President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Disagree (not the part about Bolton being a wingnut, though).

The professionals - including Bolton - worked hard to protect Trump from his own ill-conceived "policies."

Without Bolton, careerists, and the professional military, Trump would have signed away South Korea - including a full withdrawal and the dissolution of our alliance - just to get whatever deal he could have out of North Korea.

Without that same group, Trump would have ordered the immediate and unplanned withdraw of all our troops from the Middle East (a withdrawal which would have looked much like the withdrawal we're making in Afghanistan now).

Without that same group, everything you're seeing happening in Afghanistan today would have happened a year ago ... probably worse, though, as we've spent some time thinking about how to pull out.

 

Don't forget also that Fatfuck was hell-bent to dismantle NATO.

 

We thought Bolton was a wingnut in 2006. He’s a cloth-coat liberal compared to these shitbirds.

 

He wanted to go to war with Iran when he worked for Trump. Which was…yeah.

 

Don't forget Trump's betrayal of Kurdish forces in Syria, turning the Turks loose on them. Of course, betraying the Kurds was part of the playbook for both Bushes.

 

So yeah - when people like Alma give credit for Trump's "foreign policy" they're disregarding the fact that it was all impulse, talking points, and slogans. No planning. No careful consideration. Just impulse (thankfully with little follow through because he was a lazy Chief Executive).

 

Calls for violence online similar to before January 6 Capitol attack, DHS Intel chief says - CNNPolitics

DHS warns of heightened risk for attacks ahead of 9/11 anniversary

 

I appreciate your thoughts. I don't really agree. I think CIA/NSA/DOD/etc has been valorized for their resistance of Trump in a way that may one day set the stage for more interventionist action on murky grounds of "liberation."

W gave the military industrial complex damn near carte blanche to reimagine the Middle East post 9/11, and Obama didn't do a hell of a lot to dismantle any of it. I don't know what else you call the freedom and autonomy our military had there, 2003-2020 or so, and, well, look at it.

 

There’s a saying: “Amateurs think about tactics; Professionals think about logistics.”

Trump thought he could just wave his hand and move government, probably because everything he knew about Presidenting he learned from watching TV. He was a lazy executive, unable or unwilling to actually do the hard work.

His policy had nothing to do with throwing off the reigns of the CIA or deep state; it was merely feeding what ever hair brained idea Republican news channels fed next into his brain.

I mean shit: Here you are explaining how Trump took power away from the Military Industrial Complex; meanwhile one of Trump’s proudest accomplishments is that he “rebuilt the military” (i.e. gave them more money).

You give too much weight to what Trump and his loyalists said he did, and seem to have paid little attention to what was actually happening.

Signed,
- A member of the military industrial complex

 

Trump dismantled the military industrial complex by letting Jared sell billions of dollars of weapons to people in the middle east who had previously not been allowed to get their hands on those weapon systems, and who used them to bomb the shit out of their economic rivals without the U.S. saying Boo about it.

 

Yeah but I mean he said the words the “We’re not the world’s police” folks wanted to hear.

And that’s what really counts: He said the words.

If only the deep state hadn’t have prevented him from inviting the Taliban to Camp David on Sept. 11 to negotiate the surrender of the Afghan government …