Donald Trump the Candidate
Donald Trump the President
Today, Trump is Locked and Loaded (and Waiting for Saudi Arabia to Tell Us What to Do).
Politico comments Trump’s Deference to Saudi Arabia Infuriates Much of D.C.
“Trump awaits instructions from his Saudi masters. Having our country act as Saudi Arabia’s bitch is not ‘America First,’” Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president, tweeted on Sunday night.
Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, a Republican-turned-independent, noted that Congress is the body empowered to “commence war.” “We don’t take orders from foreign powers,” he tweeted.
“Direct engagement by U.S. military in response to Iran’s attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure would be a grave mistake,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) tweeted on Monday. “The U.S. has continued arms sales so Saudi Arabia can defend itself. If S.A. responds against Iran attacks, the U.S. should be ready to support in a non-kinetic role.”
Asked if he had pledged to protect the Saudis, Trump said: “No, I haven’t promised the Saudis that … We have to sit down with the Saudis and work something out.” Such equivocation is unlikely to deflate the controversy around Riyadh’s role in U.S. policy.
This makes perfect sense in some alternate universe somewhere.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Its a fluid situation, the “known facts” are changing faster than the cable news heads can figure out which cabinet member to try to blame, and Mish is trying to read Trump’s tweets like an African witch doctor reads entrails.
Its good comic relief to read Mish’s blog at the end of the trading day
Wasn’t George H. W. Bush Kuwait’s bitch? Just seeing if I remember that correctly.
Don’t know who did what. I know, however, that just about ev
Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, a Republican-turned-independent, noted that Congress is the body empowered to “commence war.” “We don’t take orders from foreign powers,” he tweeted.
The interesting thing is that congress hasn’t declared a war since WW2, despite a number of U.S. wars since then.
Amash — another naif. Congress is impotent, having ceded its powers to the executive long ago.
Congress is supposed to be impotent. As is the executive. And the judiciary. Back in the civilized era, the power of all three, were largely ceded to the people. Who were hence somewhat free. Hence civilized.
Impotence of those whose role is to force others, is always and everywhere a good thing.
Agree in principle … but the executive has asserted precedence, far from impotence, by which you really mean balance. The system is out of balance.
Anyone still wondering why America was surprised by Pearl Harbor should pay close attention to unfolding events.
The issue in 1941 was Japanese empire builders and the oil to fuel it. Tojo and the boys sat in a room talking to each other long enough to convince themselves that we’d go away if they attacked, just like the Russians had after the battle of Tsushima, 36 years earlier.
Fast forward to today, 78 years later. The issue is still empire builders, Persian this time, and the oil to fuel it. With sanctions, we’re sitting on their empire plans, just as Roosevelt was Japan’s in 1941.
Sigmund Freud held that serial killers were psychologically indistinguishable from religious fanatics. He was a pretty good shrink. Civilization is once again sitting on a powderkeg and power lust and ambition needing oil to fuel it is at the core of the crisis.
We need another Manhattan project, this one to get us off oil. We’re technologists, it’s what we do best.
Wind and solar won’t get us there. Thorium will eventually, if we’re not all dead fighting over oil before it happens.
We need Trump to lead from the front and push the R&D on this now, not wait with a finger in the wind to see how we position in the latest oil war.
” The issue is still empire builders, Persian this time, and the oil to fuel it.”
And those other empire builders… The guys with Carrier Battle Groups, and military bases, halfway around the world from where they’d be positioned to do anything of a defensive nature…..
Those who “know” of a technological “solution” to oil “dependence,” should implement it. Otherwise, all they really “know,” is yet another way to contort themselves, attempting to bend themselves, and especially others, over in ways more pleasing to some arbitrary Dear Leader.
