Today is another round with the medical professionals….I learn my test results so I may not be in the best of mind to do much more writing today…..so this is a post from Gulf South Free Press……
US Foreign Policy–A F*cked Up Mess
I hope everyone has a good day and a safe day…..I shall return tomorrow.
I Read, I Write, You Know
Lego ergo scribo”
Pompeo’s State Department has decided that they would cherry pick rights….proving that this admin does not believe in equality or in human rights for all…..
Human rights advocates denounced as “dangerous” a draft report released Thursday by the U.S. State Department’s controversial Commission on Unalienable Rights that paints property rights and religious liberty as “foremost among the unalienable rights that government is established to secure” while casting doubt on other liberties, including reproductive freedom.
“Make no mistake: this report was not designed with principles of equality, justice, and rights in mind. Instead, it serves as another stepping stone in the White House’s radical, isolationist, anti-rights, anti-scientific, religious agenda,” Serra Sippel, president of the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), said in a statement.
“The Commission on Unalienable Rights is a thinly veiled religious fundamentalist panel, and the people on it should have absolutely no say about the human rights of people all over the world,” Sippel declared, calling the panel “a dangerous distraction from the fact that this administration does not believe that all people are equal and entitled to human rights.”
No should be surprised…..Pompeo is just echoing the crap he spread when he was in Congress….the only difference now is that he has a power to make some of these outdated manure into law of the land.
Even people that worked for him tried to change things……
A State Department whistleblower attempted to warn the agency’s Office of Legal Affairs about “questionable” activities involving Secretary Mike Pompeo but was “blocked” from doing so, according to the complaint.
McClatchy reported Sunday that the complaint, made public through a lawsuit filed by the watchdog group American Oversight, alleged the unnamed employee and other “eyewitnesses” were prevented from sharing concerns about Pompeo’s activities in the U.S. and abroad with superiors and legal authorities at the agency despite repeated attempts.
The State Department declined McClatchy’s request for comment on the whistleblower complaint. However, in explaining redactions made to the whistleblower complaint, the agency’s lawyers revealed that Pompeo still remains the target of at least one active investigation despite arranging the firing of the agency’s inspector general in May.
Pompeo has given all pretense of being the chief diplomat of the US and is acting as an agent for Trump’s agenda….not the country’s agenda.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Commission on Unalienable Rights unveiled its long-anticipated report in Philadelphia, ahead of which Pompeo delivered a speech more fitting for a Trumpian candidate for president in 2024 than a person serving in the apolitical position of secretary of state. Pompeo also published an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he devoted far more space to slamming his fellow Americans for “outrageous efforts to erase American history by tearing down statues of our nation’s founders” than he did to the worst human rights abusers around the world.
In calling for a return to our founding principles, Pompeo’s Philadelphia speech acknowledged almost in passing that “at our nation’s founding our country fell far short of securing the rights of all. The evil institution of slavery was our nation’s gravest departure from these founding principles. We expelled Native Americans from their ancestral lands.” This was one step in the right direction. The United States is a stronger advocate for human rights around the world when we acknowledge our own shortcomings and invite other nations and peoples to join us striving to improve. To that end, Pompeo should also have mentioned that women were denied the right to vote until the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, or that two-tiered citizenship in the Jim Crow South ended only a full century after emancipation.
Mike Pompeo Has Given Up Being Secretary of State
We can only hope that come November these bigoted tools are replaced with someone with a bit of compassion and foresight.
We can make that happen but not if you do not VOTE!
Learn Stuff!
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
Is there anyone that does not believe that we have a problem with cybersecurity?
God, I hope not….but in this world to stupid…we just might.
Our foreign policy is run out of the Department of State and the latest report is not glowing form their cybersecurity…..
The latest publication in a long line of reports drawing attention to the U.S. State Department’s failure to secure its information technology-dependent systems from cyberattacks reflects a general mismanagement of resources.
“Notwithstanding the expenditure of substantial resources by the Department,” reads a report State’s Office of the Inspector General released Wednesday, “the OIG continues to identify significant issues that put its information at risk.”
The report follows a Jan. 14 letter Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking what steps he’s taken to address the shortcomings detailed in previous IG reports. Warner put the letter in the context of a “long history of information breaches” at State and recent tensions with Iran.
But that is not a surprise for the SecState Pompeo is considered one of the worse we have ever had to hold the position…..
