Wag the Dog?

[Big RR]

Trump to address the nation tonight on Afghanistan. What sort of diversion are you expecting?

[Lord Jim]

This has been in the works for a long time and the driving force behind it has been Jim Mattis...(It's not something that Trump has suddenly come up with it)

Trump has for the most part turned over military strategy decisions to Mattis (probably one of the few good decisions he's made; Mattis has vastly improved the effectiveness of the fight to bring down the ISIS caliphate) but in this case Mattis insisted on public buy-in from Trump...

The speech Trump is scheduled to make tonight is the kind of speech one would expect a normal President to make; a White House address to explain a decision to commit additional US troops to a foreign conflict.

But I suspect Trump, (being Trump) would rather not be giving this speech, because now if the strategy fails, he's going to own it, and Trump is a great believer in avoiding responsibility...

It will also be interesting to see if he's able to stay on script and deliver this speech in the serious and focused way that a normal President would, or if we're going to hear again about his "landslide" win, the "fake news" etc...

[Big RR]

I'd bet the latter.

[Guinevere]

Regardless of how long this has been in the works, he will use it as an opportunity to distract and gaslight.

Whether or not he stays on message will tell us even more about how long Kelly is going to stick around.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I suspect that is true (Mattis is driving the speech) and that Kelly will be watching carefully. Still, I think it is possible that no matter how badly Trump goes off course, Kelly will stay on the grounds that there has to be at least one grown-up providing daytime supervision in the West Wing.

[RayThom]

After a congratulatory opening speech by Lord Dampnut extolling many of his unbelievable virtues, he will probably find blame by "very fine people, on both sides" of the war. Then Drumpf will mention something that will relate to a "draft" of able bodied men and women but, being the wonderful deal maker and negotiator that he is, he has ordered his generals to take that option off the table. That will soften the blow of the real news that follows.

Our supreme leader will then turn over the conference to "Mad Dog" Mattis who has a better understanding as to what's going on. It's widely held by the Pentagon war board that the military must remain engaged in order to ensure that terrorists aren't able to threaten the US from safe areas from inside Afghanistan. With that, a recommendation that more troops are necessary. An increase which I feel is already in progress.

First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen. God bless Donald John Trump.

[Big RR]

It's widely held by the Pentagon war board that the military must remain engaged in order to ensure that terrorists aren't able to threaten the US from safe areas from inside Afghanistan. With that, a recommendation that more troops are necessary

I don't think I can recall a time when the Pentagon said "it's time to leave"; presidents have said that, congress too, but the Pentagon always says we need to increase our presence even though we have no end strategy or even any idea of what we plan to achieve and how we are going to do it. We did it in Korea. We did it in Vietnam. We did it in Iraq. And now we're doing it in Afghanistan. We pour lives into the meat grinder to "protect our freedom", and then sit back and let that happen again and again, achieving nothing but death.

But I don't expect any different from the imbecile in chief; indeed, I doubt h3 could even find Afghanistan on a map.

[RayThom]

Yikes! No surprises, and all said within thirty minutes. That's certainly not what I expected from Lord Dampnut, and I must admit he stuck to the script quite well. He actually sounded presidential even though I couldn't agree with everything he had to say.

With that, I'll hold judgement until he has time to tweet what's really on his mind. You know it's coming.

[Bicycle Bill]

After listening to Trump's speech, all I could hear was this:



A M E R I C A   —   F U C K   Y E A H !

-"BB"-

[Big RR]

I tend to agree with BB, ray--I didn't think he sounded particularly presidential, just more presidential than he usually sounds (of course that's not too hard). Fighting evil, our allies will be held accountable for their share, the terrorists can't hide--more like a cartoon character than our president.

America-----Fuck yeah!

[Burning Petard]

The CinC carefully left undefined just what the goal is in Afghanistan beyond killing terrorists. "The Taliban cannot win on the battle field" Of course not, the Taliban is fighting for the minds and hearts of the people, not racking up a score on the nightly news. We will remain a hated occupation force in the Graveyard of Empires.

