Special Opinion to the Mirror by Paul Plante
Those who don’t know history are fools and those who make them their leaders and then follow them are even bigger fools, and we are privileged to be living in a time when that story is playing out all around us on the world stage, where the con-man, that being United States President and seemingly World-Class moron Donald J. Trump, the “Let’s Do A Deal Dude” who is running this country like it was a shady bidness in some third-world ****hole, has inflicted FIRE AND FURY (a very tired and hackneyed phrase these days) on Bashar Assad of Syria.
Except he didn’t, and the only ones who believe that crap spew that he did are the incurably incredulous in this country who watched the fireworks on TV and said to themselves “WOW, HOLEY MOLEY, ZOUNDS, LOOK AT THAT TRUMP PUTTING A REAL GOOD ***-WHUPPING ON THAT BASHER DUDE IN SYRIA WHO IS KILLING THE MERCENARIES WE HAVE OVER THERE TRYING TO OVERTHROW HIM!”
Except he didn’t.
Look at what Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA analyst and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute has to say about it in the Washington Post article “Trump’s strikes on Syria risk retaliation, escalation in a war he wants to avoid” by Paul Sonne on 14 April 2018, as follows:
The allure of such strikes, Pollack said, is that they are “feel-good military operations,” which make the American public think they have done something to help Syrians.
“No we didn’t,” Pollack said.
End quotes
There is where the appellation of the “Con-Man” comes in here, because people, this whole “FIRE AND FURY” charade is a SCAM, on us.
Those were empty building that Trump and his buddies “Terrible Theresa” May of England, and Macron over in France inflicted all that “FIRE AND FURY” on.
According to news reports, the French got on the telly with “Pooty” over in Russia days before the “FIRE AND FURY” actually came to work out what targets it was okay to hit, to make Trump look tough to the gullible Americans, who will believe anything, and usually do, while not upsetting the Russians.
Consider the Reuters article “US, British, French air strikes target Syrian chemical capabilities” by Steve Holland and Phil Stewart on 14 April 2018, where U.S. President Donald Trump told the universe that the three allies had “marshaled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality” (what a great TWEET that made for), on that subject, as follows:
The sites that were targeted had been evacuated days ago thanks to a warning from Russia, the official said.
French Defence Minister Florence Parly said the Russians “were warned beforehand” to avoid inadvertant escalation.
End quotes
We just bombed the **** out of a bunch of empty buildings, people!
That wasn’t “FIRE AND FURY!”
It was an empty spectacle.
So much for the Three Stooges “marshaling their righteous power against barbarism and brutality,”
In the meantime, as has been pointed out to those of us in this country who still possess working memories that can assimilate far more than 180-character at a time by retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War in the Washington Post article “Trump’s strikes on Syria risk retaliation, escalation in a war he wants to avoid” by Paul Sonne on 14 April 2018, the Con-Man has put himself, and this nation, and all of us in it, into a new game that he is entering into completely blind:
“Given the linkage between Russia, Iran and Assad, an attack that we would consider limited and precise might be misconstrued by one or more of those three parties and justify from their perspective a retaliatory strike,” said retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War.
“Then what do we do?”
End quotes
And the answer is, Trump don’t know, and Trump doesn’t have a clue, because Trump thinks he is in control here, when he doesn’t even have a clue as to what is really going on, anywhere, starting in his own Oval Office.
He does control “FIRE AND FURY,” afterall, at least in his own mind, and with Trump, that is all that matters to him – that he know he is the righteous one here, not Bashar Assad.
So what is this about the Con-Man’s “comeuppance,” then?
Well, let’s go back to the Reuters article “US, British, French air strikes target Syrian chemical capabilities” by Steve Holland and Phil Stewart on 14 April 2018, where we find as follows:
Syria released video of President Bashar al-Assad, whose Russian- and Iranian-backed forces have already driven his enemies from Syria’s major towns and cities, arriving at work as usual, with the caption “morning of resilience.”
End quotes
“HO ******* HUM,” says Bashar as he makes his way to work as usual after the terrible ***-whupping the gullible people in this country think Trump inflicted on him.
And here, people, is where the lessons of history come in – specifically, our own, first with respect to Korea in 1950, where we totally miscalculated what the Chinese and Mao Tse Tung would do if MacArthur drove his American forces to the Yalu, and then again in Viet Nam, where we totally miscalculated what Ho Chi Minh (“He Who Enlightens,” for those who are interested in history) and Giap would do if we started bombing the north.
By going to work as usual after Trump crowing about marshaling his “righteous power against barbarism and brutality,” Assad has stolen a march on Trump with a goodly part of the world that really doesn’t like to be pushed around by ignorant bullies in Washington, D.C.
