DescentBB

....at least on foreign affairs and national security. First, the Senate Intel Committee demonstrated how to be professional, and somewhat bipartisan when it comes to foreign threats to the nation. Then, it now seems clear, McMaster has flexed his muscle as he watched Amateur night continue at the NSC while threats around the world and internally grew. He is, most likely, the single most powerful man in all of DC, and he is smart enough to know it, when it comes to security matters. If he quits, the Trump admin becomes a very visible disaster potentially threatening the nation via sheer incompetence. I think we may see more changes at NSC. Today, finally, Nunes was forced out of his role in the House Intelligence Committee's investigation. I think that means the Chair goes to Trey Gowdy, who was the most restrained, non-partisan and unwilling to go for smokescreens that I've seen of him, when interviewed on all the networks yesterday(maybe knew today's announcement was coming). Showed little tolerance for any suggestion that Ms Rice broke any laws, for instance, and kept coming back to the Russian focus. We shall see, but it does seem a bit reassuring.

It looks like McMaster may have had a hand in ousting Steve Bannon from the NSC as well. Good for him. Bannon had no business even being in the NSC.

http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/donald-t ... il-1677827

By "adults" you mean neocon warmongers? I guess so.

puhlese, nothing more dangerous that nationalist incompetents.

Nightshade wrote:By "adults" you mean neocon warmongers? I guess so.

So let me get this straight. Trump himself just said that he's willing to "go it alone" with North Korea if China won't step in and you're afraid of the neocons? I think Trump is the one encouraging the warmongering neocons to finally start their little war with NK. After all, why should a thin-skinned egomaniac like Trump allow himself to be bested by a loser tinpot baby dictator in NK? In fact, here are 3 ways Trump could deal with NK. I wonder which option he'll choose? Wanna make bets? Of course, if Trump picks option # 3 NS, both you and I will be nuclear toast since we both live on the West Coast.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/03/politics/ ... index.html

Then we have Assad and Syria. For years leading up to the election, Trump kept tweeting that we should stay the hell out of Syria at all costs. I guess he knew better than Obama.

https://allentown.craigslist.org/rnr/6075133688.html

Now that Assad has done yet another chemical weapons attack AFTER he supposedly destroyed all his chemical weapons under an agreement with the U.S. and Russia, all Trump can do is blame Obama. Well Mr. Trump, this one in on YOUR watch. We'll see how well YOU deal with Assad. Just as there were no good options for Obama when he was dealing with Syria, there are STILL no good options for Trump in dealing with Syria either. It's either a forced removal, or else let that scumbag Assad stay in power with the blessings of the Russians. I think the Russians are going to be the death of Trump one way or another.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/senators-tru ... news_index

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-united- ... yptr=yahoo

I want NS to provide a bit of background for us on McMaster's neo-con credentials. Seriously. I haven't really heard of them, but all I have heard is that this guy is like the opposite of Flynn.....calculated, professional and always under control, and a virtual master of the interaction of the intelligence community and DC pols.

now, it seems we have decided to do a 'targetted bombing'. Wag the dog? Effective message to multiple nations? Here is where 80 days of illegitimacy makes matters dicey, especially when, apparently, Congress was not consulted whatsoever, by early reports. I'm honestly torn on the whole thing.

Another one of slick's "adults in the room?"

Nothing says "adults taking control" like cruise missiles, amiright?

Vander wrote:Nothing says "adults taking control" like cruise missiles, amiright?

Look, it would be easy for me to say, 'Wag the Dog' with dismal poll numbers(Trump did it towards Obama when the latter had 20 points better ratings than Trump), but if this is all that is done, it sort of addresses a long standing international issue. Russia agreed to remove ALL chemical weapons capability, preventing Obama from launching on him a few years ago, Now, where they go from here is the question, and how the regional conflict plays out. I am FAR more alarmed by sending 1200 soldiers to the Iraq/Syria theater on the ground. This attack seems to be ensured not to harm civilians, should make any pilot or commander think twice about a bombing run aimed at civilians, or using chemical weapons. In short, it's complicated, all the more so by having an illegitimate leader who has already shown an unsteady hand at the helm.

Followup observations, after first coffee, a few bits of reading and viewing and before tying flies to complete an order before WW III breaks out....

1. the mission clearly had been fleshed out for a while by the military, likely going back to prior gas attack crisis. The choice not to take out the runways is sort of unnerving, insofar as it seems the intent was for it to be usable for someone, presumably someone friendly to us, if not us.

