This is fairly disturbing...
Every time that there's been news that the Russia investigation is getting closer to finding the smoking gun between Trump and Putin, Trump's done something outrageous to distract us all. Firing the attorneys in the Dept of Justice, blaming Obama for wiretapping him, compromising Nunes to derail the House investigation, blaming Susan Rice...pretty much anything. So, when I read this article, at first I thought, "Nah, that's just conspiracy theory..." ...and then I thought "Hrm...it would go along with Trump's M.O." Finally, I thought, "Damn. That would help drum up support from 'patriots' in both Russia and the US, and blunt any possible chance of criticism hurting the leaders. Not only that, no Americans or Russians would have to be killed...just Syrians, that Russia and America clearly care nothing about." I expect there will be no way to ever know if this was a planned collusion to distract everyone from Trump's indiscretions, but it would completely fit his pattern. 78 days in, and innocents are potentially being killed to further his cause and distract from the Russian circus that is the current Administration. Whether any of this is true or not, my previous post stands, though: Trump and Putin are playing with fire here.
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I was a bit surprised to read this morning that John McCain, often the target of Trump's nasty wit (such as it is), has come out saying that Trump should consider this a chance to reboot with the American people.
If you're completely Machiavellian, then yes, he's probably right, at least for the short term. Let Syria be the bogeyman that the Americans need to unite to defeat, and Americans will, probably unite. Strange thing, though...this is not a new situation. It's been going on literally for decades, and it's largely been fueled by previous Administration's rhetoric and actions. That part always gets left out when saying "let's unite". In trying to meddle only a little bit at a time (with 'little' being a relative term), America has prolonged a civil war that would probably not have lasted very long (look at all the other Arab Spring conflicts). America pushed hard enough to fan the flames of the conflict, but didn't push hard enough to help put them out once burning...after all, America's resources were already stretched trying to deal with Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia has stepped into Syria with a huge bellows, and blown those flames white-hot. Assad's a bad man, no doubt, but I wonder if the hundreds of thousands that Assad has killed in the last 5 years of the 6 year war would have appreciated America sticking its nose in in the first place. Now that Russia has stepped in and bought regional influence relatively cheaply, the situation has gotten more complex still...there are up to 11 countries involved in this war, depending on how you count. With Russia switching off the hotline meant to prevent conflicts from arising, one could be forgiven thinking that their plan is to fan the flames even higher, perhaps directly into a war. After all, Russia, too, needs an 'evil enemy' to unite against. We're not just wondering how deep a rabbit hole goes here. We're staring into an abyss. I think it's fairly easy to get people to agree: Assad's a bad man who's killed hundreds of thousands of his own people.
The fact that he used sarin, a chemical warfare agent, is not just 'bad', it's evil. Completely. Not only did Assad gas his own people, he then bombed the hospital where the survivors were being treated to try to cover it up. It is a situation that should be dealt with by the full power and agreement of the majority of the UN. I don't often find myself in agreement with the alt-right conspiracy-fueled crazies, but the simple fact is, they don't think Trump should have done the strike, and I don't either. Our reasons, of course, are vastly different. The alt-right sees this as a white supremacy issue. Seriously? In 2017? <ahem> Let's just say I disagree with them. My reason for suggesting this was a bad move is that Trump is a mental child with a big new (and deadly) toy. He has proven himself small-minded, petty, and flighty. He changes his mind on a moment by moment basis. He has no plan to speak of, no policy, no direction anyone can get behind. He's not leading, he's reacting. This is a real problem, as we've seen time and again, ISIS (and the rebels and the Syrian army) are all using human shields. Poor innocents that happen to be around to be used to try to prevent attack against the military. None of the players in Syria are above trying to lure a US reactionary strike at a time and place that will cause lots of civilians to be killed. I fear that Russia and Syria (and their tool ISIS) are going to cause Trump to go one step too far, and start a global conflict simply because he's got a new toy that goes boom. Putin needs a war because his economy is in tatters after the combination of sanctions and the drop in oil prices. A war that the country can agree upon would unite the country in a way nothing else can, and provide lots more opportunity for growth by taking things from other countries. I'm pretty sure Crimea is not the only target Putin's got his eye on. Simply because there are so many players on the field, we need global agreement on what is the right thing to do here. We need a strategy, we need a plan, and we need to execute on that plan together. *Yawn* This is getting old.
Trump blamed the recent chemical attacks in Syria on Obama. Despite tweeting a warning to then-President Obama not to start a fight in Syria, and, now that Trump's president, despite not having the slightest clue what to do about Syria Trump is still laying this all at Obama's feet. Even the most die-hard of alt-right believers must be starting to see that this is Trump's pattern...something bad happens, the first thing to do is to find someone to blame it on. Take Trumpcare, f'r instance. He blamed Obamacare on Obama...then he blamed the failure of a rotten bill on the Democrats, then Republicans, then the extreme Republicans, then finally couldn't even be bothered to lay the blame at Ryan's door...but rather just handed the ball to a new anchor to crucify Ryan. Take the raid in Yemen...he blamed the generals for the screw up. That's not "presidential", whatever that means. It's not the action of a leader. Hell, it's not the action of a real man. It's the action of a scared little coward. Just a little advice now, Trump: get over it. Obama is no longer the President...YOU are. Act like it. Oh, and use that Presidential Executive Order for something worthwhile: bring Santa back to life. Maybe he can give you what you really want. One of Trump's favourite tactics, when some news goes against him, is to stir up more controversy. Say or do something so outrageous that the rest of the world looks at that, rather than at the oopsie he's just done.
