Things are seldom what they seem…
Guest post by Robert Gore at Straight Line Logic
In “Plot Holes,” SLL took a contrary tack to the consensus after Michael Flynn was fired: “The upshot of many commentators is that Trump has underestimated the Deep State, he’s floundering, and so on.” SLL noted that in committing an obvious illegality—leaking transcripts of Flynn’s conversation to the press—the Deep State was showing weakness, not strength, and handing President Trump an opportunity to investigate it and score a decisive victory.
Sure enough, the “Russiagate” story has shifted from alleged Russian collusion with Trump and his team to the Obama team’s alleged illegal misuse of intelligence information against Trump. Susan Rice’s unmasking has been unmasked, raising the possibility that Obama ordered her to do so, and Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence committee who had vociferously pursued the Russian collusion investigation, has gone silent. While Trump cannot yet declare match point, he’s up several games in the final set and he’s got his opponents on their back feet.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page and many neocons are delighted by President Trump’s “muscular” response to Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons. A number of commentators. formerly supportive or at least willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, have expressed extreme dismay or repudiated Trump. He stands accused of betraying one of his campaign’s main promises. However, just as with the Michael Flynn affair, the stories emerging so far have their plot holes.
IT DOESN’T READ LIKE FICTION ANYMORE
Several days after the Assad regime was blessed by Secretary of State Tillerson and Ambassador to the United Nations Haley, Assad purportedly turned around and ordered the use of chemical weapons, which he had supposedly gotten rid of in 2013. Why would he in one supremely stupid stroke destroy the legitimacy so recently conferred? Why would his ally Russia allow him to do so? The WSJ and New York Times said he was thumbing his nose at the US. This is absurd on its face. A beleaguered head of state who is finally seeing some military and diplomatic daylight doesn’t make provocative gestures guaranteed to piss off the world’s most militarily powerful nation.
Those accusing Trump of betrayal argue that the implausibility of Syria using chemical weapons screams false flag, perpetrated by either Syrian rebels, or more darkly, by the US military and intelligence agencies and their contractors (the complex). Russia and Syria say that Syria bombed a rebel warehouse containing chemical weapons. Throw in the pictures showing relief workers handling chemical victims, dead and alive, with their bare hands, and it all smells pretty fishy. Certainly fishy enough for Trump to investigate before he pulled the trigger.
Unless Trump didn’t care if it was a false flag or not. Take the worse case: assume it was a false flag, that Trump knew it was, and that the complex had a hand in it. Isn’t it far more plausible that after Tillerson and Haley signaled abandonment of its long-cherished goal of deposing Assad, the complex would devise an incident designed to put Trump on the spot in Syria, rather than that Assad surrendered hard-won diplomatic and military gains by using chemical weapons? When politicians start talking about “the children,” watch out, some sort of mischief is underway. Was Trump really moved by pictures of dead children? Probably not. American intervention has been leaving dead children in its wake for decades. Trump has shown no remorse for those killed in Yemen by US special forces and Saudi Arabian bombs on his watch—he’s lifted restrictions on selling the kingdom more bombs!
In this scenario, the false flag was a strike—as was the Michael Flynn affair—by the complex against Trump. Objectively, the false flag was so suspicious that the reasonable course would have been to investigate before launching military action. This may have been what the complex thought Trump would do. If he had, its media allies would have had a field day lambasting “treasonous” Trump as soft on chemical warfare tyrant Assad, and more importantly, on Assad’s ally, Vladimir Putin. There would have been innumerable comparisons to that wimp Obama and his red line. Once again, the complex thought it had Trump backed into a corner.
Except Trump called its bluff. He has given the complex what it claims it wants—a measured, strategic response—and has been lauded by its propaganda organs for doing so. The question going forward: what else will he do? Will he put large numbers of US troops on the ground in a full-fledged effort to depose Assad? Will he risk war with Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, and possibly China, with the attendant risks of terrorist blowback and increased refugee flows? Almost certainly not. Even within the complex there are cooler heads (not all, but some) who realize a full-blown war in the Middle East would be disastrous, and Trump has expressed the same sentiment, many times. Trump is already seeing his base jump ship (Paul Joseph Watson, Ann Coulter). A war would drive it bat-shit crazy.
Perhaps indicating his desire not to escalate the situation, Trump warned the Russians, who in turn warned Syria, of the impending attack. Other than wasting $60 million dollars worth of Tomahawk missiles, some of which did not hit their target (but did the give the Russians a chance to field test their antimissile technology), and perhaps rendering a Syrian air base inoperative, what has the attack accomplished? Trump has given the complex and its media a minimalist gesture they may not have expected, but which they must publicly support and praise.
However, there is no stomach in this country for a big power war in the Middle East, one that could potentially spread. Everyone remembers the public outcry in 2013 that prompted Obama and Congress’s embarrassing retreat from promised red line consequences in Syria and acceptance of Putin’s face-saving gesture, the removal of Assad’s chemical weapons. Trump retains the option for more of these measured, strategic responses, and he has given himself a lot of room. Having shown he’ll use force in Syria, he’ll look reasonable if he resists the complex’s calls for military escalation and regime change. He’ll have most of the American public (which is fine with missiles, drones, and special operations, but not full-blown war), and certainly his base, on his side.
The Trump-is-Putin’s-puppet story has been laid to rest. Having established his anti-Putin bona fides, somewhere in the future he can initiate a Nixon-goes-to-China rapprochement. He’s also sent a not so subtle message to both Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping (who got that message while eating dinner with Trump): play good cop to Assad and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un respectively, or he will play the unpredictable, impetuous bad cop.
SLL believes Donald Trump is consistently underestimated and the Deep State consistently overestimated. If Trump’s bombing initiates a full blown war in the Middle East and perhaps elsewhere, then SLL is wrong and Trump’s an idiot, Deep State stooge, scoundrel, and whatever else you want to call him. If, however, Syria quiets down; Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah subdue ISIS as Assad stays in power; China restrains North Korea, and there is eventually US-Russian rapprochement rather than war, then the tab for Donald Trump’s missiles will be reckoned the best money the government ever wasted.
Nice analysis. I hope you are correct.
A lot more people than Assad are taking notice of this strike, it serves as a warning to many threatening powers and could just as easily prevent WWIII by intimidating them as provoking it by letting it go unchallenged.
Sometimes, ignoring something promotes it and responding to it stops it.
IMO, YMMV.
Sometimes, having the yammering press call him crazy enough plus this unannounced strike convinces people that he’s unpredictable and dangerous and back off accordingly.
Donald “kim jong” trump?
I certainly hope you are right. If Trump goes to war on behalf of the jihadists in Syria, he is finished.
