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2020-01-18 -Short Attention Span Theater-

'I wouldn't go to war with you people. You're all LOSERS!' How Donald Trump insulted the military's most senior officers as 'dopes' prompting Rex Tillerson to call him a 'f***ing moron' is revealed in new book

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Posted by Skidmark 2020-01-18 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11130 views ] Top

#1 These were Obama's General's who had to kiss Susan Rice's arse in order to get permission to p.

Posted by Varmint Splat1454 2020-01-18 01:07|| 2020-01-18 01:07|| Front Page Top

#2 It started with Mattis giving a presentation in front of a screen saying: 'The post-war international rules-based order is the greatest gift of the greatest generation.'

? "Rules-based"? Really?

I think the good General needs to add a bit of Hobbes and Machiavelli, maybe also Morgenthau and Thucydides, to his reading list.

The order that prevailed from 1945 through 1992 was based on the balance of terror-- fear of a thermonuclear war between two global superpowers. No "rules" there. None needed.

The other dimension of that interstate system was almost constant proxy wars across the so-called Third World - wars which, "though not [always] recorded in any history book, were memorable enough for those who took part." Early a million of our and the Soviets' and our/their allies' soldiers died in those proxy wars.

So much for your "rules-based system."

Regarding the banking and trade institutions, it's true that these helped restore prosperity to Japan and Germany and western Europe, and also created wealthy new allies in South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere.

But what did those "rule-based systems" do for the American people?

Most Americans are poorer today in almost every sense than they were not long ago-- thanks to that "rule-based system" whose rules are honored in the breach by cheaters in China and freeloaders elsewhere.

Whatever the merits of such a system in 1949, or even 1999, its utility TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE has long since expired.

Trump correctly called bullshit on this equivalent of dead stars in the outer reaches of the universe: an idea that appears to be alive but in fact has been dead and irrelevant for many years.

Unpleasant, sure. Nasty? Maybe. But long overdue. Time to stop believing in dead stars.

Posted by Lex 2020-01-18 01:16|| 2020-01-18 01:16|| Front Page Top

#3 Trump isn't wrong about this.

The Western elites' collective masochistic nervous breakdown is very much also affecting military elites.

The issue isn't that we are losers, the issue is that we want to be losers.

Posted by Elmerert Hupens2660 2020-01-18 01:21|| 2020-01-18 01:21|| Front Page Top

#4 New rules: China's going to learn to live with them. No more Global Grifter games.

Posted by Lex 2020-01-18 01:35|| 2020-01-18 01:35|| Front Page Top

#5 He said of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, from which he would later withdraw the United States: 'It's the worst deal in history!'

'They're cheating. They're building. We're getting out of it. I keep telling you, I keep giving you time, and you keep delaying me. I want out of it.

Recent intelligence reporting appears to validate the Orange Man's 2017 assertion.

Posted by Besoeker 2020-01-18 02:30|| 2020-01-18 02:30|| Front Page Top

It started with Mattis giving a presentation in front of a screen saying: 'The post-war international rules-based order is the greatest gift of the greatest generation.'

The "greatest generation" should NOT be falsely credited with present-day strategies emanating from Langley, Virginia and Foggy Bottom.

Virtue signaling via proxy. A most unfortunate reference.

Posted by Besoeker 2020-01-18 02:47|| 2020-01-18 02:47|| Front Page Top

#7 General Officers are a political class with standardized clothing. They can join the rest of the political ruling class in our judgement of the quality of our government.

When was the last time you read of a GO that quit in protest over the conduct of a political-military operation? /rhet question

yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full sir.

Posted by Procopius2k 2020-01-18 03:08|| 2020-01-18 03:08|| Front Page Top

#8 Wilsonian generals meet a Jacksonian president?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-01-18 04:03|| 2020-01-18 04:03|| Front Page Top

#9 The postwar order worked. We won the Cold War.

That was 30 years ago. Since then it's been nothing but bad news for the American people. TPP would have handed over sovereignty to unelected judges. No. No. No.

No to globalism. I'm so sad that people like Mathis turned out to be globalists instead of on America's side. :(

Posted by Herb McCoy 2020-01-18 05:15|| 2020-01-18 05:15|| Front Page Top

#10 They don't get that the public's respect for the military is for their hometown boys in uniform, not for these stuffed shirt types. Just as we could never build the Hoover dam today, these clowns couldn't pull off Seven Days in May, let alone win WW II

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-01-18 08:01|| 2020-01-18 08:01|| Front Page Top

#11 And I guess only a select group recognizes the irony of "Mad Dog" running a PowerPoint presentation at the White House.

