I’ve been reading the Washington Post edition of the Mueller Report, basically the same as all of the other versions, and I have to say that it is both an interesting and a sickening document. Much as it has been discussed on cable news, you never get the full story without reading it yourself, and there’s a lot in there that never makes it to your television. I’m taking it slow, splitting time with another book that I can’t put down (Visions of Freedom by Piero Gleijeses), but my biggest take away is, well, just what a grifter Donald Trump is, and the same goes for the people he surrounds himself with.
I haven’t written about this scandal very much on this blog, as not to superfluously comment on material that is being handled much more competently elsewhere, but I basically fall into the non Russia-obsessed segment. Sure, there’s a lot in the report about Russian hacking and influence campaigns, but that is something states do in their efforts to advance their perceived national interest. I’m not saying it’s right – I’m saying it’s common practice. If it were up to me, we would regulate campaigns a lot more tightly than we do now. I’m also of the opinion that there isn’t enough brain power in the Trump clown car to effectively pull off any sophisticated kind of collusion with a foreign power. I think the Russians and other foreign governments – UAE, Saudi, Israel – inserted themselves into the 2016 election in hopes of affecting the outcome in some way. And clearly, the Trump team was glad for the help. So there was a confluence of interests, that’s probably about it.
Something tells me Trump’s biggest problem coming out of this scandal will be his own financial misconduct over the years and that of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Again, they’re not the brightest bulbs on the porch, so they would have been very poor at concealing, say, money laundering in any sophisticated way, resorting to clumsy attempts at stonewalling. The Democrats should move forward with the investigation if only to keep the president on his back foot. And no, I don’t think Trump is playing three-dimensional chess. I think he’s a dunce, and it pains me to see people ascribing more wits to Donald Trump than is indicated by what comes out of his festering gob. This phenomenon is not limited to Trump. People tend to think of creatures like Dick Cheney, John Bolton, and Henry Kissinger as mad geniuses; the fact is, they are massive fuck-ups whose policies invariably result in catastrophic failure, even when viewed through the distorted lens of their own harebrained objectives.
God help us if (or when) we get reactionary leaders that are actually competent at what they attempt to do. Up to now, the only thing that has saved us has been their ignorance and ineptitude.
luv u,
jp
As Bruce Cumings and others have pointed out for many years, the South Korean military is essentially under the command of U.S. generals. That is, in the event of a war, South Korean commanders would take orders directly from our military. Add to that the fact that the U.S., South Korea, and North Korea have technically been in a state of war since 1950, and you have a sense of how this works. Think about it – what does it say about South Korea’s sovereignty that they are not in control of their military? Recall, too, that the country was under the rule of generals and assorted dictators into the 1980s, all backed by the U.S. So when a president threatens the sanctity of “military exercises”, essentially admitting that they are, in fact, war games and, as such, “provocative,” as Trump accurately described them, national security reporters and consultants on every network start spinning like crazy.
It’s not hard to see why Trump is on the same page as practically every political leader in America in treating Iran like a muck room rug. Israel wants us to attack them. Saudi wants us to attack them. The UAE wants us to attack them. And the majority of Americans are under the spell of the propaganda campaign about the incomparable evils of Iran. We’ve been fed this with a fire hose since the immediate aftermath of the Iranian revolution and the “hostage crisis” – basically my entire adult life. It has been reinforced over the intervening decades, through the Iran-Iraq war years (recall the “hostages” in Lebanon), the confrontations in the 90s, their inclusion in the “Axis of Evil”, and so on. Trump is a product of the same smear campaign.