Posts Tagged ‘IRAN’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 13, 2026 at 12:23 am
“The first impression that one gets of a ruler and his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him.
“When they are competent and loyal one can always consider him wise, as he has been able to recognize their ability and keep them faithful.
“But when they are the reverse, one can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.”
So wrote the Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli more than 500 years ago in his famous treatise on politics, The Prince.
And his words remain as true in our day as they were in his.
In fact, he could have been writing about the ability of Donald Trump to choose competent subordinates.
Niccolo Machiavelli
As a Presidential candidate, Trump repeatedly previewed his administrative incompetence—which he has continued to demonstrate as President.
The latest example of this: Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy. He previously served as senior advisor to the President and director of speechwriting from 2017 to 2021 during the first Trump administration.
His politics have been described as anti-immigration, white nationalist and far-right. His policies have resulted in mass deportations, arrests and shootings of innocent American citizens and the testing of the constitutional tenets that grant American citizenship.
Stephen Miller
And thanks to retiring North Carolina United States Senator Thom Tillis, there is another way to describe him: “Stupid.”
“Look, either Stephen Miller needs to get into a lane where he knows what he’s talking about or get out of this job,” Tillis told CNN’s Jake Tapper on the January 7 edition of “The Lead.”
Three days earlier, on January 4, Miller, appearing on the same show, had said: “Greenland should be part of the United States.”
This reflects Trump’s long-held obsession that he should acquire Greenland—by buying it or conquering it.
“What is the basis for their territorial claim?” demanded Miller. “What is their basis of having Greenland as a colony of Denmark?”
The answer: Greenland is a self-governing, autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The United States has recognized Denmark’s ties to Greenland since 1917 and signed a joint defense agreement in 1951.
This was updated in 2004, acknowledging Greenland’s connection to Denmark.
During the same interview, Miller made it clear that the use of brute force was not only on the table but was the Trump administration’s preferred way to behave on the world stage:
“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
Adolf Hitler could not have said it better. In fact, Miller—who is Jewish—could have been reciting the Fuhrer’s August 22, 1939 speech to his generals before the invasion of Poland:
“I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not. When starting and waging war it is not right that matters, but victory.
“Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. Eighty million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The stronger man is right.”
Adolf Hitler
Senator Tillis’ response was equally blunt. Calling the NATO alliance—of which Denmark is a member—critically important, he said:
“Shaking that alliance sends a signal to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that he’s winning. And Stephen Miller doesn’t represent the United States government. He represents the Article 11 [Executive] branch.
Thom Tillis
“And I, as a member of the United States Senate, get to weigh in to this issue. And I know, whether they say it out loud or not, most of my colleagues agree with me.
“We need to make it very clear that our strength and our ability to project power to stand off against Putin, to stand off Russia, to stand off China, Iran, it all rests on this exquisite capability that we have under NATO.”
Tillis’ remarks came only hours after he delivered a scathing speech to his fellow Senators: “I’m sick of stupid. I want good advice for the president, because I want this president to have a good legacy.
“And this nonsense on what’s going on with Greenland is a distraction from the good work he’s doing, and the amateurs who said it was a good idea should lose their jobs.”
Tillis’ remarks ignore several brutal truths:
First, as Machiavelli notes, when a ruler’s advisors are incompetent, he is to blame for making those choices.
Second, Miller was speaking for Trump, not advising him.
Third, Donald Trump’s legacy will be one of unsurpassed greed, egomania, vindictiveness and authoritarianism.
He has turned America’s longstanding democratic allies into enemies and embraced the ruthless dictators of Russia, China and North Korea—and their style of governing.
His ultimate legacy will be one of infamy.
Nothing Tillis can do will alter that.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 6, 2026 at 12:10 am
During a January 3 news conference, President Donald Trump told reporters the real reason why the United States had just attacked Venezuela and captured its president—actually dictator—Nicholas Maduro and his wife:
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies—the biggest anywhere in the world—go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure.”
Forget months of accusing Venezuela of being a major supplier of illicit drugs to the United States.
