Saturday, November 10, 2018

A SWIFT kick in the pants: Belligerent neocon Bolton delivers blow to American dollar


Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest? ~ King Henry II:

Instead of Trump draining the swamp as he promised, the swamp appears to have drained Trump of his “America first” agenda.  Trump promised to end the belligerent foreign policy of the neocons and end the war-based economy that has destroyed the American way of life.  Trump the builder campaigned on rebuilding America’s infrastructure which has fallen into disrepair after years of tax cuts and war.  Trump spoke of how our airports and transportation modes are like that of third world countries.

Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the “hidden” confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.” – Alan Greenspan, Gold and Economic Freedom (1968)

There’s no way Trump can Make America Great Again through deficit spending caused by trillions in tax cuts and trillions in spending on war.  Coupled with the insane policy of levying sanctions against anyone unwilling to give up their sovereignty and bend to the will of the neocons the world has begun to dump the dollar and abandon the SWIFT banking system that only serves the wants and needs of the globalists. 

How is this making America great again?  John Bolton, one of the most extreme of the Bush neocons is now setting America’s foreign policy.  In September Bolton laid out his vision for a lawless America’s foreign policy.  From Foreign Policy Journal:

Excerpt:

Bolton’s Game: Clearing the Path for U.S. Geopolitical Primacy

The message from John Bolton’s denunciations of the ICC is that the US will not be subject to legal accountability for its violations international law.

To be sure, on September 10, John Bolton, Trump’s National Security Advisor, pushed all the thematic buttons that might be expected of a luncheon speaker invited to address the Federalist Society, long known as the ideological home of rabid advocates of the so-called ‘new sovereignty.’ 

The hallmark of this pre-Trump neocon law bastion of Scalia worshippers was their role in the career nurturing of such jurisprudential embarrassments as John Yoo and Jack Goldsmith—Yoo the notorious author of the torture memos and Goldsmith the public servant usually given credit for crafting an expert approval text validating ‘extreme rendition’ of CIA suspects to notorious ‘black sites,’ known around the world as safe havens for torture, surely a crude instance of ex parte criminal legalism…

John Bolton was the safest of choices as a featured speaker, having earned his Federalist Society credentials many times over.  He seems perversely proud of leading the unprecedented effort on behalf of George W. Bush in 2002 to ‘unsign’ the Rome Statute, the treaty that brought the International Criminal Court (ICC) into force in 2002, and now has 123 sovereign states as parties, including all NATO members except the U.S. and Turkey.

At the talk, Bolton paused to boast of orchestrating this unusual move to highlight and underscore this repudiation of the ICC by the Bush presidency, and in the process, of the crusading success of a transnational civil society movement and a coalition of moderate governments around the world to institutionalize individual accountability of political leaders and military commanders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It should be humiliating that such a global undertaking to strengthen international criminal law enforcement is regarded as posing a direct threat to Americans and governmental policy. It puts a preemptive twist on the previous reliance on “victors’ justice” to ensure that none of the Allied crimes during World War II would be subjected to legal scrutiny while the crimes of German and Japanese political leaders and military commanders were being prosecuted…

even the supposedly liberal side of American political life has opted out of its earlier tradition of supporting the institutional development of the Rule of Law on a global level as an aspect of its commitment to the role of law and institutions as essential ingredients of a peaceful and just world order.

Congress removed any doubt as to its hostility toward the ICC when in 2002 it passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, authorizing the President to use all necessary means, even force, to prevent prosecution at The Hague of Americans accused of war crimes or crimes against humanity.  What is especially disturbing about such a slap at criminal accountability is the absence of slightest show of concern as to whether the allegations in a particular case were well grounded in evidence or not.

When Bolton alluded to this bit of ultra-nationalism, he appropriately noted that the legislation enjoyed bipartisan support, which suggests that the American posture of claiming ‘lawless geopolitics’ for itself is a fixed feature of world order for the seeable future no matter who occupies the Oval Office…

These are predictable sentiments, given the occasion and taking into account Bolton’s long advocacy of a militarist foreign policy that disregards the restraints of law, morality, and political prudence. It is the ethics and politics of this disregard that is Bolton’s real message.

