I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when someone, I’m not sure who, drew the short straw and had to explain to President Trump that Al Udeid Air Base is located in Qatar and houses around 10,000 American soldiers. It must have been a delicate moment when Trump realized that he had just imperiled the forward headquarters of the United States Central Command by making Tweets supportive of the decision of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt to cut diplomatic ties with Doha and close “all land, sea and air borders with Qatar.” He actually took credit for the decision and expressed optimism that it might result eventually in the end of terrorism.
“During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar – look!” Trump tweeted Tuesday.
“So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding …. extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!” he continued later.
So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017
…extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017
This wasn’t received well by people who have an actual clue. For example:
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was left stunned and speechless when told by reporters of Trump’s tweets.
Told by a reporter that Trump accused Qatar of being a state sponsor of terrorism, Corker responded, in a notably lower register, “The president?”
It wasn’t long before some sources in the White House! began speculating that the president simply didn’t know that the U.S. Central Command is located in Qatar. This was a variation on the defense they’re using against James Comey that the president is simply “new at this.”
The problem is that as recently as May 21st, these words came out of the president’s mouth at the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh: “Qatar, which hosts the U.S. Central Command, is a crucial strategic partner.”
I know that it’s a grave sin for a president to rely on a TelePrompter because Donald Trump told me this, so it can’t be that he read those words without understanding them. Except, that’s precisely what happened in this case. Asking President Trump to read and understand words like Qatar and Bahrain is exactly like asking him to read Suras out of the Koran in their original Arabic. With training, he might be able to pronounce those words (although possibly not), but that doesn’t mean he’ll ever have the slightest idea what they mean.
Ever since Trump decided to trash the generous host of our largest air base in the Middle East, it has been clean-up-in-aisle-four time for the rest of our government. But it’s not really working:
The leader of Qatar reportedly has no plans to accept President Trump’s invitation for a meeting at the White House until the country moves past an effort by several Persian Gulf neighbors to isolate the nation.
A Qatari official told Reuters on Thursday that the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, would not be accepting Trump’s invitation and “has no plans to leave Qatar while the country is under a blockade.”
Therefore, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had to march out this afternoon and humiliate the president by taking back our government’s support for Trump’s awesome accomplishment and his plan for ending terrorism.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday urged Gulf states to ease their blockade of Qatar, saying it has “humanitarian consequences” and hinders the United States’ military efforts…
…Tillerson said the blockade has caused shortages of food, the separation of families and other “unintended consequences.” He added that it hurts U.S. business activities and the U.S. effort to fight the terror group ISIS.
So, we went from praising the “so good” news that Qatar was being isolated and hoping it might end terrorism forever to arguing that the move hinders the United States’ military efforts against ISIS.
It’s not that Trump is “new to this.” It’s that he needs to be removed from office immediately because he can’t do this.
>>It must have been a delicate moment when Trump realized …
No such moment occurred. Trump never realized anything. He is not capable of it.
Whenever I see a writer ask “Why did Trump…”? my response is that the question is not answerable. Nothing that Trump does or says involves what you or I would recognize as a thought process, any more than “Why does a dog lick his balls?” involves a thought process.
Wow… That is just ridiculous. And mean.
Dogs are perfectly capable of rational thought, learning, and compassion.
To imply, even as simile, that a dog’s thought process is similar to Trumps is an insult to all dogs. On behalf of my now deceased Saint Bernards I demand an apology sir.
As I’ve written here and elsewhere, repeatedly (nearly as often as I’ve stressed the need to refrain from instinctively imbuing any Trump action with intelligence or guile), the “new at this” argument is dead in the water due to the entire nature of Trump’s campaign.
He repeatedly assured us, not just that his inexperience was a great strength — rather than a crippling weakness — but that everyone else in government was actively ruining the country and the world directly because of their experience (“bad experience,” he said of Hillary Clinton in that debate).
It’s not just Trump; it’s the whole ridiculous mythology of how “business” is better than government and can solve any problem, coupled with the adolescent cowboy myth that says laypeople are smarter than experts — that expertise, itself, is some kind of “elitist” myth created to screw people over.
He kept talking over and over about how the stuff was so simple, and how all he had to do was “figure out” how to solve problems that have plagued the globe for generations…all of which had their roots in “bad deals” that he would “tear up” and “renegotiate.” (He consults “[him]self” since he’s so smart, etc.)
There really was never any excuse for this drivel, but there’s even less now, since all his apologists are walking it back and discussing a “learning curve” and how he’s “green” etc.
At least Trump’s “nobody knew health care was so complicated” lines are guileless — just indexes of his unbelievable stupidity. These other people should know better; should be ashamed of themselves.