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, with over 303 billion barrels. That’s more than Saudi Arabia (second-largest) and Iran (third-largest). But after President Hugo Chávez nationalized much of the industry in 2007, its oil production sharply declined.
By 2018, Venezuela was producing 1.3 million barrels of oil each day, from a high of more than 3 million barrels each day in the late 1990s.
Trump intends to change that.
On September 7, 2016, at a forum hosted by NBC, Trump had flatly stated that seizing Iraqi oil fields could have paid for the 2003 Iraq war:
“We go in, we spend $3 trillion, we lose thousands and thousands of lives, and then … what happens is we get nothing. You know, it used to be to the victor belong the spoils.
“You’re not stealing anything. We’re reimbursing ourselves … at a minimum, and I say more. We’re taking back $1.5 trillion to reimburse ourselves.”
Unable to steal Iraqi oil, Trump has chosen to steal that of Venezuela—by turning the Armed Services into mercenary gangsters.
In 2011, bestselling author Steven Pressfield had made the seizing of Saudi Arabian oil fields the premise of his novel The Profession.
Pressfield made his literary reputation with a series of classic novels about ancient Greece.
In Gates of Fire (1998) he explored the rigors and heroism of Spartan society—and the famous last stand of its 300 picked warriors at Thermopylae.
In The Virtues of War (2004) he entered the mind of Alexander the Great, whose armies swept across the known world, destroying all who dared oppose them.
But in The Profession, Pressfield created a plausible world set into the future of 2032. The book’s dust jacket summarizes its plot-line:
“Everywhere military force is for hire. Oil companies, multi-national corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches.
“Force Insertion is the world’s merc [mercenary] monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced former United States Marine General James Salter, stripped of his command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East.”
Steven Pressfield
Salter appears as a hybrid of World War II General Douglas MacArthur and Iraqi War General Stanley McCrystal.
Like MacArthur, Salter has butted heads with his President—and paid dearly for it. Now his ambition is no less than to become President himself—by popular acclaim. And like McCrystal, he is a pure warrior who leads from the front and is revered by his men.
Salter seizes Saudi Arabian oil fields, then offers them as a gift to America. By doing so, he makes himself the most popular man in the country—and a guaranteed occupant of the White House.
Douglas MacArthur
Stanley McCrystal
“The United States is an empire…but the American people lack the imperial temperament,” asserts Salter. “We’re not legionaries, we’re mechanics. In the end the American Dream boils down to what? ‘I’m getting mine and the hell with you.’”
Americans, says Salter, have come to like mercenaries: “They’ve had enough of sacrificing their sons and daughters in the name of some illusory world order. They want someone else’s sons and daughters to bear the burden….
“They want their problems to go away. They want me to to make them go away.”
Returning to the United States, he is acclaimed as a hero—and the next President.
He knows that his country is on a downward spiral toward oblivion: “Any time that you have the rise of mercenaries…society has entered a twilight era, a time past the zenith of its arc.”
And he doesn’t believe that his Presidency will arrest that decline: “But maybe in the short run, it’s better that my hand be on the wheel…rather than some other self-aggrandizing sonofabitch whose motives might not be as well intentioned….”
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli warned of the dangers of relying on mercenaries:
“Mercenaries…are useless and dangerous. And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be stable or secure; for they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal; they are brave among friends; among enemies they are cowards.
Niccolo Machiavelli
“They have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is. For in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.”
Centuries ago, Niccolo Machiavelli issued a warning against relying on men whose first love is their own enrichment.
Steven Pressfield, in a work of fiction, has given us a nightmarish vision of a not-so-distant America where “Name your price” has become the byward for an age.
Both warnings are well worth heeding.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 27, 2025 at 12:05 am
On February 6, 2011, Ronald Reagan, if he had been alive, would have been 100 years old.
Publishers rushed to put out worshipful tributes to his eight years as President. Network political programs such as “This Week” and “Meet the Press” assembled surviving members of his administration to re-live the “glory days” of Reagan’s—and their—time in power.