How does a man like this happen? In a strange way, Pompeo is like the entire 2016 election poured into a single human skin-suit. He combines all of the calculation and misplaced ambition of Hillary Clinton with the vulgarity and dishonesty of Donald Trump. If you took DNA samples from Clinton and Trump and sent them to the lab on Isla Nublar, Pompeo is what you’d get.
Except that in one crucial aspect, Pompeo is worse.
Mike Pompeo Is The Worst
I do not agree much with the Bulwark readers but on this I have to say….well said!
The longer Pompeo stays the longer our foreign policy will suffer and the longer it will take to return our nation to the forefront of human activity.
I can understand why State is losing senior people at an alarming rate.
I Read, I Wrote, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
Looks like the Neocons have truly taken the policy….just as in the days prior to the invasion and then the occupation of Iraq in 2003….the State Department has put together a group to use all tools at its disposal to make some sort of war on Iran…..
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Thursday the establishment of the Iran Action Group, a task-force to coordinate all of President Donald Trump’s efforts against Iran.
The group will be led by Brian Hook, a State Department official who served as an adviser to John Bolton in 2006, when the Iran hawk was US ambassador to the United Nations.
“The Iran Action Group will be responsible for directing, reviewing and coordinating all aspects of the State Department’s Iran-related activity, and will report directly to me,” Pompeo said at a news conference.
https://theantimedia.com/iran-action-group/
This smells like a deja vu moment.
Something to consider….the media will be used to help start a war if a war is in the cards……they have always been a great propaganda tool….
Donald Trump has again stirred the wrath of his critics by charging that the media can cause wars. His opponents immediately howled that he’d launched another salvo in his ongoing campaign to vilify journalists as the “enemy of the people.” They also ridiculed his contention as factually absurd. Fox News reporter Chris Wallace bluntly asked National Security Advisor John Bolton: “What wars have we caused?” Princeton University historian and CNN analyst Julian E. Zelizer epitomized the view that Trump’s charge is unfounded with a piece in The Atlantic titled, “The Press Doesn’t Cause Wars—Presidents Do.”
Zelizer and similar critics are technically correct, of course. Media outlets have no power to launch attacks on foreign countries or order U.S. troops into combat. But that view is much too narrow. As Zelizer himself admits, the new media have considerable ability to influence public opinion. Such a capacity to shape the overall narrative is not a trivial power. An irresponsible press can, and has, whipped up public sentiment in favor of military actions that subsequent evidence indicated were unnecessary and even immoral.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/yes-the-press-helps-start-wars/
Keep an eye on the rhetoric coming from the media….it will signal the path the US will embark on when dealing with Iran.
Meddling in Iran would be NOTHING new for the US it did so in the 1950’s and that move helped bring about the 1979 revolution that the US is still reeling from….why not try it again to see if we can get it right this time? (sarcasm)
Now that the Iran nuke deal is history could there be other “deals” in the shadows waiting for the light of day?
But there may be no need for an attack on Iran….
Against the backdrop of cosmetic military strikes against the brutal Syrian regime, a close ally of Tehran, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman has been touring Western countries warning about the dangers of Iranian expansionism.
As dangerous as this may be, an even greater danger would be an escalation against Iran which could lead to war—a conflict that would be several times deadlier than our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the president seems inclined to leave the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), and could even be considering strikes against Iranian nuclear sites, as his new National Security Advisor John Bolton once advocated, such actions would be counter-productive to U.S. interests. If the goal is to push back on Iran’s attempt to expand its influence across the Middle East, all the United States has to do is let events unfold.
And yet the song continues for the US to do something militarily.
The war mongers like Tom Cotton, John Bolton and Pompeo have been slobbering over the chance to attack Iran for decades….let’s star with a look at Bolton and one of his predictions….
In July of last year neoconservative death cultist John Bolton, now the National Security Advisor of the United States, gave a speech at the Grand Gathering of Iranians for Free Iran in which he openly called for regime change in Tehran.
…….
Bolton, who is so stupid, crazy and evil that he remains one of the only high-profile individuals on this planet who still insists that the Iraq invasion was a great idea, spoke about the need to prevent the Iranian government from achieving “an arc of control” through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. He decried the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), claiming that Iran was still a nuclear threat under the existing agreement, and spoke glowingly of aggressive sanctions against Tehran. He concluded his speech with the following statement:
http://theantimedia.com/john-bolton-promised-regime-change-iran-before-2019/
Recently some papers about an Iran regime change came to light through a leak……
Just a few days after the former NYC mayor and latest member of President Trump’s unexpectedly let it slip that “we got a president who is tough, who does not listen to the people who are naysayers, and a president who is committed to regime change [in Iran]”, the Washington Free Beacon has obtained a three-page white paper being circulated among National Security Council officials with drafted plans to spark regime change in Iran, following the US exit from the Obama-era nuclear deal and the re-imposition of tough sanctions aimed at toppling the Iranian regime.
http://theantimedia.com/white-house-planning-regime-change-iran/
Well leg us say that the prediction did not materialize is it possible that a military coup could take place in Iran?