This game of poker will escalate the world to the precipice of WWIII!
War in Korea and the reunification of the two Koreas will ultimately happen …Russia and China will get their natural gas pipeline…
Russia’s next move might be to reunify a few former soviet nation states to call Trump’s bluff and to rebuff NATO. I’m sure China wouldn’t mind Russia challenging NATO, considering all the drama in the South China Sea going on!
Then the Doomsday clock might be positioned seconds before TSHTF!
If I had a dollar for every “it’s gonna be WW3” response by nimrods and the media, I’d have enough money to buy Montana and cede from the “union.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-naval-ships-head-toward-korean-peninsula-official-020546735.html
Most of them have been in the South China Sea for months and months facing down “WW3” with China over some disputed sand bars and shipping lanes……I’ll let you know when the sabre rattling and pissing contests end and actual war has started.
It usually involves the blood of a few hundred of one nation’s citizens and depending the response, it could escalate from there to conventional, ugly war. To escalate to nukes or “WW3” we need one team in annihilation or be annihilated mode…the full-blown, fight to the death, mass carnage.
N Korea has neither the missiles to execute a long range attack or the equipment to invade anyone other than S Korea on their stickin little peninsula. A new Korean War is far from WW3. Now if China and/or Russia assist the little simp Jong-Il, then all bets are off.
Oh Javelin!
Where to begin with you.
Nowhere did I say it would be a nuclear WWIII. I also said, it would take us to the edge or precipice of WWIII. In addition, I wonder how many country’s resources and men/women need to begin dropping bombs or shooting one another before we can all agree that the entire World is nearing a massive conflagration!
If I had a chance to write the history books, one might be able to make the case that a “cold” WWIII is already under way and certain regions (aka) fronts are already HOT!
For some of you with a narrower and incomplete worldview, this might be laughable! Go ahead, it doesn’t make any difference. Just follow the trends and you can see with your own eyes what is coming!
Who cares what types of missiles N. Korea has and the fact that it can’t hit mainland U.S., we have over 20,000 troops in S. Korea. I guess, you are one of those douchebags who hold Americans lives more valuable than the rest of the citizens of the planet! Gotta love the myth of American Exceptionalism!
Anyways! Your comments about not getting worked up about the USS Carl Vinson supercarrier group headed to the waters off the coast of North Korea reinforce your lack of understanding with where are current chess pieces are placed throughout the world. It was supposed to be ported in Australia but has been redirected. This is in addition to the other strike groups already in the South China Sea “reinforcing” freedom of navigation blah blah blah!
Now we have Kim Jong Un sending his sympathies to Assad personally on the day that we spent 90 million dollars to make it appear we were being tough on Assad( for political maneuvering at home?)!
I don’t want to be right that the next major war being fomented will start in earnest in the Koreas! But Russia and China did sign that 60 billion dollar energy deal a few years back and so, the G20 I’m sure has met and agreed that the Koreas need to be re-unified as part of the “give and take” of closed-door diplomacy deals between the world oligarchs including the West!
Imagine, knowing this is to come and feeling hopeless that the suffering, death and destruction to the “average people” of the planet will have to go through because of these fucks running the show!
Fucking cuckolds!
Last time I and my limited worldview were in the ME I had lunch in Gaza, spent a day hiking in S. Syria/Golan Heights among the orchards and another day in the West Bank visiting Bethlehem–not exactly tourist traps and I had no armed escorts or protective groups.
My sister-in-law and MIL had wonderful vacations in China.
I know the US and NATO allies have bases all over the world and I know that the end game is globalism. China, Russia, Iran, N Korea and Syria are essentially the last holdouts.
My entire life I have been hearing of “WW3” is coming. Whether we were jumping under desks for drills in grade school or singing anti-nuke anthems during the MAD 1980’s…we have been “on the precipice”.
You could argue that we have been on the precipice of WW3 almost immediately after the end of WW2 and Russia became the 2nd atomic state.
My point is that the “this is the WW3 trigger!!” alarm has created an inoculation–and if there is a planetary warfare and destruction, I’m not sure I want to live through nuclear winter, starvations, lawless wastelands or any of the other post-apocalyptic scenarios.
I truly believe WW4 WILL be fought with sticks and stones, if a spattering of humanity persists….I’m not going to live my life heeding the alerts of the alarmists proclaiming WW3–I will affect what I can, teach my children as I’m able, be good to others and live a life of joy. I’ll leave the rest in God’s hands–after all, He is ultimately in control.
So stock up on all of that deep knowledge of “100 Ways The Big One Could Start.”–as for me and mine, I will live with joy, love and laughter.
Whoever the cucks and non-cucks are, you’ll be dead just the same, except I enjoyed life with the time I had.
Thank you for expanding your points to clarify your statements. I agree with much of what you said so I gave you a thumbs up! The alarm should be rung to those who are missing the significance of the times we live in. As you mentioned towards the end of your clarifying response it is important to affect what you can and teach what you can and live while you can. This is why “ignorance” is supposed to be bliss. I disagree, without the required information ignorance is weakness and can lead us to be manipulated in ways we have not foreseen. So my comments, to you, might have been perceived as alarmist, or hyperbole, but to me, especially considering my family members and fellow U.S. brothers and sisters in the armed forces, and the countless human beings being killed and displaced around the world, I feel it necessary to use what freedoms we have left while we have them to raise the alarm to anyone who will listen. Not to make them “afraid” or fearful but to help them sort through the constant barrage of bullshit from the echo chambers of television and digital media!
Lets not forget Russia and China signed an economic treaty in 2009 that dropped the US Dollar in denominated trade, and China’s currency joined the basket of reserve currencies this past October. In between BRICS led by China established the AIIB banking system, the AIIB enables the BRICS bloc to bypass and isolated the Developed World that doubles down on pressures against the US Dollar as the world’s reserve currency status. This means the Eurozone needs a geographic bypass of the Strait of Homez and Horn of Africa to link with OPEC members of the Arabian Alliance that is a major component of is Saudi Arabia (OPEC chair).
American Exceptionalism is based on after World War II the US became the sole superpower that corrupted and morphed into interpreting this to mean the US is the world nation hence it’s drive in conquest and shift towards a guilty until proven innocent catalysts of open border policies.
Russia, China, and Iran next move is economic that will force Trump either into severe austerity measures or double down towards war and rationing. The only thing stopping Russo-Sino is that they don’t want to be seen as the aggressors if that dynamic changes expect war to expand from Europe, Asia, Africa, and right here in good ol USA via the Arctic and Cuba. No need to utilize warheads when your public-private mergers’ security are under the command structure of their armed forces as China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
By causing gas per gallon to spike towards $20 Dollars a gallon, the GDP bubble will threaten to burst.
