What was I saying about Donald Trump going too hard after the State Department? Oh, yes, that’s right, I was saying that it was going to split the Republicans and would create a big bipartisan opposition in the Senate.
How’s that work, though?
Well here’s how it works:
More than 120 retired generals and admirals signed a letter Monday pushing back on the White House’s proposal to make major cuts to diplomacy and development.
Retired Gen. David Petraeus, a former CIA director, and retired Adm. James Stavridis, the former NATO supreme allied commander, are among the former three- and four-star generals who wrote that State Department funding is “critical to keeping America safe.” They sent the letter to congressional leaders, two Cabinet officials and the White House national security adviser.
And what prompted these 120 three- and four-star generals and admirals to rebuke the Trump administration?
President Donald Trump wants the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to cut their budgets by at least 37 percent, a source familiar with the issue confirmed Tuesday.
The proposal would likely require dramatic restructuring and staffing cuts at the two institutions most responsible for U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid, and it immediately faced bipartisan resistance in Congress.
I’m not saying that the State Department can’t stand to get a haircut, but Trump’s proposal is extreme and dangerous. Even his Defense Secretary understood this, at least when he wasn’t serving under Trump.
They went on to quote a 2013 remark by Defense Secretary James Mattis while commander of US Central Command: “If you don’t fully fund the State Department, then I need to buy more ammunition.”
Of course, Trump wants to spend about as much extra on the Defense Department as Russia spends in total. So, he’s all in on buying more ammunition.
But he doesn’t have the clout to get this done.
But he doesn’t have the clout to get this done.
It will be his biggest test by far of how much he’s clowned the GOP. Can Trump browbeat the GOP into supporting this? He’ll complete the takeover if he does. Will the GOP ignore this letter given Trump’s promised increase in military spending? Time will tell.
More than 120 retired generals and admirals signed a letter Monday pushing back on the White House’s proposal to make major cuts to diplomacy and development.
Retired Gen. David Petraeus, a former CIA director, and retired Adm. James Stavridis, …
No idea what Cheeto really feels about Petraeus but this letter already starts off wrong with Stavridis’s name attached. Bannon will look at it and throw it in the trash. Why? Remember Stavridis’s name getting thrown around as a possible HRC VP pick?
120 retired generals and admirals vs Bannon. Who do you think is going to win?
Doesn’t matter what Cheeto really feels about Petraeus or Stavridis.
Do Republican primary voters care about cuts to the State Department either way? My guess is no.
So Republicans will have little to lose by opposing Trump on this one.
Republican primary voters, who are overwhelmingly old and white, will be perfectly fine with starting wars and destroying diplomacy.
Hey I resemble that remark. I happen to be old and white and I’m not for more war. It’s not that they’re old and white, it’s that they’re assholes.
Yes, but R U a Republican? If not, you’re not implicated.
No doubt Trump is thinking that it’s time for another campaign-style rally.
When your new boss won’t even fight for his own agency
None of the cabinet appointees believes in the mission statements of the departments they will head. Their goal is to eviscerate those departments not run them as they are intended.
Booman writes:
Or is it more likely just a simple case of self-interest?
Why?
How?
Because The State Department, the intelligence services and the military are all in bed together, that’s why.
The State Dept. lobbies for the military.
The CIA uses the State Department as cover.
And the intelligence services and the military are entirely interminlged. The Abu Ghraib scandal alone is enough to prove that.
They cover for one another. You’re familiar with the old Rock/Paper/Scissors game, right? “Rock breaks scissors; scissors cut paper and paper covers rock?” In this game, it’s “Paper hides rock and scissors; scissors and paper hide under rock, and scissors and rock both mess up paper’s enemies. Plus…all three are owned lock, stock and barrel by the multinational corporate interests that also own the rest of the U.S. government.
All three entities are “military” in the sense that they all work for the militarily-enforced economic imperialism of the U.S.and its allies. “Fellow criminals” might be a more accurate term than allies, because if it were not in their interest to lap up the table crumbs from the ongoing Royal Imperialist U.S. hustle, they would have nothing whatsoever to do with us.
Hunter Thompson nailed it almost 45 years ago.
They use us and they fear us. But they are not our friends.
Bet on it.
AG
News and facts continue to kind of stick a craw in your Narrative of regime change in Syria
Righteous use of HST quote!
Actually, I learned this early in life, from my mother. She and my father eloped in 1939 to go join the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Battle of Britain. My father became a Spitfire pilot and my mother was a radar operator.
She had been there about about 2 years…they were stationed apart but saw each other as often as possible….when the Americans joined the war. She had gotten used to pub life, etc., and the generally respectful way that the British treated each other. She was no wallflower…after all, she’d grown up in NYC…but I cannot count the number of times that she talked about how shocked she was by the overall bad behavior of the American troops. She would say “It was like a bunch of thugs had come in a taken over every pub in the area. Breaking glasses and picking fights!!!” It opened her eyes about Americans in general and she never did close them again.
Except for about 10 years when she was a full-time mother for three fairly rowdy boys, she never stopped working until she was in her mid-80s…she mostly taught challenged children in the 2nd and 3rd grades…and she only stopped then because her legs could no longer stand the work.
She never forgot that lesson.
Nor have any of her sons.
Later…
AG
○ Bringing Real Muscle to Bear Against Syria – CIA 1983
○ NSC Chief Hadley asked Italy for a Bashar Replacement by susanhu @BooMan on Oct. 23, 2005
Ruled by the Deep State, faithful servants at Foggy Bottom …
○ Nicholas Burns
Go right ahead and cut USAID — they’ve been involved for many years in undermining foreign govts that fail to toe the line. A regime change operation under the cover of “development”. Putin kicked them out of Russia a few years ago for suspected malevolent political activity there. He was probably right in his suspicions.
I can definitely understand where there would be plenty of pushback from TPTB and the Deep State crowd.
If you want efficient aid, here is another approach:
What happens when aid is given as direct cash transfers? – BBC News
Further to efficient financial aid — this is one of the charities I support that works in this area:
http://www.finca.org/our-work/microfinance/