Actually, it was during the Reagan administration that America entered its decline—a Right-wing legacy of huge Federal deficits, tax-cuts for the rich, bloated military budgets and cutbacks in government programs to aid the poor and middle-class.
Ronald Reagan
No two men could have been more different than Vladimir Lenin and Ronald Reagan. Lenin created the Soviet Union in 1917 and became its first in a series of absolute dictators. Reagan spent his life fighting Communism, most notably as President.
So it’s ironic that both men, in death, got essentially the same funeral—and for the same reason: To sanctify and legitimize their respective organizations—and the authority of their potential successors.
Vladimir Lenin
Lenin died on January 21, 1924, and was immediately succeeded by the party’s General Secretary, Joseph Stalin. Stalin, as a youth, had been a seminary student. He knew that, despite Communism’s official atheistic stance, most Russians remained loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church.
So in giving Lenin’s funeral oration, Stalin used the language of religion to confer sainthood upon a militant atheist—and upon his successor, Stalin himself: “We vow to thee, Comrade Lenin, that we will fulfill this, thy commandment….”
Funeral for Vladimir Lenin
Stalin and his fellow Communists immediately launched the “cult of Lenin,” depicting him as a fatherly, all-wise leader whose genius could only be bestowed upon his closest disciples.
Lenin’s extensive political writings were treated as divine writ, and were used to justify everything Stalin and his own successors wanted to do.
A classic example: Although he died 20 years before the American creation of the atomic bomb, Lenin was hailed by the Soviets as the “father” of “Soviet nuclear physics.”
Similarly, Republicans quickly turned Reagan into a modern-day saint of mythical proportions.
They did so for the same reason that Stalin deliberately forged a cult around the dead Lenin—to create a “holy” figure of whom other Republicans can claim to be true disciples.
Funeral for Ronald Reagan
These deliberate fictions conveniently ignore a series of ugly truths:
- Reagan was only one of a series of Presidents who held the line against the Soviet Union.
- His budgets were just as stained with red ink as those of all previous Presidents.
- By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been investigated, indicted or convicted for official misconduct and/or criminal violations.
- His “trickle-down” Reganomics brought prosperity to only the wealthiest 1% of Americans, proving that “a rising tide lifts some yachts.”
- By drastically shrinking the tax-base, bloating the defense budget and destroying programs to benefit the poor and middle-class, Reagan produced a $1 trillion deficit-–which only the Clinton Administration eliminated.
- Reagan believed that government should not help the impoverished. Those who lacked wealth to buy such necessities as housing and medical insurance were written off as unimportant.
- John F. Kennedy had praised government service as an honor. Reagan repeatedly said that “the best and the brightest” could be found only in business.
- This denigration of government service continues among Republicans to this day—defaming the very institutions they lust to control.
- Although he often berated the poor for their “laziness,” Reagan adhered to a “banker’s hours” schedule: During his working hours in the Oval Office, he often had blocks of free time—two to three hours. He would call for his fan mail and answer it.
- Reagan saw no need to protect America’s fragile environment against corporate polluters, eager to enrich themselves at its expense. He ignorantly stated: “Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let’s not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources.”
Reagan famously attacked “welfare queens” and sought to deny government benefits for the poor. But he didn’t hesitate to enrich himself at public expense.
- Before his Presidency ended, 18 wealthy Californians contributed $156,000 apiece to buy him a 7,200 square-foot mansion overlooking Beverly Hills.
- Reagan signed a multi-million dollar deal to write his Presidential memoirs and publish a collection of his speeches.
- He signed an exclusive contract with a Washington lecture bureau, which paid him $50,000 per speech given in the United States and $100,000 overseas. This made him the highest-paid speaker in the country.
- These monies came in addition to his Presidential pension of $99,500 a year for life and his $30,000 annual pension as a former governor of California.
- At a cost to the government of $10 million annually, Reagan—a millionaire who could afford private security—continued to receive lifetime Secret Service protection from 40 fulltime agents.
The “cult of Lenin” died when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The “cult of Reagan” died only when it was superseded by that of Donald Trump.
