Posted on 11/19/2016 11:20:11 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Rumors are that Donald Trump might pick John Bolton for Secretary of State. Heaven forbid.
One of the things I occasionally liked about the President-elect was his opposition to the Iraq war and regime change. He not only grasped the mistake of that war early, but also seemed to fully understand how it disrupted the balance of power in the Middle East and even emboldened Iran.
We liberated Iraq, but today their best friend is Iran, their second greatest ally is Russia, and their third strongest alliance is with Syria. Trump really seems to get the lesson. Hillary Clinton never did.
Most importantly right now, John Bolton never learned and never will.
Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years — particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president.
John Bolton more often stood with Hillary Clinton and against what Donald Trump has advised.
None of this is secret. It’s all out there. Perhaps the incoming administration should take a closer look.
Bolton was one of the loudest advocates of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and still stupefyingly insists it was the right call 13 years later. “I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct,” Bolton said just last year.
Trump, rightly, believes that decision was a colossal mistake that destabilized the region. “Iraq used to be no terrorists,” Trump said in 2015. “(N)ow it’s the Harvard of terrorism.”
“If you look at Iraq from years ago, I’m not saying he was a nice guy, he was a horrible guy,” Trump said of Saddam Hussein, “but it was a lot better than it is right now.”
Trump has said U.S. intervention in Iraq in 2003 “helped to throw the region into chaos and gave ISIS the space it needs to grow and prosper.” In contrast, Bolton has said explicitly that he wants to repeat Iraq-style regime change in Syrian and Iran.
You can’t learn from mistakes if you don’t see mistakes.
Trump has blamed George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for helping to create ISIS — but should add John Bolton to that list, who essentially agreed with all three on our regime change debacles.
In 2011, Bolton bashed Obama “for his refusal to directly target Gaddafi” and declared, “there is a strategic interest in toppling Gaddafi… But Obama missed it.” In fact, Obama actually took Bolton’s advice and bombed the Libyan dictator into the next world. Secretary of State Clinton bragged, “We came, we saw, he died.”
When Trump was asked last year if Libya and the region would be more stable today with Gaddafi in power, he replied “100 percent.” Mr. Trump is 100 percent right.
No man is more out of touch with the situation in the Middle East or more dangerous to our national security than Bolton.
All nuance is lost on the man. The fact that Russia has had a base in Syria for 50 years doesn’t deter Bolton from calling for all out, no holds barred war in Syria. Bolton criticized the current administration for offering only a tepid war. For Bolton, only a hot-blooded war to create democracy across the globe is demanded.
Woodrow Wilson would be proud, but the parents of our soldiers should be mortified. War should be the last resort, never the first. War should be understood to be a hell no one wishes for. Dwight Eisenhower understood this when he wrote, “I hate war like only a soldier can, the stupidity, the banality, the futility.”
Bolton would not understand this because, like many of his generation, he used every privilege to avoid serving himself. Bolton said, with the threat of the Vietnam draft over his head, that “he had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy.” But he’s seems to be okay with your son or daughter dying wherever his neoconservative impulse leads us: “Even before the Iraq War, John Bolton was a leading brain behind the neoconservatives’ war-and-conquest agenda,” notes The American Conservative’s Jon Utley.
At a time when Americans thirst for change and new thinking, Bolton is an old hand at failed foreign policy.
The man is a menace.
Our Constitution and our founding fathers were explicit war was not to be fought without the permission of Congress. No matter which party occupies the White House, I will not shrink from my constitutional duty to oppose any advocate for war.
The true statesmen realizes, with reluctance, that war is sometimes necessary but as a country, we should resist any would-be leader who wants to bomb now and think later.
President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on changing our disastrous foreign policy. To appoint John Bolton would be a major first step toward breaking that promise.
Rand Paul is the junior senator from Kentucky.
I listened to Rand Paul last night and basically he believe that Bolton and Giuliani both like war, don’t know how to control themselves, and won’t listen to the president if the president says he is in favor of peace through strength.
Paul likes Corker.
In my mind, Corker has given Iran the nuke and is a testament to “war through weakness”.
Rand is wrong. Peace through strength is the right course of action, and the issue of any nominee is whether or not that nominee will follow the guidance of the president.
