Posted on 02/19/2017 6:49:29 PM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
Nearly a week since U.S. President Donald Trump fired national security adviser Michael Flynn, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul advised against appointing former U.N. Ambassador and White House Chief of Staff John Bolton.
Trump’s first choice, retired Navy special forces officer Robert Harward, who served under Defense Secretary John Mattis, turned down the position last week and reports say the White House has ruled out former CIA Director David Petraeus, who was ousted as the nation’s top spy amid a scandal over his sharing confidential documents with his mistress.
Flynn resigned last week amid questions on whether he discussed sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Trump is scheduled to meet Sunday with four possible replacements: Bolton, retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who is acting national security adviser, Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said other interviews also could be scheduled.
In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Paul, R-Ky., a Libertarian who lost the 2016 Republican presidential nomination to Trump, said Bolton would push a foreign policy closer to that of Sen. John McCain,” R-Ariz.
“John Bolton still believes the Iraq war was a good idea, he still believes regime change is a good idea, he still believes that nation building is a good idea,” Paul said, adding, “My fear is that s secret wars would be developing around the globe. … I think he would be a bad choice.”
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said he is “fully aware” of the facts that led up to Flynn’s ouster after less than a month on the job.
Some point after we were first tipped off and got to the point of reviewing whether he was being honest or not, after we got the report back from the White House counsel, that's when we looped in, or that's when the vice president was brought into the conversation more fully in regard to whether or not Michael Flynn was honest,” Priebus said.
Priebus added, however, he didn’t think Flynn’s actions rise to a criminal violation of the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from engaging in foreign policy.
Former CIA Director Leon Panetta, who served as Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, said Trump needs to recognize that Russia is “an adversary, not a friend.”
“Their main purpose is to destabilize the United States and Western democracies. And they've shown that in everything they've done. So the president, I think ultimately must recognize that his first responsibility is to protect this country. And one of those you have to protect this country from is Russia,” Panetta said on “Meet the Press.”
Fox is a neo-con media empire.
Furthermore, he actually thinks there should be a UN, a global governance to 'manage' the world.
But to Trump, Bolton has never said the Iraq invasion, to my knowledge was a mistake. Something, Trump based part of his campaign on.
John Bolton is a good man and right for the job. Rand Paul should confine himself to domestic policy. He is clueless on foreign policy. JYan McNasty has nothing to do with this. I hate him.
basing rights are easy, they're safe, and they would have preserved the peace and our accomplishment. They would have also obliterated Isis before they could crawl completely out of their hole, and it would have kept Iran in their box.
there weren't three people in all of FR that were against intervention in Iraq when it happened. PERIOD. why people have allowed themselves to be cowed by MSM lies, and why they're willing to sound like they've spent the last 6 years writing obama's talking points for him is beyond me.
people need to find their spines.
There are better choices.
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Agreed. There are better choices than Bolton.
you read the word “neocon” more on FR these days than DU, and it doesn’t seem to be any more understood here than there.
it’s just a word being tossed around like a grenade.
By the time Bush left office the military campaign in Iraq had already lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in both World Wars combined. Why are you blaming Obama for botching it?
If the Swamp Thing is smart, he’ll give Hillary a wide berth, especially when she’s having a bad day.
There were plenty of us here on FR who were opposed to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It’s easy to forget that because most of them are gone.
By the time Bush left office the military campaign in Iraq had already lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in both World Wars combined. Why are you blaming Obama for botching it?
Even I can answer that one, Obama admin. drew down the troops, too, if one talks about the World Wars, we were pulverizing people in Tokyo, Dresden, never mind Hiroshima and Nagasaki, though that did it for the Pacific.
The invasion of Iraq was officially exposed as a fraud when the U.S. allowed the new Iraqi government to adopt a constitution in which ISLAM IS ENSHRINED AS THE OFFICIAL STATE RELIGION. It wasn’t Barack Hussein Obama who did that, was it?
I agree with Rand
The U.S. signed an agreement with Iraq that stipulated the exact terms of the removal of U.S. troops. Which president signed that agreement?
there are time clocks in war. time is irrelevant. winning is the only thing that matters.
We also were scheduled to leave Afghanistan; but we have stayed there.
But we didn’t pulverize people in Baghdad, Mosul and Fallujah. Because Islam is a religion of peace. Or some sh!t like that, right?
lol. a fraud because they wrote a constitution? are you drunk?
If winning was the only thing that mattered, most of Iraq would be a smoking ruins right now.
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