It is now clear that Donald Trump’s Presidency has been hijacked by the two Michael Richards (Vice President Pence and Secretary of State and former CIA Head Pompeo).
It has been learned that they worked on Trump, convincing him to arrange for the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, and endangering the US position in the Middle East.
With the growing likelihood of war with Iran, the whole domestic and international scene is in disarray, because of the clear cut religious fanaticism of Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo, both dedicated evangelical Christians.
It shows the danger of evangelical influence on American politics has reached its peak, ironically under a President who had no real religious beliefs, except his belief in his own superiority.
And add Orthodox Jews and Israeli right wingers, led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the mix, and we have the setting up of a “holy war” incited by religious fanatics in both Christianity and Judaism, against Muslim fanatics of the Shia minority, which wars against Sunni Muslims led by Saudi Arabia, which controls the holy sites of Mecca and Medina.
Fanatical religion has caused so many wars in human history, and is about to do so again, with two fanatical right wing religious freaks, both also part of the Republican TEA Party Movement a decade ago in Congress, in charge under non believer Donald Trump, who believes it will insure his reelection this November for a second term!
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” ~ Sinclair Lewis
Great quote, Jeffrey, and this fanaticism must be resisted!
One of the very rare, very few times I second what Jeffrey says.
Trump’s Strategy With Iran: Be the Bigger Bully
It all rests on the assumption that power is gained via threats and violence.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/01/06/trumps-strategy-with-iran-be-the-bigger-bully
After the news broke that the U.S. had assassinated Qassem Soleimani, there was a lot of chatter about what the president’s strategy was for dealing with the aftermath. Many of Trump’s critics assumed that he didn’t have one. But pretty quickly, we saw that was wrong. He does have a strategy, and it’s important to recognize what it is.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted: “If Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!â€
On the Sunday talk shows, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued that Trump never threatened to destroy Iranian culture sites, presumably because that would be a war crime. But the president reiterated the threat on Sunday night, telling reporters: “They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.â€
The strategy behind those threats was captured by a State Department official during a background briefing.
The assumption is that, by assassinating a military leader, the U.S. is “speaking in a language†that the Iranian regime understands, which will cause them to back down from retaliation. But just to be clear, it appears that Iran is making the same assumption. In response to Trump’s threat, Hossein Dehghan, the military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said that “the only thing that can end this period of war is for the Americans to receive a blow that is equal to the blow they have inflicted.â€
Jonathan Chait points out that this is the principle that defines Trump’s foreign policy.
[Trump’s plan is to collapse the moral space between America and its enemies… This is Trump’s deepest belief about foreign policy: The things that separate the United States from terrorists and dictatorships are not a source of strength, but of weakness. Our enemies are stronger and tougher, willing to do the hard things that must be done in order to win. To defeat them, we must become like them.]
That explains everything from Trump’s embrace of war crimes to his fascination with dictators, who he views as strong and tough. Yet as Chait noted back in 2014, that kind of reverence for dictators and war crimes didn’t start with this president.
[Three decades ago, right-wing French intellectual Jean-Francois Revel published a call to arms entitled “How Democracies Perish,†which quickly became a key text of the neoconservative movement and an ideological blueprint for the Reagan administration. Revel argued that the Soviet Union’s brutality and immunity from internal criticism gave it an inherent advantage over the democratic West—the United States and Europe were too liberal, too open, too humane, too soft to defeat the resolute men of the Iron Curtain.
“Unlike the Western leadership, which is tormented by remorse and a sense of guilt,†wrote Revel, “Soviet leaders’ consciences are perfectly clear, which allows them to use brute force with utter serenity both to preserve their power at home and to extend it abroad.â€]
That way of thinking about the world was not new three decades ago. It was the ravages of two World Wars that led to a rethinking of the whole premise on which our ideas about strength and power were based—and the development of what is often referred to as a new liberal world order. President Obama addressed that shift back in 2014 during a speech in Brussels after Russia invaded Ukraine.
[In many ways, the history of Europe in the 20th century represented the ongoing clash of these two sets of ideas, both within nations and among nations. The advance of industry and technology outpaced our ability to resolve our differences peacefully, and even among the most civilized of societies, on the surface we saw a descent into barbarism.
This morning at Flanders Field, I was reminded of how war between peoples sent a generation to their deaths in the trenches and gas of the First World War. And just two decades later, extreme nationalism plunged this continent into war once again—with populations enslaved, and great cities reduced to rubble, and tens of millions slaughtered, including those lost in the Holocaust.
It is in response to this tragic history that, in the aftermath of World War II, America joined with Europe to reject the darker forces of the past and build a new architecture of peace. Workers and engineers gave life to the Marshall Plan. Sentinels stood vigilant in a NATO Alliance that would become the strongest the world has ever known. And across the Atlantic, we embraced a shared vision of Europe—a vision based on representative democracy, individual rights, and a belief that nations can meet the interests of their citizens through trade and open markets; a social safety net and respect for those of different faiths and backgrounds.]