We should be attentive to this real message hidden within the fiery ‘sovereignty first’ verbiage, which is that the geopolitical practices of the United States will not be subject to legal accountability no matter how flagrant the violation of fundamental norms might be in the future…

Such a self-serving geopolitical appropriation of international criminal law should not be confused with legitimate law, which presupposes that the rules, norms, and procedures apply to all relevant actors, the strong as well as the weak, the victors as well as the defeated, geopolitical wrongdoers as well their adversaries… 

State-centric world order as beset by geopolitical rivalries is a blueprint for civilizational collapse in the 21st Century, and probably represents the worst possible way to uphold core sovereign rights and national interests over time.

What is still sadder is that the Bolton/Trump worldview, which seems so outlandish and anachronistic is not that extremist, compared to Democratic establishment approaches, when it comes to behavior…  As many have noted Hilary Clinton’s push toward a confrontation with Russia was more in keeping with Bolton’s preferred foreign policy than the more accommodationist proposals of Trump during his presidential campaign.

It is against such a background that I reach the lamentable conclusion that when it comes world peace and global justice, the Democratic Party establishment has little to offer when it comes to foreign policy, and may be more inclined to initiate wars and raise geopolitical tensions than even their reactionary and militarist Republican rivals…

It should be appreciated that contemporary international law, as embodied in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter forbids threats as well as uses of aggressive force.  Such a prohibition underlines the criminality of Bolton’s recent formulations of military threats directed at Iran: “I might imagine they [‘the mullahs of Tehran’] would take me seriously when I assure them today: If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to pay.”

Such chilling words must be understood in the context of Bolton’s past advocacy of bombing Iran and of the Trump approach to the region that can be summarized in a few words: ‘do what Netanyahu wants.’

Even if war and aggression do not actually occur, and we must pray that they do not, this kind of geopolitical bullying by a leading official of a country that has up to one thousand military bases spread around the world should be criminalized, and not just criticized as intemperate.

Scary stuff.  A bullying foreign policy is not what Americans voted for when they voted for Donald Trump in 2016.  The foreign policy status quo offered by Hillary Clinton and all of Trump’s adversaries in the GOP primary, namely Jeb Bush, Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz was soundly rejected by the voters. 

Those interventionist policies are what brought the world banking system to its knees in 2008.  By Trump turning America’s foreign policy over to Bolton and Pompeo, the dangers that existed in 2016 have become much worse in 2018 and war with Russia and China is becoming ever more likely.  The Bolton/Pompeo doctrine of attacking small weaker countries through sanctions has received condemnation across the globe.  From Mint Press:


Excerpt:

Nations the World Over Disapprove of US Foreign Policy, Except for Israel
You don’t need a Pew poll to know which way the world thinks. But it is useful.

Last week, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn the US embargo against Cuba. A total of 189 member-nations said Cuba did not deserve this embargo, which began in 1961 and has continued unabated to this day. Only two countries – the United States and Israel – voted against the motion. No country abstained.

Cuba’s minister for foreign affairs, Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla, has said the US embargo has cost the small socialist island state upwards of US$933.678 billion, with the losses in the past year amounting to $4.3 billion (twice the amount of foreign direct investment into the island). This embargo, Rodríguez Parrilla said as he put the resolution forward, is an “act of genocide” against Cuba and its people.

The Group of 77 and the Non-Aligned Movement – both important groupings of the Global South – as well as regional groupings from Africa to Latin America backed the resolution. China’s representative to the UN, Ma Zhaoxu, made the case that the US embargo on Cuba prevented the island from meeting its obligations to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Last year, the United States strengthened the embargo with an attack on the tourism sector (83 hotels were placed on the banned list). It is likely that President Donald Trump’s administration will deepen its assault on Cuba. 

Threats by the United States did not convert the vote of otherwise reliable US allies. Each year since 1992 a resolution of this kind has come before the UN General Assembly. Each year the world has overwhelmingly voted against the US embargo. This year was no different.

But it is useful. Last month, Pew Research Center released a poll that looked at the image of Donald Trump and the United States in 25 countries around the world. In most countries, neither Trump nor the United States come off well…

Beyond the Pew poll, it is evident from the atmosphere in the United Nations that the countries of the world – even close US allies – fear US policy on a number of issues. Cuba is a canary in the coal mine. But even clearer is the US policy of ramping up sanctions against Iran…

World does not want to strangle Iran

As the new US sanctions regime went into place against Iran, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Ankara, “US sanctions on Iran are wrong. For us, they are steps aimed at unbalancing the world. We don’t want to live in an imperialist world.”

Erdogan is not alone here. Even countries with close ties to the United States, such as India and Japan, are against the sanctions. They may not use words like “imperialist,” but their actions clearly bristle at the heavy-handedness of the US government when it comes to its use of instruments such as financial sanctions.

