Trump Advisors want regime change in Iran - Is this a joke?

War with Iran?  Is Trump Seriously Considering This?

The recent news from a Politico article that some of President Trump's foreign policy advisors want regime change in Iran has got to be troubling news.  Has the president not been following the long and unfruitful wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Those wars were supposed to show the strength of the US military and the "power of Ameria" to transform those nation-states into Western-style democracies in short time period.  The war in Afghanistan is a never-ending back and forth between the Taliban and ISIS (rumored) and Coalition forces fighting over the same space and cities.  I don't see anything getting better in that country.  

War with Iran would engulf (no pun intended) the Persian Gulf and the Greater Middle East, and this horrible military endeavor will not end well and will plunge the area into total conflict for many, many years.  I believe it will damage our military and the lasting effects will be irreparable, for Iran, the United States, Israel and neighboring countries.

President Trump may feel that in order to prove that he is no puppet of Putin, he will have to attack and defeat Iran and Syria, two client states of Russia.  He seems to have no understanding of how a government works, and what it can do, or what it can't.  If he cannot grasp that, how on earth do people think he can hold onto the prospects of war and its effects?  Syria is going to be a continued quagmire, with Russian, American and now recently exposed Israeli contributions to both sides of the fighting.  Israel wants President Bashar Assad out of power, which will eliminate a source of concern and one less enemy for the State of Israel.  However, Assad is a loyal client of Russia, and Russia has to show that it too will defend its friends, the same way America has to defend Europe and its allies in the Pacific region (Australia, the Philippines, Singapore and Japan).

Knowing this, why would President Trump want to start a fight with another client state of Russia, which will most likely draw in Putin himself. The danger is that this will constitute the first time great powers went to war with each other since World War II.  It will change the power dynamic and could force a nuclear exchange with Putin.  President Trump does not have the mental fortitude to avoid this type of catastrophe.  Iran will engage Israel through his proxies in the region including Hezbollah.  This will force Israel to engage Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which is the most powerful faction within the Iranian government, outside of the Mullahs.  America will have to defend Israel when Iranian and Russian forces retaliate.  I don't see how this conflict doesn't end without some sort of nuclear exchange of tactical nuclear weapons (nuclear bombs with a lower tonnage yield that destroys a smaller area of square mileage) with the Russians.

President Trump's advisors who are pushing this war narrative are, in my opinion, Steve Miller and Steve Bannon, two ultra-nationalists who see war as the only means to change the current state of the world.  Both of these nuts have no problem starting an unnecessary war that will provide no serious benefit to the country at large, or Western civilization.  Who in the Trump White House can challenge the two Steves?  Jared Kushner? Ivanka?  I am not so sure, especially with all the mysterious and troubling people that Trump keeps around, like Dr. Sebastian Gorka, who is a cheerleader for military solutions to almost every foreign policy issue.

I don't want to sound pessimistic, but if President Trump wants war with Iran, I don't see any counter force within the White House to turn him away from this terrible idea.  Jared and Ivanka don't have the influence to overrule President Trump if his ego and pride are on the line if the only solution for the praise he covets is to send America's men and women in the service of their country to another long war with ambiguous successes.  This callous endeavor will spell the end of our military readiness, our ability to deal with difficult situations with military solutions, and the benefit for our overall economy and the American people.  This war will not end well and could lead to horrible consequences for the future of the human race and democracy in the United States.

It is a scary time indeed for all of us on planet earth.

AK

Comey Don't Play That

Former FBI Director Comey and his testimony to Congressional Intelligence Committees

June 8, 2017

James Comey, the recently fired Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation gave, from most accounts, a riveting dose of testimony regarding his conversations with President Trump investigations.  It revolved around the multiple investigations of Trump campaign staffers, and the campaign itself, interactions and alleged collusion with Vladimir Putin's government.  President Trump has been very adamant in getting Mr. Comey to provide proof to the American public that he is not under investigation.  Although in the letter President Trump wrote to fire James Comey, he wrote that Mr. Comey conveyed to him that (three times!) that Mr. Trump was not under investigation.  That did nothing to stifle assumptions, rumors, and gossip amongst the political class in Washington, D.C. watching the hearings on televisions throughout the District.