2. the response from the Russians would SEEM to indicate that all Trump may have accomplished by doing this is a massive escalation of a war zone bordering Israel. Oh, Kingdom Come, for all you end times types out there.

3.Worst case scenario, and not at all far-fetched could be an actual shooting war stretching from Egypt to Afghanistan. Anyone here up for THAT?


here is where having a gutted State Dept and massive numbers of unfilled(due to lack of submissions of candidates)positions throughout the core bureaucracy of diplomacy, intelligence and civilian posts in defense, does not serve the US well, at all. From a domestic political priorities standpoint, you all can put that whole tax cut business onto the shelf, we're going to need revenues for this mess, unless it clears up somehow. The nation may also not be in the collective mood to undergo a bunch of trade wars and a loss of a seasonal produce crop due to xenophobia and anti-immigrant stupidity. Also, if we're going to be expecting allied support for this venture, that whole attitude towards middle eastern refugees is going to need rethinking. In short, a lot has to be thought about, both by the public and communicated to representatives in Congress, and by the smallish cadre in the administration tasked with thinking.

callmeslick wrote:Followup observations, after first coffee, a few bits of reading and viewing and before tying flies to complete an order before WW III breaks out....

1. the mission clearly had been fleshed out for a while by the military, likely going back to prior gas attack crisis. The choice not to take out the runways is sort of unnerving, insofar as it seems the intent was for it to be usable for someone, presumably someone friendly to us, if not us.

2. the response from the Russians would SEEM to indicate that all Trump may have accomplished by doing this is a massive escalation of a war zone bordering Israel. Oh, Kingdom Come, for all you end times types out there.............

That was my one question as well. It seems to be a little too scripted. If we're going to go the war route, which is insipid in the first place, why didn't we destroy the runways? Why do it half-assed? 59 Tomahawks shot off for what? A few aircraft that Russia can easily replace for Assad? Well, my take on that is that Trump and Putin secretly agreed on this beforehand with a little back room Tillerson dealing. We'd take out Assad's aircraft and leave the runways intact so that Russia can still use them. Russia can still fight on Assad's side and then whine with some false outrage so that he doesn't have to back up that outrage with actual war with the U.S. Trump gets kudos for destroying the aircraft that gassed all those Syrians and come off looking like he's got military balls and is a strong leader who'll not let someone cross his red line in the sand, instead of that previous wussy Obama. As you said, the downsides will all be on us, Europe and Israel, while Russia will come out clean. Trump was used. On top of that, he pulled a Bill Clinton. Lob a few Tomahawks at the enemy and claim victory. We saw how well that worked out in the past. We created more enemies than we killed.

Something else I've noticed as well. For the past several nights, I've heard military jets, probably National Guard, flying overhead. Doing what and going where I don't know. Trump is up to something and we probably aren't going to like the result.

I'm fully willing to own up to being against any intervention with Trump at the helm, no matter the reason. That's a position I probably would've ★■◆● on under Obama. If Clinton were president, I would be forced to use a more thought out rationale for any opposition to bombing countries. But with Trump, there is too much evidence that he is an intemperate reactionary whose only consistency is being inconsistent, and whose depth of knowledge is composed of what he saw on TV last night. So I feel pretty confident that if Trump wants to use the military for anything, I have about a 95% chance of ultimately being right to oppose it, sight unseen.

Do we even have any confirmation that Assad's government used chemical weapons? My understanding is that the 2013 instances is in dispute.

callmeslick wrote: In short, it's complicated, all the more so by having an illegitimate leader who has already shown an unsteady hand at the helm.

Show us where Trump is illegitimate. Do you think by using a Dem talking point that you are going to convince people he should be impeached? Lots of luck.

Vander wrote:I'm fully willing to own up to being against any intervention with Trump at the helm, no matter the reason. That's a position I probably would've ★■◆● on under Obama. If Clinton were president, I would be forced to use a more thought out rationale for any opposition to bombing countries. But with Trump, there is too much evidence that he is an intemperate reactionary whose only consistency is being inconsistent, and whose depth of knowledge is composed of what he saw on TV last night. So I feel pretty confident that if Trump wants to use the military for anything, I have about a 95% chance of ultimately being right to oppose it, sight unseen.

Do we even have any confirmation that Assad's government used chemical weapons? My understanding is that the 2013 instances is in dispute.

