OP ED » Sun Jan 15, 2017 12:06 am wrote:JackRiddler » Sat Jan 14, 2017 7:23 pm wrote:If it were honest, however, the bloody mess on the RIGHT would be about half as big, and the one Trump has promised bigger than either. None so blind as can see, apparently.
What war exactly has Trump promised? It's hard to maintain focus while he blathers incoherent, so I may have missed it. (the competition seemed to be deliberately staging a series of excuses for confrontational encountering with Russia, which would have been unlikely to end well and I frankly find it difficult to imagine a worse geostrategic package)
Also, half as big because of what? What are the parameters for blaming the executive?
(I mean the death rates in Iraq and Afghanistan have slowed significantly, but some of that is because we abandoned half of the territory and they can't be properly accounted anymore and any official number is based on guesswork)
(Is Libya our fault? Which portion of Syria gets counted? What about Lebanon? Covert actions in South America maybe actually increased in the last eight years, but deciding the numbers and who killed whomever is again problematic due to whitewash and blackout. What about Ukraine? Etc)
All good points, I think. Note that I had my usual dyslexic thing and corrected it in the quoted matter. (RIGHT). But yeah, what are the parameters for assigning specific blame? I'd say some cases are obvious, like the engineering of the invasion of Iraq by WMD lies etc. and the decision to start a new one in Libya. Others are automatic and multilateral operation of kill-machinery that runs on its own momentum. The focus on any one part of it can be misleading.
However, what war has Trump promised?
He will cut the head off ISIS and TAKE THEIR OIL.
The take-their-oil war. Repeated statements and presented as campaign platform (see that ad if you still have not). In clarifying, he made clear he would have kept "a group" in Iraq to secure their oil fields. Otherwise constant talk about American weakness and need to massively increase military. And now he's appointed neocons to the command portfolios so rabid that they had been kept at arm's length even by the Bush crew.
I'd also characterize his promises to round up and deport millions, build a wall, and make Mexico pay for it as forms of war.
Overturning the Iran deal (through findings that they are not complying, new provocations, etc. etc.) would be a big step.
And the shift on China has all kinds of idiot risks (the Taiwan call, South China Sea, etc.).
It matters that his style is constantly about bullying the weak, finding enemies, and expressing things in violent and brutal terms. Those who defend him for "straight talk" may come to appreciate the braking effects of "liberal hypocrisy." Or not.
.