1. Have you ever served as a lobbyist for a foreign government or a corporation domiciled outside the U.S.? If YES, go to Step 4. If NO, go to Step 2.
2. Please list all non-profit organizations where you have either been employed or had an affiliation or leadership role as board member, advisor, etc.
3. Have any of the organizations you listed in Step 2 derived any income from foreign governments or from any corporations domiciled outside the U.S.? If YES, go to Step 4. If your answer is NO, please provide audited financial statements for every one of these organizations for the last 25 years, including an itemized list of all sources of income and revenue for each organization.
4. Please take a hike and find a job somewhere else. You may qualify for employment with the following organization:
The Clinton Family Foundation
c/o Hillary Rodham Clinton
United States Disciplinary Barracks
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
I suspect this will weed out a lot of sewage from the D.C. swamp.
Bolton is a war-o-con, especially in the MENA.
We don’t need to be spilling our blood protecting one group of Muslims from another group of Muslims .... forever.
Bolton is a head feint. Trump is still several moves ahead of the so-called Press.
This clown Paul is long on accusations and short on specific examples. The most mindless position in in the political arena is criticizing, and claiming to know with certainty how things might have turned out different (and better) had his opinion prevailed.
What has he EVER opined in foreign affairs that he agreed with that turned out as "expected?" A list would be nice. Of course, after the fact allows Paul to pull a "Hillary," and "forget" all his prognostication failures.
Bottom line, I trust Bolton a LOT more than I trust Paul.
Finally, Bolton is still bound to adhere to Trump's leadership positions, and that of his numerous other advisers that touch on the defense and foreign relations arenas.
All the dumbasses against Bolton HAHAHAA
I totally agree.
Another doofus promoting the "good" in pursuit of perfection.
When Paul successfully runs for president, he can regale us with his special wisdom.
Trump should appoint Rand Paul as US Ambassador to the United Nations. With Milo Yiannopolis as his minder, speech-writer and press secretary. Milo is a Brit so he can’t be appointed as UN Ambassador, but Rand Paul would be a great figurehead and Paul lives on another planet anyway.
Leftists hate Bolton but like Rand Paul. What does that tell you?
As self-serving a statement as I have ever seen.
Do bless us with the research you have done about all the other candidates for the position. Or do you just do research on people you don't like to begin with?
Nothing would make Bill Kristol happier.
At this point Rand Paul has unzipped and exposed himself as being every bit as much a delusional pantywaist as his old man. Rand should leave public life pronto and join old dad in a strait jacket at Happy Acres. Dad can teach him that silly grin that guarantees that no sane parent would let him babysit.
The Paul family's idea of national defense is paleoPaulie the Elder in a leaky rowboat wearing a tricorner hat with a propeller on top and paleoPaulie the younger providing one horse's ass power manning the oars.
John Bolton is and always has been a patriot as neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Insane Obozo nor anything nominated for POTUS by the Demonrats starting with Comrade George McGovern have ever been.
Neither Ron PaleoPaulie nor Rand PaleoPaulie are fit to shine Bolton's shoes or to serve in office. May they both go to hell in a handbasket ASAP. This nation does not rest on pacifist wimps. If it tries to, it will soon cease to be a nation.
If you are so anxious to reside in surrender sockmonkey nation, move to some sorry ass country that is eager to surrender as this one will never be.
Wanna join ISIS? They are hiring.
When I see another thread about a serious contender I'll post my input on that prospective nominee, too.
I would take John Bolton over Mitt Romney any day of the week.
No, thanks. In a nation of 310 million people I'm sure Trump can do much better than this.
I would take Jay-Z over Mitt Romney any day of the week, so that’s not saying much. LOL.
Peace Through Strength.
Rearm our military, stand tall and firm, and by doing so not have to fire a shot.
Mr. Trump, Please NO!
John Bolton:
Middle East War Hawk
Bilderberg Attendee
Member, Council on Foreign Relations
Participant, Project For The New American Century (PNAC)
Senior Vice President for public policy research at the American Enterprise Institute (Neocons)
Chairman, Gatestone Institute (Middle East meddling)
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