Blue Highway to bagster
Out of 90k indictments, how many will face prison? 1 or 2?
The Oracle responds;
Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/trump-foreign-policy-challenge-deterrence-without-war/
Trump’s High-Wire Act of Reestablishing Deterrence without War
By Victor Davis Hanson
FTA:
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Again, these existential crises — Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, the Middle East — all preceded Trump. But they also all tested the Trump doctrine of restoring deterrence without engaging in costly optional wars in which in tactical victories cannot translate into definable strategic success or clear U.S. advantage in a cost-benefit analysis.
Trump’s enemies hope (translated into politicalese) that his ambitious foreign policy does not follow the success of Trump’s dynamic economy.
...
Trump probably believes that if he goes full-bore abroad, true to form, a domino effect will follow, given that the U.S. gains more sway each time it faces down a miscreant. The stakes are certainly high. A big China trade deal, an agreement to denuclearize North Korea and Iran, flipping Putin to become a neutral rather than an adversary, or a Middle East halfway accord could change global realities and empower the U.S. And so the gambler Trump wagers that he can do overseas what he did at home and pull off land-breaking agreements — all at once.
Can he?
Note that Trump shattered the blue wall in part because of his sober Jacksonianism: restoring U.S. tough deterrence without inserting a large military presence in any of the hellholes that U.S. troops have been deployed to in the past 50 years, much less falling into a conventional war that America could win, but only at considerable cost. Bombing the “sh*t” out of ISIS was a successful example of a non non-intervention. Early on, the canny Trump, alone of his Republican rivals, fathomed that voters neither wanted any more Obama apologetics nor would put up with another Afghanistan, Libya, or Iraq.
Squaring that circle of toughness without risking a major war is now Trump’s political challenge, given that the shelf life of rhetorical deterrence is brief.
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Blue Highway to bagster
Out of 90k indictments, how many will face prison? 1 or 2?
The Oracle responds;
Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.
Julian Assange Now in Hospital Wing of British Prison, In Such Bad Shape That He Can’t Conduct Normal Conversations
FTA:
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Sweden had tried to drop the investigation in 2013, but was pressured to keep it open by the British government - further fueling speculation that it is a political hit job. A Crown Prosecution Service had emailed Swedish prosecutors telling them, “Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!”
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The doctors wrote, “experience tells us that the prolonged uncertainty of indefinite detention inflicts profound psychological and physical trauma above and beyond the expected stressors of incarceration. These can include severe anxiety, pathological levels of stress, dissociation, depression, suicidal thoughts, post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain, among others.”
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Really good article. Very in depth. I love it when VDH writes like that. None better.
A great selection of morning articles, Mairdie.
Thank you for bringing these to us!