Why does Donald Trump say the things he does about Syria and its government?
He insists that the SAG attacks its people with chemical weapons when such attacks have never been proven. They have only been asserted by opponents of the government and in fact there exists a lot of evidence that these attacks have been staged by information operations projects like the White Helmets film production group with the surreptitious backing of a network of covert action people within the the UK government and money from USAID.
He insists that the jihadi defenders of their lodgement in Idlib Province are somehow worthy of American protection when in fact they are the same breed of salafi takfiri fanatics that he boasts of having defeated in the "caliphate."
He insists that the SAA and its allies are in the process of massacring the civilian population of Idlib Province when in fact the opposite is true. Is it not clear that the usual blizzard of anti-government propaganda has been generated solely because the SAA is winning the day in Idlib Province?
He seems oblivious or indifferent to the fact that the Syrian Government are the protectors of the Christian and other minorities in the country. Is he not a Christian?
His positions seem to imitate precisely the attitude of the the Israeli Likud run government and its closest US supporters like Sheldon Adelson, the casino man. These forces have made it clear that they prefer that Syria be made into a Hobbesian maelstrom in which many small groups fight among themselves forever rather than that the present multi-confessional government should survive.
Where does Trump get such ideas? Is it from his addiction to Fox News personalities like Jack Keane, Lou Dobbs, Brian Kilmeade and Sean Hannity? These are people who collectively have no real understanding of the realities of the Middle East but they all have a lot of opinions seemingly based on free floating hostility toward anything in the world that does not serve their hyper-nationalism.
Is it the Turks who tell him such self serving untruths? Is it not clear that Erdogan and company are intent on splitting off parts of Syria for future annexation?
Do CIA, DIA, State INR and the rest of the IC also feed him such nonsense? The analysts must know the truth if they are not swept up in massive group think. Perhaps their leaders are simply afraid to tell him the truth in the face of the opposition of people like Jared Kushner and his allies in Bolton's NSC staff.
I support many of Trump's positions with regard to the economy, immigration and his trade struggle with China. I may even vote for him considering the choices likely to be advanced by the Democrats but I am at a loss to understand why he claims to believe his own foolish statements about Syria. pl
A few days ago Trump said tht the hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama. It didn’t and the FEMA disgreed with that and so did the map they produced about Dorian.
Iirc today Trump was back with that map and (perhaps by himself) the area of the hurricane was increased with an felt pen, now covering parts of Alabama – and said that he was all totally right all the time. An ego thing I presume. Well, Trump is Trump.
As for where Trump gets his info about Syria from, well, there are Pompeo and Bolton and of course his son in law Kushner.
Pompeo and Bolton are already very pro Israel and anti Syria, and Kushner is probably out of his depth and happily used by Netanyahu and he’s on a “Du” with the occasionally murderous saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman.
IMO from none of these three Trump will get sensible or rational advice and since the so called “grownups” (Tillerson, Mattis, Kelly) in the whitehouse have been driven out or quit themselves there is probably no ‘alternative opinion’ to whatever Bolton, Pompeo and Kushner say.
My sense is that, whereas most politicians state what the people want to hear and then actually do what nameless forces behind the scenes desire, Trump actually does what the people want, while stating what the nameless forces behind the scenes want to hear.
To me at least that’s how his admin has appeared to act thus far.
Once in a while he tosses the nameless forces a bone – like recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. That way the nameless forces can’t totally turn on him. He’s done just enough to remain a “friend” without recklessly endangering or alienating the USA and his base.
pl it is likely a bit from all of the above. trump does not seem like a reader or even scholarly of the type to discover his own truth from wide spread source material certainly available to him. thus his world view must be imported from other people he trusts/needs/owes.
of more importance is his thus far adamant refusal to start any new wars. clinton, obama and bush jr were/are bloodthirsty maniacs compared to trump.
whatever can be said of trump and his bombast he is at core a peaceful man compared to his predecessors.
I was going to explain who Trump listens to but would take too long and loyalist would poo poo it anyway.
So…. Send in the Clowns! The Circus Must Go On!
Jason Geenblatt , uber zionist and former Trump Organization lawyer and then Trump’s chief “international negotiator” for the Middle East is resigning.
This could have been good news depending on who replaced him.
BUT…
Trump Somehow Replaces Unqualified Mideast Envoy With Even Less Qualified One
Following Middle East peace envoy Jason Greenblatt’s imminent departure from the administration, 30-year-old White House aide Avi Berkowitz will take on much of Greenblatt’s work.
https://www.businessinsider.com/avi-berkowitz-will-take-over-major-middle-east-peace-responsibilities-2019-9
‘Former White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Insider in March 2017 that Berkowitz’s White House role was primarily administrative and involved assisting Kushner with daily logistics.
Hope Hicks, then a White House spokeswoman, told Insider in March 2017 that Berkowitz’s role was primarily administrative and involved assisting Kushner with daily logistics like getting coffee or coordinating meetings.
Berkowitz qualifications for the job? He worked for Trump’s election campaign, has some personal connections to Israel, where he studied for two years at an Orthodox seminary after high school and is a friend of Kushner.
catherine
“daily logistics like getting coffee or coordinating meetings” That is preceisely how the great hero Ollie North got started at the NSC
Trump is a bullshit artist. He doesn’t believe in anything. He has no ideological positions, and certainly nothing like sense of strategy beyond short-term deals and electioneering.