Some time back, when Trump was trying to bully “The Penguin” over in North Korea, Trump’s COMMISSAR OF FIRE AND FURY James “Mad Dawg” Mattis went to Fort Bragg, home of the 82d Airborne Division, and he recommended that the troops read T.R. Fehrenbach’s military classic “This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness,” first published in 1963, telling them, “Knowing what went wrong the last time around is as important as knowing your own testing, so that you’re forewarned – you know what I’m driving at here,” as soldiers listened in silence.
When I read of “Mad Dawg” Mattis, a famed Marine general, making that recommendation to the troops, I immediately got a copy for myself and read it from cover to cover, absorbing it in the detail Trump so obviously has missed.
The other key history that is relevant right now is David Halberstam’s “The Best and the Brightest,” a story of how a series of miscalculations by the fools in Washington, D.C., including FDR and Harry S. Truman and JFK and LBJ starting during WWII when FDR handed Korea to the Russians, then mired us first in a conflict in Korea with Communist China, a conflict which served to make Communist China a military world-power shown to the world as being capable of beating the vaunted United States to a standstill in Korea, despite all of our bombs, and missiles and planes and air power and industrial capacity that the Chinese did not have, and then again in Viet Nam.
And now, Trump is doing the same thing in the Middle East.
Going back to the Washington Post article “Trump’s strikes on Syria risk retaliation, escalation in a war he wants to avoid” by Paul Sonne on 14 April 2018, we find that statement confirmed by Robert Ford, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria and fellow at the Middle East Institute and Yale University, as follows:
“I don’t think, in order to make the deterrent stick, that this can be the last attack,” Ford said.
But the military intervention also comes as Washington has all but given up on seeking the removal of Assad more than seven years into Syria’s civil war.
Trump wants the Pentagon to withdraw U.S. troops after the Kurdish-led militia Washington is backing in Syria finishes off the remnants of the Islamic State terror group.
The departure of U.S. troops, military strategists say, will probably pave the way for Assad’s consolidation of control in the country, backed by Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.
The result is what Defense Secretary Jim Mattis described in congressional testimony on Thursday as “contrary impulses.”
On the one hand, Trump wants the United States to have nothing to do with Syria.
On the other, he wants to dictate norms of behavior on Syria’s battlefield that upset him when violated.
But for Washington to stop Assad from killing his own citizens more broadly, “we’re getting closer to a regime-change scenario because he’s bombing almost every day,” said Ford, the former U.S. ambassador.
“To me, that’s drawing us in.”
“I have zero confidence that we could control where that goes then.”
End quotes
That is the Korea and Viet Nam scenario all over again, folks.
Another ignorant weak man in the Washington White House trying to look like a strong man on the world stage gets WE, THE PEOPLE further embroiled in another war that he doesn’t know how to fight or win, like Barack Obama before him, who started the mess in Syria in the first place, along with Hillary Clinton, who started the regime train in Syria rolling back in 2011, and in the meantime, Trump is being compared by the Russians to another military loser in history in a FOX NEWS article entitled “Russian officials warn of ‘consequences’ after US-led airstrikes on Syria” by Stephen Sorace on 14 April 2018, as follows:
Alexander Sherin, deputy head of the State Duma’s defense committee, likened Trump to Adolf Hitler, and considered the strikes to be a move against Russia.
Trump “can be called Adolf Hitler No. 2 of our time — because, you see, he even chose the time that Hitler attacked the Soviet Union,” state news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Sherin as saying.
End quotes
And on Friday, in a Marketwatch article by Myra P. Saefong and Sara Sjolin published April 13 2018, we were informed that crude-oil prices rose for a fifth straight session Friday, with U.S. benchmark crude tallying a gain of nearly 9% for the week, driven by fears of a U.S.-led military conflict in Syria.
Now that Trump has released his “FIRE AND FURY,” and vows even more, what is known in the oil trade as “geopolitical tensions” will likely have the price of a barrel of oil skyrocketing on Monday, to the detriment of Joe American Citizen already struggling to make ends meet in this country as the price of goods and services keeps escalating.
And in the Marketwatch Bond Report by Mark DeCambre and Sunny Oh on April 10, 2018, we were told as follows:
Looking ahead, bond buyers are bracing for some $34 billion of notes and bonds due to be auctioned by the government later this week, which could push yields higher and prices lower.
An auction Tuesday for $30 billion of three-year notes drew lackluster appetite after foreign investors cut back their buying.
The Congressional Budget Office on Monday said that the U.S. budget deficit will rise to $804 billion in 2018, and exceed $1 trillion a year starting in 2020.
