January 8, 2020--"Imminent Attack"

Do you remember the Gulf of Tonkin resolution? Back in 1964 it authorized then president Lyndon Johnson to expand our military involvement in the Vietnam War. 

The U.S. command claimed that one of our ships, a destroyer, in international waters, was attacked by three North Vietnam torpedo boats. Based on this assertion, Congress voted to allow LBJ and the Pentagon to enlarge our footprint in the region and the resolution was cited frequently during subsequent years to justify direct attacks on North Korean cities, harbors, and military facilities.

Then do you remember how George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and his senior national security and military staff claimed that the U.S.'s invasion of Iraq in January, 2003 was justified because Iraq was actively building weapons of mass destruction and would soon have the means to deploy them against the American homeland and our European allies? Recall how National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice spoke vividly about how if we failed to attack Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein it would lead to "mushroom clouds" over European capitals.

Though seemingly unrelated, these two incidents have a number of things in common--most significant the threats they identified were  largely untrue. 

The North Vietnamese had not initiated an attack on one of our naval vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin, and Iraq was found after our invasion and occupation not to have WMDs.

This brings us to today where the current administration is unleashing the dogs of war.

Trump authorized "taking out" Iranian general Qassim Soleimani because he was allegedly plotting an "imminent attack" on U.S. military and diplomatic assets in the Middle East.

Since neither Trump nor his national security team have provided credible intelligence evidence to justify this explanation it sounds suspiciously like the way the Gulf of Tonkin incident and WMD claims were represented. 

Perhaps in coming days we will hear more, but I remain skeptical. This feels all too familiar and Trump of course is constitutionally incapable of telling the truth.

November 27, 2018--South of the Border

Silly me, all along I thought Trump would wag the dog when Robert Mueller's findings were about to be published by bombing nuclear installations in North Korea or Iran. To distract from the main Mueller takeaway--the indictments of half the Trump family--he would start a war either place and watch his approval ratings soar. 

Don't they always when a president shows muscle? Like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon did in the early days in Vietnam, Ronald Reagan did in Grenada, as George H. W. Bush did in Panama and Iraq, as Bill Clinton did in Bosnia, and George W. Bush did in Afghanistan and again in Iraq. Approval numbers in all instances went off the charts. 

But then (is there a lesson here?) in almost all cases the numbers came crashing back to earth. In fact so low for LBJ and Nixon that for this and other reasons they both wound up having to resign the presidency. (Lesson here as well?)

But now I think Trump's first (note that--first) wag situation will not be with Iran or North Korea but along the 1,900 mile border with Mexico.

With our border patrol people already using teargas and rubber bullets à la Israel to contain asylum seekers and Trump authorizing the use of "lethal force" if they or the military he has deployed to the area have rocks thrown at them, the visuals are already so intoxicating to the cable-news-addicted president that how can he be expected to resist a wider, more telegenic little war? And of course not have to worry that these fleeing Guatemalans might lob nukes on San Francisco or Trump Tower in New York City.

While all this excitement is going on who will care about the beans spilt by former campaign manager Paul Manafort or former fixer Michael Cohen? Who will notice that Trump pardons Don Junior, son-in-law Jared, and Ivanka? Who will pay attention to the legal spatting about the constitutionality of subpoenaing or indicting a sitting president?

After running this riff by Rona, she said, "A little snarky, don't you think?"

"Maybe a little," I said, "But this is serious."

"And for something this serious you think snark is the right tone? Thousands in the caravans are suffering and back in their home countries there are millions more being preyed upon by violent gangs, collapsed economies, and governmental corruption."

"So what are we supposed to do? Open our borders and let anyone in who wants to work and live here? I agree the situation is serious but what are we realistically supposed to think much less do? I get the demagoguery and the rhetoric, how Trump is playing with these people's lives for his own political purposes. To feed his base of terrified haters. If you were president what would you do?"

"It is very complicated," Rona said, "Look at what happened to poor Hillary the other day. When she said in an interview in The Guardian that 'Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame' of nationalism in England, Western Europe, and with Trump the U.S. too. She got beat up, most claimed, for not getting off the stage and letting the next generation of Democrats move into the spotlight. But I think she was castigated because she told the truth. The truth that American liberals don't want to deal with because they fear it will alienate some members of their own base--those who want more open borders and a permissive approach to immigration."

"What we need," I said, "Is a whole new immigration policy. It needs to be humanitarian and efficient but also has to place limits on who we can admit to the country and need for our economy. That's the hard part."

"We can and should talk more about this because I can't figure out what I would like to see. But in the meantime I agree with you about Trump. You can safely bet your last two dollars that he's hoping for some significant violence along the border to justify a more and more aggressive response by our security forces. Sort of like how Lyndon Johnson jumped on a supposed incident in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam to justify a major ramping up of our commitment to defeat the Vietcong. My guess is that Trump is looking for his Gulf of Tonkin opportunity to take the focus off Mueller."

"In the meantime," I said, "Back to the snark."