Someone tells him the headchoppers are freedom fighters? Great, then they’re freedom fighters.
But I think he has a gut-level sense that people dislike wars that don’t result in a big win and a parade. I think he also understands that our Middle Eastern policy as been a goat-rope for decades and people are sick of it.
His hero Reagan cut and ran after Beirut… and it didn’t hurt him one bit.
Bush 41 got a parade… and then lost to a draft-dodger.
W played Tom Cruise on a carrier deck… and now he looks like a hollowed out shell.
Trump will go along with whatever the Likud wing of the uni-party wants, but my sense is he will always draw the line at a real war unless he can be false-flagged into one.
For me, the real question is: how did it come to pass that American evangelicals allowed themselves to be bought off by Zionists, beginning after’67 and really after ’73, to the point that they put there interests of those people (who hate them and spread abortion, homosexuality and general degeneracy in their communities) over the survival of their fellow Christians?
He is being duplicitous. From the second Presidential debate
“Now, she talks tough. She talks really tough against Putin and against Assad. She talks in favor of the rebels. She doesn’t even know who the rebels are. You know, every time we take(talk)rebels whether it’s in Iraq or anywhere else, we’re arming people. And you know what happens? They end up being worse than the people.(Syrian People – SAA – Government)”
3rd debate referring to Saudi Arabia donating to the Clinton Foundation
“It’s a criminal enterprise. Saudi Arabia given $25 million, Qatar, all of these countries. You talk about women and women’s rights? So these are people that push gays off business, off buildings. These are people that kill women and treat women horribly and yet you take their money. So I’d like to ask you right now why don’t you give back the money that you’ve taken from certain countries that treat certain groups of people so horribly? Why don’t you give back the money?”
3rd debate Syria
“Now they have lined — he has aligned with Russia and with Iran. They don’t want ISIS, but they have other things because we’re backing, we’re backing rebels. We don’t know who the rebels are. We’re giving them lots of money, lots of everything. We don’t know who the rebels are, and when and if — and it’s not going to happen because you have Russia and you have Iran now. But if they ever did overthrow Assad, you might end up with as bad as Assad is. And he’s a bad guy. But you may very well end up with worse than Assad.”
He knows. He is not a Christian as far as I can tell. He is more devoted to his daughter than Evangelicals. I believe him to be a Zionist. May be just opportunist motive or deeper.
CP
The Map thing is meaningless. he drew a line on a map because someone told him it might go that way.
I’ll risk a bit of a long winded answer to your question. It relates to a few things I’ve been pondering about Trump and his foreign policy and challenges dealing with the Borg. I have noted that there are significantly less posts on ME war issues for a while, which IMO reflects the fact that Trump is not as well leashed by the Borg compared to Obama.
The last time Trump was in North Korea, simultaneously Bolton was in Mongolia. And not only that Bolton made a point to the news that this was long planned in advance (hahahaha). I have noticed the absence of Bolton in the headlines. Just before I started typing this I searched google news on Bolton and the main stories are about how he has been sidelined.
IMO, Trump is saying those things about Syria to cover his ass against both the neocons and the MSM. Every time he has bucked the Borg on FP issues in a public way, he has gotten slammed. Look at how the MSM reacted to his meeting with Putin not long after he was elected. Then he was chastised about his Syrian policy because he was ready to pull out of Syria and to let Putin finish up there, but the Borg and MSM went apeshit until he had a vacant warehouse (or something like that) in Syria bombed at which point ALL rejoiced at his newly found anti Syrian gov’t action. And of course, US troops were only somewhat removed.
Last year I listened to an interview with Sebastian Gorka where he explained that when the big meetings on FP/war issues were held (with whatever Pentagon, State Dept, CIA,etc) none of them would listen to what Gorka was trying to tell them about what Trump wanted done. They did not want any input from Trump on these issues. So Trump has to be aware that the Borg don’t want him to modify US imperial FP.
Where does all of this leave Trump if he wants to cut back on foreign entanglements in terms of war and nation building? He has to be devious in his dealings with the Borg and the MSM, which means saying one thing to appease while actually doing other things. This is also how he tries to play the Dems with his tweets, meanwhile getting conservative judges appointed on the QT (for example). In addition to being a cool thing in it’s own right, I think the Space Force is both something to keep the Borg occupied and keep their approval as well as something for him to boast about. There are probably other FP issues that Trump can throw his support behind so that Borg creatures have imperial projects (like Africom) to keep them busy that don’t involve color revolutions, nation building or troop deployments.
It has been interesting to watch him try and thread the needle on Iran. On the one hand trying to appease Israel and the Borg, but on the other hand NOT engaging in actual hostile military action. Trump’s troll of the Iran gov’t recently is hilarious. Here’s Bill Whittle & co on that topic…
Trump Tweet-Trolls Iran Regime After ‘Catastrophic Accident’ at Safir Missile Site https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vonsJULD5cE (~12 min)
“President Trump Tweet-Trolls the Iranian regime using a satellite photo of a “catastrophic accident” involving its Safir SLV missile at Semnan Launch Site One. The American Left goes ballistic, accusing Trump of leaking the classified image.”