“Waning Treasury demand is especially worrisome with the deficit-boosting plans of the current administration (the CBO said that the deficit will top a trillion by 2020).”
“These plans may require even more aggressive Treasury auctions than Mnuchin has already planned,” said Max Gokhman, head of asset allocation at Pacific Life Fund Advisors.
End quotes
Waning demand from foreign investors, people!
Trump wants to fight a war, he has to borrow money to do so, because we don’t have it, being some twenty trillion in debt as we now are, and to do that, he has to sell debt in the form of bonds.
If nobody buys those bonds, Trump has no money for his war.
And that takes us to another Marketwatch article by Robert Schroeder published April 9, 2018, where we were given this news:
The Congressional Budget Office on Monday forecast a rising tide of red ink in the coming years, saying that trillion-dollar deficits will return in 2020 in its first report since President Donald Trump signed last year’s tax cut and this year’s big spending bill.
The CBO said the budget deficit would be $804 billion for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, well above the $665 billion shortfall the government notched at the end of fiscal 2017.
The coming shortfalls will follow the $1.5 trillion tax cut Trump signed in late December, as well as the $1.3 trillion spending bill he enacted in March.
The CBO’s report came with a warning about the rising debt that would result from accumulating deficits.
Debt held by the public will rise from 78% of the economy at the end of 2018 to 96% by 2028, the report estimated, and said that would increase the likelihood of a fiscal crisis.
End quotes
There is our future staring us right in the face, people.
Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them all over again, and people, that is us.
Reminds me of a song from the days of my childhood:
Driving that train, high on cocaine,
Casey Jones you better watch your speed
Trouble ahead, trouble behind
And you know that notion just crossed my mind.
Hence this essay!
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If the DUMB ASS DEMOCRATS had sense enough to get behind anyone other than Monica
Lewinsky’s boyfriends wife things might have turned out differently.
And talk about the week that wasn’t, this was it, in spades.
True, in an article in THE HILL entitled “Ryan: Trillion-dollar deficits were inevitable” by Alexander Bolton on 16 April 2018, we were informed that Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said trillion-dollar deficits could not have been avoided by the GOP-controlled Congress, responding to critics within his party who say that leaders have behaved irresponsibly:
“That was going to happen.”
“The baby boomers retiring was going to do that,” Ryan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” of projections that the country will start running trillion-dollar deficits as soon as 2020.
end quotes
So that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Trump’s totally bogus attack on a bunch of empty buildings in Syria that cost us, according to a CNBC article on the subject by Amanda Macias on 17 April 2018, as follows:
• U.S. forces fired 66 Tomahawk cruise missiles on three Syrian targets early morning local time, making for a price tag of $92.4 million for those missiles alone.
• The U.S. fired 19 of a different kind of missile on Syria, for a cost of $26.6 million.
The final bill isn’t clear, however, according to that article, but hey, when we are looking at TRILLION dollar deficits caused by the baby boomers, what is a wasted billion or so on fake wars, here and there?
Apples and oranges, isn’t it?
And besides, for that money, the American public got quite a show, a spectacle, in fact, complete with Donald Trump telling us “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED,” even though the mission was only some urban renewal for Bashar Assad in Syria, so we should consider that money well spent, unlike money spent on retiring baby boomers, which is anathema to the conservative Republicans like Paul Ryan, who only have the nation’s fiscal well-being at heart.
The only thing missing from Trump’s royal fireworks show in Syria was some martial music such as that composed by Handel for the Royal Fireworks in England commissioned to mark the muddled end to the muddled War of the Austrian Succession, in which England’s stake seemed limited to the personal interest of King George II.
As a native of Germany and a scion of the royal house of Hanover, George II was England’s dog in a continental fight that ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, ensuring his place in the Hanoverian succession, just as Trump is now America’s dog in this fight with Russia, Syria, and pretty much the rest of the world.
Back then, a royal celebration was in order — planned by the stage designer of the Paris Opéra to include the most spectacular fireworks in the most spectacular setting imaginable on April 27, 1749.
So are we going to get that in America today?
If so, why not?
No money in the budget for it?
Getting back to that article in THE HILL, Ryan and other GOP leaders have come under fire for passing a $1.5 trillion tax cut last year, which may wind up costing more than expected, in addition to a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending package in March.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said voting for the tax package “could well be one of the worst votes I’ve made” and that the Trump administration is “on track to be one of the most fiscally irresponsible administrations in history,” but that did not stop Bob from voting on it, as a good Republican should.
According to Ryan, “These deficit trillion-dollar projections have been out there for a long, long time.”
“Why?”
“Because of mandatory spending which we call entitlements,” he said when pressed by NBC host Chuck Todd on Corker’s criticism.
end quotes
How about all the tens of billions per week we spend fighting wars all over the planet?