The difference: Reagan hid his brutal deeds behind a smile; Trump celebrates his openly with a frown.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 26, 2025 at 12:06 am
On August 22, the PBS Newshour website carried the following headline: HEGSETH FIRES GENERAL WHOSE AGENCY’S INTEL ASSESSMENT OF U.S. STRIKES ON IRAN ANGERED TRUMP.
The story opened: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from U.S. strikes angered President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official.”
“Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
“The firing is the latest upheaval in military leadership and in the country’s intelligence agencies, and comes a few months after details of the preliminary assessment leaked to the media. It found that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months by the U.S. strikes, contradicting assertions from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Donald Trump
After the June 21 strikes, Hegseth attacked the press, claiming that it had an anti-military bias . But he refused to provide evidence that proved the nuclear sites had been wiped out.
Since re-taking office on January 20, Trump has fired more than 10 senior military leaders. Critics have called this an unprecedented purge of the Pentagon.
Among those fired:
- General Charles “CQ” Brown Jr.: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Brown was the nation’s highest-ranking military officer.
- Admiral Lisa Franchetti: The Chief of Naval Operations and the first woman to lead the U.S. Navy.
- General James Slife: The Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force was fired along with Brown and Franchetti.
- General Timothy Haugh: The head of U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency (NSA)
- Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield: The U.S. military representative to NATO.
- Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse: The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
Trump’s determination to remake the armed forces in his own image reflects he mindset of an earlier dictator whose rage and egotism carried him—and his country—to ruin: Adolf Hitler.
Bevin Alexander provides an overall—but colorful—view of Hitler’s generalship in How Hitler Could have Won World War II.
Among the fatal military mistakes that led to the defeat of the Third Reich:
- Wasting hundreds of Luftwaffe [air force] pilots, fighters and bombers in a halfhearted attempt to conquer England.
- Ignoring the pleas of generals like Erwin Rommel to conquer Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which would have given Germany control of most of the world’s oil.
- Attacking his ally, the Soviet Union, while still at war with Great Britain.
- Turning millions of Russians into enemies rather than allies by his brutal and murderous policies.
- Needlessly declaring war on the United States after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. (Had he not done so, Americans would have focused all their attention on defeating Japan.)
- Refusing to negotiate a separate peace with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin—thus granting Germany a large portion of captured Russian territory in exchange for letting Stalin remain in power.
- Insisting on a “not-one-step-back” military “strategy” that led to the needless surrounding, capture and/or deaths of hundreds of thousands of German servicemen.
As the war turned increasingly against him, Hitler became ever more rigid in his thinking.
He demanded absolute control over the smallest details of his forces. This, in turn, led to astonishing and unnecessary losses among their ranks.
On June 6, 1944, General Gerd von Rundstedt insisted that Panzer tanks be released to drive the Allies from the Normandy beaches. But these could not be released except on direct orders of the Fuehrer.
Panzer tank
Hitler’s chief of staff, General Alfred Jodl, informed Rundstedt: The Fuhrer was asleep-–and was not to be awakened. By the time Hitler awoke and issued the order, it was too late.
Nor could Hitler accept responsibility for the policies that were leading Germany to certain defeat. He blamed his generals, accused them of cowardice, and relieved many of the best ones from command.
Among those sacked was Heinz Guderian, creator of the German Panzer corps—and responsible for the blitzkreig victory against France in 1940.
Heinz Guderian
Another was Erich von Manstein, designer of the strategy that defeated France in six weeks—which Germany had failed to do during four years of World War 1.
Erich von Manstein
Finally, on April 29, 1945—with the Russians only blocks from his underground Berlin bunker—Hitler dictated his “Last Political Testament.”
Once again, he refused to accept responsibility for unleashing a war that ultimately consumed 50 million lives:
“It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted war in 1939. It was desired and instigated exclusively by those international statesmen who either were of Jewish origin or worked for Jewish interests.”
Hitler had launched the invasion of Poland—and World War II—with a lie: That Poland had attacked Germany.
Fittingly, he closed the war—and his life—with a final lie.
The ancient Greeks believed that “a man’s character is his destiny.”
For Adolf Hitler—and the nations he ravaged—that proved fatally true.