My SWAG is similar to what Eric Newhill and Vegetius have already said. I think the answer is rather prosaic: He simply believes that his re-election chances are enhanced by playing the role of ‘King of Israel’, or more precisely Prince of the Likudniks. If parroting Ziocon propaganda wrt Syria is required for this role so be it. The truth? Unlike most of us, I think this just isn’t a concept that troubles the showman-in-chief.
Before his decision to audition for his current role, did Trump display signs of Zionist or neocon sympathies? Even as POTUS, his gifts to Bibi have been (highly) symbolic, but symbolic nonetheless. Perhaps he will even tweet support for the JINSA treaty in the next 10 days, as a last minute bit of symbolism. But is he willing to go to war for Bibi? Until bombs start dropping on Iran I will remain unconvinced.
Unfortunately, I am not at all sure Trump appreciates that war on Israel’s behalf may not be something within his control. Or perhaps far worse, he believes the likes of Bolton who doubtless tell him Iran & Hizbullah can be dispatched with quick & painless air campaigns. Anyway, the sad truth appears to be that the immediate prospects of war are more closely linked to Bibi’s re-election chances. That said, the charade on Sunday seems to indicate both sides were happy to role play real conflict, at least on this occasion.
It seems he likes to regurgitate whatever the last person he talked to said to him. Trump is an idiot.
If he vetoes the warmongers desires he is a useful idiot though.
It is just a distraction, anything to take the press heat off of the three and a half billion dollar raid on the defense budget to build the great wall of China. Just like the sharpie on the hurricane map, it also was a distraction. Along with many others in the past
As much as I dislike him, I have to admit the guy is a maestro at manipulating the media.
Confused,
A few days ago everyone except Trump was saying that hurricane was going to hit Florida South of Melbourne and drive across to Orlando and make a right turn and head North. The weather forecasters were wrong but it didn’t stop the news broadcasters from repeating that for close to 3 days straight. The Syria forecasts from bombing Bolton and company are just as wrong. Syria poses no threat to the US and hopefully Trump knows that.
My guess is that the root of Trump’s behavior in the Mideast can be traced to his relationship with Netanyahu, MBS and other Israelis and Arabs dating back to 2015 at least. It’s purely transactional, certainly not out of any allegiance to neocon or Zionist principles. Trump either got something from these people and/or thinks he will get something from them in exchange for his pro-Israeli, anti-Iran and anti-Syria utterances and actions. I seriously doubt this can be attributed to a case of Trump being ridden like a rented mule by the neocon advisors around him. Trump knows what he’s doing.
The map thing should be meaningless. Trump has been fixated on the hurricane going to Alabama for a week now through his repeated tweets, ham-fisted sharpie map adjustment and calling of a Fox reporter into the WH to personally insist he’s right about Alabama. The more the internet ridicules him, the more fixated and enraged Trump becomes. It’s not healthy.
If you tell me America is an empire, I’m like, ‘s cool. I dig history. Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History just as good as it gets. I’d rather be in the empire than under it. Although, if I were under it, I’d be all there, too. I just have a problem with fecklessness. Ah well… Nothing lasts forever.
I don’t believe they did get bought off. I believe they saw an opportunity to support a Greater Israel as a stepping stone to creating the Final War at Armageddon and the End Of Days; after which Jesus will come back to establish a Thousand Year Rule of Righteousness on the Earth.
In the Evangelical Vision ( or more specifically the Rapturanian Armageddonite wing of the Evangelical Vision), all the Jews from all over the World will be re-Ingathered into the Greatest Ever Israel, there to be exterminated except for 144,000 who will be spared by God and converted to Rapturanian Armageddonism.
There is even a “rapture index” (no joke) for Rapturanians to check for signs of Leading Rapturenomic Indicators. I would offer the search engine blurb but I can’t copy paste it. But here is the link.
https://www.raptureready.com/rapture-ready-index/
So maybe moderate Evangelicals really did sell out. . . if that is what they did . . . but the Rapturanian Armageddonites didn’t sell out anything. Rather, I would hypothesize that they have “captured” Israel in certain significant ways, and will keep it on course to fulfilling the role they have assigned for it in the coming End Of Days War at Armageddon.
When I see negative stories about Trump in the Fake-Stream Media, I don’t know whether I am receiving genuine early-warning information about a looming Trump problem or whether I am just seeing newer kinds of catapulted propaganda in service to various narratives designed to prepare public opinion for demise-ing Trump.
So this story caught my eye. It purports to describe a rolling melt-down in Trump’s behavior just lately. But is it true or fact-based? Or is it part of a multi-channel narrative campaign designed to massage the public mood in favor of Article 25ing the President since the other approaches to removal appear not to have worked? If it is the latter, then I would expect more such stories from seemingly different and unrelated channels. If indeed an “Article 25-ing” is what is being slowly engineered into preparation and roll-out, then I would expect the Article 25ers to take as much time as necessary to get so many other cabinet officers involved in the Declaration of Incompetency that VP Pence can stay un-involved one way or another . . . so as to inherit Trump’s base of supporters when Pence is made President . . . under this scenario.
