Trump Administration a bunch of warmongers too

Hillary Clinton is a warmonger.
It's a truth that justifies not voting for her.

The problem is that the only difference with the Trump Administration is his object of warmongering.

Did you know that the Trump administration almost went to war with Iran at the start of February?

Perhaps you were distracted by Gen. Michael Flynn’s resignation as national security adviser or by President Trump’s online jihad against Nordstrom. Or maybe you missed the story because the New York Times bizarrely buried it in the midst of a long piece on the turmoil and chaos inside the National Security Council. Defense Secretary James Mattis, according to the paper, had wanted the U.S. Navy to “intercept and board an Iranian ship to look for contraband weapons possibly headed to Houthi fighters in Yemen. … But the ship was in international waters in the Arabian Sea, according to two officials. Mr. Mattis ultimately decided to set the operation aside, at least for now. White House officials said that was because news of the impending operation leaked.”

Get that? It was only thanks to what Mattis’s commander in chief has called “illegal leaks” that the operation was (at least temporarily) set aside and military action between the United States and Iran was averted.

Oh, those evil leakers that kept us out of war with Iran. How dastardly!
As for Mad Dog Mattis, our Defense Secretary, consider what he said just last year.

For all the dangers al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, known as ISIS) pose in the Middle East, he warned that the Iranian regime "is the single most enduring threat to stability and peace".
He recalled that as commander of US troops in the Middle East, the first three questions he would ask his subordinates every morning "had to do with Iran and Iran and Iran".
"We only pray, the rest of us outside this town, that someone good is listening here," he told the Washington crowd, as he issued an ominous prediction: "The future is going to be ghastly", and that "the next president is going to inherit a mess".

I've repeatedly pointed out that going to war with Iran is much riskier than Bush's decision to invade Iraq (here and here).
Iranians are not incline to back down.

Ask the Iranians. “Boarding an Iranian ship is a shortcut” to confrontation, says Seyyed Hossein Mousavian, former member of Iran’s National Security Council and a close ally of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Even if a firefight in international waters were avoided, the Islamic Republic, Mousavian tells me, “would retaliate” and has “many other options for retaliation.”
Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council and author of the forthcoming book “Losing an Enemy — Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy,” agrees. Such acts of “escalation” by the Trump administration, he tells me, “significantly increases the risk of war.”

So how would Trump start this war?
If he was a Democrat the reason would be for "humanitarian concerns".
Now Trump might just stumble into war like an incompetent clown, but it's more likely that he would use a tried-and-true Republican method.

A former CIA analyst assigned to work on the Bush administration’s attempt to link Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda is warning that the Trump’s administration may be adopting the same model of “alternative intelligence” that led to the Iraq war. “They weighed false information. They also took raw reports and cherry-picked those from sources that we didn’t deem reliable, and gave those to the president,” said Nada Bakos, who worked at the CIA from 2000-2010, in an interview with Jeremy Scahill.
Bakos said she is concerned that the Trump administration is operating with “the expectation that you toe the line according to what they want versus the reality, the situation on the ground.” That approach will “politicize the structure of the intelligence community. So you can politicize the information that comes out, possibly develop your own team that feeds the bottom line that you’re after,” she said. “That to me is one of the more concerning underlying factors in how [Trump is] treating the intelligence community. If it’s always serving his needs and serving his view of the world, he may as well not have one.”
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ZimInSeattle's picture

Intercepted

Anyone in the know knows, the US followed closely by Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the leaders in sowing discontent and terrorism around the world. Thanks for keeping us apprised of the situation gjohnsit.

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

They are all liars, crooks, mooches, and warmongers. despite what they tell us every time they run for office.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

@dkmich
if someone ran for president on the platform of:

we are bankrupting ourselves on these wars
almost none of these wars are justifiable
we need to slash the military budget, close 90% of our overseas bases, retire our WWII navy (Japan surrendered!), declare victory and go home
Oh, and prosecute the torturers

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@gjohnsit @gjohnsit @gjohnsit To give credit where credit is due, Trump is the one guy who has consistently complained about the waste of $6 Trillion dollars in these futile Middle-East Wars, and even said it would've been much better to have "done nothing" for the last 15 years.