It was clear that China was never going to honor the new US sanctions on Iran. Nor were Turkey and Iraq, and nor were the three large economies of Asia that rely on Iranian oil (India, Japan and South Korea). No wonder the United States gave these countries waivers to the sanctions.

Some countries, including India and Japan, have been discussing the need for an alternative financial system so that they can do trade with countries that are sanctioned by the United States. They do not believe that the US should be allowed to suffocate world trade through its control over banking systems and through the world’s reliance on the dollar. Pressure to build alternatives no longer comes from the margins; it comes from Tokyo and New Delhi, from Frankfurt and Seoul…

Just as the US sanctions went into place against Iran, Ahmad Reshad Popal, director general of Afghanistan’s Customs Department, opened the Farah crossing to Iranian goods – a snub to US policy. Even Afghanistan, virtually under US occupation, cannot abide by the US policy on Iran. Nor even can the NATO troops in Afghanistan, whose trucks are fueled in part by Iranian oil.

 World does not want ‘Iraq war’ in Latin America

George W Bush used the term “axis of evil” to lump together Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Of the three, the US was only able to go to war against Iraq, in 2003. Pressure for regime change in North Korea was held back by its nuclear-weapons program, while pressure for regime change in Iran continues.

Donald Trump has now come up with a new term – “troika of tyranny,” which comprises Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. In Miami, Trump’s close adviser John Bolton gave a speech where he inaugurated this term.

He spoke of the right-wing turn in Latin America and the isolation – as far as he was concerned – of socialist governments. Bolton celebrated the election of men such as Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Ivan Duque in Colombia, men who he said were committed to “free-market principles and open, transparent, and accountable governance.” No mention here of the grotesque views of Bolsonaro or the militarism of both men.

Bolton called the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela “strongmen.” But there is no more “clownish, pitiful” figure – to borrow from Bolton – than Bolsonaro, no more authoritarian heads of government than Bolsonaro, Duque and Trump. Duque has taken Colombia into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a sign that the Colombian military will now answer more to Washington than to the Colombian people.

In his speech, Bolton threatened the governments in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Trump’s administration, he said, “is taking direct action against all three regimes” – “direct action” a key phrase here…

Ever since Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela, the US has tried to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution that he inaugurated. A failed coup in 2002 was followed up by various forms of intimidation and sanctions. In 2015, US president Barack Obama declared that Venezuela was an “extraordinary threat to US security” and slapped sanctions on the country. It is this policy that Trump has since continued.

Itchy fingers in the Trump administration are eager to start a shooting war somewhere in Latin America – either Cuba, Nicaragua or Venezuela. The appetite for this is not there in the United Nations. Nor is it shared in Latin America. But that has never stopped the United States.

Disregard for world opinion as well as the opinion of the US citizenry defines the US government. Thirty-six million people around the world, half a million of them in New York City, protested on February 15, 2003, in an attempt to prevent the US war on Iraq. George W Bush did not pay attention to them. Nor will Trump.

Last August, Trump asked his advisers why the US couldn’t just invade Venezuela. The next day, on August 11, 2017, he said he was considering the “military option” for Venezuela. At a private dinner with four Latin American allies, Trump asked if they wanted the US to invade Venezuela. Each of them said no.

Not sure if their opinions count.

What happened to the noninterventionist Donald Trump we elected in 2016?  One thing is certain, John Bolton should never be allowed near America’s foreign policy, the man is dangerous.  Now Bolton is endangering the U.S. Dollar with these insane sanctions and that will be bad for America and likely end up in crashing the U.S. economy.  From Tom Luongo at Russia Insider:

Excerpt:

Russia's Alternative to SWIFT Already Has Market Majority in Russia Change came swiftly

During the ruble crisis of 2014/15 Russia announced in the wake of U.S. and European sanctions over reunifying with Crimea that it would begin building a domestic electronic financial transfer system, an alternative to SWIFT.

That system, System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), is not only now functioning in Russia, according to a report from RT it now handles the financial transfer data for more than half of Russia’s institutions.


According to Anatoly Aksakov, head of the Russian parliamentary committee on financial markets:  The number of users of our internal financial messages’ transfer system is now greater than that of those using SWIFT. We’re already holding talks with China, Iran and Turkey, along with several other countries, on linking our system with their systems,” Aksakov said…

This is a follow up to last month’s boast by the Russians that their system was seeing a lot of international interest.  How much of this is boast and how much of it is reality remains to be seen, but the important point here is that the minute the U.S. weaponized SWIFT for use in its foreign policy, something like this was bound to occur.