Anyway, here is the link to kick and sniff at . . . from every possible angle of approach and attack.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-aides-worried-about-mental-state-alabama-hurricane-dorian-2019-9
Pat,
is it really so meaningless?
“18 U.S. Code § 2074. False weather reports
Whoever knowingly issues or publishes any counterfeit weather forecast or warning of weather conditions falsely representing such forecast or warning to have been issued or published by the Weather Bureau, United States Signal Service, or other branch of the Government service, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ninety days, or both.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2074
“Not more than ninety days” isn’t that big a deal when compared to things like, say, tax evasion, bribery or habitually cheating at golf.
In the end it doesn’t so much matter why he did it and then, thanks to Giuliani, “reality isn’t reality” and in that field Trump is rather experienced.
The point is that he apparently did it.
The why is something about character and motive and that would be a question for an investigation.
Trump could entertain us with pardoning himself … for something he of course most certainly didn’t do.
Probably Trump would go into a rabid tweet frenzy if, say, the congress would want to look into that (or his finances). That written, Trump has very likely done some worse things than playing with a pen on a weather map.
But then – so it is not ‘fake news by badly losing media’ but ‘greatly grandiose fake weather news to the effing media’? I don’t see that as an improvement.
My observation for what it’s worth is that DJT is very aware that he wields a Presidential veto. His formative influences appear to be what happened to his brother and conversations with his Uncle John G Trump. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Trump
His reality tv shows gave him understanding of that audience base and he used that knowledge to construct a sufficient electoral base to defeat all other Republican candidates then go on to win what was seen as an unlosable election for his opponent. He has maintained that political base throughout his Presidency to date. His Trade Policy has been consistent throughout under Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. Domestic policy has been left as the provenance of his electoral base and power brokers.
Defence and State has been more about avoiding trench warfare and losing by keeping the forces involved off balance. Love him or ridicule him DJT has proven to be a formidable operator and may yet win a second term.
Oliver North, hero of regime change neocons.
I’ve detected the same pattern. That’s why I’m sticking with Trump–at least until/unless something better comes along.
The short answer is The Scofield Reference Bible.
I agree, no different to Trump fibbing about the Chinese calling about trade last week. Trump has tied his record to that of the stock market so he lied when the markets looked like they would open dramatically lower.
CP
I do not think that the president drawing a line on a map is a weather forecast in the legal sense. Once again, you are stereotypically humorless.
( I am suspecting that when I said “Article” 25, I should have meant to say “Amendment” 25. At any rate, the recently crafted Constitutional Provision for declaring a President to be incompetent to carry out the duties of his Office and therefor removing him from that Office).
Pacifica Advocate
Without the Indian Wars there would have been some sort of weird cross between Asia and Western Europe, instead of what we know as “the USA”–which would have continued to exist, of course. Alabama would have been admitted as Cherokeeland, or some such, instead of being stolen from those people and ethnically cleansed. You are flat-out wrong about the economics & history of Slavery. Modern Honduras and most of South America, but also Asia’s sweatshops are ample proof of that. It was another 130 years before automation and industrialization could come anywhere close to undercutting the plantation system, which remains alive and well in many parts of the world, even today. Slavery was–and still is, in the for-profit prison system–extremely profitable. Precisely 0 plantations in 1860s south or South America went bankrupt because of cost overruns.
PA
Entertaining alternative history. In re the economics of slavery, you are mistaken. slaves could not leave their place of enslavement. Wage slaves can do so. the present migration of peones from across the world to the US border is an example of that. Additionally , agricultural labor is/was something in which machines could replace human labor, assembling electronic goods and/or making clothing requires a lot of busy little hands.
It matters not what Trump believes or even what he wants.
What matters is what he does.
Trump certainly keeps us all mystified.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/
As for the belief that he’s simply a fool — well he did think he could become POTUS, when no one else did, and he did, so he can’t be all that much of a fool can he?
PA
And … you did not address the issue of the North’s invasion and conquest of the South. Was that justifed?
two words:
Ersatz Israel
or one word:
Lebensraum
”What matters is what he does”
True.
Everyone is so preoccupied with the “Trump show” they aren’t paying attention to what he is doing and what the media isn’t reporting.
He’s a literal wrecking ball on our public lands, wanting to turn them over for ‘development’, on regulations that protect investors from WS, on regulations in the FDA that oversees food safety, selling off half of the US oil reserves without regard to possible future emergency needs, gutting and undermining US institutions instead of just cleaning them up, thereby creating an entire populace that trust nothing, deregulating environmental standards to the point that even the auto makers are objecting to gas emissions roll backs…ugh…I cant go on…welcome to the wild, wild west cowboys where the Sheriffs are that Shadow government everyone talks about….good luck.
” I have to admit the guy is a maestro at manipulating the media.”
Ever considered the media is manipulating him?
Provoking him to more and more twitter lunacy?
Which in ways tends to benefit Trump by keeping his loyalist on his side defending him against ‘fake news’.
Then again maybe its a ‘partnership’….Trump gets to keep his defenders and the corp media gets to keep shielding corp special interest by reporting on crazy Trump and not what the corps and Donald’s buddies are getting from him.