Historically, shifts in balance of power geopolitics are decisively determined by major conflict. As the former King of Saudi Arabia as a Prince stated ‘we have found the way to break the west in the pursuit of peace the balance of power will necessarily shift from west to east.
Unconventional Warfare focus (occupational operations) loses to Conventional Warfare forces around 70% of the time in modern history. It’s in the US’s interests to compel a decisive confrontation to bring its Air Power into play, but it’s in Russians and Chinese to compel the US and its allies to spread itself into a multiple regional or worse continental war that the US military is no longer designed to fight.
From the ground in Syria, any person identifying themselves as Syrian might disagree with you that we aren’t already in WWIII! albeit Syria is a proxy war being waged my multiple domestic and international factions doesn’t dismiss the fact that countries like Turkey, Russia, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia the U.S., and organizations like ISIS, Al-Nursa front, Syrian “Rebels” etc. (many openly funded and supplied by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia via Jordan) are openly bombing and destroying, whole neighborhoods, cities, displacing millions from their homes (all that many of them have known) along with murdering countless “civilians” within another “sovereign” nation-state! This doesn’t even take into account what the fuck the U.S. military and intelligence agencies have been doing in Somalia or Yemen! nor does it include the atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the coup in Egypt…
The WORLD is Already AT WAR!
If I had a dime for every time people have said that voting matters and that “this time things will be different and MAGA”, I’d make Soros look poverty stricken.
Also, given it was a false flag and Trump decides to pursue it as such in the near future, it could be used as a means to strike a stake into the heart of the deep state / military industrial complex. Even so, he would still look like a rash fool to some, and/or a machiavellian manipulator to others.
Your perspectives above are all very interesting. Either you are right; or, the Kushner coup against Bannon is real and Trump is not who he has represented himself to be to many of the Americans who voted for him.
I hope you are right. But I am not sure at this time.
There were other options available in the Syrian puzzle and more often that not, Occam’s razor applies. The media has gone silent on the Russian Connection for now. Either Trump is making multi-level chess moves as you have delineated above; or, he has made a “deal” with TPTB, or he has been a neoconic, New York liberal, Goldman Sachs poser from the start.
Watching and waiting.
Oh, I think the campaign “Let Trump be Trump” was true because the advisors couldn’t get him to be anything else. I don’t think he’s a poser, I think he’s all too real which is why the Left is having fits trying to deal with him. I like the multi-level chess moves idea.
Frankly speaking, I think he lost his mind when he ordered this attack… He obviously has never seen war up close and personal so his perspective of just a little war, a little blowing things up is all screwed up… ESPECIALLY when one considers those congressional bottom feeders who are now “on his side.” The truth will probably never be known but it is a fact that Assad would not gas his own folks when one considers the reality of his world prior to the us of a subhumans assisting the rebels in carrying out this gas strike…. damn, just damn.
” Either Trump is making multi-level chess moves”
Very unlikely. Trump is treading water. He has no fucking idea what to do because he has surrounded himself with duplicitous, lying assholes. This “3D chess” shit is laughable. Trump, if he’s playing anything at all, is standing in Washington Square at a folding TV table, trying to watch the cards as the 3 card monte dealer takes his whole stake, a bet at a time.
The fucker just showed the world that he’s a trick. The shills had no trouble roping him in.
I agree and think Trump was making a larger point. Consider that we were told by John Kerry and Barrack Obama that the Syrian chemical weapons issue was closed. Those weapons had been turned over and destroyed as a result of the adroit diplomacy Kerry had undertaken. One would think John Kerry and Barrack Obama would have condemned Trump for striking at a Syrian Air Force base when they had assured us Assad’s chemical arsenal had been destroyed. Not a peep!
Now what other ‘arms control’ agreement negotiated by the prior Administration has Trump been very critical of. Why the nuclear deal that Obama cut with Assad’s ally Iran! If Trump won’t enforce a deal Obama made with Iran’s motheaten ally Assad why should Iran take the deal they cut with a Obama seriously. Then there is China’s Xi Jinping who was dining with Trump when those obsolete Tomahawk cruise missiles began to land. Trump wants some ‘arms control’ imposed on China’s ally North Korea. Not some John Kerry style diplomatic camouflage ‘arms control’ but genuine substantive arms control.
Never hurts to take a shot at a possibility. In this case, Trump called the bluff. And in doing so, 1/2 his base is really ticked off for swallowing the False Flag. Additionally, the liberals are out in force protesting all over the country in spite of the propaganda from the Gov’t controlled Media, NeoCons at home and abroad, and all the Globalists. Appears Trump made a very mistake, Bigly.
People won’t forget; remember Bush I; he said he wouldn’t raise taxes; one year later, he raised taxes; 3 years later, he lost the reelection bid.
Since we don’t have an alternate earth to know what would happen if Trump didn’t call their bluff and sought an investigation of who-dunnit’, the complex’ may have been on the wrong side.
Well, one thing is sure, the flippin’ idjits that stopped getting ready to shoot these assholes and the Hindus pulling their strings will start back up on their logistics-buying spree after Hillary lost.
Prices are be lower now that there’s a five-month lull in buying, and us smart ones have been taking advantage in the Pied Piper Slowdown.
Got a gas mask? There’s not enough to go around, the Nanny State won’t pass any out because they don’t care about you, and it’s hard to hold your breath for more than 3 minutes.
this continual reanalysis of these events is overlooking the all the actions at home, and perhaps it is designed to do both this and test the waters for a war.
Trump has an entire cabinet of GS bankers (and while this could be overlooked to a degree as I do believe SOME of his cabinet is for the good of the people)…making one of his KEY advisors his son-in-law who has direct ties to SOROS, who has been a globalist treasonous entity trying to break
America for as long as he has wielded influence…
Trump campaigned for tax reform… thats being held off indefinitely.
Trump directly attacked the freedom caucas because they refused to patch O’care. Trump campaigned to repeal it. And now…nothing is done. [It should be repealed, most were better off in a free market system.]Attacking the freedom caucas, attacks Bannon and in so the base of supporters that got him elected to put American 1st… (Bannon and Kushner obviously clash..globalist v populist, I wonder why…) Bannon is then removed from the NSC and we attack Syria, days after ole’ puke Kushner is tasked with solving Middle East issues (who in their right mind puts this no experience hack involved in the most volatile region in the past 2000 years?) Now supposedly (due to backlash?) Bannon and Kushner have made up.
Oh…but wait..we are building a wall… and the EPA is reigning in the BLM and regs … BUT we just sold our internet privacy due to a R congress..