POTUS carefully stayed on script and looked to be fighting it every second. The opening remarks about immortal heroes and unity and brother/sisterhood and all-for-one mission, he seems to have forgotten to leave out the transexuals who are now serving that he will soon remove (well, perhaps this reflects another attack of short term memory loss that is so typical of his public communications)

snailgate

[Lord Jim]

I found myself in agreement with most of the words that Trump read from the teleprompter last night...

The test will come with the implementation of the very broad strategic approach that was laid out, (and fortunately, Trump won't have much to do with that.)

But if you want to see the real Donald Trump in action again, (or even if you don't) you won't have to wait long..,

He's holding a pep rally with his peeps in Arizona tonight, and I'm sure he'll bring the crazy for that...

[Sue U]

No one ever defeated an idea or an ideology by killing terrorists -- or even whole armies. (The Charlottesville insanity should have made that abundantly clear.) If the U.S. couldn't secure "victory" in Afghanistan -- whatever that means -- with 100,000 troops in-country, how does Trump propose to accomplish it with whatever the magical number of servicemen is that he won't disclose (but something apparently well under 15,000)?

This "new" strategy is nothing other than the same old prescription for endless war. Adding the "expected" 4,000 troops to the current 8,500 with an apparent policy of refusal to assist in actually strengthening Afghan governmental and social institutions (the "nation building" so hated by Trump) is a guarantee of mission failure.

Also too:

[Big RR]

And let's not forget, the more Americans we get killed, the more we make the case for staying there so as not to "dishonor" the dead. As if more deaths with no c0mcept of what a victory is honors those already dead.

[Sue U]

Afghanistan should have been a straightforward, focused police operation to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden and his accomplices (who were mostly foreigners anyway), and once that was done it should have been over. Placing American forces there to continue fighting a "war on terror" with/against indigenous factions was a colossal mistake, compounded by initiating a second war in Iraq -- all of which lent legitimacy to al-Qaeda's narrative of Christian western imperialism stomping on the Ummah and desecrating Muslim lands. And Trump's idiotic claims that the U.S. should have taken Iraq's oil and should be mining Afghanistan's minerals and other natural resources plays right into the same Taliban/AlQaeda/ISIS story line.

Whatever the alleged justification, it seems to me that Trump's Afghanistan "policy" is entirely for domestic political purposes, and specifically to prop up his sinking poll numbers: "getting tough on terror" while actually prolonging the "war on terror" and making sure that "radical Islamic terrorism" remains a bogeyman for many election cycles to come, so that Americans can vote for [TRUMP/INSERT ALTERNATE CANDIDATE'S NAME HERE] who will "support our troops" and "keep us safe." Because it sure isn't about ending a civil war and bringing peace and stability to the Afghan people.

Although to be fair, it can be hard to tell whether this move is cynical or just simple-minded. I'm perfectly prepared to accept either explanation.

[rubato]

I agree. We should have gotten out soon afterwards rather than being facilitators of the Karzai kleptocracy:





Bush the stupider made a critical mistake and unfortunately Obama did not correct it.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

He's holding a pep rally with his peeps in Arizona tonight, and I'm sure he'll bring the crazy for that...

[Guinevere]

As usual, the Daily 202 does a great job summarizing the crazy;

read it and weep

Excerpt here:

THE BIG IDEA: President Trump’s raucous rally in Phoenix last night was one giant attempt to rewrite history.

-- These are the three biggest headlines out of his 76-minute speech:

Trump threatened to shut down the federal government if Congress does not fund a border wall by the end of next month. “If we have to close down our government, we're building that wall,” he said. “We're going to have our wall!”
He predicted that the North American Free Trade Agreement is “probably” going to be terminated “at some point.” “Personally, I don't think we can make a deal,” he said of ongoing efforts to renegotiate the terms.
And he hinted strongly that he will pardon former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio at the right moment. “I won't do it tonight because I don't want to cause any controversy. But Sheriff Joe should feel good,” Trump said.