Doesn’t that add to the budget deficit?
And getting back to the week that wasn’t, according to the MARKETWATCH Bond Report by Sunny Oh published April 16, 2018, Treasury yields retraced their climb Monday after speakers from the Federal Reserve appeared to open the door to a steeper rate-hike trajectory, a move that would flatten the so-called yield curve.
According to that article, with fears fading over U.S. military intervention in Syria, investors who had sought shelter in Treasurys switched back into risky assets, because while the U.S., Britain and France launched missile strikes in Syria against a bunch of empty buildings, they left President Bashar al-Assad’s conventional military facilities intact, which then helped ease concerns the U.S. would escalate tensions with Russia, which has backed the incumbent Syrian regime.
That is the good thing about fake wars, afterall – the investor crowd knows they are fake, so they don’t get all nervous about them interrupting the cash flow of the investor class, who actually make money off these fake wars.
And according to the MARKETWATCH article “U.S. retail sales pop up 0.6% in March after three straight declines” by Jeffry Bartash published April 16, 2018, sales at U.S. retailers rose 0.6% in March to end a streak of three straight declines, the Commerce Department reported, underscoring the improved financial picture of American households and the resiliency of an economic expansion that could turn out to be the longest ever.
As to oil, according to the MARKETWATCH article “Oil gives back some of last week’s big gains as Syria worries fade” by Myra P. Saefong and Barbara Kollmeyer published April 16, 2018, oil actually ended lower on Monday, giving back some of last week’s sharp gains amid fading worries of potential retaliation from Russia following weekend airstrikes on the country’s ally Syria.
Ah, yes, fading worries.
Don’t trouble yourself, people, it was only a fake air strike, afterall.
According to that article, “A lack of Russia response [to the airstrikes] is keeping oil at bay,” said Scott Gecas, senior strategic account executive at Long Leaf Trading Group.
Oil prices had climbed last week on fears of an escalation in tensions over Syria, which put Russia in a war of words with the U.S.
Investors were taking profits Monday on the expectation that neither Russia nor Iran, an Assad supporter, would retaliate for the strikes, which were limited to those empty buildings in Syria, so that was again good for the investor class in America,
And according to the MARKETWATCH article “U.S. stocks close higher, S&P 500 back in positive territory for 2018” by Ryan Vlastelica published April 16, 2018, U.S. stocks closed sharply higher on Monday, with major indexes rallying in a broad advance as the first-quarter earnings season pointed to strong growth and geopolitical tensions showed signs of easing.
So, so much for all the DOOM and GLOOM predictions of last week, when we thought we might actually get into a real war, instead of a fake war, which somehow serves in some in defined manner to remind me of the “Sturm und Drang” movement of back when, where French neoclassicism, a movement beginning in the early Baroque, with its emphasis on the rational, was the principal target of rebellion for adherents of the Sturm und Drang movement.
Doesn’t it seem as if we today in America are witnessing an attack on rationality?
Getting back to “Sturm und Drang,” according to Wikipedia, for them, sentimentality and an objective view of life gave way to emotional turbulence and individuality, and enlightenment ideals such as rationalism, empiricism, and universalism no longer captured the human condition.
Instead, emotional extremes and subjectivity became the vogue during the late 18th century, just as it is now becoming the vogue in this country in 2018.
Interestingly, the origin of the term Sturm und Drang first appeared as the title of a play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, written for Abel Seyler’s Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft and published in 1776, where the setting of the play was the unfolding American Revolution, in which the author gives violent expression to difficult emotions and extols individuality and subjectivity over the prevailing order of rationalism.
And all these years later, there we are, all over again here in America, with violent expression being given to difficult emotions and individuality and subjectivity prevailing over the order of rationalism.
In the meantime, over in Syria, according to the Wall Street Journal in its article “Syria brushes off U.S.-led airstrikes, launches new attacks against rebels” by Sune Engel Rasmussen and Raja Abdulrahim published Apr 15, 2018, it was bidness as usual, ho hum, to wit:
BEIRUT — Syrian armed forces on Sunday unleashed airstrikes against rebels and shelled what rescue workers said were civilian homes, as President Bashar al-Assad sought to demonstrate his regime’s continued strength a day after a U.S.-led missile attack.
The American, French and British barrage of missiles on Saturday destroyed much of Syria’s chemical-weapons capabilities, U.S. Defense Department officials said, but left Assad’s conventional military intact.
American officials said the strikes were retaliation for a suspected regime attack with chlorine and nerve gas on Eastern Ghouta near Damascus on April 7 but weren’t designed to topple Assad or change the course of a war tilting in his favor.