It remains to be seen whether the same will prove true for Donald Trump—and the United States.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 25, 2025 at 12:22 am
President Donald Trump is notorious as a non-reader. Nevertheless, he seems poised to re-enact one of the most fateful events in 20th century history.
First, that event: On August 2, 1934, the aged German President Paul von Hindenburg died.
Adolf Hitler had been serving as Reich Chancellor—the equivalent of attorney general—since January 30, 1933. Within hours, the Nazi Reichstag [parliament] announced the following law, back-dated to August 1st:
“The office of Reich President will be combined with that of Reich Chancellor. The existing authority of the Reich President will consequently be transferred to the Führer and Reich Chancellor, Adolf Hitler.”
Immediately following the announcement of the new Führer law, the German Officer Corps and every individual soldier in the German Army was made to swear a brand new oath of allegiance:
“I swear by God this holy oath, that I will render to Adolf Hitler, Führer of the German Reich and People, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, unconditional obedience, and that I am ready, as a brave soldier, to risk my life at any time for this oath.”
Soldiers swearing the Fuhrer Oath
In the past, German soldiers had sworn loyalty to Germany. Now they had sworn it to a single man.
For men of honor in uniform, conspiracy against the Führer now meant betrayal of the Fatherland itself. They considered this oath sacred, overriding all others. And the vast majority would fanatically obey it right to the end of the disastrous war Hitler was leading them into.
Yet even that didn’t give Hitler the absolute control over the Armed Forces that he sought.
Since taking command of Germany in the summer of 1934, Hitler wanted to replace two high-ranking military officials: General Werner von Fritsch and Colonel General Werner von Blomberg. Both were convinced that Hitler’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy was putting Germany on a collision course with war—a war the Fatherland could not win.
Hitler, in fact, meant to go to war—and despised Fritsch’s and Blomberg’s hesitation to do so. He decided to rid himself of both men.
But how?
Accident played a part in the case of Blomberg.
On January 12, 1938, Blomberg married Erna Gruhn, with Hitler and Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring attending as witnesses. Soon afterward, Berlin police discovered that Gruhn had a criminal record as a prostitute and had posed for pornographic photographs.
Marrying a woman with such a background violated the standard of conduct expected of German officers. Hitler was infuriated at having served as a witness to the ceremony.
But he also saw the scandal as an opportunity to dispose of Blomberg—who was forced to resign.
Shortly after Blomberg was forced out in disgrace, the SS—Hitler’s private police force—presented Hitler with a file that falsely accused Werner von Fritsch of homosexuality. Fritsch angrily denied the accusation but resigned on February 4, 1938.
From that point on, Hitler was in de facto command of the German Armed Services.
Adolf Hitler
Hitler had a timetable of conquest:
- On March 7, 1936, he seized the Rhineland, the demilitarized zone between Germany and its arch-enemy, France.
- On March 12, 1838, he “unified” Austria with Germany by annexing it.
- In September, 1938, he seized a large portion of western Czechoslovakia after that nation’s British and French “allies” sold it out at the infamous Munich Conference.
- On March 15, 1939, he ordered the Wehrmacht to occupy the rest of Czechoslovakia.
- On September 1, 1939, he ordered the invasion of Poland—unintentionally igniting World War II and the eventual destruction of Nazi Germany.
No one yet knows if Donald Trump has a plan of military conquest outside the United States. But since taking office on January 20, he has repeatedly threatened the economic—if not the military—security of:
- Canada
- Mexico
- Panama
- Greenland.
Donald Trump
On December 25, 2024, Trump told a conservative conference in Arizona that Panama was charging U.S. ships “ridiculous, highly unfair” fees to use its namesake canal.
The United States built the canal during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt and opened it in 1914. It remained controlled by the United States until President Jimmy Carter signed a a 1977 agreement for its eventual handover to Panama in 1999.
On December 25, Trump posted on his website, Truth Social: “Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal.”
“There is not a single Chinese soldier in the canal,” the president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, told reporters the next day, adding that there is “absolutely no Chinese interference.”
