The Trump Presidency Nein: Leistung, Korruption und Lugen

Kind of?

 

Ughh , Bloomberg with another story:

BREAKING: Trump pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to help persuade the Justice Department to drop a criminal case against an Iranian-Turkish gold trader who was a client of Rudy Giuliani, according to three people familiar with the 2017 meeting https://t.co/8gpfWCJpW7 pic.twitter.com/qAlyPNdUrI

— Bloomberg (@business) October 9, 2019

 

I never wanted the Bush/ Cheney Junta and their WMDs to drag us into the Middle East and creating that massive vacuum. That is still sucking people and money into that hole. We should get out
BUT. Jesus lets use a bit of common sense here. You just don't pick up you marbles and run without a modicum of thought about what of the consequences of your actions will be. .

"Kind of political" that could result in genocide. Christ on a bicycle.

 

You ********ing yourself does not violate the NAP, so you're good, Shitheel!

 

The truth about "ISIS", and its links to US foreign policy and actions, are as follows.
1- Between 2004-2006, several Iraqi elections saw the "US list" lose to the "Iranian list". As a result, all sorts of voices blamed the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq and subsequent policies for "handing Iraq to Iran."
2- After the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, alarm bells began ringing about a "Shia Crescent" led by Iran stretching from Iran through Iraq, through Syria, through Lebanon and to the Mediterranean. Both Sunni Arab states and Israel were behind much of the alarmist talk, which combined some facts with propaganda.
3- As a result, the Bush administration was persuaded to undergo a "Redirection" (a term from Seymour Hersh's article in the New Yorker at the time) of its foreign policy with an emphasis on fighting Iran everywhere "Iranian influence" was supposedly present. That meant particularly in Lebanon (Hezbollah), Iraq ('pro Iran' shia parties and miitia), Syria (Bashar Assad's regime), and ultimately in Iran itself.
4- The redirection was sold publicly as 'the surge'. Publicly, the surge was about the US working with Sunni tribal leaders to fight Al Queda in Iraq. In reality, it was mostly about the US -- through Sunni Arab conduits and intermediaries (including Iraqi tribal leaders with lots of Saudi money to throw around) -- bribing and inducing many of the former Al Queda forces (excepting their best known figures) to join a crusade against Iran/Shia and support a new Sunni force to be commanded by ex-Baathist Sunni officers. This force, of 100,000 men fully equipped and trained by the US, was known as the "Sons of Iraq".
5- Naturally, with much of the force behind the 'Sunni insurgency' which had previously fought the US now co-opted by the Americans, attacks by these forces against American targets reduced substantially. The 'surge' was, therefore, presented as a success.
6- In the meantime, however, these forces and their hatred was being directed towards a group they had hated all along: the Shia and Iran. Sunni politicians in Iraq, Arab Sunni tribal leaders, ex Baathist officers, Sunni Jihadists, and the Sons of Iraq -- all awash with Saudi and American money, equipment and training -- frightened America's own hand-picked Iraqi PM, Al-Maliki, who naturally saw these forces a danger to his government. Al Maliki, therefore, switched sides and came to rely on Iran to counterbalance these forces.
7- With Maliki switching sides, a cornerstone of Iranian policy - namely removal of US troops in Iraq -- became a demand of the Iraqi government in negotiating SOFA. And so did disbanding the "Sons of Iraq".
8- SOFA was negotiated by the Bush administration but implemented by the Obama administration, which kept a campaign promise to take US troops out of Iraq. With the Americans gone, and the Sons of Iraq disbanded, the same forces and the same money, training and equipment, found a new patron to fight the Shia and Iran (and, to a lesser extent, the Americans which had 'betrayed them'). That force became the Islamic State in Iraq and, once the other prong of the plans to destabilize and plunge Assad into civil war because of his ties to Iran went into full motion, this force then became ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria).
9- During the first few years of the "Syrian civil war", all these jihadist elements (including those who would be part of ISIS) were fully backed by the different foreign states trying to unseat Assad, including the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and even the EU. But in fairness, America and the EU dealt directly mostly with other elements in the anti-Assad coalition -- elements which had no real power on the ground but were more presentable as the 'public face' of the rebels fighting Assad to bring "democracy" to Syria (with such havens of democracy in the region as Saudi Arabia on their side. Eventually, as ISIS monstrosity became too much for anyone to handle, fighting the group became also part of the agenda in Syria and Iraq. (Even then, however, the Israelis were publicly saying they preferred ISIS to Iran on their borders).