”Unfortunately, I am not at all sure Trump appreciates that war on Israel’s behalf may not be something within his control. ”
Neither am I.
Besides what Netanyahu may do to start a war we have the Fifth Column to contend with also.
To get around Trump’s reluctance to wage military war the Israeli Fifth Column in his Adm steered him into waging ‘economic war’ on its enemies instead….which is right down Trump’s alley as that was the pattern of his business career.
The levers of the economic war are being handled by State and Treasury.
At State, David Schenker, State Department’s Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and his underling Brian Hook.
At Treasury , And Sigal P. Mandelker Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence U.S. Department of the Treasury. in charge of financial sanctions. Mandelker was born in Israel of course.
The worry is if the economic sanctions dont bring down Israel’s list of enemies can they push Trump to the militry solution? Given Trump’s greatest fear, that of being a ‘loser’ maybe they can. There are actually few countries left to sanction or declare terrorist or even individuals left to sanction. And the sanctions dont seem to be working.
The latest person sanctioned is the Capitan of a oil tanker, who refused the State Departments bribe. They sanctioned the ship too but I don’t think the ship cares.
Financial Times reports:
”Four days before the US imposed sanctions on an Iranian tanker suspected of shipping oil to Syria, the vessel’s Indian captain received an unusual email from the top Iran official at the Department of State.
“This is Brian Hook . . . I work for secretary of state Mike Pompeo and serve as the US Representative for Iran,” Mr Hook wrote to Akhilesh Kumar on August 26, according to several emails seen by the Financial Times. “I am writing with good news.”
The “good news” was that the Trump administration was offering Mr Kumar several million dollars to pilot the ship — until recently known as the Grace 1 — to a country that would impound the vessel on behalf of the US. To make sure Mr Kumar did not mistake the email for a scam, it included an official state department phone number
The captain didn’t respond to the first message, so Hook persisted with his embarrassing scheme:
“With this money you can have any life you wish and be well-off in old age,” Mr Hook wrote in a second email to Mr Kumar that also included a warning. “If you choose not to take this easy path, life will be much harder for you.”
Hook’s contact was not an isolated incident, but part of a series of e-mails and texts that he has sent to various ships’ captains in a vain effort to intimidate them into falling in line with the administration’s economic war. ”.
Being a American these days is beyond embarrassing. Wont someone please, please get rid of these people.
Actually, Trump’s beliefs on the situation in Syria are the mainstream narrative in the US, not that of the right or the left. As for the Christian issue, the Administration has dealt with the harm done to Christians in Syria and Iraq [as well as Yezidis] is to make their ability to attain refugee status in the US much quicker and easier than others. That runs counter to the beliefs of the Eastern Christians who believe that Christians must remain a part of the people of the region. Re the chemical attacks, Gen Mattis followed orders when told to attack, but never agreed with the assessment of SARG guilt. He stated re Douma, for instance, that he had “seen press reports” making that claim. It was Flynn that had quietly stopped Obama from making good on his “red line” threat by showing him intel that put the lie to that claim. Obama then took the “destroy the regime’s chemical weapons approach, rather than confronting the universal “narrative” that the regime was guilty in that case.
Wow, what an exquisite insight!!
How I wish I would have thought of that pithy bon mot!!
It certainly suggests a keen sense of history and logic at work, making such a comparison:
Yes indeedy: Lebensraum! Nazis wanted MORE LAND! Someone else’s land, because god said it belonged to THEM!
Promised it to them, by gum: land where an ancient book their scribes scribed recorded that the god they envisioned told them they should have it — THAT was the rationale behind Lebensraum.
By conquering that Lebensraum land, promised but not inhabited in a substantial way by Germans for millennia, Germans were fulfilling their god’s promise.
After all, Germans had been wanderers over the earth for all those many centuries, with no tradition of their own people- father-to-son-to-grandson living doggedly on their own soil; no, no that was never the German tradition — Germans were wanderers.
Lebensraum was the project intended to gather in all dispersed Germans from all over the world and settle them in the land their god gave them.
Just like the Jews.
Trump has sold out – he has has gone over to the neocons and in return the whole Russiagate nonsense and threats of impeachment have been brought to a halt.
A good example of how attacks will stop if someone who the establishment has been vilifying becomes temporarily useful:
https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1169157686300217345
Trump has gone over to the neocons and the attacks against him in the news media have gone down to a tenth of what they were before.
I think it is more Trump manipulating the FSM ( Fake Stream Media). After all, the FSM-Lords didn’t want Trump in office any more than the bi-partisan Catfood Depublicrat Establishment wanted him in office. But there he is. ( Clinton was the choice of all Catfood Elitists everywhere).
I agree with you in that the FSM puts the spotlight on Trump’s Latest Outrage in order to keep the cameras off of deeper problems such as the quiet march of pro-pollution over-deregulation and resource extraction/liquidation.
(Sanders also understands the FSM to be a deceit-based disinformation machine conspiring against him for years now. But he never learned to manipulate the FSM. He has been trying to grow a separate parallel mini-media infrastructure end-running around the FSM. That is hard to do from under the Mufflecone of Silence and Deceit which the FSM has dropped over him and his operation.)
