Dear America,
This morning, it seemed possible, albeit not particularly plausible given the American intelligence community's appraisal of the situation, that Donald Trump had managed to do something that other presidents had professed interest in but never categorically accomplished: the extinguishing of the putative nuclear threat from Iran. I was prepared to set aside the fact that a group of responsible national leaders including Barrack Obama had led Iran into a pact that had ostensibly had that effect, but that Donald Trump had scuttled that successful effort by withdrawing from the agreement unilaterally and perfunctorily. It appeared that the recent U.S. bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities under Trump administration aegis seemed to bring about the same result as the Iran nuclear treaty, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), had purportedly done almost exactly a decade earlier in Vienna. My intention wasn't to be too effusive about it, given Trump's creation of the situation he had precipitated to begin with, but given my scorn for our miscreant of a president, my intended faint praise was a long way for me to have come. But then about two hours ago I heard Trump regaling reporters at the NATO summit with a typically self-serving panegyric claiming, among other things, that he had dealt with (presumably effecting their resolutions) four wars now in his second administration. However, the Ukrainians and Volodymyr Zelensky seem to think that the Russian invasion of their country is ongoing, so that one is off the table. And Gaza authorities announced yesterday that Israel had surpassed the 56 thousand killed mark in its extermination of Palestinians in Gaza and were still climbing, including at lines for food, so Trump couldn't have been including that one. Then, while it's true that the bombing of Beirut has ceased as has the Israeli assault on Syria, I suppose Trump could have had something to do with those cessations of hostilities, but I didn't hear about it, and I doubt that you did either, America. So what's left to praise him for, even tongue-in-cheek?
He had me at "I bombed them into submission," but he couldn't shut up. He had to promote himself not to infinity, but certainly to obscenity. He had to go on and embarrass himself, and in the process his country...our country...my country with a surfeit of undeserved self-adulation and flattery. It's not really a surprise given the way in which he conducts his White House business in front of all of his staff, including his cabinet members, so that the latter can shamelessly lick his boots and the press can submit to his vilification if they ask an honest question. Whenever he pulls this maneuver, and he does it often, I am always surprised that his audience doesn't start snickering. It's not just what he is doing. It's the obvious way in which he is doing it. He is shamelessly opportunistic in that regard, including the gilding of the White House Oval Office for his own ostentatious and gauche self-aggrandizement. If he wants to act the clown, he should at least try to do it tastefully. But I see that I have strayed from my original intention. It may well be the case that Iran has been chastened by the "bunker-buster" blitz orchestrated by our comic-figure-in-chief. That is certainly to be hoped for, and time and publication of some reliable information about the consequences of that bombing raid will tell. If Trump's boasts about it turn out to be realistic, he gets kudos from me...except that...
He also took the step of publicly expressing his dissatisfaction with both Iran and Israel over their mutual lack of good faith, at least initially, with regard to the Trump engineered cease-fire that almost didn't last a whole day, and that was a good start. But he has openly coddled Israel's prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, and like Joe Biden, Trump has given Bibi virtual carte-blanche when it comes to violating humanity in the name of ostensibly fighting anti-Semitisms. So let me point out this caveat about Trump's prospects for snatching some sort of legitimate glory out of his aleatory participation in an event based on the probable canard that Iran was actually a threat to commit nuclear mayhem and had the actual capacity and intention of doing so. The "Semites" of the middle east include not just Israel, but the Arabs as well, so anti-Semitism is a misguided premise. The fact is that much of what passes for anti-Semitism today is a reaction to the conduct not of international Jewry, but to the conduct of the nation-state of Israel: a political entity, not a religious one. It is also the case that, as Trump adverted to indirectly, the irrational mutual internecine attrition in which countries like Israel, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan and many other ethnic groups, in general "The Levant" and surrounding real estate, have indulged out of mindless (Trump used a more colorful word) enmity based on who-knows-what over the course of the past four millennia is a problem that only those ethnic groups, including Netanyahu and the Likud, can deal with in the end. So if Trump goes back to pandering to Netanyahu based on the false impression that Bibi is somehow a victim, well go back to anything positive that I just said about Trump. I take it back.
