Posted on 02/01/2019 9:30:49 AM PST by SeekAndFind
To manifest his opposition to President Donald Trump's decision to pull all 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria, and half of the 14,000 in Afghanistan, Gen. James Mattis went public and resigned as secretary of defense.
Now Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, in public testimony to Congress, has contradicted Trump about the threats that face the nation.
Contrary to what the president believes, Coats says, North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. ISIS remains a serious threat, even if the caliphate has been rolled up. And there is no evidence that Iran, though hostile and aggressive, is acquiring nuclear weapons.
CIA Director Gina Haspel agreed: Iran remains in compliance with the nuclear treaty that Trump has trashed and abandoned. The treaty is still doing what it was designed to do.
At this perceived public defiance, Trump exploded:
"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! ... They [the Iranians] are testing Rockets (last week), and more, and are coming very close to the edge. ... Be careful of Iran."
Trump added: "Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"
Trump then brought up the epochal blunder of U.S. intelligence in backing the Bush II claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (a "slam dunk"), and was a grave threat to the USA.
Born of incompetence and mendacity, that counsel led to the greatest strategic blunder of the 21st century, if not of U.S. history -- the second Iraq War. Launched by George W. Bush, this invasion plunged us into the Middle East's forever war and got the Republican Party ejected from power in 2006 and 2008.
While it's not unusual for a president and the intel community to diverge on the gravity of threats, what is astonishing is that the intel leaders would declare a president to be flat-out wrong.
Yet the confrontation is not unhealthy, for it reflects reality. On foreign policy, we are divided not only on means but ends.
And the division calls to mind Walter Lippmann's words, after U.S. political clashes and unpreparedness in FDR's New Deal decade led to the early disasters at Pearl Harbor, Bataan and Corregidor.
"For nearly fifty years," wrote the dean of American columnists, "the nation had not had a settled and generally accepted foreign policy. This is a danger to the Republic. For when a people is divided ... about the conduct of its foreign relations, it is unable to agree on the determination of its true interest. It is unable to prepare adequately for war or to safeguard successfully its peace."
We seem to be in just such a situation today.
Indeed, Trump is president because of the foreign policy disasters produced by his predecessors, who leaned on the U.S. intel community, and because Trump, in 2016, appeared to read the nation right.
Yet there is common ground between Trump and the spy chiefs.
Coats and Haspel are correct that the U.S. faces a Russia and China that are closer and more collaborative than they have been since the 1950s, before the Cuban missile crisis, which Mao saw as a Moscow capitulation.
And as we have more in common with Russia, with its historic ties to the West, and Russia appears by far the lesser long-term threat, how do we split Russia off from China? Here, Trump's instincts are right and the Beltway Russophobes are wrong.
As for Iran, the intelligence community is consistent.
In 2007 and 2011, the CIA declared "with high confidence" that Iran had no nuclear weapons program. Now, with U.N. inspectors crawling all over Tehran's nuclear facilities under the treaty, the CIA and DNI are still saying the same thing.
What of the contention that Iran is seeking hegemony in the Middle East?
Really? How? Would a nuclear-armed Israel, which has launched 200 strikes on Iran's allies in Syria, accept that? What would Turkey, with the second-largest army in NATO, Egypt, the largest Arab nation, and Saudi Arabia have to say about that?
How could Shiite Iran, whose Persian majority is nearly matched by its Arab, Azeri, Baloch and Kurdish minorities, gain dominance over a Middle East where the vast majority is Sunni Arab? How is Iran a threat to us over here, compared to the threat we pose to Iran over there?
Iran broke out of its isolation for two reasons. First, George W. Bush came in and overthrew its Taliban enemies on its eastern border, and then he overthrew Saddam Hussein, the enemy on its western border.
As Trump contends, ISIS has been defeated and driven from its twin capitals -- Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq. But it is also true that ISIS and al-Qaida still have tens of thousands of jihadists living among the peoples of the Middle East.