Since the beginning of the year, Iran has witnessed persistent protests. In January, massive demonstrations against the government spread to more than 80 cities in 29 provinces in which at least in 21 people were killed. In early February, dozens of women were arrested for taking off their head scarves and protesting against mandatory veiling in Tehran.
Later the same month, police clashed with members of the Gonabadi Sufi order, which led to five deaths, according to Gonabadi activists, and hundreds arrested. In late March, Arabs staged protests in Khuzestan province after a the national TV excluded their community from a programme about Iran’s ethnic diversity. Then in April, the security forces cracked down on water shortage protests in Isfahan province. Labour strikes in various cities across the country have also persisted.
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/military-coup-iran-180424144510759.html
It appears that something is in the wind for Iran….but what?
For antiwar wonks like myself yesterday was a dark day for the chances of less war and stress on our troops….Trump’s choice for a replacement for Tillerson has skated through the nomination….
The Rex Tillerson era is officially over. The Senate on Thursday confirmed Mike Pompeo to be the next secretary of state by a vote of 57-42, reports the AP. The confirmation of Pompeo, who is leaving his job as director of the CIA for the new position, had been in jeopardy before Rand Paul’s last-minute switch in favor allowed him to clear the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this week. Still, Thursday’s Senate vote is one of the slimmest margins for the job in recent history.
Every past nominee since at least the Carter administration has received 85 or more yes votes, with the exception of Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. He got 56 yes votes. Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, is expected to be sworn in almost immediately so he can begin serving as top diplomat. Pompeo has been deeply engaged in the administration’s efforts on North Korea and recently traveled to Pyongyang.
A big mistake has been made by the Congress and especially those cowardly Dems that voted to confirm…..
With the help of six Democrats and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), the Senate on Thursday helped President Donald Trump move one step closer to completing his war cabinet by confirming the ultra-hawkish torture supporter Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State by a vote of 57-42.
“The Senate has made a mistake of historic proportions by rubber-stamping Donald Trump’s war cabinet,” Jamal Abdi, executive director of NIAC Action, said in a statement following Thursday’s vote. “The U.S. appears headed towards a catastrophic exit from the Iran deal in spite of the pleas of our closest allies and Mike Pompeo will only encourage Trump off the brink.”
This can only mean a return to the good old days of nation building bullshit and the possibility for a war with Iran…. Pompo’s big wish when in Congress.
But who the Hell cares? Americans are too busy sucking up to the pig in the poke and worrying about the newest diet to ever care about our troops or the safety of the world.
Since the president fired Tillerson at State via Text the replacement has gotten lots of press…..the replacement would be John Bolton….a war monger from the word go…..but there are a few things that we all should know about our SecState……
1. Bolton wants to shred the Iran nuclear deal…and bomb Iran. Bolton hates the nuclear deal that was signed under Obama’s watch not only by the U.S. and Iran, but also by Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia, and the EU. Although the deal is working and even Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said it is in our national interest, Bolton calls the Iran deal a massive strategic blunder. On May 12, when Trump is required to re-certify that Iran has been complying with the deal, Bolton makes it more likely that the US will pull out of the deal, triggering a major international crisis. Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, says, “People, let this be very clear: The appointment of Bolton is essentially a declaration of war with Iran.”
2. Bolton is in bed with an Iranian terrorist organization called MEK, a fringe group that was listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States until 2012 and is still considered a terrorist organization inside Iran. Bolton routinely meets with and accepts payments from the group, which has been responsible for the murder of American soldiers, the attempted kidnapping of a U.S. Ambassador, and many violent attacks inside Iran. Bolton considers the MEK a ‘viable opposition’ that he wants to use to overthrow the Iranian government. With Bolton in power, one of the most detested Iranian cults will be treated by the US government as legitimate representatives of the Iranian people.
3. Bolton will jeopardize talks with North Korea. The world breathed a sigh of relief at the announcement that Presidents Trump and Kim Jung-un would meet in May. But with Bolton, that meeting may never take place, or could be disastrous. Bolton says, “Talking to North Korea is worse than a mere waste of time. Negotiations legitimize the dictatorship, affording it more time to enhance its nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities.” Instead of talks, Bolton has called for the United States to launch a preemptive strike against North Korea, a strike that could spark a nuclear war.
