it is happening, and much of it without consultation with Nato or other key allies, or any debate in Congress or the media.
A few weeks ago, US aircraft carried out over 30 air strikes against Islamic militants in Yemen — almost the same as the number carried out there all last year. In Iraq and Syria there have been many reports of civilian casualties in US raids. As many as 200 are thought to have been killed in air strikes on Mosul, although Iraqi authorities dispute that.
Meanwhile, some 400 US troops are going to Syria to set up an artillery base to retake Raqqa. Another 1,000 may soon be sent to Kuwait as a reserve force. Another 400 have gone to Iraq and some 8,000 will go to Afghanistan.
Quite an active policy, for someone with no interest in it. A closer look at Trump’s senior aides helps to explain — they’re often from the military. The State Department may be downgraded but the military has never had a stronger influence on a president. …

UPDATED: What’s Jared Kushner Up To?

Donald Trump, Ethics, Family, Foreign Policy, War

Initially, is my guess, Jared Kushner was in IT to ensure that Princess Ivanka’s position in high society was not damaged by the antics of father Donald Trump. Jared’s own father, Charles Kushner, lost his standing in society. Son Jared could not allow the same to happen to his young family. Kushner’s psychological makeup is such that he’s exerting influence, to nudge President Trump toward mainstream positions, wherein lie acceptability and respectability.

But Kushner soon got carried away. Now he’s in the thick of the Trump Administration, allegedly at war with OUR MAN STEVE BANNON.

Had President Trump not flouted rules against nepotism, the Kushner controversy might have been averted. Via Vanity Fair:

… A 1967 law bans presidents from appointing family members to government jobs and Cabinet positions. (Shortly after his election in 1960, John Kennedy appointed his younger brother Bobby as attorney general.) And while Kushner’s proximity to the president raises all sorts of ethical questions, the more pressing curiosity is why Kushner is enduring all this tumult in the first place. Why would a mild-mannered Jewish kid from an establishment Democratic family, particularly one who enjoys a charmed life in Manhattan, defy what would seem to be his interests, his scruples, and his easy existence? …

Instead, “Jared Kushner[‘s] … national security portfolio—China, Mexico, even Iraq, where was he photographed last week flying over Baghdad in a helicopter—has been expanding at a breathtaking rate.”

Alarming indeed.

UPDATES:

No war in Syria!

Kushner couple Holding court.

Humanitarian wars bring society women together. Sick.

If true, why is Trump letting this woman run wild?

I said Tulsi.

More than we bargained for in Jared?

The orientation I care about is no wars for naught.

Make Syria Great Again? Is that it?

McCain: his daughter, dumber than dad, is on the Fox News Channel.

Demoting the Don.

Show me the evidence, but even that doesn’t justify war according to War Powers doctrine and Constitution:

A new deadly troika:

Gloomy Media Happy, Gloating Over Trump Healthcare ‘Failure’

Democrats, Donald Trump, Healthcare, Media, Politics, Republicans, War

Media have taken a break from chasing down and inventing imagined Trump-Russia connections. The tail-chasers are no longer gloomy, but are now happy, celebrating their nemesis’ healthcare failure.

It’s almost a relief to have these miserable media bitches emerge from their brain-addled Russia monomania and laugh a bit. The crazy Russia rants were the stuff of straitjackets (where CNN’s Brian Stelter belongs).

It’s no joke. This same moronic media has taken America to wars with the frenzy it’s able to muster when its members don’t get their way. When the world these media elites inhabit ceases to make sense, they become dangerous. So a respite in these paroxysms is welcome and even relaxing.

Some of the “happy” headlines celebrating the failure to pass the American Health Care Act:

“GOP abandons health-care overhaul as Trump ultimatum fails to save it”

“‘The closer’? The inside story of how Trump tried — and failed — to make a deal on health care”

“Trump learns that dealmaking is not the same as leadership”

“Trump tastes failure as healthcare bill collapses”

Major Setback for Trump in First Big Legislative Clash

If the Trump healthcare bill was no good, why is its failure so bad? Throughout, Republican and Democratic TV hosts said not a word about the contents of Trump’s healthcare Bill. They’ve failed to explain it to their audiences. The empty debates on TV and radio have been devoted to lamenting a strategic loss, nothing else.