It’s hard to leave that “White House staff” entry off from a resume if it’s your first chance at “real success”. That’s why they are not bailing — yet. Leaving after five months looks like a job-hopper. At some point, they will have the awful Hobson’s choice of going down with the ship.
Followers enable autocrats. Without them, the orderer can do no mischief. With them, guilt is shared. Stalin used to emphasize that point with long meetings and real time executions.
Some laypeople are smarter than paper-legitimized “experts”. Automatic deferral to expertise is as bad as hiring a plumber without references. And even the best experts can screw up really badly. I think of how smart Zbigniev Brzezinski looked in 1980 and how dumb he looked on September 11, 2001. Arming and training the mujahadeen vetted by Saudi Arabia looks really different now.
Health care is not that complicated a business operation except that 1500 insurance companies makes it so.
Trump is not even the floor of American political discourse. He’s the critter that lives in the far corner of the cellar.
He doesn’t believe in learning; ergo, he has no learning curve. And neither does the GOP.
What you said.
“[I]t’s the whole ridiculous mythology of how ‘business’ is better than government and can solve any problem…”
I used to think the U.S. had too many lawyers as elected politician and that more members of other professions should serve. After W and Trump, I’ve changed my mind, at least when it comes to businessmen.* Lawyers, at least, have a code of ethics, so they at least know what the right thing to do is, even if they don’t actually do it. In addition, they have bar associations with teeth that can penalize them for misbehavior. Bill Clinton, for example, had his law license suspended by the Arkansas Bar for five years because he lied under oath about Monica Lewinski. What can Trump’s fellow businessmen do to him, toss him out of the Chamber of Commerce?
*Also Rick Snyder, Governor of Michigan.
certainly have included R. Scott of FL and R. Perry of TX in there.
Nothing Trump says garners any concern among Republicans. He’s their distraction for the masses while they go behind the scenes and destroy healthcare and toss out big bank restrictions. They figure he’s never going to be held accountable by anyone, anwhere, so lthey wind hom up and send him out to make his messes.
There is a sobering post today at No More Mister Nice Blog that really depressed me. It’s grim stuff, but I’m afraid it’s true. It’s about normalizing Trump, and it explains pretty clearly that no matter what happens, the Republicans are running the show.
So it’s come to this: the good news is that Trump didn’t offer to simply “bomb the hell out of” Qatar, while his Saudi hosts played him like a cheap violin…
Tillerson has allowed the donald to make a fool of him and he now lacks credibility on a global level.
But Tillerson soldiers on and will not tell that the emperor has no clothes or no brain.
It is a regime of massive co-dependency for an addict.
Booman writes:
“Generous host?”
Or “Disingenuous enemy?”
Somewhere in there, maybe.
Certainly benefitting from the relationship w/the U.S.
Money, protection…
Do you actually believe that Qatar is being “generous” by allowing U.S. forces on its land?
Or just covering its ass?
Please!!!
Trump?
He knows nothing.
So what?
You should.
AG
The US does seem to turn a blind eye to their terrorist financing, so that is something they normally get for the base. Which they do, for example they financed ISIS according to Clinton’s emails. Of course, so does Saudi Arabia, so it’s a pot-kettle situation there.
I am watching this train wreck with a morbid fascination. Maybe that is what some of the saner Republicans want: all Democrats and progressives stare at Trumps antics like the deer in the headlights, while the Republican congress kills Obamacare and other useful laws.
If it’s only progressives, what does that do?
And what exactly is the Democratic establishment doing pushing the narrative of President Pelosi in 2018 and hyping Iran sanctions after a Saudi terrorist attack?
I think the bubble around DC is asphyxiating common sense.
There’s no doubt that Trump has declared war on everything that crosses his path. His staffers may call it a return to ‘campaign mode’ but after watching his presser this afternoon where he countered Tillerson’s comments on Qatar given just minutes before and then spit out some vile comments on Comey, he’s joined McCain in the ranks of distraught mental illness.
What, again? When people who have some clue about Qatar are already desperately trying to clean up his tweetcrap mess?
Jim Wright’s already hammered the Yammerhead In Chief over this; I can only imagine what he’ll have to say now.
https://www.facebook.com/Stonekettle/posts/1358962564139143
“Trumps social media attack on Qatar this morning is INSANE.”
Only if you’re not a Russian puppet.
that quote mentions “the people of Qatar” as though there were more than one person in that country whose opinion mattered. And the Emir needs his big ally pretty badly to hopefully keep the pissed-off Saudis from throwing him out.
“our entire military and political strategy in the Middle East” isn’t necessarily anything to mourn.
My alma mater, the stodgy Northwestern University has a Qatar campus now. This is their first overseas campus. They must be pleased as punch with Peter Pumpkin Head’s Qatar stance.