Alas, getting the Trump cabinet in a position so that they’re looking at one another has proven to do nothing to help.
And just to bring 2018 in right, first there is increased rhetoric on North Korea, with ex-JCS Mullen saying
and points at President Trump:
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/31/politics/north-korea-trump-mullen-graham/index.html
And just because he hasn’t alienated them recently, Trump tweets at Pakistan:
Oh tidings of comfort and joy…my ass!
If he wants a war so damn bad, isn’t there some tiny Caribbean island we could maybe invade, like with Reagan and Grenada?
Maybe Puerto Rico?
We could make 'em a territory or something.
Whaaaat? Then we’d have to treat them like Americans!
Technically, they already are Americans! So, we don’t have to treat them any better than we treat each other.
The way Trump treats Americans or the way normal Presidents treat Americans?
Trump treats Americans like a baby treats its diaper.
Like the proverbial stopped clock, I’m not sure Trump is wrong in his assessment of Pakistan.
Not to argue with you, Slacker (well maybe a little bit later), but the Pakistani Defense Minister showed some Trumpian twitter skills:
That said, $33 Billion in 15 years averages out to $2.2 Billion a year, which is impressive to thee or me, but not unusual (Israel got $3.1B in Military aid alone in FY2016, which is hardly unusual for them) and Israel isn’t supporting our logistics forces thousands of miles from America (not exactly a lot of ports in Afghanistan, you know).
And Pakistan has a delicate balance to maintain between the U.S., India (it’s great rival and threat), China, and it’s rather divided peoples. Makes even the jumble of American politics today rather simple, IMHO.
So Trump might have a justified complaint. And it’s been made before: According to CNN, “The Pentagon, for example, failed to go ahead with $300M in military reimbursements to Pakistan in 2016 because of that country’s failure to curb militants from within its borders.”
But making it a public spat on twitter…like so many things, just bad form. And in diplomacy, especially in the lands of the Great Game, form counts.
IMHO as always. YMMV.
Your points are mostly fair. But I would point out that Israel is an extreme case. They, and Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, get way too much of our money IMO.
We didn’t give Pakistan lots of money out of the goodness of our hearts. We gave it to them (1) so they’d overlook us bombing some of their citizens on their own soil, and (2) so they could buy F-16s from Lockheed.
$33 billion is less than 2% of the cost of the war in Afghanistan.
And our Xmas shopping budget was less than 2% of the cost of a Tesla. So what?
Huh? Do you not understand that Pakistan’s cooperation is vital for our war in Afghanistan?
A witness before the Mueller grand jury is complaining that the grand jury is too black and there aren’t enough white people on it. He called it looking like a “Black Lives Matter” rally.
This gets more sickening by the minute.
“Of the 20 jurors, 11 are African-Americans and two were wearing peace T-shirts,' the witness said. There was only one white male in the room, and he was a prosecutor.” (cite)
Washington DC is ~50% African-American, so ~11 out of 20 is to be expected. If the other 9 comprise 7 white women, 1 Asian and 1 Hispanic, that would almost exactly match the ethnic composition of DC. The only statistical anomaly is that all white people on the grand jury are female, but I think men are more likely to be excused from grand jury duty due to work commitments?
On the other hand: if the Mueller grand jury composition is annoying to blatant racists, I see that as a good thing.