Oh, lookee here, a draft executive order! The New York Times helpfully explains that this order would do all kinds of unsavory things that prove that there’s a wee bit of difference between Trump and Obama, as well as between Trump and Clinton and Republicans and Democrats.
For example, the executive order would make it possible to begin filling up Gitmo with more detainees after Obama spent his entire eight-year presidency trying to empty it. It would open the door to more black sites like the ones we ran under Bush in Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Thailand, and Afghanistan. Of course, to do that, the order would allow Trump to deny the Red Cross access to our prisoners. The order would also open the door to allowing torture again. To get around a new congressional law that insists our interrogators abide by the Army Field Manual, they may just amend the Field Manual to allow torture.
So, what we have here is basically a roadmap for bringing back all the most notorious and shameful elements of Bush’s War on Terror.
When Trump went to the CIA last week, he revisited a belief he has held for a while:
“We don’t win anymore. The old expression, “to the victor belong the spoils” — you remember. I always used to say, keep the oil. I wasn’t a fan of Iraq. I didn’t want to go into Iraq. But I will tell you, when we were in, we got out wrong. And I always said, in addition to that, keep the oil. Now, I said it for economic reasons. But if you think about it, Mike, if we kept the oil you probably wouldn’t have ISIS because that’s where they made their money in the first place. So we should have kept the oil. But okay. (Laughter.) Maybe you’ll have another chance. But the fact is, should have kept the oil.”
I can’t avoid mentioning that the only record we have of Trump voicing an opinion about invading Iraq shows him demonstrating tepid support, not opposition. If we don’t continue to push back on Trump’s lie that he didn’t want to go into Iraq, he’ll get away with rewriting history.
More importantly, though, his threat that “the CIA” may get a second chance to steal Iraq’s oil did not go over well in Iraq, including among the folks who are working with us against ISIS in Mosul and elsewhere. They won’t like the sound of Trump’s new policies on Gitmo or black sites or torture, either. The Muslim travel ban won’t impress them.
So, it appears that Trump’s strategy for defeating ISIS is to give them a huge recruitment tool and to turn our Muslim allies against us.
Obviously, I have moral problems with every aspect of what Trump is doing here, but it’s also a strategy that makes no sense unless your goal is to escalate this into an all-out religious war. That Trump is doing nothing while Israel announced another huge expansion of settler housing in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is another warning sign that he’d rather incite people into becoming our enemies than make America great again.
There actually was a big distinction and difference between the candidates and parties last November. Doubters will now learn this the hard way.
Try to think of one reason why a war anywhere has a downside for Trump. Of course there’s always the dead and wounded and the massive destruction, but that’s not really his problem.
There will be a war. The geometry of the situation doesn’t allow for there not to be one.
You can’t be referring to those “doubters” here in the commentariat, aka Our Progressive Betters, because I’ve seen nothing that will ever persuade them otherwise.
Doubters don’t doubt. They truly perceive the essential truth of the situation. This level of perspicacity is one, unfortunately, to which most of us can only aspire.
We create new standards of doubt. And by the time you have figured out our new standards, we have moved on to bigger and better standards. This will force you to continuing to doubt about our evolving doubts.
And eventually we will prove that the average mind cannot exist in the same state of doubt as us. We will reset doubt to this ne reality.
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So can someone well-versed in constitutional law set me straight on these new Executive Orders (which some are calling “photo ops”) and just how sweeping and binding they are? Is the Supreme Court the only bulwark against this kind of thing? Can he really send the National Guard to Chicago, or block all immigrants?
Putting on my tin foil hat for a moment since I’m going way into the future conspiracy theory weeds.
What you describe actually serves both Twitler’s and Dence’s missions. Cheetoh Donnie’s approval ratings suck, thus he needs some kind of Reichstag Fire moment that he can rally the country around. It’s not unlike Dubya’s stumbling into 9/11 and having it reverse the precipitous drop in his polling numbers during the summer of 2001. Then you have the Dominionist crackpot sitting over there in the VP’s seat figuring out a way to bring about the Rapture. What a better way that what you’ve just described.
Everybody wins! Well, except humanity.
I think moving the capital of Israel to Jerusalem would be a more explosive move. Damn near guaranteed.
But I have read that Bibi is getting cold feet.
Do you mean moving the US embassy there?
Rafael “Ted” Calgary! Cruz and Little Marco introduced a bill in 4 Jan to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy there.
I have no idea how that will progress thru the Senate. Should it pass and Twitler sign’s it into law, yeah, I think that pretty much guarantees a lot of shit/fan incidents and a generation of guaranteed ‘Murkin-hating terrorist recruitment.
Gradualism has worked so far, so why risk it. They will get there eventually, probably.
I know I’m being lazy, but does Israel itself recognize Jerusalem as its capital? I know that many would like it to be there, just like there’s probably quite a few who’d like to build a new Temple…but if it isn’t officially the capital, how can we proclaim it so. I mean I’ve never understood why Ottwa needs to be the capital of Canada and think Quebec would be way cooler, so why don’t we pass the law as well.
Undivided Jerusalem is the capital of Israel as far as the Israelis are concerned. As far as I know, no other country shares their opinion. The Knesset is located in Jerusalem.
yeah, I don’t know how I forgot to mention that provocation.