Anyone notice that the items that can be easily undone (the wall and epa regs) in the next admin are being allowed to pacify the masses, but anything that would be tough to undo or redo (O’care, taxes) are being held off on or not passed? This isnt by accident, its by design. What was found is that no one would follow Obama (this is why many officers in the military were replaced)…but even after this there could be no stomach for war… Trump gets in on populist rhetoric with the help of Bannon and perhaps his true desire to do something good and the deep state cant believe the populism and support but then sees opportunity. the populists are the fighters and if they follow trump they may follow into a war and to get the war they (deep state) can conceded some things easily undone latter. Now we have bankers all over in the WH, rumors that the populist Bannon is fighting to hold position and a list of more bankers and neo-cons to take his spot…
so we now see the same ruse (gas attack) that was tries 2 or 3 times in the past 6 years to start a Syrian war, but now they use kids. (remember they got Austrailia’s guns by a false flag child massacre and attempted it with Sandy Hook here) Its always the kids as the reason… Whether Trump did his best to warn Russia or conduct a missed strike intentionally or just show a bluff, I think is irrelevant, the pure fact missles are launched could start ww3…. what we are seeing is plainly the deep state either winning or finally solidifying power of trump.
Our internet privacy wasn’t sold by a Republican Congress. The issue was subject to two laws that created competing regulatory regimes. Now’s there only one. As for the failure to repeal ocare and get on to tax reform, I think there are plenty of reasons: Paul Ryan’s stubborn attachment to his own ideas and his incompetence as the House leader, the obstruction by both the Democrats and the pusillanimous Republican establishment, and the Obama holdovers. The Obamabots will soon be dealt a huge blow which may even stump Obama’s resistance movement once the investigation into the wiretapping gets close to Obama – and it will. When the public becomes aware that Comey and DIRNSA lied to the Intelligence Committee, there will be consequences, Trump will regain his public support, the Left will be thrust back on its hind foot.
Comey will finally go which will thrill Trump’s base. The Antifa rioters are beginning to be arrested and prosecuted as states pass new laws to cope with the problem (like the latest one that specifically allows arrest for just blocking traffic) and they will go back into their roach holes. Obama coddled them and Black Lives Matter, but that has changed. Black Lives Matter has now banned white people from its meetings which means it is gutting itself of white support and it will be more easily dealt with soon. The press is losing its grip on the news business and tearing its credibility to pieces. Soon it won’t be able to announce “we’re not covering that story”. Best of all, Iran, Syria, Russia, China, and North Korea will have to reassess their positions. It was a brilliant stroke that only resulted in four dead and some broken concrete but scared the crap out of a lot of people. Trump wrongly attacked the Freedom Caucus but he had bad advice and I think that’s why Bannon and Priebus are both on the chopping block. Trump wants to build a wall, the Republicans say it’s a dead issue. Trump wants tax reform, McConnell announces it won’t be done…..etc, etc. It’s infuriating. But in between he is quietly dismantling the Obama legacy and his henchmen like Ryan Zinke and Scott Pruitt are driving stakes into the heart of their respective agencies. Trump and his cabinet appointees are finding the slush funds and misspent money that Obama was using to fund left wing causes, so that financial opening will be denied to the Left. Carson finding that his predecessor did not even use general accounting practices and found a half billion dollars missing is a huge blow to Joaquin and his brother – the Castro brothers- who were being groomed for Dem stardom. What better way to weaken the Left than by wounding the up and comers? When Trump starts to defund the UN, there will be a power realignment and I hope the UN decides to leave New York. I hope he brings home our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, both losing wars. It saves American lives, our wasted money, and gives our military time to recover. Trump and Justice Kennedy are friends, so I think Kennedy will retire this summer instead of trying to hang on until Trump is gone. That next justice will change the Supreme Court and the future of this country for the good and I hope it’s Steven Breyer, Mr. Living Constitution himself, who leaves after Kennedy. Once the Supreme Court is changed, and Trump fills the 100 federal judge vacancies, the Left will start losing much of its power and leverage because it relies on the courts to accomplish its agenda. Without the Supreme Court in its pocket we wouldn’t have abortion and gay marriage. As the Pro-Life movement gains more power the Supreme Court may revisit Roe v Wade. If you read that old opinion you will see that the trimester regime is based on outdated science and it’s time for the Court to shorten the time and rationale for abortions to occur. It is great that Planned Parenthood will soon be defunded and the states will be allowed to defund it as well as well as defunding the propaganda arms PBS and NPR. Congress has the power also to pass laws limiting the jurisdiction of federal courts and the Supreme Court. It can pass a law taking away the power of the courts to deal with immigration for example. It also has the power to reshape the federal districts. It can break up the Ninth Circuit, add more justices to dilute the liberals on that court, and cut its funding. Trump doesn’t like to lose, he’s not used to losing, and he won’t tolerate losing. Both repeal, tax reform, and the wall will happen and soon. I hope Trump starts taxing the remittances that go back to Mexico from the illegals because that money is removed from our economy permanently and is a huge drain. I look forward to reining in the number of Muslim refugees coming into our country. I am looking forward to the unleashing of our energy production and perhaps the return of land to the states, esp. the western states. Most of all, I am looking forward to the erasure of Obama’s legacy and his reputation-even if we can’t send him to prison. It might make it harder to raise the 1.5 billion dollars he wants to build his monument to himself, er, his presidential library. I am looking forward to the prosecution of Hillary and the Clinton Foundation which I think will eventually happen- the statute of limitations has not run so Sessions has plenty of time. I am thrilled that he’s reviewing the consent decrees which federalize and hamper local law enforcement. It’s time for consent decrees to go. There are lots of good things afoot, the foundations are being laid. I am continually puzzled by people who are calling Trump a failure because he has not finished accomplishing all of his agenda in the first 90 days. I mean, when have we elected a president who even made an attempt to keep his promises right out of the gate? I for one am gratified by the fact that Trump is a fighter and all of the Left’s tactics to stop him -that work on mere Republicans- do not work on Trump. I am gratified that this constant hammering on him rolls off his back. I am willing to give him time. His will will be done.
That’s a great post, Trickleup. You should write an article like that and submit it. It would get ripped and shredded ten ways, but it helps to have stuff like this on the table, instead of only conspiricy, doom, joos. Nice job
Paragraphs are your friend.
If the wall is built, I can’t see the next administration tearing it down.
“the tab for Donald Trump’s missiles will be reckoned the best money the government ever wasted.” Let’s hope you’re right, Robert. But I do like your angle. Nice work.