And the great question remains:
Are U.S. troops necessary over there -- to prevent terrorists from coming over here? Or are they over here -- because we are over there?
Article is fake news. President Trump on Thursday said the media had fabricated a conflict and that the officials were “misquoted.”
Agree most of the office holders are nothing but chair warmers.
The third world takeover of the southwest has spread to Virginia.
They work for Fedzilla.
Almost everyone in the District of Corruption is there to protect and feed Fedzilla.
“The third world takeover of the southwest has spread to Virginia”
Great. Your weed blower problems are solved. And all you have to do now is get used to gang warfare in the streets to have that!
Maybe the “Intel Chiefs” will start smelling the coffee when they see whole neighborhoods turned into Barrios. But probably not, they’ll just retreat to gated estates funded by the suckers (us) who have to live with the results of their negligence.
We had whole neighborhoods turn into barrios 10 years ago.
It’s been painful to watch.
My vote goes to President Trump.
That deal with Iran was very profitable to some big wigs who are pulling the strings. Iran has a nuclear program and lots of money. There are many nuclear powers around the world today and some would be classified as rogue nations. Why are we so damn sure that Iran does not pose a threat of becoming a nuclear power? I side with my President, period.
worth repeating
1. I agree with you that Trump is the Commander in Chief and gets to decide what he believes is the right foreign policy course.
2. However, I disagree with you regarding the issue of who is right and who is wrong when it comes to the severity of the threat of Iran or North Korea or ISIS.
It is not that I don’t support Trump, it is that I feel he hasn’t done the ground work that his intelligence agents did.
Someone’s estimation is closer to reality our decisions have to be based on the most accurate estimations.
1. I agree with you that Trump
Is the Commander in Chief and gets to decide what he believes is the right foreign policy course.
2. However, I disagree with you regarding the issue of who is right and who is wrong when it comes to the severity of the threat of Iran or North Korea or ISIS.
It is not that I don’t support Trump, it is that I feel he hasn’t done the ground work that his intelligence agents did.
Someone’s estimation is closer to reality our decisions have to be based on the most accurate estimations.
No.
The issue is, what strategy will produce the results we as a people require? Conditions on the ground change continuously. Do we want to effect the change or be affected by it? Fighting endless wars keeps us locked into hopeless struggles.
Allowing others to resolve their interminable conflicts protects our resources for a time when they are sorely needed.
The spy chiefs rely on failed systems that do not produce meaningful information. The belief that Iran is not building an atomic arsenal is based on information gathering systems that are fundamentally flawed. The spy chiefs have invested in their worthless systems and cannot get away from them. They are stupid or corrupt or both.
The decision will be made by Trump and his reasons for making the decision are entirely up to him. It he wants to ignore his intelligence chiefs and go based on his gut feeling alone then he has the power to do so.
The hearing was on TV. They weren't misquoted.
Spy chief: We should put a wire on when conversing with Trump!
We knew Pakistan built a Bomb, NOT!
We knew India built a Bomb, NOT!
He listen to Israel, NOT!
But we sure as hell know about Sadam’s WMDs!
The CIA/FBI are manifestly infested at the high levels with high Clinton/Obama/Soros globalist lackeys. It seems they do not know their “left hands from their right” (Book of Jonah). The Israelis have made it clear that our intelligence apparatus has made serious blunders. I trust Trump’s instincts and his Christian Worldview more than globalist hacks.
President Trump won the election. He’s the decider.
There’s not spook in the country who’s been elected to make those decisions anywhere. Just because their butt-hurts because the President doesn’t endorse their analysis as the “correct” one doesn’t mean we need to hear about it.
And what I wanna know, is whether or not the noisy ones are on “the take” from those whom they “successfully” advocate for in DC?
that would make them “lobbyists” and its illegal for “lobbyists” to be on the Federal Payroll.
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