Your friend,
Mike
This morning, it seemed possible, albeit not particularly plausible given the American intelligence community's appraisal of the situation, that Donald Trump had managed to do something that other presidents had professed interest in but never categorically accomplished: the extinguishing of the putative nuclear threat from Iran. I was prepared to set aside the fact that a group of responsible national leaders including Barrack Obama had led Iran into a pact that had ostensibly had that effect, but that Donald Trump had scuttled that successful effort by withdrawing from the agreement unilaterally and perfunctorily. It appeared that the recent U.S. bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities under Trump administration aegis seemed to bring about the same result as the Iran nuclear treaty, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), had purportedly done almost exactly a decade earlier in Vienna. My intention wasn't to be too effusive about it, given Trump's creation of the situation he had precipitated to begin with, but given my scorn for our miscreant of a president, my intended faint praise was a long way for me to have come. But then about two hours ago I heard Trump regaling reporters at the NATO summit with a typically self-serving panegyric claiming, among other things, that he had dealt with (presumably effecting their resolutions) four wars now in his second administration. However, the Ukrainians and Volodymyr Zelensky seem to think that the Russian invasion of their country is ongoing, so that one is off the table. And Gaza authorities announced yesterday that Israel had surpassed the 56 thousand killed mark in its extermination of Palestinians in Gaza and were still climbing, including at lines for food, so Trump couldn't have been including that one. Then, while it's true that the bombing of Beirut has ceased as has the Israeli assault on Syria, I suppose Trump could have had something to do with those cessations of hostilities, but I didn't hear about it, and I doubt that you did either, America. So what's left to praise him for, even tongue-in-cheek?
He had me at "I bombed them into submission," but he couldn't shut up. He had to promote himself not to infinity, but certainly to obscenity. He had to go on and embarrass himself, and in the process his country...our country...my country with a surfeit of undeserved self-adulation and flattery. It's not really a surprise given the way in which he conducts his White House business in front of all of his staff, including his cabinet members, so that the latter can shamelessly lick his boots and the press can submit to his vilification if they ask an honest question. Whenever he pulls this maneuver, and he does it often, I am always surprised that his audience doesn't start snickering. It's not just what he is doing. It's the obvious way in which he is doing it. He is shamelessly opportunistic in that regard, including the gilding of the White House Oval Office for his own ostentatious and gauche self-aggrandizement. If he wants to act the clown, he should at least try to do it tastefully. But I see that I have strayed from my original intention. It may well be the case that Iran has been chastened by the "bunker-buster" blitz orchestrated by our comic-figure-in-chief. That is certainly to be hoped for, and time and publication of some reliable information about the consequences of that bombing raid will tell. If Trump's boasts about it turn out to be realistic, he gets kudos from me...except that...
He also took the step of publicly expressing his dissatisfaction with both Iran and Israel over their mutual lack of good faith, at least initially, with regard to the Trump engineered cease-fire that almost didn't last a whole day, and that was a good start. But he has openly coddled Israel's prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, and like Joe Biden, Trump has given Bibi virtual carte-blanche when it comes to violating humanity in the name of ostensibly fighting anti-Semitisms. So let me point out this caveat about Trump's prospects for snatching some sort of legitimate glory out of his aleatory participation in an event based on the probable canard that Iran was actually a threat to commit nuclear mayhem and had the actual capacity and intention of doing so. The "Semites" of the middle east include not just Israel, but the Arabs as well, so anti-Semitism is a misguided premise. The fact is that much of what passes for anti-Semitism today is a reaction to the conduct not of international Jewry, but to the conduct of the nation-state of Israel: a political entity, not a religious one. It is also the case that, as Trump adverted to indirectly, the irrational mutual internecine attrition in which countries like Israel, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan and many other ethnic groups, in general "The Levant" and surrounding real estate, have indulged out of mindless (Trump used a more colorful word) enmity based on who-knows-what over the course of the past four millennia is a problem that only those ethnic groups, including Netanyahu and the Likud, can deal with in the end. So if Trump goes back to pandering to Netanyahu based on the false impression that Bibi is somehow a victim, well go back to anything positive that I just said about Trump. I take it back.
Your friend,
Mike
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