4. Bolton hates the United Nations and international law. When George Bush nominated Bolton to be UN ambassador in 2005, he proved so controversial to even the Republican-controlled Senate that Bush had to sneak him in as a “recess appointment” when Congress was not in session. It is one thing to be critical of the UN but Bolton opposes its very existence. “There is no such thing as the United Nations,” he once said, adding, “If the U.N. Secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a lot of difference.” More than that, he is hostile to the concept of international law, having once declared, “It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so—because over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrain the United States.”
5. Bolton was a key instigator of the Iraq war and has no regrets. He was a major figure (along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld) pushing for the invasion of Iraq. During the Bush presidency, when he was Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control, he helped fabricate evidence about weapons of mass destruction that led to the March 2003 invasion. And he is one of the few original advocates for that war who still insist it was a good idea.
6. Bolton provided false information about Cuba. As Undersecretary of State, Bolton claimed that Havana was attempting to develop biological weapons and sell them to rogue regimes. Then he tried to fire two intelligence analysts who challenged his erroneous allegations. Bolton has also urged that stronger sanctions be imposed on Cuba, and put Cuba on his “axis of evil” list.
7. He is no friend of the Palestinians. When he was at the United Nations, he constantly protected Israel by vetoing all UN resolutions targeting Israel. Bolton praised Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, breaking with decades of international consensus that the disputed city’s status must be negotiated between the two sides. He opposes a Palestinian state, saying, “I don’t think there are institutions on the Palestinian side that can live up to the commitments of a treaty with Israel….or could resist takeover by terrorist elements.” His solution? Get rid of Palestinians by merging Gaza with Egypt and the West Bank with Jordan.
8. Bolton will create new problems with China. He has been an ardent supporter of diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, and was paid by the Taiwanese government. He advised the Trump administration to reconsider the “One China” policy, an agreement made in 1972 that requires countries to choose between diplomatic relations with China or diplomatic relations with Taiwan. His antagonistic stance toward China could have a negative impact on issues ranging from North Korea and the South China Sea to cyberspace and trade.
9. He hangs out with Islamophobes. Bolton has a decade-long history of associating with anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller, appearing on her internet radio program “Atlas on the Air” and on her video blog. Geller is well-known for her inflammatory public comments about Muslims and the idea that they are trying to impose Sharia law in the US. Bolton wrote the foreword to the book she co-wrote with fellow anti-Islamist Robert Spencer called “The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America.”
This next one is silly but should hold some validity….it is just cheesy!
10. His white walrus mustache should immediately disqualify him. According to former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, president-elect Trump passed on nominating John Bolton to a senior Cabinet position because he didn’t like Bolton’s signature mustache. With his hairy upper lip, Bolton just didn’t “look the part.” We agree. Trump should immediately rescind the offer in favor of someone with less facial hair.
If you would like a more in-depth profile then I have a site for you……
http://lobelog.com/john-bolton-the-essential-profile/
Now you know…..peace out my friends…..
First of all, what the Hell is a “Troll Farm”?
Troll Farm, n…….an organization whose employees or members attempt to create conflict or disruption in an on-line community by posting deliberately inflammatory or provocative comments.
Now what does this have to do with anything?
US State Department announced that it had obtained $40 million from the Pentagon to fund a new propaganda and disinformation campaign through the “Global Engagement Center.”
While the Global Engagement Center was initially conceived of as resisting foreign propaganda efforts, the new funding is set to be invested in going “on the offensive” in global propaganda war with America’s own disinformation campaigns.
The US, of course, is no stranger to engaging in overseas propaganda efforts, but the inexorable nature of global information sharing in the modern era means that such US propaganda always risks misinforming the US public.
Congress has approved the offensive on the grounds that it be used to “counter Russia.” In practice, this likely means much of the funding will be used to try to skew global perception of Russia even more hostile than it already is.
Yet setting up and funding this troll farm so publicly is highly risky, both because the US has a history of laughingly embarrassing failures in online narrative management, and because in publicly going after Russia, they risk as strong backlash.
(antiwar.com)
A lot of words to say that the State Department will be participating in the whole new world of “Fake News”.
Basically this is going to wind up being a waste of $40 million of taxpayer money.