Another country that Trump has rushed to make an enemy of is America’s longtime ally—Canada.
At a November 30 dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate in Palm Beach, Florida, he told Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Canada could become the 51st state of the United States.
Canada’s Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who attended the dinner, insisted that Trump was joking.
But on December 2, Trump threatened to impose a 25% tax on all products entering the United States from Canada and Mexico unless they stopped the flow of drugs and illegal aliens.
And on December 3, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform an AI-generated image of himself standing on a mountain with a Canadian flag beside him. Its caption: “Oh Canada!”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 16, 2025 at 8:44 pm
On November 6, 2012, Ann Coulter, the Right-wing activist and propagandist, was devastated by the re-election of President Barack Obama.
“People are suffering. The country is in disarray,” she whined during an interview. “If Mitt Romney [the Republican Presidential nominee] cannot win in this economy, then the tipping point has been reached. We have more takers than makers and it’s over. There is no hope.”
Mitt Romney
But by 2016, Coulter no longer felt dismayed. She felt rejuvenated—for she had found her perfect Presidential candidate: Donald Trump.
Appearing on the Right-wing radio program, “The Eric Metaxes Show,” she said: “What is the point of talking about abortion or anything else unless you get Donald Trump in to build the wall, deport illegals, end this ‘anchor baby’ nonsense, stop importing 100,000 Muslims a year, in addition to two million Third Worlders per year. It’s madness what this country has been doing.”
Donald Trump
And Coulter sang Trump’s praises in a 2016 book: In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!
According to its dust jacket: “He’s putting America first in our trade deals and alliances, rather than pandering to our allies and enemies.
“He’s abandoned the GOP’s decades-long commitment to a bellicose foreign policy, at a time when the entire country is sick of unnecessary wars.”
But by May, 2017, four months after Trump had taken office as President, Coulter was ready to abandon him. Her chief complaint: He hadn’t built the wall along the United States-Mexican border he had promised to erect.
“I guess we have to try to push him to keep his promises. But this isn’t North Korea, and if he doesn’t keep his promises I’m out,” she told the Right-wing website, The Daily Caller.
“This is why we voted for him. I think everyone who voted for him knew his personality was grotesque, it was the issues.”
And, on March 28, 2018, she had more choice words for him: “I knew he was a shallow, lazy ignoramus, and I didn’t care.”
On April, 1, she—by her account—had a shouting match with Trump in the Oval Office.
Ann Coulter (Gage Skidmore photo)
On the Right-wing “Howie Carr Show,” she claimed to have told him: “You’re not doing what you promised to do. Where’s the end of NAFTA? Where’s the wall? Where are the deportations? What are you doing talking about the DREAMers?”
“He’s failing right now,” Coulter told Carr. “The presidency isn’t over yet, he can still come back and do it. But people who voted for him shouldn’t be cheering for him every time he betrays them and this is a total betrayal for him to sign that [government appropriations] bill. It’s a total betrayal for him not to build the wall. And to pretend like it isn’t—yeah he can come back.”
But Trump didn’t build that wall. And Coulter was still furious with him.
In an April 4, 2023 column, she wrote: “The left’s sole objective is to make Trump the Republicans’ 2024 presidential nominee. He’s already lost three election cycles for the GOP—why not make it four?”
In short: She backed a monster to wreak destruction on those she hated. And then she became furious at him because he didn’t act monstrously enough.
Coulter backed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—who polled significantly better than Trump among crucial independent voters—for President in 2024.
But DeSantis didn’t even come close to getting the Republican nomination. And Trump not only got the nomination but won the election against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Since being reelected in 2024, Trump has launched an all-out war on illegal immigrants. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE): During Trump’s first 100 days, ICE arrested over 65,000 illegal aliens.
Asked what that time would be remembered for, Coulter said: “The 100 most wonderful days in U.S. history. I can’t believe how great Trump is.”
But in April 2025, she raised concerns about the legality of deporting people who hadn’t committed a crime, possibly violating First Amendment rights.
And Trump’s intervening in the conflict between Israel and Iran definitely violated her stated desire to end “the GOP’s decades-long commitment to a bellicose foreign policy.”
