I'm so glad you're on top of this, Juan. People seem to be getting complacent about what a radical threat Donald Trump is, as he appears on our TV screens on a nightly basis. Once he has the imprimatur of being the Republican nominee, there will be even more tendency to shrug off the reality of what a sociopath Trump is.
It will be increasingly up to people like you, who don't profit from Trump's ratings bonanzas, to to remind people of the danger.
In that vein, it is important that you don't pull your punches. You refer to MSNBC reporters who were telling us that Trump voters aren't such a bad bunch - but you didn't name names. It was Chris Hayes, who is smart enough to know better. But even he seems to bowing to network pressure to domesticate Trump for public consumption. Very, very dangerous. At the rate things are going, the media is going to turn Trump into an avuncular, aw-shucks Ronald Reagan character by the time of the election.
But to give this man power would be a deadly mistake. His psychology is more akin to the pissed-off gunmen who kill their co-workers than it is to a statesman.
Trump is a gun nut - on steroids. Giving him power would be like giving an AK-47 to a psycho-killer.
I am just trying to get accurate information so I can make sense of what's going on. My government is telling me they are doing all they can to fight ISIS, an organization that routinely beheads Americans, among others. Yet it appears that protecting oil supplies for a (dubious) ally (in the future) was a higher priority than doing all we could to defeat this group in the present. And that doesn't make sense to me. It makes me think my government is not telling me the truth.
Thank you for answering my question. Let me see if I have this right: until the Paris attacks, it was American policy to let ISIS fund itself through the sale of oil, because some day the oil wells would be back in Iraqi hands. But, after Paris, we decided that it was more important to choke off iSIS immediately and worry about the oilfields at a later date. Was it a mistake not to go after the oil fields earlier? Did we miscalculate the danger ISIS presented. Or was our hand forced by the attack in Paris to make a show of strength? And I'm still wondering about the Saudi role - am I right to see this as a proxy war?
Thanks, again, Juan.
Hi Juan
I'm asking you this because you seem like a straight shooter and I can't find the answer anywhere else.
I don't understand the difficulty in shutting down ISIS's funding. Surely all the Western countries, with their sophisticated air-power can target oil fields, pipelines and convoys. So, if we were serious about fighting ISIS in the beginning, it seems like a simple matter to cripple their oil fields. Also, if we were serious about fighting ISIS, it seems we could have easily tracked the financial backers of the group and frozen their funds. I'm assuming that the reason these things were not done is that ISIS is primarily backed by the Saudies, who are fighting a proxy war against the Iranians, like they always are. So, although our elected officials make a lot of saber-rattling noises, we are not really committed to defeating ISIS, but rather are playing some kind of game in which we are hedging our bets. Do the Saudis really have so much influence over US foreign policy that they can fund groups who behead American citizens? It seems to me that there's no army that can survive if the American military truly goes to war against it. Maybe this is what gives Trump credibility - the public knows that we are only taking half-measures against ISIS, and the reason why can never be spoken. At least Donald Trump speaks. I've noticed the even he tiptoes around this subject, usually saying only "you know who I'm talking about" but shying away from openly accusing the Saudis of backing ISIS.
Anyway, I'd appreciate any light you can shed on this subject, because all the protestations of American impotence don't make sense to me, with all our satellites and drones and NSA surveillance and financial clout.
Thanks,
Ben
Juan, can you explain how US administrations juggle the influence of the Saudis and other Mideast gov'ts? As a non-expert, it seems odd to me that the Saudi's, with their massive wealth, would be just another interest group, and not insist on American policy reflecting their desires more explicitly. Now we seem to be aligned with Iran in a huge intra-Arab war. What do you know about what's happening behind the scenes? And how much influence do the Saudi's have compared to the Israeli's?
Just for the sake of accuracy, the correct pronunciation of Ahmadinejad's name is more like Ahmadi-nejad, than the 5 syllable Amma-dinny-jod, right?
If I remember correctly, the Amma-dinny-jod pronunciation was a flustered ad-lib by an American anchorman, and then everyone else just fell in line so they wouldn't look stupid.
I also seem to remember that president Bush insisted on using the correct pronunciation, but was lambasted for being stupid and not knowing he was supposed to say Amma-dinny-jod.
It is an interesting state of affairs when a U.S. president is assumed to be so stupid that, even when he gets something right, no one can believe it, and everyone just assumes he's an idiot.
