Having been in a few, my advice to a president before taking military action would be to warn him that the enemy gets a vote and wars have a nasty habit of spinning in directions the initiator does not intend and does not want. Be very careful here.
Trump Attacks Iran, III
- Thread starter 4Q Basket Case
- Start date
the flippancy with which they are treating war is disturbing to say the least
Sociopath may be a little harsh for Bush, Clinton and Obama. Egomaniac may be a little closer.
Trump on the other hand is both.
you just have to take off your tribal-radical-left-socialist-woke-somali blinders and see the truth
i liked some of his ideas, but i don't know if he would have been capable of actually getting anything done.
he doesn't understand much of anything other than how to separate people from their money and morals
We could begin to discuss what is possible to accomplish economically and socially within a former military and economic super power that has literally mortgaged its entire future and can no longer even pay the interest on its debt. To say it is a complex problem is a vast understatement. One thing for certain is that we have to stop burning down the house from the inside!
He was kind of the straw that broke the Camel’s back for me wrt to Politicians.
I really really wanted him to win the Democratic nomination in 2016 and then win the Presidency.
He opposed Clinton pretty strongly on the finer points of multiple issues at the time.
They went at each other and yet when the dust cleared and she won he just fell in line and gave his support to her.
I get that’s what’s usually done afterwards but I lost all respect for him after that and just don’t believe a single thing that comes out of a Politician's mouth anymore.
And many of the same people beating their chests with bravado over this attack are the same ones who fretted that "Putin has nukes !" as a reason not to send arms to Ukraine.
If they were worried about Russian nukes over a proxy war, why aren't they worried about a direct attack on a close ally of Putin(Iran)?
And the military advice should always be taken with a degree of skepticism, especially that of air power advocates (they tend to be overly optimistic about their own effectiveness).
The kinds of people who rise to the levels of Chief of Staff of the Army, CoS Air Force, Commandant of the Marine Corps and Chief of Naval Operations are not the kinds of guys who will often say, "I doubt that will work." Not saying they are all "yes men" but they are normally, "Can do" types or they would not be where they are.
‘member when the bros couldn’t support harris because she would send them to die in endless, pointless, middle east wars
this must be some of that awesomeness i continue to miss because of my terminal tds tribalism
apnews.com
Iran starts to formalize its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz with a 'toll booth' regime
Iran is cementing its hold over the Strait of Hormuz, demanding vessels give up detailed information and detour into Iranian waters before being vetted by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
apnews.com
Our good friends in Madison, WI are immigrants from Azerbaijan. Caucusus Jews.
During the last presidential election, when we would get together, all they could talk about was same-sex bathrooms and gender-affirming care, and how trans kids shouldn't be able to play on boy's teams.
We got together last weekend for Nowruz(Persian New Year), and they burst out with "We hate Trump! What is he doing in Iran?"
This just shows how easy MAGA has been able to mislead people. Hopefully, the worm is now turning. I never would believe in a million years that people like MTG and Nancy Mace would be turning on the Orange Anus.
Not only does he not listen to anybody, but he knows it all (in his own mind).
All of my reading on the 1968 Presidential election is showing me how Texas stubborn LBJ was. I’m finding A LOT of Trump’s bad qualities in a guy who was 100x the politician Trump will ever be in his best day. He contradicts himself at every corner and what sets him off the most is Humphrey straying from anything less than “the president is right about everything.”
It’s probably no accident that Hubert began to rise in the polls after he did his minimal break with Johnson in his SLC speech. And even some members of his party suspected Johnson saw Nixon as better than Vietnam until the very end. But that’s a long discussion for another day.
the trans obsession by so many over the past few years was/is quite intense. i guess it shows that targeted propaganda works quite well
I found this on the relationship between the "unprofessional" but still paramount views of the politician on strategy and the "professional" views of the military advisors on the subject. This is from Col. G. F. R. Henderson's lectures on The Science of War:
"Arnold, in his 'Lectures on Modern History,'[1] puts the matter clearly: 'There must be a point up to which an unprofessional judgment (i.e. a politician's views on strategy) on a professional subject (i.e. military affairs) may not only be competent, but of high authority, although beyond that point it cannot venture without presumption and folly. The distinction seems to lie originally in the difference between the power of doing a thing and that of perceiving whether it is well done or not. …
It would appear that what we understand least in the profession of another is the detail of his practice. We may appreciate his object, we may see where he has missed it, or where he is pursuing it ill; nay, may understand generally the method of setting about it, but we fail in the minute details. . . . But in proportion as we recede from those details to more general points, first, as to what is generally called strategy, that is to say the directing the movements of an army with a view to the accomplishment of the object of the campaign, in that proportion general knowledge and power of mind come into play, and an unprofessional person may, without blame, speak or write on military subjects, and may judge of them sufficiently." (G. F. R. Henderson, The Science of War (London: Longmans, Green, & Co. 1916), p. 19.)
I think what Henderson is saying here is that the president can issue broad guidance as to political objectives and even judge how well or poorly the military is achieving them while leaving the details of military science to the military professionals.
An interesting take.
[HR][/HR]
[1] Thomas Arnold, Lectures on Modern History (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1857), 182.
"Arnold, in his 'Lectures on Modern History,'[1] puts the matter clearly: 'There must be a point up to which an unprofessional judgment (i.e. a politician's views on strategy) on a professional subject (i.e. military affairs) may not only be competent, but of high authority, although beyond that point it cannot venture without presumption and folly. The distinction seems to lie originally in the difference between the power of doing a thing and that of perceiving whether it is well done or not. …
It would appear that what we understand least in the profession of another is the detail of his practice. We may appreciate his object, we may see where he has missed it, or where he is pursuing it ill; nay, may understand generally the method of setting about it, but we fail in the minute details. . . . But in proportion as we recede from those details to more general points, first, as to what is generally called strategy, that is to say the directing the movements of an army with a view to the accomplishment of the object of the campaign, in that proportion general knowledge and power of mind come into play, and an unprofessional person may, without blame, speak or write on military subjects, and may judge of them sufficiently." (G. F. R. Henderson, The Science of War (London: Longmans, Green, & Co. 1916), p. 19.)
I think what Henderson is saying here is that the president can issue broad guidance as to political objectives and even judge how well or poorly the military is achieving them while leaving the details of military science to the military professionals.
An interesting take.
[HR][/HR]
[1] Thomas Arnold, Lectures on Modern History (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1857), 182.
He showed how weak he was when he bent the knee to the party, knowing he had likely been screwed over in the primary. Weak men make weak presidents and his automatic capitulation shows me that we dodged a bullet with this guy. (Well, that and his belief that Democratic Socialism was the future of this country.)
Agreed... I think Bush and Obama both wanted to make lives better for all. Bush was coopted by Darth Cheney and his gang of rascally Neocons unfortunately, and Obama is still pilloried by many white folks for stating that racism exists and we can do better. Clinton... I'd say he is more of narcissist than a sociopath. He knows right from wrong and has empathy, but those moral measures fail in the light of what he wants.
People who make it to these positions do typically have psychopathic traits. As do the best fighter pilots and top CEOs. Although clinical definitions defer, psychopathy might be a better term to apply when discussing this issue.
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