Cont: The Trump Presidency: Part 19

[Davidlpf]

Then you aren't paying attention.


.

Like when he said the moon was part of Mars.

 

[Davidlpf]

There is an old joke in different businesses.
How do you make a million dollars, start with two million dollars.
Trump is the prefect example of this he was a rich kid who kept failing until he got a reality show.
Funny thing I was writing about an extinction event and Trump might have started one in that time.

 

[Steve]

Then you aren't paying attention.



When a successful person does something that looks stupid to you, you should consider the possibility that you don't understand what it is that they're doing.



Trump wasn't brought. He barged his way in, when none of the party establishment wanted him. He beat out a crowd of Republican contenders, and then defeated Hillary when nobody thought he could.

Democratic strategists might call him stupid, but if they actually believe that, they'll lose to him again.

Of course I don’t understand what Trump is doing as president. No one does.
Trump certainly could not explain what he is doing. He has trouble assembling a coherent sentence.

Turning an inheritance into bankruptcies is not my idea of successful.

Democratic strategists are planning their fight against Trump strategists. Not against the useful idiot himself.

 

[Aridas]

*sigh* no he didn’t win it on his own. Stop trying to tell us how smart Trump is when clearly he isn’t. He cheated royally and had Putin’s help. Like he always has for years. On his own, he would never have been a candidate. He crashed casinos...how smart can THAT be?

Ehh, I think that you and Ziggurat are both misdirecting your attention a bit with "smart." Trump's a conman, with a bunch of stuff that that entails. He did, in fact, barge into a very divided Republican primary and pretty much followed the Fox News formula of tribal hate, combined with selling himself as, for example, the only candidate who would not go after people's Medicaid and Medicare and he won. As for defeating Hillary when no one thought he would? Yeah, that's BS. Plenty of people were well aware that he had a very real and significant chance at victory, given the actual factors in play, even if Russia weren't interfering.

 

[Resume]

Trump is a smarmy used car salesman who appeals to the percentage of US citizens stupid enough to fall for that ****. He isn't smart, they aren't smart and neither is anyone who thinks he or they are smart. Winning an election doesn't make you smart.

And now it appears he stupidly started another mess in the Middle East to show how tough he is, and his stupid followers will eat it up. Never mind this coward dodged the draft (with the help of his daddy, as usual), mocks those that actually served and suffered, and ***** on their memories. This piece of garbage is going to be around for at least another five years, and will continue to **** things up, smiling stupidly all the while.

 

[Aridas]

I didn't say he won it on his own. No one does. But he wasn't picked by the establishment.

That I can agree with.

He isn't anyone's puppet, and certainly not Putin's. This is conspiratorial nonsense.

This, on the other hand - what would it take for you not to dismiss it without any serious evaluation of the mountain of evidence pointing to Trump trying to dance to Putin's desire?

 

[Davidlpf]

The way I see it there a few possible outcomes to all this:
1) both side back down
2) there is a war between them but no one else is dragged into it.
The majority of the Iranian people are not great supporters of the government so could there be another civil war or the people will turn away from the west and whatever short term victory will result in greater disaster left in the region.
3) there is a war and other countries are dragged in.
Hopefully case 1 but unlikely.

 

[Resume]

Of course I don’t understand what Trump is doing as president. No one does.
Trump certainly could not explain what he is doing. He has trouble assembling a coherent sentence.

Turning an inheritance into bankruptcies is not my idea of successful.

Democratic strategists are planning their fight against Trump strategists. Not against the useful idiot himself.

There's a reason that members of his cabinet say he is a ******* moron. It's because he's a ******* moron.

 

[Davidlpf]

A moron that every one else will have to clean up after.

 

[alfaniner]

"Cry 'Havoc!,' and let slip the dogs of war."

"World War III" (along with its variations) and "Iran" are trending on Twitter.
Most of the time when I check Twitter the trends are names of singers or sports figures I don't know.
CNN is giving it full live coverage instead of the usual 3-hour block repeats at this time of night. I'm tempted to keep it on all night but the hour is late and I think the response will take a little while. I think a lot of people (a lot of people!) will be surprised to what they wake up to in a few hours.