I'm so glad you're on top of this, Juan. People seem to be getting complacent about what a radical threat Donald Trump is, as he appears on our TV screens on a nightly basis. Once he has the imprimatur of being the Republican nominee, there will be even more tendency to shrug off the reality of what a sociopath Trump is.
It will be increasingly up to people like you, who don't profit from Trump's ratings bonanzas, to to remind people of the danger.
In that vein, it is important that you don't pull your punches. You refer to MSNBC reporters who were telling us that Trump voters aren't such a bad bunch - but you didn't name names. It was Chris Hayes, who is smart enough to know better. But even he seems to bowing to network pressure to domesticate Trump for public consumption. Very, very dangerous. At the rate things are going, the media is going to turn Trump into an avuncular, aw-shucks Ronald Reagan character by the time of the election.
But to give this man power would be a deadly mistake. His psychology is more akin to the pissed-off gunmen who kill their co-workers than it is to a statesman.
Trump is a gun nut - on steroids. Giving him power would be like giving an AK-47 to a psycho-killer.
I am just trying to get accurate information so I can make sense of what's going on. My government is telling me they are doing all they can to fight ISIS, an organization that routinely beheads Americans, among others. Yet it appears that protecting oil supplies for a (dubious) ally (in the future) was a higher priority than doing all we could to defeat this group in the present. And that doesn't make sense to me. It makes me think my government is not telling me the truth.
Thank you for answering my question. Let me see if I have this right: until the Paris attacks, it was American policy to let ISIS fund itself through the sale of oil, because some day the oil wells would be back in Iraqi hands. But, after Paris, we decided that it was more important to choke off iSIS immediately and worry about the oilfields at a later date. Was it a mistake not to go after the oil fields earlier? Did we miscalculate the danger ISIS presented. Or was our hand forced by the attack in Paris to make a show of strength? And I'm still wondering about the Saudi role - am I right to see this as a proxy war?
Thanks, again, Juan.
Hi Juan
I'm asking you this because you seem like a straight shooter and I can't find the answer anywhere else.
I don't understand the difficulty in shutting down ISIS's funding. Surely all the Western countries, with their sophisticated air-power can target oil fields, pipelines and convoys. So, if we were serious about fighting ISIS in the beginning, it seems like a simple matter to cripple their oil fields. Also, if we were serious about fighting ISIS, it seems we could have easily tracked the financial backers of the group and frozen their funds. I'm assuming that the reason these things were not done is that ISIS is primarily backed by the Saudies, who are fighting a proxy war against the Iranians, like they always are. So, although our elected officials make a lot of saber-rattling noises, we are not really committed to defeating ISIS, but rather are playing some kind of game in which we are hedging our bets. Do the Saudis really have so much influence over US foreign policy that they can fund groups who behead American citizens? It seems to me that there's no army that can survive if the American military truly goes to war against it. Maybe this is what gives Trump credibility - the public knows that we are only taking half-measures against ISIS, and the reason why can never be spoken. At least Donald Trump speaks. I've noticed the even he tiptoes around this subject, usually saying only "you know who I'm talking about" but shying away from openly accusing the Saudis of backing ISIS.
Anyway, I'd appreciate any light you can shed on this subject, because all the protestations of American impotence don't make sense to me, with all our satellites and drones and NSA surveillance and financial clout.
Thanks,
Ben
Juan, can you explain how US administrations juggle the influence of the Saudis and other Mideast gov'ts? As a non-expert, it seems odd to me that the Saudi's, with their massive wealth, would be just another interest group, and not insist on American policy reflecting their desires more explicitly. Now we seem to be aligned with Iran in a huge intra-Arab war. What do you know about what's happening behind the scenes? And how much influence do the Saudi's have compared to the Israeli's?
Just for the sake of accuracy, the correct pronunciation of Ahmadinejad's name is more like Ahmadi-nejad, than the 5 syllable Amma-dinny-jod, right?
If I remember correctly, the Amma-dinny-jod pronunciation was a flustered ad-lib by an American anchorman, and then everyone else just fell in line so they wouldn't look stupid.
I also seem to remember that president Bush insisted on using the correct pronunciation, but was lambasted for being stupid and not knowing he was supposed to say Amma-dinny-jod.
It is an interesting state of affairs when a U.S. president is assumed to be so stupid that, even when he gets something right, no one can believe it, and everyone just assumes he's an idiot.