The problem is that the CIA and U.S. State Dept have long been embedded with Neocons and ChickenHawks (with ties to Wall Street and the Global Bank Oligarchs). Some of these people have also been leaking stories to the Press in order to advance the "Trump - Russia" panic, and drive out Mike Flynn, and embarrass the President. He does not have many people that he can really trust. And the Pentagon is a Trillion dollar a year monstrosity that only makes "hammers" ... so every conflict that exists looks like a "nail" to them anyway.

Trump did not do a good enough job in making sure that he has only people around him who are unconnected with the shameful last 15 years of War & Foreign Policy, and who are genuinely committed to his goals. I hope that Trump knows how easily he could be dragged or manipulated into new Wars .. and that he has the wisdom to consult with people who could educate him about different options (like Rand Paul, Ron Paul, etc.).

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBTMKLmdpho]

The "Deep State" War Against President Donald Trump

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@gjohnsit
what it would be like..." was Bobby Kennedy.

That's how cynical and jaded I've become. That's pitiful.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

@gjohnsit

I think Ajamu Baraka came even closer to saying that. Maybe their time will come soon. The establishment still needs to be discredited in a lot more people's eyes.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

sojourns's picture

Trump will manufacture some kind of treaty violation to justify going war with Iran. This will make the Saudis and Israel very happy,

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

@sojourns more like Remember the Maine, the Lusitania, the Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, the World Trade Center. Iran ain't Grenada. USA'ans aren't yet in the mood for more war, but they're being prepped.
obscene that, exploiting the widow, and all of us.

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bygorry

a military confrontation with Iran would play out. As I recall, there were war games enacted a few years ago regarding such a scenario, and they did not end well for the USA. If Mattis were any kind of a military scholar, surely he'd be aware of the unacceptable risks inherent in attacking Iran. A virtually guaranteed disaster, on several different levels.

So the Dems push for a war with Russia, and the Goopers push for a war with Iran. What a lovely choice for America's voters to have been given.

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native

@native

So the Dems push for a war with Russia, and the Goopers push for a war with Iran

Or should I say, that "democracy" LOL for you.

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sojourns's picture

@native --Thing of it is, Drumpf is rash and willing to just let the chips fall where they may. He always does things without considering the consequences. I suppose Bannon will be calling the shots. Dare I say it? Bannon is more reasoned than Donny.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

Big Al's picture

"The United Against a Nuclear Iran organization is a Zionist backed neocon organization (http://lobelog.com/document-reveals-billionaire-backers-behind-united-ag...) that has been prepping to guide the next president toward a war with Iran.

"United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), an organization packed to the gills with a bipartisan who’s who of hawkish figures, held an event on the “Future of Iran Policy” in Washington DC. Unsurprising, given the list of attendees, the future they envision is war, and lots of it.

The event headlined by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R – FL) and former Sen. Joe Lieberman saw calls to “restore coercion” against Iran, with several figures advocating that the US accept the limits of sanctions alone by sinking Iranian naval vessels in the Persian Gulf."

This was all predictable not long after Trump started running when he started criticizing the Iran "deal". That didn't come from his brain alone. Then he hired an anti-Islam, anti-Iran administration.

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CB's picture

Iran will be orders of magnitude more difficult. Due to the constant threats from the US and Israel for the last 2 1/2 decades, Iran has continuously increased and upgraded their defensive weaponry both domestically produced like the highly effective Bavar-373 long-range air-defence system and with the recently installed Russian S-300.

The Strategic Impact of the S-300 in Iran
Key Points

  • The deployment of S-300 components to Iran is a strategic game changer in the Middle East, giving Iran a significant strategic advantage against regional states and significantly complicating US air operations.
  • The S-300 is the most advanced surface-to-air missile system available for export to potential enemies of the United States.
  • The US military can defeat the S-300, but only by devoting significant numbers of assets.
  • Deployment of the S-300 in Iran means the US will need to recalibrate its current mix of airframes in the Middle East.
  • Once Iran gains proficiency with the S-300, Russia may try to use the threat of exporting the S-400 to Iran as leverage against the United States.

Both of these systems are a game changer for the risk-averse American forces. Keep in mind that the US has considerable low hanging fruit itself in the region. Iran lost 1,000,000 men in the Iraq-Iran War so it is not averse to risk when it comes to protecting the homeland. If the US loses 1,000 men it goes berserk.

With the Chinese, Russian, Iran OBOR initiative and Iran moving away from the US$ it will get much more difficult for US sanctions to be very effective.