Because there are so many provocations that it’s easy to lose track!
We are so fucked.
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You do realize that elected Democrats suck every bit as bad on the I/P issue as does Trump and the GOP, right?
claim.
Care to back it up?
Even though Dems collectively may be awful on this, there remain degrees of awfulness.
You claimed no such difference, even in degree, exists.
Would like to see actual evidence supporting your claim.
Betting preponderance of actual available evidence says opposite.
They vote for every AIPAC-backed bill that is brought up in Congress. They voted for the Israel aid package. How many of them attended Netanyahu’s speech before Congress(remember that?!?)?
All of “them”? Monolithically?
Or even just a higher percentage of them than of GOPers?
Did a higher percentage of them than of GOPers attend NuttyYahoo’s speech? (Too lazy to research it, but betting GOPer attendance percentage approximated . . . well . . . 100.)
Cuz your intemperate claim of course requires all that be true.
Meanwhile, Obama expressed strenuous opposition to NuttyYahoo’s settlements policy. (Granted, not backed up by, say, withholding huge arms/aid package.)
Meanwhile, Trump’s/GOP Congress’s attitude is “settlements? hey, sure, whatever!”.
Just a reminder, lest we lose track of what we’re “discussing” here: your claim was “suck every bit as bad“
Your both-siderism is untenable here in the Reality-Based Community.
Meanwhile, Obama expressed strenuous opposition to NuttyYahoo’s settlements policy. (Granted, not backed up by, say, withholding huge arms/aid package.)
Isn’t that the last part key? Hard to take Obama’s sternly worded letters seriously if he keeps giving them aid and what not.
. . . lest we lose track of what we’re “discussing” here: your claim was “suck every bit as bad“.’
Opposing the yahoo’s settlement policy less robustly than you or I would like while keeping the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv and refusing to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital does not “suck every bit as bad“ as tacitly accepting or even outright approving the settlements policy or threatening to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, thereby recognizing it as capital.
Facts matter.
The position you stated is untenable here in Reality (repeating myself again).
Er, I seriously doubt that many Iraqi think otherwise than we invaded for their oil.
We are/were still working to get privatization through their parliament, no? Remember the Iraqi Oil Law?
In fairness, Iraq needs to partner with foreign oil companies. That is not the same as having their oil stolen or “taken.”
If he manages to put Thing 1 and Thing 2 on the Supreme Court, he can toss children into a woodchipper on live TV.
So one thing that I thought of when I was reading about how pissed off it made Iraqis. They can’t fight the Islamic State worth a damn alone, now suddenly they are talking big?
McCain was galvanized…”Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released the following statement today on reports that President Trump will sign an executive order directing a review of interrogation policies:
“The President can sign whatever executive orders he likes. But the law is the law. We are not bringing back torture in the United States of America.
“On June 16, 2015, the United States Senate voted 78-21 to adopt an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 that reaffirmed the prohibition on torture by limiting interrogation techniques to those in the Army Field Manual. The Army Field Manual does not include waterboarding or other forms of enhanced interrogation. The law requires the field manual to be updated to ensure it `complies with the legal obligations of the United States and reflects current, evidence-based, best practices for interrogation that are designed to elicit reliable and voluntary statements and do not involve the use or threat of force.’ Furthermore, the law requires any revisions to the field manual be made available to the public 30 days prior to the date the revisions take effect.
“During both our personal conversations and his confirmation hearing, CIA Director Mike Pompeo repeatedly committed to me that he will comply with the law that applies the Army Field Manual’s interrogation requirements to all U.S. agencies, including the CIA. In response to written questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said he `support[s] using the Army Field Manual as the single standard for all U.S. military interrogations.’ I am confident these leaders will be true to their word.”
Mattis is reputed to be anti-torture, I believe.
So maybe is a Trump nudge,nudge,saynomore for the CIA Cheneyites, if you know what I mean.
the only limitation (legally and politically) is that they notify the public 30 days before changing the Field Manual.
Ah, the (phony) Maverick bleats. This after voting for Pompouseo, bravo!
Maybe Graham can help clean Trumper’s tire tracks off that mavericky face…
“should have kept the oil”…
I don’t suppose it needs to be pointed out that such sentiments are identical to a Hitlerian policy of militarist expansion for resource appropriation and that Trumper clearly thinks such actions legitimate. Now utterly illegal as a matter of international law, but whatever…
The installation of Der Trumper as prez was automatically going to aid Islamist recruitment. It’s just a matter of how many new Jihadis are created, and unexpected gems like this comment are money in the bank to the various movements/groups. Under no imaginable circumstance could recruitment decline under an intemperate Trump admin, but the incompetent white electorate knew better.
Kind of a dark comedy since it does strike me that this is just mindless prattle on Der Trumper’s part, sort of like Hitler’s gaseous and idiotic “table talk”, albeit on a much, much more public scale. It may be that Der Fuhrer had more of an idea of how to behave as a national leader than the woeful Trump, of course.
Der Trumper is effectively a ignorant imbecile who loves to hear himself talk, especially about the errors of others and how he was so much smarter at the time and would have “done” so much better, if only he had been asked. A insufferable bore and braggart, but now the American prez. Back to the Terror Alert!(tm) color-coded scale?
Category error with ‘legitimate’…