Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Trump's Big Foreign Policy Speech Disaster

Donald Trump is proud of the fact that he is not career politician nor a life-long foreign policy wonk. He believes that an ignorant amateur will succeed where well-informed professionals have struggled. Yesterday, he offered a speech on national security that would be an embarrassment in a high school debate. It proves once again that he is unfit to know the nuclear codes, conduct international negotiations or even appoint low-level embassy staff.

First, the falsehoods, mis-statements, and lies. He blamed President Obama and Mrs. Clinton for the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and for the destabilization in the Middle East. ISIS is just another incarnation of the Sunni fundamentalists who used to be Al Qaeda in Iraq, and before that, who formed the officer corps of the Iraqi Army under Saddam. Blame there goes to the Lesser Bush administration. Instability in the Middle East in general was brought about by the Arab Spring, so one can "blame" the Arabs themselves. He blamed the current administration for making Iran the biggest power in the region, which will come as news to nuclear-armed Israel. Lumping the Shi'ites in with the Sunnis merely shows he knows nothing of local history, culture or religion.

Second, the speech included a daft idea for making America safer. "Extreme vetting" is not the practice of veterinary medicine under difficult circumstances, but rather is it the name of Mr. Trump's woolly idea for keeping out the bad guys. He proposed an ideological test for admission to the US, which sounds brilliant until one considers that the bad guys could simply lie about their intentions and values.

Third, Mr. Trump proposed a commission that would "expose the networks in our society that support radicalization." One presumes he did not mean Fox News, but rather those hard-to-find associations of malefactors who hide under the bed of every decent American. Such a Committee of Public Safety could do exactly what a similarly named agency did in Revolutionary France -- create a reign of terror. Note one cautiously avoided comparison to any 20th century dictator, although Mr. Trump here has proved himself a fascist.

Fourth, Mr. Trump said that the US should have seized Iraqi oil assets after the 2003 attack on Iraq and deployed US troops to protect them. The "spoils" of war was the term he used. This is the same Mr. Trump who, in the same speech, condemned America's imperial "over-reach." The man is adept at forgetting what he has just said.

Fifth, he proposed working closely with NATO to defeat terrorism. This is the same NATO he would undermine by not defending members who hadn't fully discharged their obligations under rule that requires 2% of GDP going to military spending. Only the UK, Estonia, Greece and Poland meet Mr. Trump's demands in addition to the US. So, one would presumably not work with Germany, France and Belgium, from whence many of the recent ISIS attacks have come and where there is a great deal of intelligence to gather. Or perhaps, Mr. Trump will defend them against ISIS but not Russia.

Last, however, it is the Russian dimension that troubles this journal the most. While one believes that Russia can contribute to anti-terrorist efforts, Mr. Trump seems oblivious to the state of play in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Quite simply, one believes that an expansionist Russia is a greater threat (by about 10,000 nuclear warheads) than ISIS, which doesn't even have its own weapons industry outside of a few kitchen bomb factories. The ties between ousted Ukrainian President Yanukovych (who was and is the Kremlin's man, heart and soul) and Trump campaign director Paul Manafort are awkward at best, and represent recruitment of Mr. Manafort (indirectly) by the Russian security and spy communities at worst.

This journal bears no love for the Clintonistas, and in fact, one believes a Hillary Clinton presidency would result in mass deployment of US armed forces before her four years were up. However, the country would survive that. One also believes that Mr. Trump is vastly worse, to the point of doubting whether the country (or the planet) would survive four years of him in the Oval Office.

© Copyright 2016 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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