Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Nothing has changed with Russia and Trump. I am waiting for the installation of ExxonMobil to replace Gazprom as the Russian national petroleum company.

Dropping bombs on Syria was a campaign promise and "I am better than Obama." The 59 Tomahawk missiles were Trump politics with his constituency.

I think Eric Trump and not the press secretary says it all. Trump accuses Russia of a cover-up regarding chemical weapons in Syria, the cover-up is not just a method of Russia. This 'stage' Trump has set is one of the Master and not the Apprentice.

April 11, 2017
By Peter Baker

Washington — A week ago, (click herePresident Trump was accused of being a tool for the Russians, an unwitting agent of influence, so full of admiration that he defended President Vladimir V. Putin against critics who called him a killer.

Now, Mr. Trump is in a diplomatic clash with Mr. Putin’s Russia, his administration accusing Moscow of trying to cover up a Syrian chemical weapons attack on civilians and his secretary of state delivering us-or-them ultimatums.

Even in a presidency marked by unpredictability, the head-spinning shift from coziness to confrontation has left Washington and other capitals with a case of geopolitical whiplash. The prospects of improving Russian-American relations were already slim given the atmosphere of suspicion stemming from Kremlin meddling in last year’s election, but the détente once envisioned by Mr. Trump has instead deteriorated into the latest cold war.

For Mr. Trump’s camp, the abrupt turnaround simply proved how false the conspiracy narrative was from the start. “If there was anything that Syria did, it was to validate the fact that there is no Russia tie,” said Eric Trump, the president’s son....

Trump acted autonomously and impatiently, no differently than "W" did with the UN regarding Iraq. It was important to his personal political aspirations and that of his cabal.

When Republicans buy into hate and financial ambition one can be sure there is an ego linked to decision making.

April 7, 2017
By Conor Friedersdorf

...If the United States (click here) is to increase our use of military force in Syria, we should follow the Constitution and seek the proper authorization from Congress. President Trump should make his case in front of the American people and allow their elected representatives to debate the benefits and risks of further Middle East intervention to our national security interests....


...“If Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution means anything, it means that the president must obtain congressional approval before taking us to war against a sovereign nation that has not attacked the U.S. or its allies and is not threatening to attack the U.S. or its allies,” declared National Review’s David French, who served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps during the Iraq War....

There is a huge difference between Syria and Iraq and that is the ability to commit genocide of small unique communities of ethnics. The USA Tomahawk missiles can wipe out genetics off the Earth forever. There is no way to know if Assad has already committed such genocide with his barrel bombs and yet validated gas strikes with all the death and destruction that has occurred. But, Assad has a redeeming fact, he is an ethnic minority and wants to protect those people more than life itself.

I might add, it is that uniqueness about al-Assad and his family's leadership that Vladimir Putin likes. Putin is in a very different place than the USA generals that struggle to come up with a real strategy for Syria and the Middle East for that matter. Russia likes stable states and in that exists Bashar al-Assad.

We saw such an ethnic community with the Yazidis and Obama's intervention to save them. I might add, this rescue occurred after a man in the USA fought to get the attention of President Obama to address the extreme danger the Yazidis community faced. There was NO USA general or strategist that called those dire circumstances to President Obama.

The Shia Crescent has always been classified as a terrorist group here and a terrorist group there because to identify the 'entire' of the Shia Crescent as a sovereign unto itself completely dispells USA policy. Basically, the USA has not got an idea of what they are doing when they engage in war in the Middle East. It has the "W"rong model for the Middle East. WWIII is the only expertise and the only excuse for killing at random in the Middle East for the USA.

Putin is the answer to the violence in Syria. Unfortunately that is true. Advocating for him to take a strategy to the UN Security Council that creates a power sharing government while ending the civil war is the best place for the USA. We need to advocate the end of Daesh and coordinate with Russia in the Middle East to succeed.

Sorry that doesn't fit the politics of Neocons. Too bad.