Thanks. I hope I’m right, too. I have about the same degree of certainty with this one that I had with Plot Holes–a good hunch, but no raging conviction. It appears that the Plot Holes’ hypothesis is working out, but we’ll have to see on this one. I know that the small “Trump is being underestimated crowd”–basically me, Scott Adams, and some commenters on TBP, ZH, and a few other websites–have been right a hell of a lot more than the mainstream media and a lot of bloggers the last eighteen months or so.
I can’t see it your way this time, Robert. In your closing paragraph you’re presenting only two possibilites:
If this causes a war with Russia, then Trump’s an idiot, but if it doesn’t and things play out with Syria/Russia soldiering on and kicking ISIS out of Syria, then Trump was just playing 3D chess, etc.
Prepare yourself for the possibility that Trump is a thin-skinned adolescent who was just trying to look tough in the face of the neocon generated fraudulent sarin gassing, and that if war is avoided it’ll be despite his bumbling, not because he’s some jedi master.
It looks to me as though he just showed his true colors and that he’s on track to completely betray his own stated agenda.
I didn’t mean to imply that there were only two possibilities, although my last paragraph can certainly be read that way. However, my opinion is that if Trump were really a thin-skinned adolescent, he never would have got as far as he has in either business or politics, although it may well be in his interest to have people sometimes think he’s a thin-skinned adolescent.
The idea that being a thin skinned adolescent could keep somebody from becoming wealthy or getting elected is just laughable, Robert. Look around at today’s lineup of billionaires and elected officials. You’d be hard pressed to find one in either group who isn’t either a thin skinned adolescent or someone with even worse defects of character.
It looks to me as though Trump is treading water and has no allies at all, but he’s carrying on as though he’s winning at every turn. I say that as someone who laughed throughout the election at those who were investing all their hopes in Trump. I neither supported him nor wished him ill.
Point well taken on thin-skinned adolescents, and I’ll retreat to my original position that Trump is underestimated. I supported Trump but I don’t invest hope in politicians. This article is a hypothesis that I believe may comport with the facts and what I believe are Trump’s motivations. Time will tell if my hypothesis or yours is closer to reality.
Spot on Roberto ,I probably could have said it better but I have been waiting for you or Stucky to ” blow the house down ” You have learned what I knew already .”Donald Trump is consistently underestimate and the deep state consistently overestimated ” and it’s not” match point it’s checkmate ” for Donald Trump.
“Even within the complex there are cooler heads (not all, but some)”
You mean an institution who corrupted itself considering sole superpower translated to a single global power even after Responsibility to Protect states ‘the Established Government’ can request aid or grant permission to militarily coordinate against an uprising that mandates aid provided must go to the ‘Established Government’ not ‘deemed legitimate government’ and not doing so constitutes a war-crime by international law?
Trump conducting a surgical strike against the ‘Established Government’ of Syria being Assad’s regime constitutes a war-crime, and Trump conducting the strike under false pretenses amounts to conspiracy to commit a war-crime.
No need for Trump-Russia collusion when you now have an outright premeditated war-crime as leverage. So, if Trump-Russia collusion was a unsubstantiated bluff, Trump just handed them absolute leverage on his domestic and foreign policy.
“what else will he do?”
Trump is now in it to win it, or the ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and ‘keep your friends close, enemies closer’ will twist the dagger in his back. History metaphorically just repeated itself.
“Will he risk war with Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, and possibly China, with the attendant risks of terrorist blowback and increased refugee flows?”
We’re back to implementing domestic and foreign policy that seeks to achieve the OPEC members of the Arabian Alliance’s Middle Eastern ambitions that the Eurozone seeking to decouple dependency on Russian gas-oil exports (hence alleged collusion) to seeking a route to import OPEC oil-natural gas that also places Syria, Iran, and Israel on the Arabian Alliance’s hitlist as obstacles to their ambitions for dominance of the Middle East that also bypasses Iran’s geographic choke-point in the strait between the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean and China’s geographic choke-point along the Horn of Africa.
The Eurozone and OPEC members of the Arabian Alliance (OPEC Chair-Saudi Arabia) are the last pillars of the US Dollar’s world’s reserve currency status.
Syria has a mutual defense pact with Russia, China, and Iran. The surgical strike’s justification does not negate the mutual defense pacts especially as far as Established Government proviso of RTP is concerned.
“The Trump-is-Putin’s-puppet story has been laid to rest.”
They’ll revive it when they renew their push to revive the military-civilian draft aka full-employment. They’ll assert that now that Trump committed to in it to win it abroad with US forces stretched from the Baltic to Macedonia to in and around Syria to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to Afghanistan to the Pacific Pivot to between Taiwan and China to South Korea to Japan; the US media outlets in particular will play catch-up on Russia’s Arctic and Cuban military buildups barely referenced as Obama’s term came to an end.
This is evident after taking into account abroad analysts of the Soviet Union’s collapse doesn’t place the blame on Soviet Communism but the world’s reserve currency status wins Cold Wars, and the Soviet’s failed to directly challenge the US citing specifically the Cuban Missile Crisis.
What should we expect now that Trump has handed them premeditated war-crimes leverage for foreign and domestic policy?
1). The US Dollar’s world’s reserve currency status becomes the mainstay of continued foreign interventionism and deficit to debt spending. War and Rationing is imminent and inevitable.
2). Trump-Israeli relations will sour… I lost track of reigning in the Iran Deal, and it grants the Bush Republicans and Neocons to blame the Iran Deal smokescreen for its retaliation against Israel that Iranian-Israeli war-game scenarios includes Iran striking pillars of the US Dollar as Saudi Arabia.
3). The military-civilian draft is inevitable at this point. The so-called Anti-War movement is about to become a major draft dodge operation, and they’ll be slammed under guilty until proven innocent as Russian subversives.
4). European gas-oil exports are Embargoed by Russia, and Iran and China block the OPEC’s exports.
What message did Trump ultimately send utilizing ‘sole superpower translates to sole global power’? It falls under ‘you either hang together or assuredly hang separately’.
Trump is either catch-22ed by incompetence, or it is malicious intent.
If Thump attacked Syria and the facts later prove that Assad did not use gas as he and Putin swear, then Trump is guilty of premeditated murder just as sure as somebody who took passionate revenge and killed the wrong persons. The tons of NeoCon’s kneejerking praise is like pissing into the wind and Nazis singing Hitler’s virtues. So many wannabe Goebbels have been crowing our warmonger CINC’s military and statesmanship genius that people of the world have every reason to fear the U.S. (and prepare a response). It’s a bit like 1964 when the Democrats were yelling that Goldwater was a wannabe Hitler; then LBJ turned out to be a flaming Socialist at home and Warmonger in Vietnam. May God have mercy on us and expose the NeoCon Evildoers.
