iran nuclear deal

Trump betrays his supporters with John Bolton pick, signaling more ‘stupid wars’

by

Remember back to those halcyon days of the Trump campaign when his “America First” slogan signaled a return to American isolationism and turning away from Neocon “stupid wars” of regime change?

Despite having actually supported the Iraq war, Trump was highly critical of George W. Bush and his Neocon war cabinet on the campaign trail. Trump on Iraq: How Could We Have Been So Stupid? “One Of The Worst Decisions In The History Of The Country”:

TRUMP: I’m finding out all I can do is tell the truth. I tell the truth about Iraq. I say the war was a disaster. We spent $2 trillion. Lost thousands of lives, thousands of lives. We have wounded warriors all over the place. These guys have more courage than all of us put together. I have to tell you. All of us. And you know, I said we should have never been there. And you know, if Bush is insulted, I don’t care if he’s insulted. It was a horrible mistake. We should have never been there. Somebody says, oh, that’s not good to criticize? I say criticize? It’s one of the worst decisions in the history of the country. We have totally destabilized the Middle East.

I predicted that was going to happen. Because when you knock down the one power, the other power just took it over. Now Iran is taking over Iraq. Just as sure as you’re sitting there. We don’t even have anything to do with Iraq anymore. We’re gone. But think of it. We spent $2 trillion. Could have rebuilt our country. We could have done so much with that money. And instead, we’re worse in the Middle East than we were 15 years ago. Right now, it’s a disaster.

Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, but you know what he was good at? Killing terrorists. He was killing terrorists. Now, Iraq is Harvard for terrorists. if you want to be a terrorist, you go to Iraq. It’s Harvard. And what did we do? You know, we spent all this money, lost all these lives, have all these wounded warriors. What did we get? Iran is taking over. Not only did they get the $150 billion in the stupid deal we made, one of the dumbest deals ever, but now we’re taking over Iraq, they have been fighting for years to try to take each other.

Many of Trump’s MAGA supporters voted for him specifically because they believed (irrationally) that he would get America out of “stupid wars” and he would use the savings  to “make America great again.”

On Thursday, Trump betrayed those supporters when National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster resigned (riiight, he was forced out) and Trump replaced him with the godfather of stupid wars, John Bolton, a Neocon who was one of the directors of the Project for the New American Century that advocated for regime change in Iraq and misled the Bush administration with false intelligence into the Iraq war fiasco. John Bolton, Fresh From Fox News, Joins the Trump Cast.

Read more

The madness of King Donald

by

Last week we learned that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in direct contact with North Korea in an effort to prevent the U.S. from stumbling into a renewed Korean war and possible nuclear conflict. Tillerson: U.S. is in direct contact with North Korea, is ‘probing’ talks:

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States is in direct contact with North Korea and is looking into whether Kim Jong Un is open to talks.

The comment, made during a brief trip to China, was the first time the Trump administration acknowledged direct communication with Pyongyang.

“We are probing, so stay tuned,” he said.

“We ask, ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have lines of communications to Pyongyang. We’re not in a dark situation, a blackout. We have a couple, three, channels open to Pyongyang; we can talk to them; we do talk to them,” he said.

After publication of this Washington Post report, our always insecure egomaniacal Twitter-troll-in-chief took to the Twitter machine to undercut his Secretary of State. Trump tells Tillerson to quit “wasting his time” on North Korea:

The president’s latest tweets, a day after Secretary of State Tillerson confirmed the U.S. is in contact with North Korea.

Screen Shot 2017-10-05 at 2.03.40 PM

This is a pretty cavalier way to announce a foreign policy move with potentially massive implications.

Read more

Donald Trump beats the drums of war at the United Nations

by

Remember when Trump supporters believed that his “America First” rhetoric meant retreating from America’s role as the world’s policeman engaging in endless wars to a non-interventionist foreign policy and withdrawing behind the walls of a “fortress America”? Suckers, that’s not what Trump meant at all. America First Foreign Policy. This is an aggressive “nationalism” policy litte different from the policy Russia ad China pursue.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Sunday the U.N. Security Council has run out of options on containing North Korea’s nuclear program and the United States may have to turn the matter over to the Pentagon. U.S. Ambassador Haley: U.N. has exhausted options on North Korea:

“We have pretty much exhausted all the things that we can do at the Security Council at this point,” Haley told CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that she was perfectly happy to hand the North Korea problem over to Defense Secretary James Mattis.

* * *

China has urged the United States to refrain from making threats to North Korea. Asked about President Donald Trump’s warning last month that the North Korean threat to the United States will be met with “fire and fury,” Haley said, “It was not an empty threat.”

“If North Korea keeps on with this reckless behavior, if the United States has to defend itself or defend its allies in any way, North Korea will be destroyed. And we all know that. And none of us want that. None of us want war,” she said on CNN.

“We’re trying every other possibility that we have, but there’s a whole lot of military options on the table,” she said.

Read more

Debunked conspiracy theory about ransom to Iran, still debunked

by

The conservative media entertainment complex thrives on conspiracy theories. Since facts do not matter in the right-wing noise machine, literally everything is spun into a conspiracy theory in support of right-wing propaganda.

I covered this story last week in McCain attack ad relies on debunked conspiracy theory about ransom to Iran. After the post, there was some additional reporting about the “timing” of the exchange of prisoners held by Iran for the money that was already owed to Iran by the United States.

The right-wing noise machine spun this tick-tock “timing” story into an assertion that it supports its conspiracy theory that the Obama administration paid “ransom” for the prisoners held by Iran. (They are confusing President Obama with their sainted President Reagan, who actually did pay ransom for hostages held by Iran). Still not. Money paid to Iran was ‘leverage’ not ransom, State Department says:

Cartoon_18The State Department acknowledged Thursday that it delayed releasing a $400 million cash payment to Iran in January until it was assured that a plane carrying three released American prisoners had left Tehran.

State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters that negotiators had “deliberately leveraged” Iran’s desire to get its money from a decades-old arms deal to make sure the authorities there would not renege on freeing three Americans. They were flown out Jan. 16, the same day the nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers was implemented.

“We felt it would be imprudent not to consider that some leverage in trying to make sure our Americans got out,” Kirby said, noting the deep mistrust between the countries.

Read more

McCain attack ad relies on debunked conspiracy theory about ransom to Iran

by

The Arizona “McMedia” continually push the myth that Senator John McCain is some kind of expert in foreign policy. One of the great wonders of our time is why the mainstream media so often takes John McCain seriously on matters of foreign policy.

mccain-boots-on-the-ground-sargentIt’s not just “liberal media” who question McCain’s knowledge and judgment. The American Conservative reported McCain’s Horrible Foreign Policy Judgment: “McCain hasn’t just been wrong about Iraq. He has been stubbornly, willfully deluded about both of the biggest foreign policy blunders of the last fifty years.”

And there is McCain’s ever-present puppet boy, Little Lindsey Graham, who simply mouths the words that his puppet master puts into his mouth. Foreign Policy concludes, Lindsey Graham: Wrong on Everything (subscription required).

With this preface, John McCain is airing a new attack ad against his Democratic opponent, Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, regarding the Iran deal negotiated last year. The ad uses the most recent right-wing talking point du jour from Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal claiming a recent payment to Iran is under the terms of the Iran deal and is “ransom.” Here is what McNasty says on his web site. New Ad: Kirkpatrick’s Dangerous Iran Policies:

The McCain campaign released a new television ad exposing Democrat Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick’s reckless support for the Iran Nuclear Deal. The ad will begin airing today on markets statewide and on cable.

Screen Shot 2016-08-13 at 8.57.05 AM

Last week, the Wall Street Journal exposed that the Obama administration paid a cash ransom to Iran for the release of four Americans detained in Tehran on the same weekend the Iran Nuclear Deal– a deal that Democrat Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick wholeheartedly supports — was formally implemented.

Read more