Since the Western attack early Saturday morning local time, Assad’s regime tried to show that the country was going about its business normally.
A nine-second video purportedly showing Assad walking into work, briefcase in hand, was posted on his Twitter account, garnering over 1 million views.
Regime planes conducted at least 28 strikes in the countryside of Homs and Hama followed by artillery shelling, including on civilian areas, the White Helmets rescue group said on Sunday.
end quotes
So that is pretty much it, people, the week that wasn’t.
Punctuation should helpful here. Not even going to try to read. Oh and it’s gibberish.
Melinda, thank you so very much for your eloquent critic of my diction and rhetoric above here.
As you can probably discern, I am from the country and am largely self taught as to my cyphering and letters, so that when a chance like this to get critiqued by a rhetorician like yourself, I must admit to being truly humbled by the opportunity.
Your advice reminds me very much of the advice Abraham Lincoln expressed to Isham Reavis in a letter on November 5, 1855, to wit:
My dear Sir:
If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already.
It is but a small matter whether you read with any body or not.
I did not read with any one.
Get the books, and read and study them till, you understand them in their principal features; and that is the main thing.
It is of no consequence to be in a large town while you are reading.
I read at New-Salem, which never had three hundred people living in it.
The books, and your capacity for understanding them, are just the same in all places.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.
Very truly Your friend
A. Lincoln
end quotes
That, Melinda, is the kind of encouragement I got from your eloquent post above, and I thank you for it.
I’m with Melinda! COMPLETE GIBBER JABBER!
WE MUST NOW BRACE OURSELVES FOR ANOTHER TIRADE BY PAUL…..RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! LOL!
Deborah Bender, you’re hilarious, did you know that?
Oh, yes, you are, how you can twist and spin words around in here with such facility like slashing whips that you can literally get yourself tied tight in a knot no bigger than a small ball!
And how the audiences howl when you do it, and why not?
People need to laugh more, and you give them a reason to do so, and in that, you are doing a lot more than a lot of other people are, and that is something to your credit.
And if you are with Melinda, Deborah Bender, I’m cool with that, and really, it is none of my business, anyway, who people in here are with, or not with.
You know, don’t ask, don’t tell?
And what was it that was so hard to comprehend, Deborah Bender
More to the point, and this is the important part, what on earth about the story made you so emotional and hysterical?
The sky is falling?
Not hardly, Deborah Bender!
That is just campy drama on your part, over-emotionalism on display.
Why?
Are you trying out for summer stock in here to get a part as one of those who is always sighing and fainting over the smallest thing?
That is one of those parts people always like to see in summer stock productions, for some reason that is lost on me, not having good access to summer stock the way people down there do.
So our cultures are vastly different in so many ways, Deborah Bender, that no wonder you are confused and thought the sky was going to fall.
Trust me, it’s not.
As to “tirades,” Deborah Bender, they are a long, angry speech of criticism or accusation.
That is hardly what is going on in here.
There has been no long, angry speech of criticism or accusation in here, Deborah Bender, other than your accusation that the sky is falling, which proved false.
All there has been, Deborah Bender, on my part, is a laconic recounting of what was essentially no news at all, because other than a war games exercise between Trump and Russia that they are arguing over who won, nothing of any note happened.
That’s it.
And, Deborah Bender, thanks for giving us the opportunity to get all of that background drama cleared out of here!
It certainly is appreciated.
Deborah Bender, it just came to me why you and Melinda are so upset here.
You two are a part of that handful of people in America who didn’t realize that this TRUMP FIREWORKS EXTRAVAGANZA in Syria was just that – an empty show to gull the naïve and foolish in this country into thinking Trump had just put some WHUP-*** on Bashar Assad in Syria, when all he did was do some urban renewal demolition for Bashar.
Maybe he cleared the site of a future Trump Tower Damascus with our cruise missiles for all we know.
But what we do know is that the whole shebang was a ruse as far as teaching Bashar Assad any kind of lessons.
Yes, real missiles were used, because people in America like to see things go bang in other countries, but the targets were pre-selected in concert with Russia, and they were empty buildings.
That you cannot dispute, try as you may, because that fact was reported in the Washington Post.
And by blowing the whistle on the scam in here, I have made you feel bad about yourself, instead of making you feel all warm and squishy inside, and now, because of that, you are being forced to have to question your valeus and your basic assumptions about life, and trust me, Deborah Bender, when you finally come out on the other side, and realize you have been had by Trump, who is a con-man, and proud of it, you’ll be a better person for it, and much harder to fool the next time around.
And that will be good for the nation, and for the world, as well.
LOL@ Paul !!!
LIKE I SAID TIRADE!
“On Why This Laconic Recital of Fact Cannot At The Same Be A Tirade – A Rational Analysis Based On Application of Reason!”