The US is eventually going to have to learn to play nice in the world's sandbox. Throwing sand in others faces and taking all the toys for itself will become a thing of the past.

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Strife Delivery's picture

Each President we get will be in some conflict or war.

The real question is the order of magnitude.

For decades we love to piss away money making some people rich slaughtering poor people in countries they don't know exist, can't pronounce, or can't even locate on the map.

With Trump v. Clinton we had the following:
Continue fighting 3rd world countries that can't defend themselves but are the greatest threat somehow to us

OR

Fight a nuclear superpower.

Perhaps eventually we will have two candidates who will both be going after a nuclear superpower. Boy, that will be fun.

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@Strife Delivery Obama pretty much picked the path of bombing defenseless brown-Muslim people countries. In fact the main reason I voted for him in 2008 was that unlike McCain, he would not start a war with Iran. (I didn't vote for him in 2012) But when I started to listen to Hillary, it was obvious she wanted to hunt bear. And she pretty said in a speech to one of the pro-war think tanks she would look for reasons to bomb Iran.

Right now it looks like the neocon pro-confrontation with Russia groups in State, Pentagon, and CIA have won out and looks like no detente will not be happening for awhile.

From one of the released position papers from Hillary's State was a white paper justifying attacking Assad directly (it was for the defense of Israel mostly). Part of the justification was that the Russians would complain and do jack squat. Basically that Russia was a Paper Tiger. NATO is somewhat under the same delusion thinking they could show their penises and beat their chests and Russia will back down.

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mimi's picture

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mimi's picture

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riverlover's picture

that there have been turf wars between the expanding spy agencies for years, magnified by spy agencies in countries friend/enemy/frally. Frally is my made-up word, Not friend, functional ally for some diversionary tactic somewhere that most of the US never learned in Geography. Otherwise, no connection of dots.

I hope what I write makes some sense, one month of pain level 6 or 7 really tends to make my thinking diffuse, sign of pain level 6-7. I have what my nurse-daughter says is a high pain tolerance. She reports that most in a convalescent wing of the hospital reports pain levels at full-throttle 10. I would feel moderate discomfort. On the kiddie-scale faces that's a three. I can still laugh and smile. Makes me feel cordially interactive (and compliant patient behavior). No drug-seeking here.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

orlbucfan's picture

Perhaps eventually we will have two candidates who will both be going after a nuclear superpower. Boy, that will be fun. @Strife Delivery
-----------------------------------------------------
We've had that going down in these POTUS races for decades. Gotta keep the MICC fed and healthy, y'know! Rec'd!!

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

MsGrin's picture

In addition to money being lost hand over fist by our un-audited military, hardware and getting it places makes big bucks for corporate overlords.

Paying the people who fight and have been wounded? Not so much.

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'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member

detroitmechworks's picture

Somebody must have shown Trump the margins he'd get if he jumped on the war bandwagon.

His response seems to have been:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmqgRAXygDg]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks I think it was more stick than carrot. Play along with us, said the CIA.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

detroitmechworks's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal One of the reasons I couldn't stand season 4 of Torchwood was they made the CIA the good guys... (With a few bad apples! Really, that's the real problem!)

Of course, I'm former Army, so despite years of propaganda telling us how wonderful SOCOM and the CIA are, we still don't trust anybody who seems to have no problems dealing with those who shoot our buddies. In fact, they seem to HELP them shoot us on a regular basis.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

for Trump's avoidance of war with Russia.

As for other warmongering--the kind that doesn't get us into a nuclear apocalypse--I didn't think anyone had any doubt that Trump was more than happy to continue to engage in endless war. That's not really the point. The point is that he was less willing than Hillary to get us into World War III.

However, given who does want to get us into WWIII, it's not surprising that Trump and co. would start to bend under the pressure. It's not like Trump opposes WWIII on moral grounds, anyway--he's just enjoying the world as it is and sees no reason to burn it down. Why should he, he's having a good time.

He is, more or less, sane in his selfishness. Since I don't want to see the world reduced to a pile of radioactive corpses, I prefer him to Clinton. If he's now bowing to the powers behind Clinton, that's too bad, but not particularly surprising.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

justifications for the Iraq War for a honest criticism of Trump? When that person tells us that *Trump* is politicizing the CIA and intelligence community generally, we respond with something other than a snort?

Nobody needs to politicize US intelligence. They've been politicized since the 1950s, and it's only gotten worse in the past 15 years.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver