Thank Goodness for Sane People - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15111864
Thank god we had some sane people advising Trump. In this case, it wasn't Nixon pretending to be a madman but somebody who actually is a true and genuine madman who doesn't have his head screwed on straight.

Jim Sciutto of CNN wrote:Amid escalating tensions with both North Korea and Iran, President Donald Trump's advisers hesitated to give him military options fearing the President might accidentally take the US to war and deliberately informed their counterparts in both countries that they did not know what the President would do next, multiple former administration officials tell me.

These accounts are contained in my upcoming book, "The Madman Theory: Trump Takes on the World," which will be published August 11 by Harper Collins.
Trump's relationship with Kim Jong Un has blown hot and cold throughout his presidency but in 2017 as the President dubbed Kim "little rocket man" and the North Korean dictator responded by calling Trump a "dotard," there was a very real fear amongst senior members of the administration that the war of words might culminate in the President launching military action against Pyongyang.

"We used to only think of Kim Jong Un as unpredictable. Now we had Trump as unpredictable," Joseph Yun, who served as President Trump's special representative for North Korea policy until 2018, told me. "And I would communicate that."

Yun recalled that during the worsening standoff with North Korea in 2017, the Pentagon hesitated to give the President a broad range of military options, concerned that he might indeed order a major military attack on the North.
"You had to be careful what options you gave him," he said. "We were being very cautious, because any options you put out there, he could use them."
That frustrated the White House. "The White House viewed it as 'Goddamnit! The President is looking for all options!'" Yun recalled. But the Pentagon, under Defense Secretary James Mattis at least, didn't budge.

Later Trump decided diplomacy was the way forward and met for two historic summits with Kim, even telling a 2018 rally in West Virginia that the "two fell in love."

A senior White House official told CNN that on North Korea "it was the President who at every turn has encouraged diplomacy over escalation. He took the historic step of meeting with KJU in person to encourage de-escalation."


https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics ... index.html
#15111865
This is a defeat for the security of our country/democracy, however. While we can in theory avoid a catastrophe now, this is weakening the leadership, chain of command, and obedience of our military. What happens if Joe Biden is next and they decide to do the same thing because "he seems a bit off" or what happens if VP successor happens to be a woman and they decide "we clearly have to avoid her going into a 'mood rampant'" or some other shit like that. This is setting up a seed that could grow. While we can breathe relieved today, tomorrow we might have a greater enemy.
#15111893
You both haven't noticed yet that politically the U.S. is now *Bonapartist*, since the regular civilian government has effectively *abdicated* power, turning policy-making over to the military and the 'deep state' -- it's been this way since the legacy of the neocons, post-9/11, due to the nationalist dependence on imperialism (Afghanistan and Iraq, etc.) and the militarist identity for the nation-state, since the U.S. certainly hasn't been looking out for the best interests of its *own people*.

The Pentagon has pre-empted *several* of Trump's rash impulses in foreign policy, and that's the relative 'sanity' at work compared to his typical emperor-like mindset.
#15112167
This is why I don't believe that any one person , not even the President , should have the unilateral authority to launch a nuclear attack . Currently though , every U.S. president since Truman has held such authority .
I feel that this runs the risk of a scenario such as portrayed in this song .
#15112176
Rancid wrote:what leadership?


He probably means whatever American leadership after Trump.

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