Since Deborah Bender has been courteous enough. and conscientious enough, and yes, patriotic enough to provide us all, including myself, with a teaching moment so vital to us in these highly confused and troubled times we find ourselves mired in, with seemingly no escape from the constant bursts of sheer insanity emanating from inside the Beltway around Washington, D.C., I think it behooves us all as fellow American citizens to follow the lesson along, so that in the end, we are all better prepared to recognize a true tirade, which by agreed upon definition in America means a long, angry speech of criticism or accusation, from the laconic reportage of recent current events in the recounting from news sources about Trump’s GRAND FIREWORKS EXTRAVAGANZA in Syria, where he and his buddy Putin were sitting, strapped in to their respective commander’s chair, Trump hurling missiles at the some pre-selected targets in Damascus satisfactory to Trump, Putin, Bashar Assad, the French dude, and “Terrible Theresa” May, the iron-girdled warrior queen of the British Isles, and a lot else, too, including Syria.
For this laconic (terse, succinct, pithy) reportage above to truly have been a classical tirade, such as are discussed at length by poly sci students in the great universities of this proud nation, there would have had to be something to have a long, angry speech of criticism or accusation about in the first place, and people, seriously, there just wasn’t.
Business as usual!
No DOOM and GLOOM or STURM und DRUNG!
No nothing!
It truly was the week that wasn’t in that regard.
So there is nothing to have a tirade about.
Which is why this wasn’t one of them.
And we all owe Deborah Bender a debt of gratitude for pointing that out to all of us in here, and especially myself, who is largely self-taught in my cyphering and letters, and so, appreciates it greatly when I can get professional advice on how to communicate from such experts on the subject as Deborah Bender.
And for the laconic restatement of the week that really wasn’t, when you come right down to it, first of all, we know from the Reuters article “US, British, French air strikes target Syrian chemical capabilities” by Steve Holland and Phil Stewart on 14 April 2018 that all Trump really did with his FIREWORKS EXTRAVAGANZA in Syria to gull the gullible in America was to bomb the **** out of some empty buildings, to wit:
WASHINGTON/BEIRUT, April 14 (Reuters) – U.S., British and French forces struck Syria with more than 100 missiles on Saturday in the first coordinated Western strikes against the Damascus government, targetting what they called chemical weapons sites in retaliation for a poison gas attack.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced the military action from the White House, saying the three allies had “marshaled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality.”
The bombing represents a major escalation putting the West in direct confrontation with Assad’s superpower ally Russia, but is unlikely to alter the course of a multi-sided war which has killed at least half a million people in the past seven years.
That in turn raises the question of where Western countries go from here, after a volley of strikes denounced by Damascus and Moscow as both reckless and pointless.
Syria released video of President Bashar al-Assad, whose Russian- and Iranian-backed forces have already driven his enemies from Syria’s major towns and cities, arriving at work as usual, with the caption “morning of resilience.”
The sites that were targeted had been evacuated days ago thanks to a warning from Russia, the official said.
French Defence Minister Florence Parly said the Russians “were warned beforehand” to avoid inadvertant escalation.
end quotes
HO HUM, people, if you know what I mean – it wasn’t a war – it was simply a war game between Putin and Trump to really see for once and for all who has the better weapons systems, and right now, the opinion is that it was the Russians, but that debate will probably go on forever, so again, HO HUM.
There just is no meat here to get a tirade out of, which by agreed upon definition in America means a long, angry speech of criticism or accusation.
What is there here to make a long, angry speech about?
Besides nothing?
And what accusations can be made when the truth of the matter has been so openly admitted?
It was all a bunch of hype, bluff and bravado from Trump, as we can see from this article from USA TODAY entitled “Analysis: Trump’s strike on Syria has fire and fury — but not the element of surprise” by Gregory Korte published April 13, 2018, as follows:
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s order to strike Syria Friday night was as predictable as his Saturday morning tweet storms.
After a presidential campaign in which he repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton for telegraphing her military plans to the enemy, Trump was hardly subtle in the run-up to the latest strike against Syria.
“Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria.”
“Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!'” he tweeted on Wednesday.
He backpedaled the next day, saying he never said when an attack would take place.
“Could be very soon or not so soon at all!” he tweeted.
As U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May put it, “The fact of this attack should surprise no-one.”
Russia, too, was hardly caught off guard.
The state-run Tass news agency reported earlier Friday that Russian ships were closely watching U.S. destroyers in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, from which air strikes would likely be launched.
end quotes
Again, people, how is it even possible to get a real, true diatribe out of any of that?
If it could be done, and color me a doubter, it would have to be by somebody far more facile than I in the use of words, and that is a fact!