Always remember if your elected to the potus you are the deep state.
Too much overthinking.
Trump sent the missles for one simple primary reason, and it has nothing to do with Syria itself.
He simply needed something to shutup the “he is with Russia” crowd. And it worked.
If that’s what it was, General, then he just sold his fucking soul for the political equivalent of a Snickers bar.
If Robert Gore is correct, then Trump (henceforth to be known as El Douche) bombed another country, outside the US’s national security concerns, for no other reason than to score political points.
That would be even more despicable than Trump just being a run of the mill neocon. That would make him downright evil.
Fuck Trump.
Perhaps, but not necessarily. What if his calculation is like this: I know it’s a false flag, I know it’s designed to draw me into regime change and war with Syria, and I know if I don’t respond to it I’ll be crucified and will probably be looking at another false flag down the road, with still more pressure for all out war. So I’ll make the minimum credible response, lob some Tomahawks, alert the Russians and Syrians, and hope there are not too many casualties. That will give me the credibility as an anti-Putin guy to avoid expanding the war in Syria, which would lead to many more casualties, and I can go back to Plan A–let the Russians, Iranians, and Hezbollah take care of the rebels and keep the US for the most part out of Syria.
I’m not saying that’s what went through Trump’s head, but there may well have been considerations other than crass political advantage. I’m still looking at Trump as a guy who didn’t need all this shit and volunteered for it out of some combination of idealistic motives. Time will tell if that’s correct, or if Trump is a guy with everything a man could want but at the age of 70 needed the ego trip of being president to round out his resume.
If this false flag brought about a barrage of cruise missiles, what will the next false flag bring about? And the next one, and the next one? We could be seeing a lot more chemical weapons being used, since they worked so well for the jihadis this time to draw an American response.
It’s fairly obvious that the chemical attack was a false flag operation.
While Trump COULD have called it out, he didn’t. To be honest, if I were in his shoes, I would have called Russia on a secure channel, told them I am going to fire some missiles, make sure they would officially protest loudly, and then give the order.
Pros, it shuts up the very vocal “He is with Russia crowd,” costs very little monetary and risks no US troops.
Cons, his supporters thinks he is a neocon.
The risk versus benefit analysis was fairly obvious. Plus, he really had to do something about this Russophobia, before it gets even worse and limits his ability to get the rest of his agenda accomplished.
Using that logic, wouldn’t the prudent move after having a train in your country bombed by terrorists from another country be to lob a few cruise missiles into a third country that maybe had a slight possibility of provoking the attack?
Fucking THINK, people!
WTF do you or I care about these people, or anything they do?
1. How many Americans were killed or injured?
2. Did any of this bullshit happen in the US or US territory?
3. Is there any possibility of any of the fighting forces attacking the US?
4. Why, after a year or so of making bullshit promises about improving the domestic situation, does the whole focus turn back to foreign shit that has no chance of helping the cratering domestic economy?
BECAUSE IT IT ALL SMOKE AND MIRRORS. WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, PUSH FOR THE GRANDEST DISTRACTION OF ALL.
War.
I hope you’re correct, but it sure looks like a bunch of rich douche bag golfers replacing the other bunch of rich douche bag golfers. The whole crew has a little flag pinned to their lapel and they’re all full of shit. Strip mine the peons and feed the Death Machine, that’s the gig that keeps on giving.
Big Injun Chief of the Clouds ,me thinks Trump has the potential to be another Andrew Jackson . Remember what he said about those injuns in Connecticut when they were trying to get gambling permits to compete with his Atlantic city operations .He said they don’t look like injuns to me in front of the whole Congress .You could just see the bitter hate in his eyes.Beware and be careful .
If Trump didn’t take action in Syria the media would have crucified him as a Putin pawn. They and their corporate bosses are the real enemies. Brian Williams calling the Syria bombing a beautiful sight was like watching Igor in the dungeon scene of The Princess Bride.
Regardless of what happens! I know this! Trump’s golden hair will not grey and ashen! The office of the Presidency has a knack to make you go gray during your stay in the White House!
I thought that this was an astute analysis and probably very close to being the truth behind the response.
I find myself in agreement with Llpoh again, much to his dismay, I’m sure.
My perspective- and I understand upfront that it is a flaw because it applies to so few people- is that a person’s character is defined not by what they say, but by what they do. If people were to say that I let my wife walk all over me my response wouldn’t be to give her a little slap at the next cocktail party to prove that I’m really in charge. That would undermine my character for the sole benefit of trying to alter the perception of people who mean little to me. There may some advantage to that, but the cost far outweighs whatever that may be. Your actions are a reflection of your thoughts and beliefs. False demonstrations may be politically expedient, but as to the damage they inflict on a person? They are incalculable.
The MSM/Establishment/DeepState/Whatever is never going to back anything that poses a challenge to their authority, period. He can respond to them 24 hours a day in whatever prescribed manner they dictate and if he fails in any other material way to promote their agenda they will go right back to tearing him down- in fact they already have. They cannot be reasoned with, they cannot be bargained with, they can only be bowed down to in abject submission. I think that was what happened here.
So what was the purpose? Was it worth throwing away tens of millions of dollars in munitions? Was it worth putting the lives of the men involved in the operation at risk? Was it worth squandering the support of the part of his base that believes in being honesty and character? And what about the human beings who were killed for a show? It made him look weak, gullible, easily swayed, and worst of all he confirms the bully label. America can complain all day long about how people ought to behave, but we have zero authority to go around bombing people in foreign countries who’ve neither threatened nor harmed us, just because. That confirms the literally Hitler view as well. Now any ground that may have been gained with Russia and Putin is likewise compromised. And people believe that this will give North Korea a reason to tone it down? Ha! If anything I expect the rhetoric and military demonstrations will escalate if to do nothing other than give pause to an American strike that they have every reason to believe will happen. Ditto Iran.
Or, in the words of Private Hudson, “Great, just great, man.”
I can’t see any upside to this action. It was immoral, illegal, dishonest, costly, violent and reckless and now he has undermined his credibility with the minority of people who actually believed in him and gained zero ground with his opponents, in fact it even got them off the Donna Rice hook. Unmask that.
Complete and total loss on every front. Zero upside.
Of course that’s why I make a better yeoman than a politician. I obviously don’t grok the world in the same way.
HSF,
A foundation of our law is that the evaluation of an act requires not just evaluating the act, but the motive of the actor. Different legal consequences attach to one who kills in self-defense and one who wantonly kills without justification. I don’t know Donald Trump’s justifications for launching the Tomahawk missiles, especially when the Russian/Syrian version of the story is not at all implausible, or the “gas attack” could have been perpetrated by rebel groups as a false flag. There is no shortage of speculations about Trump’s motives–craven surrender to the Deep State, desire to inculcate favor with mainstream Washington and the media, political calculation and wanting to appear tough, and/or a perceived need to once and all demonstrate he’s not Putin’s puppet. None of these put Trump in a particularly good light, especially when one looks at the costs (lives lost, $60 million worth of missiles) and risks (further escalation of the war in Syria, war with Russia and Iran).
However, none of the above motives really square with what I’ve observed about Trump. I think his speech at the Al Smith dinner and his inaugural address reveal a deep antipathy to the powers that be, and I think that was a big part of why he ran for president. He has an ego, but he’s 70, he’s rich, loves his family, has a beautiful wife, and I find it hard to believe he’d put up with all the shit he’s received just so he’d have President of the United States on his tombstone. I think his motivations run much deeper, and I think the aforementioned animus is a significant component of it, mixed in perhaps with a nostalgic memory of America when he was younger and maybe even some patriotism. I’m skeptical that he’s now caving to the Deep State, and I posit tactical reasons for what he did, just as I did in my earlier article, Plot Holes.
Time will tell if this scenario is correct, and I recognize that I may be wrong. That’s the danger of speculation. However, I don’t think Trump’s action can be evaluated until we see what happens down the road, as I said in my article. I think my hypothesis in Plot Holes was essentially borne out, or I wouldn’t have launched this new hypothesis. Again, only time will tell if this new hypothesis is essentially correct. I hope so, not so much because it would put Trump’s actions in a better light, but because the prospect of expanded Middle Eastern war scares the hell out of me. If Trump’s tactics lead to the outcomes I specify in the last sentence of my article, the world will be a better place and his motives will have to be more charitably judged than much of the Internet is currently judging them.
If youve gotten this far by going against the media and warhawks, why suddenly act to appease them.
[img
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A picture is worth a thousand words. If a Tomahawk is accurate within tens of feet why did everyone of the missiles that made it to base miss the runways by hundreds.
I hope you are correct in your analysis Robert, it’s certainly true Trump has been constantly underestimated. I do get tired of the constant chess analogies that others make. I don’t play, however it seems that once in awhile you need to take your opponents piece and not lose all your own pieces, but hey I have been wrong many times before. The only way Trump gets my support back now is to go after Clinton, Rice, et al. And not in some kind of twitter b.s. Arrests and convening grand juries. I mean what is he waiting for last I checked Wiener is still free. If he can’t even pick the low hanging fruit then I fear he will fail big time.
Because they weren’t targeting the runways. They were targeting the aircraft on the parking aprons and the hardened shelters at the ends of the runways. You don’t use a 3 million dollar Tomahawk to destroy a bunch of concrete runway that can be repaired in hours.
Sure, they can land a plane there. But they can’t refuel it. They can’t maintain it. They can’t communicate with it. They can’t arm it.
To destroy an airport you have to blow up the runways. Otherwise the enemy just flies in new planes and bringing the fuel with them. Those missiles likely destroyed 6 hangar queens anyways. According to reports from Idlib they were flying sorties from that strip next day.
Epic Fail if intent was to make it inoperable.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/08/middleeast/syria-strikes-russia-donald-trump/index.html
Realize it is CNN but looks to me like 60 million dollars wasted.
On that we definitely agree. Whether it be stupidity, manipulation by the Deep State or some grand Machiavellian scheme of his, it was still an illegal and immoral waste of 60 million dollars. He attacked a sovereign nation without the consent of Congress based on what was most likely a false flag. I couldn’t care less what his motivations were.
Of course all the RINO’s are screaming is, “But… Children! Terrorism!”
Mathew wilbanks, did you really think Trump had the temperment of michael dukakis? I doubt he sits around and asks himself, “what would mondale do?”
Absolutely not, he’s actually acting just about how I thought he would, which is why I refused to jump on the MAGA train.
A waste but as you point out more importantly illegal. Drumpf was supposed to be different. Draining the swamp implied following constitution. Lost in all the blather on MSM Sunday circus is fact that he finally did something he can be impeached for.
Whether this response was to appease the deep state or to lay to rest the “Putin’s puppet” storyline does not diminish the fact that human lives have again been treated as chattel.
I understand the concept in war of sacrificing a hundred to save a thousand. But we are not at war in Syria… Yet!
If Trump can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Don’t bomb the living room instead…
Well, I will start by expressing some appreciation for
Robert because he thought it out and typed it up.
And his remarks provide hope for us all, if his analysis
(guess-work) proves worthy over time.
Who really knows?
We hear daily about a plethora of bad actors which are
responsible for mass genocide and those planning the
same for us now and in the future. Imagine the death toll
if we have EMP attacks? The big cities will not survive for
sure.
My fondest wish would be an isolationist strategy. Concentrate
all efforts and the remaining resources to reestablishing
internal affairs. Who wouldn’t wish that?
Please do not get angry, but who cares about $60. million
“worth ” of weapons when the USA spends >$435 million
an hour? I find that specious.
http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/us_deficit/us_deficit.html
and those numbers are from 2011…all I could find with
a quick search.
What is clear to me is that we are fully at war with other
nations vying for survival/resources/alliances. Then we
have those pesky globalists that wish to kill off 90% of
all populations…at least it appears to be so. The USA is
in very poor fiscal straights, and this status is obviously
worsening. Prez. Trump’s “to do” list has to start with
gaining control of his administration and getting on with
it. Let’s pray for him/or wish him the best anyway, because
there isn’t any choice. He fails = we fail. Yet, we don’t
want to be murdering 1/2 the world population trying to
survive. It would be better to completely redo our “lifestyles.”
For example? People start some victory gardens and city
projects devoted to the same. There is a steep learning curve.
Better we get started on that, because the alternative will
be painful starvation. That is a real priority, and we can all
do our part. Anyone with a brain anyway.
Robert.
The last paragraph says if Syria quiets down and if Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah subdue ISIS,
I know that You know that ISIS is our baby. We created funded and still protect ISIS and all the other fake Moderates that have made Syria so noisy. Whether we follow the money, the oil or the easily obtained paper trails, “WE” are keeping this thing going, not ISIS et. al.
I agree its not an Ego thing but he knew it was a snake when he picked it up. He also knew lives have been ruined or taken and children endangered for Trying to Drain the Swamp.