China has its own internal system.  And other countries are building theirs as well.

The SWIFT Cost

A common theme on this blog is that control is an illusion.  Power is ephemeral.  The best way to exercise your power is to have it but never use it.  Because once you do use it you define for your enemies the costs of their lack of compliance to your edicts.  And if there is one thing humans are good at it is responding to known incentives.  Once we can calculate the cost of one behavior over another we can then decide which one is more important to us.

Once costs of staying in SWIFT rise above the benefits of building your own alternative, you build an alternative… 

SWIFT is a monopoly system, a monopoly born of convenience and inertia thanks to it being neutral to whims of international political spats.  Enter the late stage of imperial thinking in the U.S. where our control over world affairs is waning first in the hearts and minds of various people around the world and then in policy and you have the beginning of the end of SWIFT as the only international financial transfer system…

Then Iran was cut out of SWIFT in 2012 to effect regime change which also failed.  And that woke the world up to the reality.  The U.S. and Europe will attempt to destroy your livelihood if you dare oppose its unilateral demands.

Our political and financial elites, The Davos Crowd, will stop at literally nothing to ensure your compliance.  Too bad that SWIFT is just code.  It’s just an encrypted messaging system.  And like the push to stifle alternative voices on social media — de-platforming Alex Jones and Gab for examples — the solution to authoritarian control is not fighting fire with fire, but technology.  And that’s exactly what Russia has done.  They applied themselves, spent the money and wrote their own code.  Code is, after all, hard to control…

De-coding SWIFT’s Power…


As Russian banks and businesses reap the benefits of no longer existing under SWIFT’s Sword of Damocles, others will see the same benefits.  I’ve been making this point all year, the more the Trump administration uses tariffs and sanctions to achieve its political goals the more it will ultimately weaken the U.S.’s position worldwide.  It won’t happen overnight.

It will build, gradually, steadily until one day the threat will no longer be there.

We may have already reached that moment as President Trump has ruled out pressuring SWIFT to cut Iran out of the system.  Too bad his evil Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin doesn’t agree with him.  But, Mnuchin is living in the past, he doesn’t respect the resistance that’s forming to U.S. financial hegemony.  He will though when it proves ineffectual.

Russia’s SPFS will gain clients across Iran, Turkey, China and the rest of its close trading partners.  This will accelerate the de-dollarization of Russia’s main trade, hydrocarbons, since many of these countries are major buyers of Russian oil.  When you hear the announcement from a German bank under sanctions from the U.S. for trading in Russian energy that it will use SPFS as its transfer system, that will be the real wake up call to the markets.

Change then will comes, forgive the obvious pun, swiftly.

The Trump Administration’s ninety degree turn on foreign policy since the takeover by the Deep State toadies John Bolton and Mike Pompeo has gone from outreach and cooperation to belligerence and isolation in just two short years.  President Donald Trump was elected on a platform of abandoning the Dark Ages foreign policy of the Bush/Obama years in favor of enlightened modern-day era cooperation and outreach. 

What Bolton and Pompeo have ushered in has been just the opposite, a plunge deeper into the darkness than that of either Bush or Obama.  The question is, will Trump continue to allow these Neanderthals to destroy America or will he take charge and revert to his gut instincts.  

Trump was wise enough during his campaign to recognize the dangers of the policies of Obama and Bush before him, but will he act or will America get a SWIFT kick in the pants?  The Khashoggi incident places America in an even more precarious predicament from the standpoint of levying sanctions against Iran.  From Strategic Culture:


Excerpt:

The Untouchable US-Saudi Relation Is a Core Element of US Imperialism 

Nixon’s decision in 1971 to withdraw the United States from the gold standard greatly influenced the future direction of humanity. The US dollar rose in importance from the mid-1950s to become the world reserve currency as a result of the need for countries to use the dollar in trade. One of the most consumed commodities in the world is oil, and as is well known, the price is set by OPEC in US dollars, with this organization being strongly influenced by Saudi Arabia.

It is therefore towards Riyadh that we must look in order to understand the workings of the petrodollar. After the dollar was withdrawn from the gold standard, Washington made an arrangement with Riyadh to price oil solely in dollars. In return, the Saudis received protection and were granted a free hand in the region. This decision forced the rest of the world to hold a high amount of US dollars in their currency reserves, requiring the purchase of US treasuries.

