There were a lot of people who thought that we were overreacting to the Syria strike in early 2017. We weren’t overreacting. We learned something important that day.
In the course of the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump created the perception that he was different and was going to break with the traditional Republican foreign policy. He was going to end the “endless wars.” We were going to rebuild our own country and mind our own business. Nothing of the sort happened during his presidency. Instead, we ended up getting Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio’s foreign policy.
Trump tore up the Iran Deal and pushed tensions with Iran to the brink of war. He assassinated Qasem Soleimani for Senate Republicans. He gave Bibi Netanyahu everything he wanted. He attempted to overthrow the government of Venezuela and install Juan Guaidó as president. He ultimately kept troops in Syria for Israel and walked back his own withdrawal under pressure from John Bolton and the Pentagon generals. He imposed sanctions on Russia and expanded NATO. He sold Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. He escalated the war in Afghanistan and negotiated the fake “conditions based withdrawal” to dupe voters into thinking that he intended to pull troops out of Afghanistan. The sole saving grace of Trump’s foreign policy was North Korea and the “Remain in Mexico” policy that he brokered with Mexico. You could also say that he at least made a token effort to reduce the trade deficit with China.
Donald Trump empowered Mike Pompeo as his Secretary of State. The Trump administration went after Julian Assange. This is a man who put “Mad Dog” Mattis in charge of the Pentagon and picked H.R. McMaster and John Bolton to serve as his national security advisers. He brought back Elliot Abrams. “America First” in action turned out to be the same old Reaganism. Shower the Pentagon with money and defer to the military-industrial complex on everything.
Trump often said the Right things but his actions didn’t back up the hot air.
BTW where’s Murdoch Murdoch these days? Been ages since they put anything out.
Trump is an empty suit, just more bellicose, less well informed but more entertaining than your average empty suit.
If these clowns really cared about America 1st, all the troops would be removed from all the foreign countries, some over 70 years and put on the border to protect America from foreign invaders and potential terrorists.
Re: “He attempted to overthrow the government of Venezuela and install Juan Guaidó as president”:
Making Mr. Guaido the “real” President of Venezuela is one of the most ridiculous things the Empire has ever done. The U.S. tried to strongarm all its satellites into recognizing Guaido but not all of them did, and only a few do now.
It tried to do the same thing to Cuba, making a university professor, Raul Capote the “real” president of Cuba, but unlike Guaido who loves money and thirsts for power, Raul Capote loves his people! This is worth watching:
Note: Near the end of the interview, Capote quotes his CIA handler who said they (the CIA) told the Hondurans to KILL Manuel Zelaya. The psycopathic intelligence service agent is very angry that Zelaya was allowed to escape from the CIA coup. (Zelaya “went off the reservation” after he became president, making a sudden turn to the left and becoming populist.)
The Empire has been running Honduras for more than a century, and consequently Honduras has been one of the main sources of economic refugees – cheap-labour immigrants to the U.S. – as well as very profitable cheap bananas.
Nicaragua is the main focus of the U.S. attention in Central America now. Don’t be mesmerized by Afghanistan or you will miss seeing all the action elsewhere.