-- The bigger picture is that the president is in denial. His tendency to gloss over mistakes and pass the buck by recasting history in terms most favorable to himself was on vivid display. Just as the media was showing signs of starting to move on, Trump devoted more than 16 minutes to re-litigating his response to the horror in Charlottesville.

He defended the initial comment that he read on the day that Heather Heyer was killed and 19 others were injured when a car plowed into a group of people who were protesting white supremacists. Trump reread the first statement, but he notably omitted his declaration that there is hatred and bigotry “on many sides.” That is what generated the initial controversy.


“The words were perfect,” Trump said. “I spoke out forcefully…”

He complained that he did not get enough credit for the second statement, delivered from the White House two days later. “I hit 'em with neo-Nazi, I hit 'em with everything. KKK? We have KKK. I got 'em all,” Trump said.

Then he completely glossed over his news conference the day after that, in which he again insisted that “both sides” were to blame for the violence. “You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent, and nobody wants to say that,” Trump said at Trump Tower.

As he recounted the story at the Phoenix Convention Center last night, Trump complained that the press intentionally ignored his condemnations. “I'm only doing this to show you how damned dishonest these people are,” he said. “They said 'he wasn't specific enough.’”

Yeah. Perfect.

Worth scrolling all the way through the link to the tweets at the back. Some are quite funny. Good links to other reactions to the speech as well.

[Big RR]

“I won't do it tonight because I don't want to cause any controversy. But Sheriff Joe should feel good,”

Since when has causing controversy been a moderating effect on Trump?

Maybe he stared at the eclipse too long and it changed his outlook?

[Guinevere]

Another excellent recap: Recap

Interesting if he lost some of the crowd. Also note this bit:

Trump reached into his suit pocket and removed a different set of talking points.

“I'm really doing this to show you how damned dishonest these people are,” Trump said, promising that this would take “just a second” and would be “really fast.”

Trump then took more than 16 minutes to read the various statements that he made about Charlottesville over several days, noting the use of all-caps for one word and skipping over the part where he said that “many sides” were responsible for the violence. After reading each snippet, Trump would detail why that response was not good enough for the media.

“Why did it take a day? He must be a racist,” Trump said, the first of the five times he imitated people calling him a racist.

Along the way, Trump defended his use of Twitter and bragged that he went to “better schools” and lives “in a bigger, more beautiful apartment” than those who are considered elites. He said the “failing New York Times … is like so bad,” mocked CNN for its ratings and accused The Washington Post of being “a lobbying tool for Amazon” because the newspaper is owned by Jeffrey P. Bezos, who founded Amazon. The crowd repeatedly booed the reporters in their midst and chanted: “CNN sucks! CNN sucks!”

At one point, Trump was interrupted by two protesters, who were quickly led out of the arena by security, giving Trump's supporters something to videotape and share on Facebook or Snapchat.

“Don't bother,” Trump said, as the crowd booed. “It's only a single voice. And not a very powerful voice.”

He returned to reading aloud his own statements and recounting the resulting media coverage, which led to commenting on CNN's panels of “real lightweights,” which led to him defending a surrogate who was fired by CNN earlier this month for tweeting the Nazi salute, “Sieg Heil!”

“And they fired Jeffrey Lord. Poor Jeffrey. Jeffrey Lord,” Trump said. “I guess he was getting a little fed up, and he was probably fighting back a little bit too hard.”

Without even taking a breath, Trump resumed reading a statement from Aug. 14 in which he condemned violence caused by “the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold true as Americans.” That statement came two days after the violence in Charlottesville.

“So they were having a hard time with that one, because I said everything,” Trump said, then flippantly launching into a laundry list of hate groups. “I hit 'em with neo-Nazi. I hit 'em with everything. I got the white supremacists, the neo-Nazi. I got them all in there. Let's see: KKK? We have KKK. I got 'em all.”

Trump eventually wrapped up this defense by saying, in part: “The words were perfect.”

The president then tried to connect this lengthy self-examination to his supporters. Meanwhile, a growing number of them were calling it a night and heading to the exits.