Did we have any democratic opposition to the failed Iran botched prisoner rescue job under Carter, or when Clinton went in to Somalia or his lobbing missiles into Afghanistan? Did you Vander, voice any opposition to those acts?

woodchip wrote:

callmeslick wrote: In short, it's complicated, all the more so by having an illegitimate leader who has already shown an unsteady hand at the helm.

Show us where Trump is illegitimate. Do you think by using a Dem talking point that you are going to convince people he should be impeached? Lots of luck.

Trump has spent three solid months rendering himself illegitimate in the eyes of 2/3 of his citizenry and the world at large. That you fail to see that is YOUR problem. He WILL be impeached likely in two years or so, but that had NOTHING to do with my comment.

woodchip wrote:[Did we have any democratic opposition to the failed Iran botched prisoner rescue job under Carter, or when Clinton went in to Somalia or his lobbing missiles into Afghanistan? Did you Vander, voice any opposition to those acts?

dunno about Vander, but just go back into the archives of any Progressive board/blog site for the Clinton responses, as well as similar to Obama or Bush subsequently. As for the Iran rescue, I honestly don't remember, but generally, it's Dems that object to war uniformly. GOP only resents it when Democrats are involved, you know, like in WW II.......

callmeslick wrote:

woodchip wrote:

callmeslick wrote: In short, it's complicated, all the more so by having an illegitimate leader who has already shown an unsteady hand at the helm.

Show us where Trump is illegitimate. Do you think by using a Dem talking point that you are going to convince people he should be impeached? Lots of luck.

Trump has spent three solid months rendering himself illegitimate in the eyes of 2/3 of his citizenry and the world at large. That you fail to see that is YOUR problem. He WILL be impeached likely in two years or so, but that had NOTHING to do with my comment.

You'll have to better than your incessant babbling. Show us some poll links where 66% view Trump as illegitimate.
Trumps latest Syria attack is drawing praise from various countries such as Canada. So dream on .

woodchip wrote:Did we have any democratic opposition to the failed Iran botched prisoner rescue job under Carter, or when Clinton went in to Somalia or his lobbing missiles into Afghanistan?

I'm not sure this has to do with what I wrote. If you're trying to make the point that elected Democrats are mostly on par with elected Republicans when it comes to wanting to get their war on, I would agree.

Did you Vander, voice any opposition to those acts?

I was 2 years old when Carter was elected, I was too busy voicing my opposition to the ★■◆● in my diaper. I was 15 years old during the first Gulf War, I was too busy voicing my opposition to acne. During much of the Clinton years, I was busy voicing my opposition to THE BREATHING WALLS while I was high on LSD.

So no, I didn't voice any opposition to those acts. Neither did I voice opposition to our bombing of Libya, which I should have. I oppose providing Saudi Arabia bombs to drop on Yemen. I oppose our drone strikes. I don't oppose what we've been doing against ISIS to a point, because I view it as clean up for the Iraq invasion, which I did oppose. I oppose our current involvement in Afghanistan, though I did not oppose our initial attack.

I'm not a pacifist, my opposition to most of this stuff is pragmatic. In almost every case, we make things worse. When you bomb a building, you make an enemy for life out of everyone in the vicinity. When you destroy civil structure, you're creating the environment in which extremism flourishes, and providing a target for ire. It's counter-productive. It's not enough to be strong, you have to not be stupid.

yeah nevermind...

woodchip wrote:You'll have to better than your incessant babbling. Show us some poll links where 66% view Trump as illegitimate.
Trumps latest Syria attack is drawing praise from various countries such as Canada. So dream on .

Trump's approval ratings have been dropping ever since he was elected.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/203198/presi ... trump.aspx

Plus, 57% of young people see Trump's presidency as illegitimate.

http://www.businessinsider.com/57-of-yo ... ate-2017-3

As for drawing praise, sure, it's mostly a positive reaction from some world leaders, but there's always that niggling critique by the few people that see the downside to Trump's actions and motives. And my own opinion is stated above. It was a showman's farce meant to make Trump look good and an absolute waste of taxpayer dollars. If Trump had any true morality, he'd be taking in some of those long suffering Syrian refugees instead.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... s-impulses

thanks, TC, saved me the trouble of citing similar polling. One 'illegitimate' poll hit 63% this week. Oh, and let's not keep out focus off the whole Russian meddling matter. Turns out the CIA had been watching Trumps cronies earlier than thought.

interesting sidelight onto the Syria strike. The site ISI, I think it was, was reporting surveillance results of the airfield after the strike. According to post-attack surveillance, the US missiles:
killed 6 people,
destroyed a training facility,
a material storage depot,
a canteen,
six MiG-23 aircraft in repair hangars
and a radar station.
The airbase’s runway, taxiways and many more aircraft on the parking apron remained undamaged.
Only 23 out of 59 tomahawk missiles reached their target,

not exactly a crippling or necessarily effective blow for the $90 million dollar price tag. Probably should spend it on Public Radio.......
anyhow, the site link went down about two hours after making these stats available, with pics. It still isn't available.