The relationship between the US dollar and oil breathed new life to this currency, placing it at the centre of the global financial and economic system. This privileged role enjoyed by the dollar allowed the United States to finance its economy through the simple process of printing its fiat currency, relying on its credibility and supported by the petrodollar that required other countries to store reserves of US treasuries in their basket of currencies…

In other words, as long as the US continues to maintain its dominance of the global financial and economic system, thanks to the dollar, its supremacy as a world superpower is hardly questioned. To maintain this influence on the currency markets and the special-drawing rights (SDR) basket, the pricing of oil in US dollars is crucial. This explains, at least partially, the impossibility of scaling down the relationship between Washington and Riyadh.

Nobody should delude themselves into believing that this is the only reason why Saudi-US relations are important. Washington is swimming in the money showered by Saudi lobbies, and it is doubtful that those on the receiving end of such largesse will want to make the party stop…
  
Ever since Donald Trump took over the White House, the process of de-dollarization that begun during the Obama era has only accelerated. With the unprecedented move in 2012 to remove Iran from the SWIFT international banking system, a dangerous precedent had been set that acted as a warning to the rest of the world. The United States revealed itself as willing to abuse its dominant position by wielding the dollar as a weapon against geopolitical adversaries.

The consequences of that action continue to be felt today. Many within the Western elite have come to recognize this mistake and are regretting it. Russia and China understood that they were next on the chopping block and set about creating alternative payment systems like CIPS that would serve to act as a backup system in case Washington tried to exclude Moscow and Beijing from the SWIFT system…

The average citizen, seeing Bernanke and Draghi on TV talking about "unprecedented actions to save the system", felt reassured, and therefore felt their money remained safe, in banks or in US dollars. The next financial crisis – potentially the worst ever – is likely to be caused by either the raising of interest rates by the Fed and other central banks, or from the popping of one of the numerous debt bubbles around.

The central point is that the citizens’ belief in the system will be put to the test because, as Draghi said, "[this weapon of QE] can be used only once". There is no protection for banks and speculative entities that could be in debt to the tune of many billions of dollars with no chance of survival.

With a view of to the possible collapse of the dollar-based financial system, several countries are selling their US government bonds, reducing their exposure and accumulating gold. This involves not just China and Russia, but even the European Union…

If Saudi Arabia were really convinced of the innocence of MBS in the Khashoggi affair, it could use this situation to its advantage by reducing the role of Washington in its foreign policy. Turning to the east and increasing partnerships with China and Russia would have beneficial effects on the whole region, as well as reducing the importance of the United States in the world.

The biggest mistake made by Donald Trump since his election is to embrace the Bush neocons and their failed foreign policy instead of draining the swamp.  John Bolton is the worst of the worst, never learning from his mistakes.  He has an ideological foreign policy that never changes when circumstances change, he is a coward.  From Strategic Culture:

Excerpt:

Bolton Lacks Stones More Than Olives

The biggest warmongers are generally the biggest cowards. They hide behind rhetoric and other people’s blood, sweat and toil to advance their personal agenda. John Bolton’s arrival in Moscow with, as he said, “no olive branches” in hand, should come as zero surprise because Bolton is nothing if not a coward.

Warmongers like Bolton bomb, invade and ruin some poor country that is in their way, the entire time claiming they themselves, or the people they represent, are the victim.

It’s vain and narcissistic.

US foreign policy is suffused with the neoconservative strain of narcissism, an offshoot of Trotskyite interventionism, which sees everything in Manichean terms.  You are either our friend, and in the case of the US Empire subservient to our needs, or you are our enemy.

When Bolton is talking about taking us out of the UN I think he’s useful. When he’s arguing for a freer hand in developing ballistic missiles I think he’s a danger to humanity.  This is how National Security Advisor John Bolton sees the world. It’s not tough to parse in the end. And the sad truth is that this is likely exactly why he was hired by President Trump.

Bolton has been shaping US foreign policy along these lines for decades. He is one of the architects of the disastrous Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well as the post 9/11 surveillance state. He’s a cheap shill for Israeli expansionism and continues to argue against peace in North Korea, Japan and Syria.

Like Bolton, Trump is a bully; a fundamentally weak person who blusters and blows hard in service of a simplified narrative of good and evil. America good and anyone who disagrees with her, bad.  When it comes to foreign policy the Trump Administration looks an awful lot like a those SJW NPC’s memes on Twitter.