 

[Planigale]

The way I see it there a few possible outcomes to all this:
1) both side back down
2) there is a war between them but no one else is dragged into it.
The majority of the Iranian people are not great supporters of the government so could there be another civil war or the people will turn away from the west and whatever short term victory will result in greater disaster left in the region.
3) there is a war and other countries are dragged in.
Hopefully case 1 but unlikely.

The Iraqi government was already annoyed by US strikes on Iraqis in Iraq. The US just bombed an Iranian General who had flown into Baghdad Airport presumably with the permission of the Iraqi government who could have refused entry or detained him if they wished. The General who was the principal architect of the defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The US seem to be acting on the basis that the enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

The worst outcome might be Iraq ordering US forces out and leaving Iranian influence greater.

For the Iraqis it would be unclear that US forces are not now more destabilising than of benefit. The infantry needed to defeat ISIS were provided by Iran, Russia (+/- China) may be happy to provide air support in place of the US.

The US may find themselves having to open fire on unarmed demonstrators if 'riots' occur.

 

[Minoosh]

More than most people, I think, I desperately want rapprochement with Iran and wish both sides cut out the inflammatory rhetoric that they both use to whip up domestic approval.

Yet ... air strikes on Iranian targets don't don't bother me as much as they could, because unfortunately they communicate with Iran in a way that diplomacy can't match. (Although I think the U.S. would benefit if they actually tried intensive diplomacy with the Islamic Republic of Iran.)

ETA: I accidentally posted just the first paragraph above. I wanted to add my reasoning. Which may not be all that sound. I'm not an expert and can't justify all my gut feelings.

More ETA ... I don't mean to say that Iran only understands violence. It's an old and complicated nation, sophisticated and diverse. But I do think there are factions that will understand a smackdown more than an olive branch. Whether it's justified or not in this case I'm not sure. Not enough info.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Maybe let Iran bomb a top US general now? After all, clearly this is a normal way to deal with international politics?

 

[Pixel42]

From the analysis in the Guardian:

There are few good reasons to assume that this new raised level of conflict, halfway between cold and hot wars, will be stable. Both sides have a long history of misreading each other’s intentions and overreaching.

And while the consequences of Suleimani’s killing are unclear, what is almost certain is that Trump has not thought them through. He made the decision while on holiday at his Florida resort. He did it without the sombre presidential address to explain his actions to the nation as is customary at such pivotal junctures in the country’s history, merely tweeting out a US flag and leaving it to the Pentagon make the announcement.

Over the past three years, the national security decision-making process, by which the pros and cons of US action were once carefully weighed, has been gutted. There are few high-level policy meetings any more. The independent thinkers in Trump’s orbit have left the stage, leaving a president who ultimately trusts his gut instincts above any expert.

It is those instincts that have, more than any other single factor, led the US and Iran to this point, and in particular Trump’s visceral hatred of his predecessor, Barack Obama, and his diplomatic legacy, the 2015 nuclear deal. Destruction of the deal and the economic strangulation of Iran, became a central imperative of Trumpian foreign policy.

 

[Tero]

This can't end well. The Iraq Bush created will fall apart.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Retweeted

Travel - State Dept
@TravelGov
#Iraq: Due to heightened tensions in Iraq and the region, we urge U.S. citizens to depart Iraq immediately. Due to Iranian-backed militia attacks at the U.S. Embassy compound, all consular operations are suspended. U.S. citizens should not approach the Embassy.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Retweeted

Jim Sciutto
@jimsciutto
Tonight, there are hundreds of American families watching news of Suleimani’s killing particularly closely. He engineered attacks in Iraq, often with sophisticated IEDs, that killed hundreds of US service-members & wounded thousands more.

Sam Dagher
@samdagher
This year hundreds of protesters were killed in #Iraq after #QassemSoleimani urged pro #Iran gov to use maximum force & in #Syria Soleimani played crucial role in #Assad regime crackdown on protests starting in 2011 resulting in death or disappearance of hundreds of thousands.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweeted

A picture of an American flag.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Eric Trump Tweeted (before the attack)

Eric Trump
@erictrump
Bout to open a big ol' can of whoop ass
#DonMessWithTheBest
#USAUSAUSA twitter.com/jackposobiec/s...


(this tweet was removed and replaced with


Great job ⁦@realDonaldTrump!
Trump just took out the world's biggest bad guy Qasem Soleimani

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweeted

Iran never won a war, but never lost a negotiation!