And look, people, when it comes to bluff, bravado, and bluster and just plain showmanship here, let us not forget who it is we are talking about here, as can be seen in the article “Donald Trump’s Long Wrestling History Explains His Presidency” by Eric Francisco on July 5, 2017, as follows:
In fact, a look at Trump’s history in pro wrestling is almost a perfect explainer for how he’s carried himself in the nation’s highest office.
Trump’s relationship to pro wrestling dates dates back to 1988, when the then-casino magnate sponsored the then-WWF’s fourth annual WrestleMania.
“I just wanted a piece of it,” Trump said on the WWE-produced documentary, The True Story of WrestleMania.
“Everybody in the country wanted this event, and we were able to get it.”
The event was billed as being broadcast live from the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City; in reality, it took place in the Atlantic City Convention Hall, but it’s common in wrestling to embellish facts, because it is real fake news.
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Given that history, it is only natural that Trump the Showman woul;d want to outdo himself with a GRAND SPECTACULAR rocket battle with Putin of Russia as the bad guy, and really, people, what is there in that to have a tirade about?
That is was merely a war game and not a real exercise war is apparent from the following from the Brits, who write wonderfully in the English language but can’t speak it worth a damn, in the Guardian article “Russia claims Syria air defences shot down 71 of 103 missiles – Moscow says Syria’s Soviet-era systems downed majority of US, UK and French missiles” by Peter Beaumont and Andrew Roth in Moscow on 14 April 2018, last modified on 16 April 2018, as follows:
The Russian military has claimed that the Syrian air defences, whose most modern weapon is a three-decades-old Russian-supplied anti-aircraft system, shot down 71 of 103 missiles fired by the US and its allies, the UK and France, a claim denied by the Pentagon.
Russia said its advisers had spent the last 18 months completely rebuilding the Syrian air defence system, and said the high number of intercepted rockets spoke to “the high effectiveness of the weaponry in Syria and the excellent training of Syrian servicemen prepared by our specialists”.
The latest raids have underlined how, despite the huge humanitarian cost of the war in Syria, the country has become a proving ground for some of the world’s most advanced weapons systems, deployed both by the US and Russia.
According to reports in the immediate aftermath of the attack, the strikes involved the first combat use of the JASSM advanced missile, reportedly fired from US B1-B Lancer heavy bombers.
The use of the JASSM – which first came into use nine years ago – would fit with Donald Trump’s tweet this week warning Russia the US would respond with a “new” and “smart” missile.
Trump and Putin have been engaged in recent months in something of a rhetorical arms race over weapons systems and their capabilities, with Putin boasting of new hypersonic nuclear missiles and high-speed submarines before the recent presidential election.
Russia this year deployed its most advanced fighter jet to Syria, the stealth-capable Su-57.
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Just some grown-up children playing with their new and fancy toys is all, people, and who in their right mind can have a tirade about that?
And there is this as well from the WCJB article “UPDATE: Russia to help secure visit to Syria attack site” by Associated Press on April 16, 2018, to wit:
The Russian military says Syria’s Russian-made air defense systems proved highly efficient in fending off missile strikes by the U.S. and its allies.
Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, said Monday that Syria used the Pantsir-S1 air defense systems supplied by Russia along with older Soviet-built air defense missiles to counter Saturday’s strikes by the U.S., Britain and France.
Konashenkov said Syria fired 112 air defense missiles, shooting down 71 out of 103 incoming missiles.
He said the Pantsir systems were particularly effective, with 23 out of 25 missiles they fired hitting the incoming missiles.
The Pentagon has previously dismissed Moscow’s claims, saying that none of the missiles fired by the allies were intercepted by Syrian forces.
The Russian military has disputed the Pentagon’s account of the weekend strike on Syria, saying the U.S. and its allies tried but failed to hit more Syrian facilities than they acknowledged.
Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, said Monday the Western countries targeted seven additional Syrian air bases but failed to inflict any significant damage.
He said Syria downed 71 out of 103 missiles launched by the U.S., Britain and France.
The U.S. says 105 missiles were launched at three sites, destroying a scientific research center near Damascus used by Syria’s chemical weapons program along with two other chemical weapons facilities in the central Homs province.
The Pentagon has previously dismissed Moscow’s claim that the Syrians downed 71 missiles.
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See what I mean about children squabbling over who really won the game of marbles?
And here is our General Dunford with our side of it in the Telegraph article “Syria fired 40 missiles ‘at nothing’ after allied air strikes destroyed three Assad chemical sites” by Gareth Davies on 14 April 2018:
The US’s top general played down the Syrian response, and asked if there had been any Russian retaliation, General Dunford said: “We did have some initial surface-to-air missile activity from the Syrian regime.”
