BTW, the USS Carl Vinson carrier group is steaming towards Korea as we speak. A Big Stick is being deployed to try and get N. Korea to back down a bit.
Unfortunately, Trump’s poor grasp on history has failed to make him aware of the first and equally important part of that guidance from Teddy.
Stranger
Things could get ugly fast. El Trumpo craves respect and admiration but his approval ratings are in the toilet. His big promises (healthcare, immigration ban, etc.) failed. His tweets provide a momentary distraction but end up boomeranging and hitting him in the face. He has been feeling pretty miserable.
But then, Trump discovered a new fun toy – Tomahawk missiles! Fire a few at bad guys and now most of the world is singing his praises. This is fun, cool stuff! You can be sure he will do this again. Not a problem until one of his fun Tomahawk missile toys lands on top of Russian soldiers in Syria. Then we’ll have quite a situation.
Putin is no pussy. He is going to hit back and shoot down an American plane. Trumps philosophy, which he probably learned as a schoolyard bully, is if someone goes after you, you hit them 10x harder. So Trump would retaliate against Putin BIGLY! Pretty soon, you got something that kinda looks like WW3. Fun times folks.
Fortunately for us, Trump appears to be listening to Mattis on this matter.
Trump digs Mattis’ cool uniform but he will get bored of him fast. Who wants to listen to all this boring talk about strategic objectives, long range planning, risk assessments, BLAH BLAH BLAH. Who cares?
When Trump can’t sleep, he turns on CNN and sees all these people badmouthing him. It pisses him off and so he takes action. He used to fire off a tweet and feel better. Now he can fire off a missile if that’s what his gut is telling him to do. He’ll have a number of pre-selected targets ready and his people can come up with the justification for it later.
I guess we’ll see who’s right in a few days.
ZX
True
Apparently we’d be a lot closer to WWIII if Hillary had been elected, because she says that if she were president, she would have wiped out ALL of Assad’s airbases..
That’s 21 airbases, spread across the country, filled with Russians and Russian aircraft and supplies. It would have required a large bombing campaign. There would have been Russian casualties, which could have forced Putin’s hand into some kind of retaliation.
Good ole’ Hillary, still displaying the kind of instinct that brought you a failed state in Libya and a gigantic refugee crisis.
No see, she’s doing genius manipulation of Trump, she’s saying she’d wipe out all the airbases, therefore Trump now can’t do that… because it’s what Hillary would do. Thanks Hillary you’ve de-escalated the situation and saved the world 
Well, that basically confirms my worst fears about Clinton–her apparently unbridled hawkishness–but let’s be frank; if Hillary Clinton had won the Electoral College vote, she would have been so mired by accusations of scandal both real and imagined, dealing with nominees reflexively blocked by McConnell and company, and generally hamstrung that she wouldn’t be doing much of anything at all. Which was exactly what Putin wanted when he had Russian intelligence interfere with the election via social media, hacking the DNC email server, and throwing every kind of shade on Clinton. Instead, like the rest of us, he now has to cope with a president who has no idea what his own policy is from day to day. Good one, Vlad.
Stranger
[QUOTE=QuickSilver]
He’s done nothing but lie from day one. What’s different about this lie from all the previous lies?
[/QUOTE]
A war mongering stance by Trump has more chances of being a lie (because a right wing candidate is supposed to take a more aggressive stance than a left wing candidate) . He took less aggressive stance (of not interfering) that has less chances of being a lie.
To Stranger On A Train’s excellent summary of why the world is frighteningly precarious under Trump, I’ll add one more point:
- Trump’s inexperience and naïveté pose a greater risk than it might seem. Yes, this President will be surrounded by people more competent than himself but “the buck stops here [at the Oval Office].” George W. Bush was also inexperienced and naïve and relied on his advisers. Many would agree he got very bad advice but at least all Dubya’s vocal advisers were pulling in the same direction. They all wanted war with Iraq, albeit for different reasons. The GWB Administration followed a plotted course, albeit a very bad one.
But Trump will be getting conflicting advice. Jared and Ivanka may give him very different advice from Mad Dog and McMaster; and Steven Bannon, if he still has influence, will be pulling in yet another direction. Confused by conflicting advice, Trump may even turn to his billionaire buddies, or even his pal Vladimir for opinions.
If a leader sets policy by reading pigs’ entrails, his mandarins, if united, can keep events on course by rigging the pig. But Trump’s top mandarins seem to be at war with each other.
Is your pet theory about the inner workings of Putin’s mind supported by any credible sources of authority?
Despite the “mad dog” nick name James Mattis is probably the most sane member of Trump’s cabinet. Remarkbly free of scandal and seemingly with no connections to Russia. I’d like to think he’d be capable of talking Trump down from any rash spur of the moment decisions regarding use of the military.
By doing exactly what he repeatedly said, in 2013, what Obama should absolutely not do? ???
Think about it. He took the other branch of the road and now finds himself at a dead end. Obama backed off, engaged in diplomacy and was supposed to have gotten the WMD’s removed (Russian gave them back?).
If Thrump attacks or Tonkin Gulfs North Korea, do you think the fat fool in Pyongyang will play the measured game that Putin displayed after the missile attack in Syria?
Because Pyongyang is irrational, though, I don’t see a way forward except to tirelessly lobby China to squeeze the fat fool out to exile. I think the NK large army would much rather be growing food than preparing for Armageddon, and would gladly play ball with China, given the chance.
anyway, Fatfool knows NK can easily absorb several Tomahawk missile attacks like the Syria one. Just one unintercepted missile from NK to Japan or to Seoul will wipe out hundreds of thousands. And, at the end of the air attack, we don’t have the resources or strength to invade with ground troops. they’d be chewed up by the NK huge army, forced to fight us.
An alternative? Convince China that if they don’t want to help, to just stand back and allow us to destroy the bridges over the Yalu. Then wait for starvation to set in, maybe a popular, desperate uprising to overthrow the fatfool.???
Not a pretty picture, Syria or North Korea,
Kerry said they “got 100% of the chemical weapons out”, but now Politifact says this isn’t true (obviously).
Obama threatened force, nobody but the French were going to go along with it, Putin put together a deal where Syria would disclose and destroy their WMDs, and Obama went along with it. Turns out that Syria either lied about it, or made some more chemical weapons. The deal didn’t work - the “dead end” would be to go along with the failure.
I doubt these air strikes will help very much. But they are better than Hillary’s attempt to start a more general war, or Obama’s being out-maneuvered and out-faced by Putin.
Regards,
Shodan
I highly doubt it. Major nations do not war with each other. The destruction level is too high, and they are busy doing business and making $$$
War is for king, queens, dictators, and such.
If WWW III starts it will be from a smaller nation, or a rouge terrorist group.
Nations like Syria or Korea, if they had ICMB’s would be really scary. Thank goodness they don’t!
Yes, major world powers have never entered into ill-considered, destructive conflicts resulting in the deaths of many millions of people. World War I and World War II were just a bad dream, dear…
Stranger
It’s kind of confusing when everyone in the Trump regime has conflicting versions of what their foreign policy is.
Trump during September 2016 presidential debates: “We cannot be the policemen of the world.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said today, “We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world.”
Are we protecting the world or not? I guess when the next international crisis arises they will consult the Magic 8-Ball to determine what to do.