What you describe is part of the pain I knew I would experience when I voted for Trump. But it was a desperate Lesser-Of-Two-Evils election, and Trump was the Lesser Of Two Evils.
When the thought of the slow-rolling frack-poison death of groundwater reserves all over America gets you down, remember that it would have been even worse to have become part of a radioactive cloud of ionized gas-plasma particles.
I believe it was Putin who opened the door to the “destroy Syria’s chemical weapons” approach. I believe part of Obama’s spiteful grudge against Putin from then onward was due to Putin’s just and proper embarrassment of Obama on that score.
And of course Obama was not alone in that anti-Putin grudge. The entire Depublicrat Establishment shares it unto this very day.
Ever since Larry Johnson wrote a post about whether Trump would accept burning down his own Presidency over a war with Iran, I have been thinking about whether he would or would not accept such. And since that question is semi-relevant to what Trump thinks about Syria, I think a comment about that might fit here partway as well as it would have fit there if I would have got my thoughts in order fast enough to offer it there.
I don’t think Trump really wants a war between America and Iran. But I think he will accept it. His acceptance of it will flow from his deepest brain-core reasons for taking America out of the JCPOA deal to begin with.
Trump has had a deep-seated race-based animus against and distaste for Obama for years. And Trump is still quietly seething over the public humiliation he suffered at Obama’s hands through being roasted in public at the White House Correspondent’s dinner. Trump has long been awaiting his day of vengeance for that humiliation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8TwRmX6zs4
The JCPOA was one of very few genuine positive accomplishments that the Obama Administration achieved. And because Obama achieved it, and because Trump hates Obama so very deeply, Trump wants to destroy the JCPOA beCAUSE it is Obama’s achievement. And Trump cannot permit Obama to have any positive achievement to Obama’s credit. So Trump pulled America out of the JCPOA.
The only way out of the Blind Alley Trump has lead us to with Iran is to turn around and walk us exactly out in the direction exactly opposite to the way he walked us in. And that would be to re-enter America into the JCPOA and restore the status-quo-ante that existed just before the pullout. Trump could find a way to do that . . . citing “new information” or something. He could bring his base along if he wanted to.
But to do that would be to admit that Trump has been wrong about JCPOA and that Obama had been right all along. But to do that would be to give Obama back Obama’s achievement, and Trump could never bear to do that after Trump has invested so much in destroying Obama’s JCPOA achievement. Trump would die a thousand deaths each and every day that he was forced to witness the vindication of Obama inherent in re-entering the JCPOA.
While Trump would not like war with Iran, Trump would rather burn down his own Presidency in a war with Iran than to give Obama the satisfaction of seeing Trump forced to admit that Obama had been right on Iran and Trump was wrong on Iran.
And all the Grima WormBoltons around Trump understand that and they know that if they can get their war with Iran “gleiwitzed” into starting, that Trump will let that war get rolling and then keep rolling along.
May have mentioned this before, but some six years ago my wife, my stepson, and I were on a tour of Israel. When our bus approached the site where Armageddon was supposed to take place, and I asked our guide, fprmerly an Israel Air Force colonel, how he dealt with this topic when he was serving as a guide to a bus-load of Evangelicals, as was often the case. “I tell them,’ he said, “that if the Messiah comes and he’s been here before, you win. If he hasn’t been here before, we win.” “How do they react?” I asked. “The same way you did,” he said. “They laugh.”
Bingo. The Scofield Reference Bible was Protestant heretics’ Reichtag Fire. The Little Old Lady from SC’s bill is the Enabling Act.
I think you make a good point about Trump’s duplicity. And he could very well be the first Zionist president. But what I noticed in the selection from debates offered here to demonstrate his thinking was that whoever put the parentheses into the text is giving Trump a little bit of help where his use of language has faltered. Where Trump uses “take” the parenthesis clarifys that the word “talk” should be understood, though that is not the word Trump used. Other parentheses help clarify that his use of “the people” is a reference to “the Syrian people-SAA-the government” and make it possible to understand Trump’s meaning, about the other people, the people we are arming, who might turn out to be just as bad. Without this editorial help Trump’s thought would be barely comprehensible. It would be very easy to overlook this editing of apparently inconsequential chaff or word bogies as being inevitable coming from a person like Trump who uses telegraphese and speaks rapidly. A minor thing? Think again.
Look again at another remark. “So these are people who push gays off business, off buildings.” The slight slip of the tongue, quickly corrected, does not hide the fact that the inappropriate word “business” is similar by a few letters to the word “building.” That is an indicator.
Trump was caught not long ago on camera having great difficulty pronouncing and employing the useful word “origins.” It is a strange fumbling moment. He ends up with “oranges.” He says this several times. Later in the interview he corrects himself quickly by cutting back to the word “beginnings.” He is making a valid point that one needs to go back to the origins of Russiagate. But the issue here is his use of language.