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-01-18 08:03|| 2020-01-18 08:03|| Front Page Top

#12 //www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/12/07/tillerson-trump-won-because-voters-disengaged-important-issues/
Dec 7, 2018Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson criticized Trump and his supporters during public remarks on Thursday night in Houston, Texas. "I will be honest with you, it troubles me that the American people seem to want to know so little about issues that they are satisfied with a 128 characters," Tillerson said, referencing Trump's prolific use of Twitter.

Posted by b 2020-01-18 08:17|| 2020-01-18 08:17|| Front Page Top

#13 Like clockwork (every four months or so), we get a book or story about Trump blowing his stack and calling people names. That it comes from two WaPo 'reporters' gives it half a chance of being complete fiction, pulled out of their asses sideways and cleaned up for printing.

Posted by Raj 2020-01-18 08:38|| 2020-01-18 08:38|| Front Page Top

#14 It's funny to read these characters' BS opinions and predictions re OrangeMan's foreign policy. The best way to see their stupidity is to line up several articles on the same topic over a few months-- or even, as in the case of Iran recently, over a couple of weeks.

Here's our premier long-form, smart-person's prestige media outlet, The Atlantic, opining on Trump in Seventeen Days in January:

Jan. 1 (Peter Beinart): OrangeMan is a dangerous fool who's about to get his are kicked! ["Trump Put Himself At Iran's Mercy: Donald Trump has picked a fight with Iran that he won't end and can't win. "]

Jan. 9 (Peter Nicholas): OrangeMan was lucky-- but his luck's about to run out! ["For now, President Donald Trump seems to have sidestepped an all-out war with Iran, opting instead for an uneasy standoff. The question is whether it will hold."]

Jan. 17 (Tom McTague): OrangeMan Wins! But it's not about him (he's still a bumbling fool)! ("Donald Trump Stumbles Into a Foreign-Policy Triumph. The president, however inadvertently, may be reminding the world of the reality of international relations.")

Posted by Lex 2020-01-18 08:59|| 2020-01-18 08:59|| Front Page Top

#15 There is one precious quote by the only person in the Washington foreign policy establishment who's wise enough, and honest enough, to admit that Trump's disruptions are necessary and long overdue:

"Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences.” - H.A. Kissinger

"End of an era" -- yes, exactly. Historians will mark January 2017 as the beginning of a new era in world history. The old order is finished. Gone. Dead as a doornail.

"force it to give up..."-- again, spot on. There was no way the old guard (that includes Kissinger, of course) was going to give up its cozy triangle without being FORCED to do so-- if need be, by a reality-TV star with bad manners. Here's the triad they were (still are) clinging to:

- swampy government jobs that allow vast overreach but that incur zero accountability for massive foreign policy f--kups;

- lucrative post-government sinecures at US investment banks and corporates that have made trillions off of globalism, even as the American middle class shrank and Americans' longevity actually DECLINED;

- the endless circle jerk of think tanks, fawning media outlets, and self-congratulatory, ridiculous conferences like Davos and Aspen.

And also, we now know, a fourth leg of the stool: the ability to use the security services of the Deep State to trash the Constitution, spy on domestic opponents and overturn the results of OUR OWN elections.

In short, these incompetents have been trashing this country and lining their pockets for decades. This is what Kissinger meant with his coy phrase, "the pretenses of our era."

Pretentious bastards, indeed.

Posted by Lex 2020-01-18 09:12|| 2020-01-18 09:12|| Front Page Top

#16 Re "rules-based":

The Iranian revolution fundamentally changed world politics precisely because the Iranian revolutionary regime has been openly violating the most basic rules of international conduct since 1979.

As a result Islam as a player in international politics was revived as the West's most formidable challenger. Western elites have acknowledged the moral precedence of Islamic doctrine over Western freedoms. Iran itself is a major player in international politics, it's political power being out of proportion compared to Iran's economic or conventional military abilities.

Violating the rules is a recipe for success, not failure.

Posted by Elmerert Hupens2660 2020-01-18 14:23|| 2020-01-18 14:23|| Front Page Top

#17 So if I understand this correctly, it is beyond the pale for the Commander-in-Chief to call his subordinates on the carpet with harsh language; however, it is perfectly fine for a subordinate to dismiss the C-in-C as a "fucking moron" behind his back.

There really needs to be a chistka.

If Trump gets Swamped in the election, or ends up in prison after leaving office, he'll have no one but himself to blame if he fails to get ruthless with these people now.

Posted by charger 2020-01-18 14:47|| 2020-01-18 14:47|| Front Page Top

#18 ...written in high indignation by a pair of Washington Post reporters and set to appear in bookstores next week.

WAPO? Does anymore really have to be said. WAPO ceased being a legit newspaper long ago. They don't live up to their slogan: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Of course, one might interpret this to mean that WAPO is promoting darkness and the death of democracy.

Posted by JohnQC 2020-01-18 15:21|| 2020-01-18 15:21|| Front Page Top

23:49 trailing wife
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