After watching the hearings, and listening to both liberal and conservative viewpoints on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, I have come to the sad realization that Comey and his testimony are the "No Man's Land" of the trench warfare that Democrats and Republicans are fighting over.  Both groups take away from his testimony what they want to hear, and get their party machinery to repeat over and over.  Democrats continue to shill for the idea that Donald Trump worked with the Russian government to subvert the democratic process to choose an American president.  The Republicans, who control all three branches of power in America, carefully parse Comey's testimony to see if they can avoid any difficult discussions about Trump's culpability.  Congressman Darrel Issa feels that the "non-issue" has been put to rest (he is referring of course, to additional and broad-reaching investigations into the Trump Administration's Russia issue).  The Democrats, to no one's surprise, want to investigate everyone and anyone associated with the Trump Administration.

Comey is just another pawn in this constant war of politics between two out-of-touch political parties. Neither the Republican party or the Democratic party have shown any real desire to work on behalf of the people who pay taxes (they do, but those are bipartisan mega-donors, who provide the lion's share of campaign cash), and those voters have watched certain industries (Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, etc) do well, and see successful people do even better while the majority of the country has stagnated wages and many lose their jobs.

President Trump was supposed to be a sacrificial ham sandwich for Hillary Clinton to break the Glass Ceiling.  Instead, he used his savvy ability to listen to and argue for the mood of the rejected American voter, who is financially in trouble.  As a result of his shocking win, Democrats are trying to exercise their anger into proving the Trump Administration is guilty of collusion with a foreign power.  I am not defending Trump per se from any alleged act or accusation. I truly feel that a thorough investigation of the election, the hacking of the DNC, and interactions between Trump campaign staffers and the Russian government needs to be researched and presented to Congress and the American people.  Comey's experience should be part of this investigation, but sadly nothing will come of it.  Because the Republicans and Democrats and constantly using people and events to fight over control of the government, mainly to reward those aforementioned mega-donors, and their friends, there will be no great lesson learned from the 2016 election.

James Comey is a decent and dedicated public servant, whose testimony should be used to improve the methods Americans use to choose their elected officials to administer their country.  The sad part, Mr. Comey's testimony to Congress will be dissected and disseminated to the various echo chambers of the Republican and Democratic parties.  It will not be taken for what it is, a public servant's observations about a troubled year in American history regarding our elections, and how to correct mistakes and errors in cyber security.  It is another nail in the war between to extreme political ideologies, and which will eventually help the true enemy of our country, Vladimir Putin.  No wonder he smiles so often.

AK

Kathy Griffin Controversy, aka "Trump Head"

How Far Does Too Far Go?

How does the Kathy Griffin controversy stack up with other previous 1st Amendment issues concerning the President of the United States? During the Obama presidency, there were countless images of Obama in the Joker makeup, and other images of him with a bone through his nose, similar to the horrible stereotypical images of African tribespeople that racists used to show to the masses. Although I do not recall them, I think there might have been images of 'President Obama in cross-hairs, which is equally uncalled for.  Is the recent image of Kathy Griffin and the severed Donald Trump head the worst case of comics trying to get a reaction out of a shocked society?

I think Griffin's was the worst stunt that I can remember.   I know the 1st Amendment is a sacred law and right that Americans use, but I think in a divided society, with a polarizing President Trump, that image that Kathy Griffin released was both ill-advised and dumb.  It encourages similar behavior from others and will lead down a path that is unforgivable.  I know some comedians suggest that is what they do, to provoke, agitate and whip people into a frenzy.  That is fine and all, but in this day and age, it is not the kind of discussion the American people need to engage in.  

I think it started with the election/Supreme Court affirmation of the presidency of George W. Bush that started the trend of the unhinged behavior of the American electorate to publicly demean and insult the occupant of the White House through words and images that are shocking to many (I know presidents since the creation of the country and constitution have been subject to cartoon images and added ridicule, but lately it has gotten to be alarming).  Democrats and liberals started to goad each other into creating the perception of how stupid President Bush was, which led to the Will Ferrel role of a dim-witted chief executive who was in over his head and had Vice President Cheney the one who ran the country.

Then, when Barack Obama was elected to the White House, it was conservatives turn to raise the shock value of their lack of respect for the president and his family.  The media did not try to show how this type of behavior was not acceptable, rather the media showed these images to rile up the respective sides of the political divide.  It led to abhorrent behavior from some members of the Republican party, including consultants and party leaders, especially on the state and local level in conservative states.  The GOP should have taken the steps to clamp down and show of force that this derogatory behavior will never be tolerated.

For future generations, I hope that the American people will realize that one does not have to like or can even hate the President of the United States. They can make fun of him or her in a clever way, but that promoting behavior that pokes fun at, or at its worst encourages violence of any sort directed at a member of Congress or a President, is unacceptable and should never rear its ugly head again.