ISIS is our baby and Trump knows it. He would be taking a big risk, but if Russia, Iran, and Hezbellah subdue ISIS, it will be because he tacitly allows it and withdraws US support, which would be a big change in policy. However, if he is reasoning as I speculate he is reasoning, the Tomahawk strike may give him the room to do so. Time will tell. We don’t know all the facts and probably never will. I’ll give Trump the benefit of the doubt and time before I pronounce some sort of verdict on what he’s just done.
Trump’s Zionist son in law would have wanted this.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11. There’s no debating this. Lobbing missiles into a sovereign nation which has not declared war on us, and on which Congress has not declared war, is an impeachable offense. I voted for Trump because he is supposed to be different than the typical Constitution-violating asshole.
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/tocs/a1_8_11.html
As far as I’m concerned, there’s no fixing this system. We need a crash and burn and HOPE a Caesar arises from the muck.
Watchy…
Well done Robert! It gives me a different outlook and perspective to consider. Optimism is not my strong suit especially when it comes to politics. I have watched Donald do things that we have waited 30 years without hope for and ticking off the right people off while I cheered. We have also watched him waffle on common sense stuff like putting the CIA over drones to then talk about saving the children. “Like putting an elevator in an outhouse, IT DONT FIT”. So, I really appreciate the optimism, again I say well done.
Thank you mangledman. I took Trump’s candidacy seriously when most pundits were treating it as a joke, predicted he would win the election, and voted for him. I have also roundly criticized him for things he has done and policies to which I object. This article, like my previous article “Plot Holes” was not meant to be “optimistic,” but rather an attempt to ask questions and propose an alternative scenario that I feel may better comport with the facts and what I believe are Trump’s motivations. One huge disappointment has been the unwillingness of so many in the alternative media to ask questions or consider either facts or alternative scenarios (hats off the Charles Hugh Smith and Raúl Ilargi Meijer for going against the grain). After years of excoriating the mainstream media and the left for being intellectually dishonest and emotion-based, most of the alternative media articles and comments from readers since the Trump bombing sound like they were written by jilted lovers. If these commentators have that kind of emotional investment in Trump, they ignore not just the lessons of history (Why would you make any kind of emotional investment in a politician?), but the requirements of objectivity and intellectual integrity. In so doing, they make the exact same mistake they accuse their targets in the MSM and the left of making.
@ Robert
I can’t speak for all Trump supporters, but “jilted lovers” may be too harsh of a criticism in that much hope was based upon Trump’s campaign promises and him being a straight-shooter.
Bombing Syria was not in the plan.
However, you make very good points in your article above. As you have alluded in your essay, and as Charles Hugh Smith has written, it is possible that Trump’s bombing of the Syrian airstrip was meant to be a “signal”, as it were, to China during President Xi Jinping’s visit. The signal being if China doesn’t reign in North Korea, then Trump will and it might be rash and messy. A North Korean border-collapse would not be in China’s best interests and this could be the leverage Trump is attempting (via Syria) along with other various geopolitical “angles”.
Additionally, the MSM has laid off Trump now regarding the Russian election hacking affair.
And, now Toyota is reinvesting over $1 billion to retool their Camry plant in Georgetown, Kentucky; other American companies like Carrier and Ford have chosen to MAGA as opposed to Mexico; illegal immigration is slowing, and Gorsuch is on the Supreme Court.
All good things compared to what would have happened had Hillary won the election. No doubt.
At the same time, Trump caved on Michael Flynn, has loaded his cabinet with bankers, establishment insiders and neocons. As of last week, we see Ivanka and Jared Kushner’s rising influence in Trump’s administration and Steve Bannon, seemingly, being sent to the back of the bus.
Moreover, Trump allowed Ryan’s attempt to foist Obamacare lite upon the people, in lieu of a straight repeal and opening of insurance state lines; and it looks as if Trump may now be abandoning his campaign platform / promise of tax cuts in an effort to reach across the isle to democrats.
It is possible, many of us are failing to embrace the nuance as express by you, Charles Hugh Smith and Raúl Ilargi Meijer, but only time will tell.
For me, it doesn’t appear Trump can drain the swamp.
Either Syria was a smart play, or Occam’s Razer applies and Trump has “blinked” before the neocons and the Deep State who want war, war and more war. It is a dangerous game and, if what you propose is true, then Trump is playing everybody at once and all by himself. Dangerous indeed.
We are now seeing democrats organize across the country with new vigor and Trump’s support from his deplorables may now be waning. Neither bodes well for 2020.
You once wrote an article on how to collapse the establishment in the form of a tax protest. Starve the beast. If Trump has been eaten, then allowing it all to collapse may be the best thing at this point. Just like Straus and Howe have claimed: Like death, winter is necessary for rebirth.
IF Trump can’t MAGA, then maybe it’s time to let it die and start over.
One thing worse than a jilted lover bitching about what might have been, is one who doesn’t let go.
Uncola,
Good commentary, as usual. As I’ve said, time will tell, probably within the next few weeks.
By the way, I sent an email to what I think is your email address. Did you receive it?
I did receive but did not have the time yesterday (or yet today) to give it the attention it deserved. I will go through thoroughly by this afternoon or early evening and respond ASAP. Looks very cool, but just wanted to read for comprehension. Please stand by…
Wasn’t at all trying to rush you, just wanted to make sure you received it.
You are an apologist. Congratulations on your new demotion. People died so he could call a bluff. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
From what was I demoted?
Fair question! Don’t mind me, I’m just disappointed once again by another set of lying politicians and tons of people defending these most recent actions only through their own confirmation bias. It’s not you, it’s me.
I understand your disappointment. I voted for Trump, but my article didn’t defend him, only proposed an alternative explanation, albeit one that puts him in a better light than most of his disappointed supporters now see him. Time will tell, but if my scenario is wrong and one of the various scenarios denigrating Trump is correct, then he will deserve the brickbats. It will certainly not be the first time I’m wrong, but I hope I don’t have so much ego invested in all this that I won’t, if that’s the case, admit it.
That’s problem number one, you voted! Nothing sends the message better to the elites that their plan is working than high voter counts. They love seeing the masses fall for their illusion of choice. Call me a realist, but voting has never improved anything during my lifetime.
This link explains trumps behavior, flip-flopping on his America first stance. You now can really tell who the legitimate alt-media are by who and who does not posture in lock step with this warmongering psychopath. Wasting millions of $ on more military adventurism only helps the bottom-line of multinational corporations who support and benefit from the US military industrial complex. It wasn’t until he blew a wad of money making more war that the msm started praising him. I wonder what surprise he has in store for Easter? Pitiful how so many supposed alt-media sites are making excuses for trump like they do for a spoiled child. He has lost all credibility.
http://rense.com/general96/trumpjewish.htm