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To: Artcore

Andy McCarthy was a contributor to National Review’s infamous “Conservatives Against Trump” issue. Along with such luminaries as William Kristol, Erick Erickson, Mona Charen, David Boaz, Glenn Beck, Michael Medved, John Podhoretz.

ANDREW C. McCARTHY

The presidency’s most crucial duty is the protection of American national security. Yet, interviewed by Hugh Hewitt months into his campaign, Donald Trump did not know the key leaders of the global jihad. The man who would be commander-in-chief was unfamiliar with Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader who has been murdering Americans for over 30 years; Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s longtime deputy who has quite notoriously commanded al-Qaeda since the network’s leader was killed by U.S. forces in 2011; and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State (ISIS) and a jihadist so globally notorious that many teenagers are aware of him.

Of course a man who wants to be president should make it his business to know such things. But even the casual fan who does not know the players without a scorecard at least knows who the teams are and why they are competing. Trump failed even that basic test, confusing the Kurds (a minority ethnic group beleaguered by ISIS) with the Quds Force (the elite operatives of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps).

The global jihad is complex, comprising terrorist organizations and abettors that include rogue nations and other shady accomplices. Their fluid alliances and internecine rivalries often defy the Sunni–Shiite divide. Matters are complicated further still by ideological allies such as the Muslim Brotherhood that feign moderation while supporting the jihadist agenda. The threat is openly aggressive on its own turf but operates by stealth in the West. A president may not have to be good with names to oppose it effectively, but he has to grasp the animating ideology, the power relations, and the goals of the players — and how weakening one by strengthening another can degrade rather than promote our security.

Donald Trump does not have a clue about any of this, careening wildly from vows to stay out of the fray (leaving it in Vladimir Putin’s nefarious hands) to promises that the earth will be indiscriminately scorched. The threat against us has metastasized in our eighth year under a president who quite consciously appeases the enemy. But the remedy is not a president oblivious of the enemy.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430126/donald-trump-conservatives-oppose-nomination


12 posted on 02/07/2018 9:34:12 AM PST by Pelham (California, a subsidiary of Mexico, Inc.)
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To: Pelham

Thanks, Pelham. Actually, he confused Kurds with Quds because he heard it pronounced by an interviewer and thought he was asking about the Kurds. They are similar in pronunciation.

Look, no doubt Bush the Elder, Bush the Younger, Clinton and Obama knew all the differences among these insane tribes - but what good did it do? Nothing, just a lot of dead Americans. Trump, on the other hands, isn’t detail oriented, yet gets it right on policy across the board.

Apparently, he was whining to Rush about his tweets according to Rush today.


15 posted on 02/07/2018 9:46:40 AM PST by miss marmelstein
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To: miss marmelstein; Artcore

It’s Not My Party
by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY July 23, 2016

Donald Trump has completed the gutting of a principled Republican party that began in the Bush years. You reap what you sow. For a generation since Ronald Reagan left Washington — that would be the Ronald Reagan who knew that “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” was a punch line — the “conservative” Republican party has sown an incoherent statism that has trouble telling the good guys from the bad guys. On Thursday night came the harvest: The party was formally taken over by an incoherent statist whose “conservatism” is not done justice by scare quotes. Oh . . . and he has trouble telling the good guys from the bad guys.

Of course, you wouldn’t get that from his acceptance speech. Donald Trump doesn’t know much, but he has a genius for self-promotion and marketing. The conservative intellectuals and Washington political class so dismissive of his bravura 72-minute performance for its high-decibel staccato and occasional rambling repetitiveness are missing the point, as they have throughout Trump’s ascent.

From 30,000 feet, which is as close as most Americans get to government policy in all its intricacies, Trump gave a great speech. If you knew nothing of Trump, if your only impression was the Donald bestriding the Manichaean world he portrayed Thursday night, you wanted to be with him.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438255/its-not-my-party


17 posted on 02/07/2018 9:48:03 AM PST by Pelham (California, a subsidiary of Mexico, Inc.)
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