Take, for example, the testimony of Clinton Watts, in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said that not only is Russia employing "active measures" to affect election cycles in other countries, but that the President himself has become a cog in such machinery and has used these measures against his opponents. Think about that. A sitting president is colluding with the US's principal enemy to get himself into office. That casts doubt not just on Trump, but on every single person voted in during this last election. How deep is this rabbit hole going to go? Okay, let's say that Trump leaves (the Republicans are already calculating what happens when he leaves, not if). Then we're stuck with Pence. This really isn't the guy we would have voted in...he's the only one who'd put up with Trump long enough to get into office. His record on a whole host of things makes him odious in the extreme. The only way he's palatable is in comparison to Trump himself. I think this is really why he's smiling in all his pictures of Trump...he knows he's next. But should we be stuck with Pence? he was elected in the same tainted election that Trump was. Okay, let's say for the sake of argument that we throw him out as well...who does that leave? According to wikipedia: 1 Vice President Mike Pence (R) 2 Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan (R) 3 President pro tempore of the Senate Orrin Hatch (R) 4 Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (R) 5 Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin (R) 6 Secretary of Defense James Mattis (I) 7 Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R) 8 Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke (R) – Secretary of Agriculture Mike Young (D)[a] 9 Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross (R) – Secretary of Labor Ed Hugler (I)[a] 10 Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price (R) 11 Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson (R) – Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao (R)[b] 12 Secretary of Energy Rick Perry (R) 13 Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos (R) 14 Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin (I) 15 Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly (I) That doesn't even mention the National Security Council, or the shadow council Bannon has put into place. At this point, I'd say we're fairly well screwed here. There's not a person on that list I'd be happy to see as president. Bottom line, I suspect that pretty much any of these people will do a better job than Trump, that's simply axiomatic. We do still need to get rid of Trump. But how much better? I just can't be terribly optimistic for the course of the US over the next four years. I wonder...if Trump's performance continues on its current course, what will become of the Republicans?
As a group, they seem so hell-bent on taking power that they've forgotten they're in a democracy. During the election, they couldn't unite behind someone with any experience at all, they had to resort to presenting a buffoon as their candidate. Now that the world has seen just how bad Trump's presidency has been, how many of the Senators and Representatives voted in on his coattails will be unceremoniously booted out at the next elections? Were that to happen, the Republican party would still exist, in some form or another...but would it still have any viability? Perhaps it's time for the Republicans to split into their actual factions and the US to become a multi-party system. American military spending is larger than that of the next 12 countries put together. That's a *lot* of military spending.
In traditional terms, it would be a fine way to project power across the world...except... Guerrilla warfare is the art of a smaller, much weaker force, using hit-and-run and disinformation tactics to defeat a much larger force. Take a look at what is happening with the American government right now...Trump riled people up and was voted in to theoretically take on "the establishment" and "drain the swamp". He ran as a Republican (though threatening to be an independent at times). His election was so fraught and aggressive that the Republicans were in doubt if the party were going to survive the election. When he got to office, he identified the Democrats as his enemies, and immediately alienated them, making it impossible to work with them. The anger and intrigue surrounding the election, and his non-unifying approach to the Democrats made them his enemies, and guaranteed that he'd have a tough time getting his appointees through. Then he chose the worst of a lot of bad apples to be his toadies, further guaranteeing opposition to his efforts. Then he backed and pushed very hard on AHCA, which would have hurt a great many people. It was so bad, the Republican party fractured, and a significant portion of them had to fight the bill. Republicans have had 7 years to agree on what to do...this wasn't a rush job. When push came to shove, they made it impossible for Trump to get his bill through. Again, instead of trying to work with folks in Congress to change the bill into something useful, he has told them, "See you in the 2018 elections". In other words, he's going to campaign to get more people in congress who will obey him blindly, no matter how much damage he's going to do to America as a whole and Americans individually. Of course, his trips to play golf have taken up literally 1/3 of his time in the office, so he hasn't had a chance to appoint many of the people needed to run the government. Result? The US government is on auto-pilot, without a credible leader. It's weakened, and brittle. That's how you fight the US, apparently: by making it fight itself. It's been a busy week for the Trump family.
Google has this definition of nepotism: nepotism - the practice among those with power or influence of favouring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs. Usage: "his years in office were marked by corruption and nepotism" Jared Kushner, Trump's son in law, has been appointed to help business-ify government. We've all thought at one point or another that the government wastes money...and so it would make sense to applaud a (or almost any) money-saving measure. Except...I wonder if this is the right person, and the right agency to do so? Ivanka Trump will become an unpaid governmental employee, and will have an office in the White House. This is uncharted territory, as no previous president would have even considered it. With Trump's record of violating even the most basic of ethics codes, what new ways will they find to exploit the system? Trump himself will be getting in on further action by breaking yet another campaign promise, and buying a second hotel in Washington, so he can further profit from his government. Once again...is this America "winning", or the Trump family winning? |
AuthorEngineer, Dad, Concerned Citizen. Watching the America I love fading and eroding before my eyes. Archives
November 2018
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