‘Science Daily’ has an article on March 7, 2016, “Dementia plaques attack language center of brain.” The article is about a new special imaging technique developed by scientists at Northwestern’s Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center(CNADC) which allows them to study the build-up of the toxic amyloid in a living person’s brain. The technology, called Amyloid PET Imaging, has shown that the buildup of this protein is greater on the left side of the brain. The left side happens to be the site of language processing. In all the complexity of dementia there seems to be a possible first phase called PPA or Primary Progressive Aphasia. This PPA can be identified by testing language skills, and even by drawing. I’ve seen one of these tests because my mother had Alzheimers for ten years or thereabouts before she died. She was a very fine artist and even her broken sketch of a bit of Pythagorean geometry was kind of interesting, I remember thinking back at the beginning of it all.
Primary Progressive Aphasia causes a patient to have great difficulty in finding the right word. Simple as that. It becomes very obvious after a while and invariably gets progressively worse. One clue to PPA is that a patient will somehow arrive at, as if from a roulette wheel, a word that sounds or looks similar, a word that may have a few letters of the word the patient actually wants. But a word that is absolutely meaningless and nullifies the whole language sequence into nonsense. This can cause serious agitation and distress in patients. George Schultz noticed this in an awful and heart-rending moment on one of his last visits to Ronald Reagan, when the President simply couldn’t find a word. I have on occasion wondered why nursing homes are so quiet when once they were called “Bedlam.” During Jonathan Swift’s last years in a Dublin Bedlam day room cage of sorts (night room too) visitors amused themselves tormenting him into raging frenzies. Nowadays the asylums or nursing homes routinely administer tranquilizing or psychotropic drugs. Just as is done on Death row.
I am not certain that there is anything in the political sphere or hustings that can or should be done about it, but I think that it is becoming chillingly clear that Donald Trump has PPA.
Google “Trump Cyrus” for Evangelical viewpoints on Trump. Also the “Trump Prophecy”
https://www.charismanews.com/opinion/in-the-line-of-fire/55754-is-donald-trump-a-modern-day-cyrus
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/october-web-only/donald-trump-cyrus-prophecy-old-testament.html
Speaking of chemical weapons and such, what about destroying Israel’s illegal stuff! Oh, oh that would be politically incorrect, and the 5th Column would go into overdrive to bury it like what’s been going on with Mossad Epstein Island. Speaking of …, vigilant citizen’s drone activity watching all the goings on, an individual who has been ducking in and out of a vehicle trying to avoid the prying eye of the drones eerily looks like Epstein from a distance. The white hair or grey without the Grecian formula.
Oh well, guess we’ll continue to watch the bull with the ring in its nose circus regarding Trump and Syria. Notice how Trump, and the Evangelical minions like Hagee never mentions that Syria/Russia saved Christianity in the Middle East when they stood up to the Saudi-backed liver-eaters, while the Evangelicals sat on their duffs not lifting a finger and watched innocent Christian communities suffering and dying.
Trump the chosen one said Alabama will take a hit.He actually meant Obama.There is very little difference between a “ala” and a “o” in the heat of the weather show.I know people who do strange things with sharpie’s and trump could be one of them.Stormy might know….ala o o o
“Trump knows what he’s doing”.
IMO that is spot-on.
Very Good!
When I left my office after viewing the forecasters path of Dorian recently it was heading up the Mona Pass between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico which allowed some entities to direct their Tugs Towing barges out of San Juan to head North East. On viewing the forecasters path the next morning it was now heading up the east coast of Puerto Rico and it went east of St Croix to the lament of some young men on tugboats. Now if the forecasters 12 hour difference in forecasts can err 120+ miles the NOAA forecasters got no reason to complain about Donald’s Alabama 5 Day forecast. Dorian had a mind of its own.
As to the 90 days in Jail that would be easy for them forecasters as them Boys on the tugboats have other ideas.
Interesting theory, but I’d have thought the 25A division of the Army of the Resistance would include enough Alzheimer’s experts to be the first to trumpet loudly such a diagnostic victory. Surely by now the internet would be full of montages of Trump-has-PPA smoking guns (i.e. not just examples of his trademark and probably quite deliberate manglings of the English language). As it is, it is poor Joe Biden who is the star of such schadenfreude in respect of his faculties.
Tidewater to Tidewater,
Of course, something can be done in the hustings about keeping an Alzheimer’s afflicted leader in office at election time.
Information about this topic can be found at the National Aphasia Association.org. PPA is explained at Primary Progressive Aphasia–National Aphasia Association. aphasia-resources>primary-progressive-aphasia”>https://www.aphasia.org>aphasia-resources>primary-progressive-aphasia
So, a schismatic Christian is being touted as a new Great King, Cyrus? Cyrus who has been mentioned both in the Old Testament as well as in the Quran – the Owner of Two Horns?
Truly, we are living a historical farce! Where is Mel Brooks when we need him?
Regarding Iran and the JCPOA, Lula has some very interesting commentary regarding the negotiations in his recent prison interview with Pepe Escobar. The anti- sentiment was very much a Borg affair, so Trump would be bucking the deep state to do this.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/09/article/inside-story-of-the-first-iran-nuclear-deal/
Btw, I highly suggest reading all three articles. In case anybody has missed it, leaked information showed the prosecutor and judge in Lula’s case were conspiring behind the scenes to bring down Lula and his party. Essentially a soft coup to pry Brazil out of BRICS and into the Borgosphere.
