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 RodrÃguez 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,
RodrÃguez 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.