Make no mistake, in Bolton’s case, his agenda is born of spite, hate and opportunity. Trump, on the other hand, I’m not so sure about. It is one of the few things leaving me with some hope in all of this.  While John Bolton may be a US patriot, his brand of patriotism is of the most toxic variety. It is one where everyone else has to suffer to advance America.

It is a Hobbesian view of the world in which for the US to win, everyone else has to lose. Because without the US, the Superman of Human Society, the world would sink into barbarism.  At the end of the day paranoid schizophrenics like Bolton see threats to their well-being everywhere. They can only see the world through the lens of nation-state power politics.  Meanwhile the world is thrown off its axis and decent people must suffer for Bolton’s ends which always justify the means no matter the disastrous results.

Think about the millions who continue to suffer because of his view of Iran. Real Iranians are beneath contempt because they won’t overthrow the Theocracy on John Bolton’s timeline. He exemplifies the adage that the beatings will continue until morale improves. People like Bolton believe some people’s lives are worth more than others.

Theirs is a solipsism so complete that anyone who refuses to throw off the yoke of their ‘oppressors’ deserve whatever fate true-believers and cowards like Bolton concoct for them. They are simply collateral damage on the way to building a better world.  This is why I invoke Trotsky when I speak about neocons. People like Bolton are “Commies” who don’t realize it.

Bolton’s pushing President Trump to renege on the 1987 INF Treaty with Russia is born of his paranoia about China. China is the US’s real threat.  So, while Bolton has never met a war he didn’t like he also hasn’t ever met a treaty the US has signed he did like…

If the US government is to have a role in foreign affairs it should be to sign treaties with other nations that limit the kind of damage people like John Bolton can do. And ones which limit the use and development of truly terrifying weapons should be lauded not thrown aside at the first opportunity.

The US and Russia should be leading the world on this front towards cooperation and peace. Putin would welcome that dialogue. His call to Japan to sign a peace treaty first then work out the territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands is a perfect example of this. To Putin, rightly, trust is built with agreements over the easy stuff first then you work on the hard stuff. Bolton wants it all his way or he wants to take his toys and go home.

Typical narcissist. Typical bully.

There should be a dialogue with China and any other country developing the missiles banned by the treaty that both Bolton and Putin are bound by. If limiting nuclear weapons is Trump’s goal why is he pulling out of this treaty rather than organizing summits?

Why is his State Dept. so unutterably backwards that it won’t even pick up the phone to talk with Iran?

By springing this on the world at this moment Bolton and Trump are signaling to everyone that they are simply weak-minded bullies who have neither the patience nor the temperament to confront difficult problems in constructive ways.

And in his interaction with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bolton confirmed Putin’s suspicions that there will be no olive branches offered to Russia while he’s on the job, only more belligerence and posturing by cowards who threaten and demean, bully and provoke hoping to get what they want.

But when men like Bolton are confronted with men like Putin who see them for what they truly are, they always walk away empty handed and outmaneuvered.

Putin is the opposite of Bolton.

No one will make a deal with the US as long as John Bolton is on the scene. And now Trump is rightfully under attack for continuing to back both Israel and Saudi Arabia, neither one bastions of temperance and tolerance.  Both are increasingly seen as brutal and intractable to the rest of the world, including, finally the US electorate.

The shaky edifice of Trump’s foreign policy goals of isolating Iran, driving a wedge between Russia and China and securing a subservient Europe via NATO is failing.  The exact opposite is happening.

So, unless Trump’s prepared to meet Putin with a whole lot of olives when next they meet (presumably in November) the best he can hope for is a handful full of stones.

Amen, America deserves more than a neocon coward as our foreign policy face for the world.  President Trump, I implore you rid yourself of this meddlesome priest, and open communications with Russia and the world to end these endless trillion dollar wars.  You said it yourself, America doesn’t win war anymore.  What is the point?  


Restore our infrastructure like you promised, build up state-of-the-art airports, rail transportation and restore our treasury before it’s too late.  Mr. President you said to vote for you, asking “what do you have to lose?”  What we have to lose is our country, our homes, our children, our treasury, our way of life.  You promised to “Make America Great Again”, well you can’t achieve greatness through trillion dollar tax cuts and trillion dollar wars.  Please keep your promise and drain that swamp.  Don’t deliver America a SWIFT kick in the pants from which it will not recover. 




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