That’s how you guys got into the mess you’re in, with “heroes” like Olie, I respect very much your opinions in spite of your rabid anti socialist views, and it is clear your’re experienced and knowledgeable, including foreign languages, so, how come the guys that make decisions that matter, and not only for the USA but for the whole world are such a bunch of ignoramuses? There is something wrong with a system that is incapable of filtering them out.
Paco
In a democracy the fools often rule. Have you not noticed that? Ollie North is one such oaf. socialism inevitably leads to tyranny. where do you live?
paco
You are yet another of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist types who yearn for communism. Move to China! or Oakland, California!
The mistake is consistent with Tidewater’s observation in a comment above.
The problem is . . . is that if the Rapturanian Armageddonites can achieve the war they want, the way they want it, there may well be nobody left to laugh.
Does PPA indicate such plaque-forming in other parts of the brain?
Or does PPA happen in isolation from the rest of the brain . . . where there may well be no plaques forming at all?
I have read an alternate hypothesis of the “map thing”. I don’t know where to go find it now.
It goes like this: Trump knows very well his own self-customized map is purely fake. But he is testing his base to see how loyal it is and how totally it will be there for him no matter how outrageously he fakes something.
The reason he is doing that is so that in-the-event that he loses the next election, he would like to know or at least have a sense of whether The Base will support him if he decides to call the next election ( should he lose) a rigged fraudulent fake. He would like to know whether The Base will answer his call for as-violent-as-necessary Insurrection to prevent the Democratic winner ( if such there be) from entering the White House and taking up the office.
It is a very conditional if-this then-that hypothesis, to be sure.
Interesting. I will read those articles.
And is Bolsonario the el Presidente the Borgospherians wanted? Or is Bolsonario the el Trumpo that the Borgospherians never expected?
Well, as Mahatma Gandhi once said . . . ” we will have to become the Mel Brooks we wish to see in the world”.
Eastern Orthodoxy is not the kind of Christianity which interests the Rapturanian Armageddonites.
It looks like an early NOAA forecast did show a possible route into Alabama.
In this Tim Pool video explains. FYI, Time describes himself as moderate center left. Not a Trump fan but doesn’t have TDS either. He often points out how effective Trump’s trolls are. Trump purposefully has gone on and on about the Alabama sharpie fiasco. Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Trump Hilariously Trolls Press With CAT MEME, And Yes, They Are Outraged https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KOQyN7d5o0 (11 min)
Thanks for your comment. I am going to have to beg off on any attempt to discuss PPA, simply because I am not qualified to do so. Also, a lot of this is news to me. There seems to be a remarkable amount of information and a lot of support groups on this topic on the net. I intend to look further, and would recommend, to start with, the Northwestern Medical link or google it. Also, I would google Primary Progressive Aphasia–National Aphasia Association.
The Science Daily article I quoted is basically good news as far as progress made against the disease. Quoting the article: “This new technology is very exciting for Alzheimer’s research,” said Adam Martersteck, the first author and a graduate student in Northwestern’s neuroscience program. “Not only can we tell if a person is likely or unlikely to have Alzheimer’s, we hope to be able to diagnose people earlier and with better accuracy.”
Reading your link, it kinda sounds like me. I won’t mind losing speech if I do, but would hate to lose the ability to read, that has been a consolation in my old age.
I know how explosive this is. With Trump, it’s hiding in plain sight and it’s all just beginning. It could end up a great national nightmare. With Biden, I was startled by his medical history as is known. In fact, he must have a lot of courage to have carried on, given some of the things that have happened to him. I guess they had better provide some sort of reassurance about his medical history. That eye pix on the Drudge Report was startling. I’ve been a very lucky guy. Got pistol whipped once. A little dab will do ya. Take you to your knees. My eye was a good deal worse off than that and it and some inspired non-comprehension saved my mein well-beloved ass.
tidewater
Only post a comment once.
Same here, actually. But I have a horrid idea that it’s a package deal. Recently one of my cats has been insistent that I pay more attention to him and to them. He hops down and sits on my lap. I drink a cup of coffee slowly. I don’t want to make him move when I get a second cup. He’s OK with that. I find it’s surprisingly pleasant just to sit comfortably and quietly…and just exist.
True, The approach let Obama off the hook by allowing him claim he took action while not bombing.
Early on in the quest for a coalition to bring about a settlement, the US went to everyone in Europe, save for Russia. One prescient journalist at the time stated that what the US did not understand was that there would be no peace settlement unless it was signed in Moscow!
Indeed, and moreover, Orthodox, Apostolic and Eastern Rite Catholics, like mainstream churches in general, do not really fit their description of “Christian” because they do NOT believe in the Rapture and other ideas that are required to be “saved.”
Although, if I were under it, I’d be all there, too.
sic semper tyrannis? And freedom? And ideally vantages?
My hero your foe?
out of any allegiance to neocon or Zionist principles
whatever those principles are both past and present.
In semi-support of jd hawkins:
He certainly knew that Iran was the issue …
vig
No idea what you are talking about. Anyone?
Sounds like a good plan. Being one quarter blind and half deaf, I don’t do much hunting anymore except for once a year freezing my buns off in a duck blind at zero-dark thirty in the AM. And I haven’t brought a duck home in years. Perhaps it is time for me, like old Mose, to find a rocking chair.