100% this. The SDMB is just as full of paranoid delusions as the rest of the Internet.
I can see him launching a regular invasion of Iran or some other place. He could even try North Korea if he forgets or does not care that Seoul would get hit badly if that happens .
I wouldn’t say we’re full. There are a few, no doubt.
On the other hand, no one has ever been wrong overstating the sleazy incompetence of Individual 1.
BTW, if SecDef Mattis’ replacement hasn’t been confirmed by 3/1/19, I believe this is the guy that takes over.
The chance is not 1%. It’s not .25% It is 0%. 0%. As in, not a chance at all.
Stop being fear-mongers. Stop letting your dislike of the man and his politics color your rationality. If you cannot do that, your own rationality is in question.
There would be a lot of real estate to sell.
Maybe you have something there. :dubious:
John Bolton has essentually advocating the precipitation of was with Iran, and argued against any nuclear non-proliferation deal with the regime (not just the one John Kerry brokered but any deal whatsoever). Bolton may not welcome nuclear war but given his position I don’t think it beyond the realm of plausibility that he would ardently support a nuclear first strike.
This notion that Cabinet secretaries have some kind of duty to act as a check against presidential authority has no basis in law or fact. Cabinet members serve as executive heads of department-level organizations to translate executive direction into workable policy, and have while they may offer counsel the president on a course of action they are ultimately required to execute the president’s orders or resign their
position so that the president can appoint someone who will. As a career military officer, Mattis is never going to consider subordination of executive authority a legal or ethically correct action, and that is in line with constituional law and executive policy. The check on executive authority is supposed to be the election and/or action by Congress to remove a misbehaving president. It isn’t Mattis that has failed here—it is the electorate which voted this buffoonish conman into the office despite his obvious unsuitability in experience and temperment.
“I think, for me, nuclear, the power, the devastation, is very important to me.” And it isn’t as if this was some kind of momentary stumble; he has a long history of making ambiguous and contradictory statements about the purpose and use of nuclear weapons
For those who believe that this is all “business as normal” and that we are no closer to global conflict than we’ve been in previous decades following World War II, consider the following points:
[ul]
[li]We have a new Presidential adminstration entering into office with significant concerns about competence and corruption and clear signs of internecine conflict but with a presumed mandate to demonstrate American military and economic prowess, i.e. “Make America Great Again”. [/li][li]The State Department–the organ of government which has the primary mission of formulating and communicating the intentions of the United States in its interests and support of allies around the world–is now led by a man with no government experience who eschews press coverage and avers from addressing policy decisions, has blundered in dealing with a major trading partner and potential strategic competitor, has not been granted the authority to even select his own deputy, and by several accounts didn’t want the job.[/li][li]Our chief strategic opposition in Europe is led by an egotistic autocrat who has manufactured reasons for invading and annexing other countries, has supported regimes that we’ve classified as harboring terrorism, and has authorized aggressive military action (flybys of US Navy ships, surveillance vessels within US territorial waters) to test US military resolve.[/li][li]Our chief strategic opposition in Asia has been acting in progressively more aggressive fashion toward allies (Taiwan, Japan) and building artificial islands to expand their claim to territorial waters while exporting weapons to nations supporting terrorism; and has also been reluctant in restraining its client state of North Korea from aggressive actions and proliferation of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile systems. [/li][li]Nationalism fueled by xenophobic fear is on the rise in Europe, much of Asia, and even in our closest ally (the United Kingdom), and the blame for terror attacks and unrest has been baldly painted on Islam as a whole even though the attacks are the product of a handful of fundamentalist Muslim extremist groups mostly based out of countries that are nominal US allies. [/li][li]Regardless of what you think of Donald Trump, he has absolutely no experience in international conflict or diplomacy, and his belief that he can apply his Art of the Deal business negotiation approach to international conflict is wildly naive and is already alienating long-standing strategic allies.[/li][li]Trump also has absolutely no military experience or knowledge in strategic deterrence, does not appear to be educable in such, and has surrounded himself with like-minded people few of whom are even basically qualified to anticipate and understand the consequences of strategic escalation. [/li][li]The administration’s stance on NATO has been unclear and erratic, but the statements and actions that Trump has made have served to undermine the critical support for the NATO alliance which is crucial to protecting Europe from growing Russian expansionism.[/li][li]Deliberately false stories and misleading or unverified claims have been presented by this administration as fact, inflamming uncertainty and fear rather than calming public concerns and showing a strong leadership presence.[/li][li]In both previous world wars, the public opinion was consistently that the conflict would not grow into full scale ware even while aggressive nations continued apace and long standing ethnic conflicts were fueled into violence and then government policy. [/li][/ul]
The analogues between the precursors to previous world wars and the conflicts we are seeing develop here today are apparent to anyone critically assessing them. We may not go to war over the response to a single Syrian chemical weapons attack, but we are becoming increasingly politically entrenched in a conflict over which we actually have very little control or influence, and one that could readily lead to an open military confrontation between the US and Russia, even if by accident. And it is entirely plausible that Trump could engage us in a conflict over Syria, North Korea, or Iran (all of which he has openly threatened) that his fragile ego would not let him back down from. He is the worst of all possible characteristics in a president; ill-informed, uncritical, credulous toward factually unsupported claims, desiring of adoration and unearned respect, unwilling to accept responsibility for errors of judgment, and generally reflexive and volatile in judgment. He literally threatened a political opponent with prison if he won the election, has openly lied about election fraud in the popular vote, has promulgated blatantly untrue propaganda about the attendance at his inauguration despite photographic evidence to the contrary, has engaged in open slander toward the previous president in unfounded accusations of wiretapping his personal phones, and is generally a weak, ignorant, and mercurial personality who is clearly terrified in being called out for failure and will do anything to absolve himself of blame.
