It pains me to say it, but the president of the United States does not have a shred of decency.
Earlier in the day, the American president, taking to Twitter, had warned Iran against retaliating for the killing of General Soleimani. He said the United States had already picked out targets to hit in Iran if it did, including cultural sites.
“Like ISIS, Like Hitler, Like Genghis!” Iran’s information and telecommunications minister declared on Twitter. ”They all hate cultures. Trump is a terrorist in a suit.”
The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said that “targeting cultural sites is a war crime.”
But on Sunday evening, aboard Air Force One on his way back from his holiday trip to Florida, Mr. Trump did not back down.
“They’re allowed to kill our people,” he said to reporters. “They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.”
Why would we want to respond to a roadside bomb that kills or maims some of our soldiers by destroying cultural sites? How is that a proper or sensible reaction? Why does Donald Trump object to every standard and norm the world set up after World War Two? He destroyed the most important anti-nuclear proliferation effort the international community has come up with since the fall of the Soviet Union by rejecting the agreement with Iran. He hates the United Nations and denigrates NATO at every opportunity. He actively promotes torture. He supports collective punishment. He criticizes the Bush administration for not stealing Iraq’s oil. And now he openly threatens to commit a war crime by deliberately destroying humanity’s common cultural heritage.
It’s not just basic values that he detests. He’s not even a friend to our allies. He treats our European and Asian friends like shit. He’s possibly worse towards our neighbors Canada and Mexico. He abandoned the Kurds. Now he’s forced Iraq to ask us to leave their country despite our common foe ISIS.
He was already famous before he became president for committing every cardinal sin: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride. He bears false witness, steals, and covets, he commits serial adultery and even takes the Lord’s name in vain. Whatever your moral or religious worldview, he’s fails your test miserably and with exclamation points.
And if he wasn’t utterly immoral, he’d still be the kind of dunce who doesn’t understand why exploding a radioactive weapon in a hurricane is a bad idea. He’s a colossal moron, which is something our military should have realized before they gave him the option of assassinating someone without understanding the repercussions.
General Milley and [Defense Secretary] Esper traveled on Sunday to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Palm Beach resort, a day after officials presented the president with an initial list of options for how to deal with escalating violence against American targets in Iraq.
The options included strikes on Iranian ships or missile facilities or against Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq. The Pentagon also tacked on the choice of targeting General Suleimani, mainly to make other options seem reasonable…
…When Mr. Trump [later] chose the option of killing General Suleimani, top military officials, flabbergasted, were immediately alarmed about the prospect of Iranian retaliatory strikes on American troops in the region.
I wish there were some combination of words I could use to convince the U.S. Senate to be rid of this disastrous president, but the Republican Party is every bit as depraved as he is. They just sit there and watch as the man destroys this country’s accomplishments, values, and standing in the world, and they actually defend him.
There is no defense of this man, and our country will earn the same reputation if he is allowed to stand for reelection after everything he has done.
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All roads lead to Putin.
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While all roads certainly lea to Putin, I don’t think Vlad ever anticipated how out of control his asset would become. So far, Putin has not been damaged by Trump’ insanity but he must wonder when the chaos and blowback are eventually going to affect Russia too.
Isn’t Putin an ally of Iran?
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I assume that “information minister” really means “propaganda minister”, but in this case, the Iranians are completely right. Trump doesn’t understand or value culture because he has none. He doesn’t understand or value expertise because he has none. He doesn’t understand or value morality because he has none. He has only one skill, and that is to break and destroy things. He doesn’t know how to build, and in fact can’t even conceive of what it would mean to have the patience and foresight to be a creator.
The common element in the calculations of our illegitimate Commander in Chief is sadism. He revels in cruelty and fantasizes about torture, just as did his hero, Der Fuhrer. He is openly drunk on power.
As for accountability and ridding the nation of the monster, unfortunately the “conservative” movement has transformed 40-46% of the populace into sadists, too (and braindead ones at that). And the number is probably higher when contemplating support for whatever violent actions our Imperial Sturmtruppen have been ordered to accomplish. The decent Americans (a majority, for what that is worth) are shackled to a corpse–here the “conservative”movement, its wholly-owned Repub party and the base of reactionary deplorables.
What this means (as a result of the failed and unreformable constitution) is that there is no bottom for the nation as a whole as well, and in the lesson of history is this (usually) results in national Gotterdammerung.
Also, too, our noble imperial generals and patriotic troops are not supposed to carry out illegal orders, which an order to destroy cultural sites would be.
But I would imagine that technicalities like that will take a back seat to following the “orders” of a democratically-illegitimate prez, acting in contravention to the expressed wishes of majorities in both houses of Congress…Militarism First, after all!