Soft and hard power….I know it sounds like some sort of add for miracle mattress….well Hell not this time…..soft power is a technique for handling world affairs…..a technique that is being lost especially with a Trump presidency……
The evidence is clear. Donald Trump’s presidency has eroded America’s soft power. Only 30% of people recently polled by Gallup in 134 countries held a favourable view of the United States under Trump’s leadership, a drop of almost 20 points since Barack Obama’s presidency. The Pew Research Center found that China, with 30% approval ratings, had reached near-parity with the US. And a British index, The Soft Power 30, showed America slipping from first place in 2016 to third place last year.
Trump’s defenders reply that soft power does not matter. Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, proclaimed a ‘hard power budget’ as he slashed funds for the State Department and the US Agency for International Development by 30%. For promoters of ‘America First’, what the rest of the world thinks ranks second. Are they right?
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/donald-trump-decline-us-soft-power/
A country’s soft power comes primarily from three sources: its culture (when it is attractive to others), its political values such as democracy and human rights (when it lives up to them), and its policies (when they are seen as legitimate because they are framed with some humility and awareness of others’ interests). How a government behaves at home (for example, protecting a free press), in international institutions (consulting others and multilateralism) and in foreign policy (promoting development and human rights) can affect others by the influence of its example. In all of these areas, Trump has reversed attractive American policies.
Would you like to understand what “soft power” means?
“Soft power” is a term used to describe a nation’s use of co-operative programs and monetary aide to persuade other nations to ascribe to its policies. With U.S. State Department budget cuts likely in the wake of the August 2, 2011 debt ceiling deal, many observers expect soft-power programs to suffer.
https://www.thoughtco.com/soft-power-in-u-s-foreign-policy-3310359
Hard power makes more profit for the defense industry so it will be more attractive than soft power and will remain so until we find a way to make peace as attractive (profitable) as war…..not any time soon.
Soft power……hard power…..whatever….the US needs to get back to basics…….
An especially pernicious idea regarding U.S. foreign policy was Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s assertion that the United States was the world’s “indispensable nation.” It would have been bad enough if that statement had been a content-less expression of national narcissism. However, that same arrogant assumption has been the guiding principle of Washington’s foreign policy since the end of World War II—and especially since the end of the Cold War. The belief led to strategic overextension, as the United States embraced security obligations, both explicit and implicit, around the world.
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/america-needs-get-back-the-basics-foreign-policy-24642
Military force is not the best foreign policy…..but since our diplomatic corps is in the crapper….it is all we have at this point in history.
This will be my last post until I can get the whole doctor experience for the day over with……hopefully it will be over soon……..
Short analysis….it sucks!
When Trump was running in 2016 I will admit that there were a few things that he said about international relations that I, a hard core progressive, could agree with…..But then he was elected president and everything he said went out the window…..let us be honest 2017 has been a dismal year for our foreign policy. We have not enough diplomats and the president and his Tweeting thumbs are making a mockery of our state department and our place in the world.
But let’s take a good look at Trump’s foreign policy 2017 record……
The first year of the Trump administration saw much more than the continuity in U.S. foreign policy that many of us expected. Trump’s candidacy and then his election were greeted with alarm by almost everyone in the foreign policy establishment, with an overwhelming consensus that he stood for a so-called “isolationist” withdrawal from international affairs. This interpretation was a serious misreading of Trump’s rhetoric and led to the usual knee-jerk reflex to define anything that differed from post-Cold War foreign policy as an outright rejection of all international engagement. As Trump’s policies have shown, he is open to a kind of international engagement, but it is one that is heavily militarized and defined by zero-sum contests with adversaries and allies alike.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/reviewing-trumps-2017-foreign-policy-record/
We can hope that Trump will tighten up and learn a thing or two about diplomacy and international relations…..but I think he will keep playing with his Twitter button and keep pushing the US further down the rabbit hole.
Trump is allowing Russia and China to assert themselves as a world leader because of his ignorance of international relations……Russia will be the one to watch…..
In 2017, Russia fought a bloody and indiscriminate war in support of a brutal Syrian regime, armed rebels occupying eastern Ukraine, and continued its propaganda campaign targeting elections in Western democracies—the same campaign that helped to put Donald Trump in the White House.
There’s no reason to believe 2018 will be any different. Ignoring Trump’s own personal fondness for Vladimir Putin and his autocratic regime, the Trump administration’s national security team in December named Russia as one of the top threats to American interests. But it’s unclear what the divided administration of a compromised president will actually do to confront a resurgent Russia.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/where-will-russia-pick-a-fight-in-2018
Since Trump has a soft spot for Russia….how far will they go before the US steps in and reasserts ourselves as the world leader we should be?