“That’s the only retaliatory action we’re aware of at this time.”
“We’ve completed the targets that were assigned to the United States central command.”
“Those operations are complete.”
He added: “We specifically identified these targets to mitigate the risk of Russian forces being involved.”
“We did not do any co-ordination with the Russians on the strikes, nor did we pre-notify them.”
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And no, he didn’t notify the Russians, but the French did.
That’s why all the buildings were empty.
Because like the pro wrestling Trump was once big on, it was all fake.
And that, people, it the news from the week that really wasn’t.
If you are looking for a real diatribe about it, try the New York Times or the Washington Post, where they have professional, world-class diatribe writers, because you won’t find it here.
That’s my take on it, anyway.
Well, it appears from the DEFENSE NEWS story “Why the DOJ says Trump was justified in Syria airstrikes” by Joe Gould on 1 June 2018 that the week that wasn’t still is not over, the “week that wasn’t” being Trump’s Fireworks Extravaganza that he staged for the American people on 14 April 2018 when he bombed the living **** out of a bunch of empty buildings in Syria, in a vain attempt to prove to the American people that he is at least as tough as “tall in the saddle” American president Lyndon Baines Johnson, if not tougher, as we can see from the following:
U.S. President Donald Trump’s missile strikes against Syria this spring didn’t need congressional approval because they fell below the threshold of “war in the constitutional sense,” the Justice Department said in a new memo Friday.
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Trump’s missile strikes against Syria this spring fell below the threshold of “war in the constitutional sense” precisely because it was a staged show.
The Constitution does not specifically require the president to seek approval to use our military to stage a fireworks extravaganza for the American people, who need such entertainment to know that Trump loves them just as dearly as Barack Hussein Obama, who bombed Libya and Syria to prove how tough he was, and how much he loved the American people.
Getting back to the article:
The justification for the strikes as warranted drew immediate criticism from several lawmakers.
The Department of Justice said the strikes addressed vital national interests, though none were tied to self-defense.
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The “vital national interest” was staging a diversionary extravaganza for the American people to get their minds off of Trump allegedly doing the dirty and getting it on with porn star Stormy Daniels, so of course the Trump DOJ would rubberstamp its approval.
They don’t want to get fired, afterall, for going against Trump.
Getting back to the news:
Virginia Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine, a member of the Senate’s Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, called the legal opinion “nonsense” and “ludicrous.”
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There I have to agree with the dude, to be quite truthful – the so-called but misnamed “Justice” Department is spewing pure horse**** with that “legal” opinion, as we see from the following assessment by Tim Kaine, to wit:
“Is there any doubt that America would view a foreign nation firing missiles at targets on American soil as an act of war?” Kaine said in a statement.
“The ludicrous claim that this President can magically assert ‘national interest’ and redefine war to exclude missile attacks and thereby bypass Congress should alarm us all.”
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It would alarm us, if we were awake, but we are not, we are oblivious, so we are not alarmed at all, especially when we were afforded such entertainment by all those things going boom in Syria.
Getting back to the article:
Before U.S., France and Britain launched 105 cruise missiles on April 14, the DOJ told the White House the strike would be legal.
On Friday, the DOJ released the Office of Legal Counsel’s 22-page opinion on the latest airstrike, dated Thursday, and citing precedents under multiple administrations stretching back decades.
These included President Barack Obama’s airstrikes in Libya and in Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen.
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Ah, yes, Trump, a Republican, gets to do it, because Obama, a Democrat, got to do it, and Obama, a Democrat, got to do it, because Lyndon Baines Johnson, another Democrat, got to do it, so yes, it has to be both legal and constitutional then, or none of them could have by-passed Congress the way they did.
And getting back to that specific subject:
The memo, by Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel, asserted Trump’s justifications — promoting regional stability, stemming a humanitarian catastrophe and deterring chemical weapons use — were sufficient to bypass Congress.
Because the military action was limited in its nature, scope and duration — without ground troops or airplanes and directed only at the Syrian government’s chemical weapons — “it was not the kind of ‘prolonged and substantial military engagement’ that would amount to a war,” Engel’s memo stated.
On Thursday, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence ranking member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Kaine repeated calls for Congress to assert its war powers.
Both have called for legislation to update the post-9/11 war authorizations, but the path is unclear.
“The Administration’s assertion of its power to order the use of force in the absence of Congressional authorization is broad enough to include almost any military action short of all-out war,” Schiff said in a statement.
“This sweeping claim of power is an invitation to endless and unrestricted conflict, and begs for a congressional response.”
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Except I think Congress is too cowardly to give that response, so this is the news from the week that wasn’t updated.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.