 

Good post. Beyond that though, the absurdity of seeing this as as a " pulling out of the middle east" or "ending endless wars" is so ridiculous it is not even funny. Not one of the small force of around 2000 in Syria is actually leaving the country. They are just getting out of the way to let Erdogan run his ethnic cleansing. It is just infuriating.

 

Thank God she won and is our president. I hope she runs again and is re-elected.

 

Romans 18:
For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple.

 

Almost nothing since January 2017 can be excused under any rational analysis.

 

Trump is the sucker at the world's table. He repeatedly gets rolled.

 

Heard Erdogan today basically blackmailing the EU and threatening Europe of sending over 3.5 M Syrian refugees. What a sociopath.

 

Trump is powerfully attracted to sociopaths, that's why he gives them things. He would never flippantly concede something to Merkel, Macon, or Trudeau. But to Putin or Erdogan, sure. He wants to be those guys. He admires the hell out of them.

 

It's like they're "made" men and Trump desperately wants to become one.

 

He is also deeply attracted to China. He doesn't engage in trade wars with China because he disapproves of how China conducts itself. Quite the contrary. He would love to run the U.S. the way that the Chinese government manages its country -- with deep corruption and suppression of political opponents. His problem with China is not moral. It is instead his fear that it is "winning.":

Reagan was so much more effective with his foreign-policy negotiations because he didn't envy dictators. He didn't think that their oppression made their countries strong, and he didn't want to be like them. He didn't want to the U.S. to be those countries.

The GOP, naturally, won't admit the above. But it's true.

 

Why would we listen to Romans?

--Pat Robertson.

 

He's a wannabe, wants to sit at the dictator crowd bullies table.
But they don't want him or trust him either.
But they will use him.

 

Trump saying "Bad Idea" about Turkey's incursion prompted this responce.

Gulnur Aybet, a senior adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has told CNN that President Donald Trump knew “precisely” what his government had planned with its invasion of northern Syria.

Per CNN’s Jim Sciutto, Aybet told reporter Christiane Amanpour that “President Trump and President Erdoğan have reached an understanding over precisely what this operation is,” referring to the Turkish military’s incursion into northern Syria.

Aybet then went on to say that Trump and Erdoğan are planning to meet next month to discuss further details of the operation, including what to do about captured Islamic State fighters that remain in northern Syria.

 

Those two suckers were arrested at Dulles last night while waiting for a flight out of the country.

NEWS: Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Giuliani associates who donated to a pro-Trump super PAC, were arrested late Wednesday on criminal charges of violating campaign finance rules. They have been under investigation by SDNY. w/@aviswanatha @sgurmanhttps://t.co/GVkMSzBWZv

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) October 10, 2019

Good point by Josh...

So if I'm not mistaken, just a day ago Rudy's lawyer said these two guys (now indicted in what appears to be foreign money campaign finance conspiracy) were part of Rudy's representation of the President so that they were covered under Rudy's A/C privilege. So there's that.

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 10, 2019

 

Facebook is toxic and a danger to democracy.

Jesus. I just read this article on how Facebook is helping Trump spread lies. It quotes Facebook official Katie Harbath who defends the company's policy. So I go check out her Twitter. This is literally her latest tweet. pic.twitter.com/xCvRmOktSF

— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) October 9, 2019

This woman is the Public Policy Director/ Global Elections at FB....

Even worse here is what’s not circled. DCI Group, perhaps the most notorious GOP AstroTurf outfit https://t.co/BEIJehYoIM

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 10, 2019

 

It's like the end of Casino.