Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Mission Accomplished-ish Rex Tillerson
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has defended the gutting of top US State Department diplomats and staffers. His explanation - they're no longer needed, the Trump administration is on the verge of solving most of the world's problems.
The secretary of state presented this rationale for the budget cut at a time when he is under fire from former US diplomats for gutting his state department at a time of multiple crises around the world – an allegation Tillerson denied.
On Tuesday, the secretary of state said he was “offended” by suggestions that “somehow we don’t have a state department that works”.
And he offered a further rationale for the retrenchment, based on an assumption that the world would become more peaceful.
“Part of this bringing the budget numbers back down is reflective of an expectation that we’re going to have success in some of these conflict areas, getting these conflicts resolved and moving to a different place in terms of the kind of support we have to give,” Tillerson said.
Rex Tillerson is a perfect fit for the Trump administration. LikeTrump and several of the Mango Mussolini's aides, Tillerson also has prosecutors hot on his heels only in the secretary's case it's state attorney generals investigating his conduct as CEO of Exxon.
Tillerson is probably right. What exactly did the Obama State Department achieve? They turned 2 wars into 7 military interventions. Overthrew the democratic government in Ukraine backing actual fascists - striking at the heart of Russia after violating post-Cold War treaties with NATO incursions into Eastern Europe. They planned on reviving the Cold War with Russia. They let North Korea continue its ICBM nuclear ambitions unopposed. The Iran deal was weak and only kicked the can further down the road. The Paris Agreement was an absurd pretense of action on reducing global GHG emissions.
ReplyDeleteLess is certainly more, when 'more' is all corruption and incompetence. Trump would have to try really hard to do a worse job - and he has no interest on going around the country collecting bribes in speaking fees like Obama and the Clintons. (He plans on making more on POTUS merchandizing alone!)
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/11/28/apropos-of-not-much-3/
Delete"As the GOP prepares to transfer wealth up and gut national finances in the process, it’s worth reflecting a little on national power. US predominance is no law of nature. It emerged in specific historical circumstances, & it will erode (is eroding) within its historical moment."
"Trump and GOP actions are powering that decline, from gutting US diplomacy to abandoning soft power/trade alliances to an over reliance on the trappings of military power on the international security side to an attack on the US’s domestic capacity to solve problems, propel economic growth, and secure good lives for the great mass of its people."
The Trumpist Doctrine, is you don't need much of a State Department when you have the World's Most Powerful Military,
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176250/tomgram%3A_william_hartung%2C_the_generals_vs._the_ideologues_or_the_generals_and_the_ide
What good is having nukes, if you can't use them.
http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/archive/global%20warming
Trump's vanity and stupidity affects everyone in his administration.
ReplyDeleteClearly, magical thinking is something Tillerson knows his audience has an appetite for, Mound.
ReplyDeleteVanity and stupidity Trump bribe-taking corruption!
ReplyDeleteEven with vanity and stupidity, there are bound to be some things done right: like killing the TPP, renegotiating NAFTA, opposing wealth-hemorrhaging mercantilism, stopping a Cold War revival horror show, standing up to NK's intolerable nuclear ambitions getting the whole world on your side.
With bribe-taking corruption, that's the equivalent of putting the wolves in charge of the hen house. Absolutely no up side!
Maybe his audience thinks he's slashing the "Deep State Department." Maybe they're right.
ReplyDeleteGlobal and continental integration has been a huge con job culminating in widespread corruption that has put the Western economy on the verge of collapse. Could trigger world war - which is what happened 80 years ago when Robber Barons looted the economy to a deflationary death spiral - which brought about the rise of Hitler!
So backing out of this web of corruption can lop off a lot of tentacles of filth that are siphoning off wealth, jobs and democratic representation.
I believe in moderate centrism. Goldilocks type stuff.
Immigration policy: flood of refugees and illegals? no thanks; ethno-state? no thanks; traditional tried-and-true levels: sure.
Global integration: isolationism? no; free-trade globalization? hell's no; Fair Trade globalization inversion - that deploys social and green tariffs to spread around wealth - developing an actual global civilization in a viable and sustainable manner - predicated on tried-and-true 'New Deal' mixed-market macroeconomics - that created the wealth of the first-world nations? Why not?
BTW,
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.ca/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/state-department-rex-tillerson-redesign-quits-resigns-name-three-months-donald-trump-a8079796.html%3famp
"A senior official tasked by Donald Trump to lead a restructure of the State Department has resigned after just three months.
Maliz Beams, a former financial industry executive is “stepping away” to return to Boston, a department spokesman said on condition of anonymity.
She was only named State Department Counselor on 17 August."