If there was ever a time when a new world war seemed most probable, it is between this and the Able Archer '83 incident, and at least then Reagan had smart, mostly rational people at the helm of his administration counseling restraint. Trump by all appearances has to advise him a talk radio white nationalist, his wealth-insulated fashionista daughter, and her husband, none of whom are experienced in dealing with high stakes international conflict. If you are not at least concerned about an unexpected conflict growing into uncontrollable open warfare, you are not paying attention.
Stranger
Serious question: did you just copy-pasta these bullet points from something written in late 2016 or early 2017? Mike Pompeo has been the Secretary of State for eight months now.
Yes. They need to wait to Jan 22nd so Pence can have 10 years in the White House.
I stand ready to be corrected, but I believe that the President can appoint any Senate-confirmed appointee to take over as Acting Secretary, as he did with Whitaker at Department of Justice.
Whitaker has never been confirmed.
Putin would never let Trump do it.
If they were planning to impeach Trump in a month, I’d expect to hear more rumblings about it now. It takes time to organize a trial, even if it’s just a show trial.
I don’t get the concern. Sure the National Security Adviser is a war-monger, the competent Chief of Staff is out, and we’re looking for another SecDef nicknamed “Mad Dog,” but the President still has Jared Kushner and Sean Hannity to turn to for advice. If things get too intense for Kushner and Hannity, Vladimir Putin is a smart fellow, and I think he’d be happy to help his colleague, our Dear Leader, make sudden decisions.
But I wouldn’t worry about D.J. Trump’s knowledge of the nuclear. His uncle explained it all to him many many years ago:
[sarcasm off] It’s fun to live in “interesting times,” but with Mattis’ departure things are starting to get a little too interesting even for me.
I’m not sure he’s even been appointed.
The Trump tweets that are generally given as evidence that Trump’s appointed him as acting AG do not give an effective date, just refer to his being acting AG in the future.
If there have been any documents making his appointment more definitive, I haven’t heard of them.
Why don’t you link to this alleged source?
I would agree that the chances of Donald Trump capriciously ordering a nuclear attack are essentially nil, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t end up making erratic and catastrophic decisions, which are in part (or in whole) motivated by a desire to pivot attention away from his problems or simply as a result of a consequently compromised state of mind. During the final days of Richard Nixon’s impeachment, aides described some bizarre and volatile rhetoric and behavior from a man who had already ordered massive, clandestine bombings during the Vietnam War era. So we’re not to be blamed for wondering how someone who by comparison to Nixon is already so mentally unstable might respond to impending political, financial, and legal jeopardy. For Donald Trump, these are the end times. It’s absolutely within the realm of possibility that the events consume him and induce him into a state of temporary psychosis.
So he doesn’t order a nuclear attack in the middle of the night. He could just as easily ratchet up tensions by so much as a misguided tweet or two. He could provoke an enemy to attack us. He could be easily provoked into attacking an enemy, with potentially disastrous consequences. Don’t kid yourself - there’s a LOT that could go wrong here.
He’s got a web page at justice.gov: “MEET THE ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL”
That’s at least moderately more official than Twitter, although not really definitively “official” either.
I’m not alleging anything. I asked a question because several of his bullet points were out-of-date. It would be weird if he typed up all that information about Tillerson just today and linked to a bunch of news articles from March 2017 without realizing that Tillerson isn’t the Secretary of State anymore, and hasn’t been for quite a while.
Also, calling the Trump administration “a new Presidential adminstration entering into office” is a bit bizarre. He has been in office for almost two years.
I have no idea where he got it from, or if he really is just that badly misinformed. That’s why I asked the question.