The 23 out of 59 number is coming from the Russians.

Spidey wrote:The 23 out of 59 number is coming from the Russians.

ok, thanks. Like I said, my source site showed up, and then disappeared, so I was unable to corroborate a damned thing.

If the Russian count is correct, my guess is the US only fired off 24 cruzers (one confirmed loss) and lied to the media about the size of their penis…errrr attack.

37 duds out of 59 is a huge failure rate, and if our tech is that unreliable…we better never get in a real war.

I still smell a conspiracy of some sort. Maybe not as radical as the one put forth by this anti-Trumper, but he does bring some interesting questions that can't be readily dismissed out of hand.

http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/syr ... d-it/2210/

Y'know I figured the dumbfuck would have taken a few more months to start World War III.

well, Egypt, as I suspected, started heating up this morning, and the Orange Death is sending carriers to North Korea, after they stated that the goofy Syria strike justifies use of nukes. Maybe you weren't understating things, TG.

Not only has NK stated that the Syria bombing gives them justification to use nukes, Trump himself stated something similar after the Brussels terror attack. Seriously, someone needs to take away the nuke keys from these 2 idiot toddlers. No one wins if anyone sets these things off.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trum ... ls-attack/

Tunnelcat wrote:Not only has NK stated that the Syria bombing gives them justification to use nukes, Trump himself stated something similar after the Brussels terror attack. Seriously, someone needs to take away the nuke keys from these 2 idiot toddlers. No one wins if anyone sets these things off.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trum ... ls-attack/

I always said that nuclear weapons will be used again to kill people. It's not a matter of IF...but when.

That is rich coming from the person who was so outspoken about how Hillary would start WW3 and doom us all...

Krom wrote:That is rich coming from the person who was so outspoken about how Hillary would start WW3 and doom us all...

I guess you missed this-

I love how "I believe" gets turned into "I'm calling for/I want"

I believe I should get a million dollars. Does that mean I want people to give that to me?

Tunnelcat wrote:Not only has NK stated that the Syria bombing gives them justification to use nukes, Trump himself stated something similar after the Brussels terror attack. Seriously, someone needs to take away the nuke keys from these 2 idiot toddlers. No one wins if anyone sets these things off.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trum ... ls-attack/

Christ, just read those quotes. He's an absolute retard. And I don't mean in the insulting perjorative sense, the man is not functional mentally.

Nightshade wrote:

Krom wrote:That is rich coming from the person who was so outspoken about how Hillary would start WW3 and doom us all...

I guess you missed this-

Well, you can whine about Hillary all you want NS, but Trump was the one who was stupid enough to actually order up an actual strike (even though he said he was never going to get involved in Syria during his campaign). Besides, it was a piss poor bombing job at that. I don't blame the military for effing up, I blame our "leaders" for telling the military how to do their job and you know that's what happened here. You'll also notice that the airport in question was up and running the very next day and was sending out aircraft on more bombing missions to that very same town that took the original gas attack. So much for our so-called "help" and the millions of taxpayer dollars in wasted Tomahawks. If you're going to blow up an airfield so that it can't be used for awhile, fer crying out loud, do it right or don't do it at all.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/10/do ... ervention/

TopGun, I did call Trump an "idiot toddler" and since Kim Jong Un is also an idiot toddler, we've got a couple of 2-years olds with their little fat fingers on their respective nuclear buttons along with a toddler's lack of impulse control in their little infant pea brains to NOT EVER push those buttons during a temper tantrum. Geezus!

White House is 'open to more attacks' on Syria. ★■◆● yeah, we are flush with cash to piss away. Who needs a social safety net, or enforcement of public safety rules? Who needs FEMA or a functional Coast Guard? We gonna shoot some missiles off(and hope that no one shoots back)!!!!








by the way, I applaud all here for the restraint in pointing out the unintended irony of my title here.