Amusing. The last time Persia was the aggressor instead of the victim in a war was 1795. Methinks the US has better credentials to make it into the empire bucket, fighting even now on the foreign soil of about 10 different countries, counting Niger and such. Americans also consume far more oil per capita than do Iranians. Japan had been backed into a corner, and invading Manchuria and Indonesia (oil) was calculated risk. Since the Americans were choking off their incoming oil, they had little choice, other than surrender. Backing an adversary into a corner is sure to invoke the actions associated with people who have nothing to lose…
As for Trump leading the US on a quest for renewables, or even the exploiting the thorium cycle: fegettaboudit. He’s propping up coal with subsidies, against the cost curves. He thinks bringing back incandescent bulbs will usher back the time America was great. Kind of like the Central Bankers, who, mindful of the fact that capital is plentiful when there is prosperity, think that reversing the order might work, you know, like making the streets wet to make it rain.
You’ll have dozens of Trumplings sticking up for them though… having forgotten who flew those planes into the twin towers. A cult of stupidity and rage.
Terrorists flew the planes into the twin towers. 15 of the terrorists were Saudi. Not every Saudi is a terrorist, however. Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist but not every member of the Bin Laden family was a terrorist.
Their king just had an American citizen butchered like cattle, and they execute people over words. These are some Bad Hombres.
Did you notice that Obama had an American citizen droned?
Do either of you notice that this is exactly what people with the asymmetric power to do so, do? Kings, Obamas, Mafia Dons……
Obama is gone. Let go of your Obama Trauma, or at least stop using his evil to justify trump sucking up to Arabs.
Sad follow up to your earlier poorly received post.
So now Mitt Romney is who you look to for foreign policy? I’m not sure if you have changed because I didn’t think you were a big fan to Rino Mitt.
Move back to economics. At least then your posts have value maybe just as the normal chicken little doom and gloom.
I dislike Romney but agree 100% with his statement. I’m sure Hitler said many things that were undoubtedly true. It’s true of anybody that 99% of what they say is correct, otherwise people start doubting their sanity. I agree that mentioning his name does not lend any weight to the statement, but if you cite his words, may as well get the footnote right.
That attack was just a trial run,send a couple hundred of those Chinese drones each armed with 100 lbs of c-4 at a carrier and stand back a watch the fireworks.
This is the real significance of the attack. Using small drones in a swarm may be the new low tech, low cost method to destabilize things. Saudi oil should have been a well protected asset, so if it is vulnerable that means just about everything else is too!
I have to agree with that statement. It’s scary and worrying how simple it appears to be to wreck havoc and increase tensions in an already tense relationship.
The “scary and worrying” part, is tense existing relationships. Between entities with far nastier stuff than comparatively available to anyone drones. Making such relationships, and if we’re lucky, entities with asymmetric access to those scarier stuffs, less possible, is a good thing. Nothing all that worrisome.
Think of drones as a technological solution, for working around unconstitutional restrictions on the rights affirmed in The Second. Kind of like crypto currencies are to the usurpations inherent in legally mandated fiat currencies. In both cases, the world’s a better place if they replace those who try to suppress them.
How unusual, Trump is all over the map on this one, contradicting earlier utterances on the heels of making them.
Lol true that!
Ha I guess the last articles comments didn’t sit to well with you Mish. Don’t worry I don’t think this most recent missive makes you look too much like a little kid having a meltdown. How are those immigration numbers looking down on the old southern boarder?
Ha you spell as well as dear leader.
Lol so true!
Clearly that mystical orb got to Mr. Trump. It would be fun to have President Gabbard for a few days.
Negotiating Costanza style. Trump clearly took lessons.
Wasnt it just s few days ago Bolton was a warmonger and Trump was a genius for firing him ?
That was yesterday. Mish has all new obsessions today. Try to keep up!!!
Tulsi’s comments were great. Apparently the Saudis won over Trump with a combination of sword dancing and glowing orbs. Also telling that the kingdom was Trump’s first state visit.
We shouldn’t be promoting Saudi Wahhabism at all, let alone being this cozy with them. I still wish Trump hadn’t stepped in to help MbS when Erdogan openly challenged the House of Saud. They’re the weakest people in the region and wouldn’t last a week without extensive US support.
Lets hear what the Trump supporters will say, there are so many here.
How about we all hope he acts with restraint and makes an informed decision.
I am relieved that President Trump walked back his initial tweets. If Lindsay Graham was in charge the bombs would be falling on Iran right now which, thankfully, they are not.
As if Hillary wouldn’t already be in a bunker.