These are the two views of power that are at the heart of the questions we face today. One is based on dominance via threats and violence. The other one is based on shared values, democratic freedoms, and partnership.
In the current escalation between the U.S. and Iran, we essentially have two bullies who assume that their threats of violence will cause the other side to back down. That is the kind of thinking that led Mahatma Gandhi to say, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind,†which is precisely what the two World Wars accomplished.
Traveling back to a 19th century world view is exactly what Vladimir Puttin was hoping for in helping to elect Donald Trump. The Steele dossier got this one exactly right.
[Source C, a senior Russian financial official, said the Trump operation should be seen in terms of Putin’s desire to return to Nineteenth Century “Great Power†politics anchored upon country’s interests rather than the ideals-based international order established after World War II.]
Over the years, American culture has taught a lot of people to revere the kind of chest-thumping against our adversaries—both foreign and domestic—that is at the heart of that out-dated patriarchal view of the world. What worries the rest of us is that we are about to get yet another lesson on its abject failure to do anything other than cause destruction in terms of both lives and treasure.
Many of us thought we were on the brink of choosing another way up until November 2016. As tensions mount between the U.S. and Iran, we need to be clear about why this is happening. It all comes down to the idea that power is captured through dominance expressed via threats and violence, which is basically a bully mentality.
As long as that is the strategy, we’ll never see an end to the forever wars.
“Progressive Challenger Jessica Cisneros Denounces Democratic Incumbent Henry Cuellar for Backing Trump’s Assassination of Iran General’
By Eion Higgins (01.06.2020)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/06/progressive-challenger-jessica-cisneros-denounces-democratic-incumbent-henry-cuellar
Progressive Democrat Jessica Cisneros on Monday took aim at her primary opponent Rep. Henry Cuellar for statements the incumbent and his campaign made over the weekend on President Donald Trump’s push for war with Iran, charging Cuellar is putting the interests of his corporate donors over those of his constituents.
“It’s not that surprising if you look closely: Rep. Cuellar is bought and paid for by the military industrial complex,” said Cisneros. “He has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the defense industry, including contractors like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and BAE Systems.”
Cuellar, a conservative Democrat, said Friday he supported the assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, which was ordered by Trump on January 3.
…
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
‘Nancy Pelosi Endorses Conservative Democrat Henry Cuellar Over Progressive Challenger’
By Hayley Miller (09.30.2019; updated 10.01.2019)
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nancy-pelosi-henry-cuellar_n_5d925245e4b0019647acff0d
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has endorsed conservative-leaning Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) for reelection in 2020 as he fends off a primary challenge from progressive candidate Jessica Cisneros.
Pelosi, as well as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has a policy of supporting Democratic incumbents in the House, but the speaker said Saturday that she would have backed Cuellar regardless.
“Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely,†Pelosi told Evan Smith, CEO and co-founder of The Texas Tribune, at the paper’s annual festival in Austin.
“I’m very, very proud of Henry’s work in the Congress, and I’m proud to support him — even if I didn’t have a policy of endorsing incumbents,†she said, reportedly drawing some boos from the crowd.
Cuellar, a seven-term Democrat, voted with President Donald Trump nearly 70% of the time in the last Congress. He’s collected thousands of dollars in donations from the National Rifle Association throughout his career and received an “A†rating from the gun-rights group in 2018.
…
Ms. LeTourneau has some more information about this topic. Pompeo is aligning US foreign policy with Christian Zionists. They believe that events in the Middle East align with Biblical prophecy about the end times.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/01/07/pompeo-aligns-u-s-foreign-policy-with-the-christian-zionists/
Like the other liberal members of my family, I started questioning the Bible when I was a teenager. I have come to understand that it’s a mixture of mythology and the views and beliefs of people – naive, superstitious and ignorant people by our modern standards – over a time span of many centuries.
I treat it like Aesop’s fables. It’s meant to be allegory.
Iran has fired missiles at some of our bases in Iraq.
I’ve heard some officials say that the Iranians may try cyber attacks.
Put an idiot in charge, expect idiotic results. Apparently this didn’t occur to Idiot Boy’s dumba– supporters.
Well, we made it three years before what we all feared.
To he– with purity fights over Medicare for All. I just want someone sane in charge so we don’t all die.
Get ready for “you don’t change quarterbacks mid-game†and “support our troops†as a response to any and all criticism of Trump.
If people don’t pay attention and re-elect this idiot because of this war, then they deserve all the bad sh– coming their way.
The genie is out of the bottle now.
Sounds like we’re about to be bombing stuff inside Iran. I’m hearing reports that F-35s have taken off from air bases in the region.
Rump’s stupid base will cheer him until gas prices skyrocket to $5 per gallon.
CNN is reporting on their website that oil prices are rising and the stock market is tumbling because of what’s happening tonight.
Dumb Dumb Trump tweeted. Started his tweet saying “All is well”. Says he’ll make a statement in the morning. Probably after he consults with Fox & Friends.