On June 12, Israel opened hostilities, with airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program and leadership. But Israel lacked the 30,000-pound “bunker-busting” bombs that can penetrate the Fordo nuclear site, hidden deep underground in a mountain.
Only the United States has the bombs—and the aircraft that can deliver them. So Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaned on Trump to provide both.
And on June 14, he did—sending B-2 bombers to attack three Iranian nuclear sites.
This has split the MAGA base. Some support the United States’ traditional policy of supporting Israel. Others—like Coulter—want to keep the country out of “unnecessary wars.”
Trump claimed he would wait two weeks to see if Iran wants to “negotiate”—that is, agree to abandon its nuclear ambitions. For Trump, “negotiation” means: “Do as I say or I’ll destroy you.”
But more than a month has passed, and Iran has not responded to Trump’s demand. There is currently no way to tell what his next move—if any—on this issue will be.
The odds are overwhelming that Coulter will be disappointed once again.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 23, 2025 at 12:11 am
The 1969 classic, Battle of Britain, features a scene that could have been filmed after President Donald Trump launched unprovoked airstrikes against Iran on June 21.
The movie dramatizes the heroic struggle of vastly outnumbered Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots against the numerically superior German air force, the Luftwaffe, during World War II.
Adolf Hitler, Germany’s Fuhrer, knows that to launch a successful naval invasion of Britain, he first must wipe the RAF from the skies.
The aerial combat begins during the summer of 1940 and climaxes that September.
The turning point in the Battle—and the movie—occurs when a squadron of German bombers lost in bad weather at night accidentally bombs London. Attacks on London had been specifically forbidden by Hitler—for fear that they might bring the United States into the war.
An enraged British Prime Minister Winston Churchill orders a retaliatory attack on Berlin.
Since the eruption of World War II on September 1, 1939, with Hitler’s invasion of Poland. this is the first time that Berlin has been attacked. In fact, Hermann Goring, chief of the Luftwaffe, has said: “If ever a bomb falls on Berlin, you can call me Meyer.”
Now Hitler—who has ravaged Poland and France, and repeatedly bombed Britain, is enraged.
It’s perfectly OK for him to ravage other countries. It’s just unfair for his enemies to strike back.
He orders his faithful to assemble at the Reichstag, the German parliament, where he will outline his plans for knocking Britain out of the war.
In the movie, Battle of Britain, Hitler’s address is brilliantly—if briefly—staged, complete with rows of diehard Nazi women screaming their allegiance to their Fuhrer.
Hitler (played by Rolf Stiefel) starts his speech slowly, just as the real Hitler normally did to build to a shattering climax: “Last night, bombs were dropped on Berlin.
“So be it. Two can play at that game.
“If the RAF drops 200, 300, 400 bombs, then in one night we shall drop 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 bombs!”
His speech is interrupted by cheers from the Nazi faithful.
Adolf Hitler addressing the faithful in Battle of Britain
“If they attack our cities, then we will WIPE THEIRS OUT!
“The hour will come when one of us must break. And it will never be National Socialist Germany!”
“NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!” screams the frenzied crowd.
“The English are filled with curiosity. They keep asking ‘Why doesn’t he come?’ Be patient. We are coming! We are coming!”
The Reichstag explodes with cheers of expected victory.
Britain went on to repulse the Luftwaffe’s attacks on its cities—and celebrate its victory at the end of the war.
That speech—in the movie and history—happened in 1940.
Fast forward to June 21, 2025: Newly re-elected President Donald Trump orders seven B-2 bombers to attack three nuclear weapons sites in Iran.
Donald Trump
The attack, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, opens with a U.S. submarine launching more than 24 Tomahawk cruise missiles against targets at the site in Isfahan.
At about 6:40 p.m. ET, or 2:10 a.m. in Iran, the lead B-2 drops two “bunker-buster” bombs known as the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) on the site at Fordo.
The GBU-57 bomb is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet (60 meters) underground before exploding. Armed with 6,000 pounds of explosives, it’s able to reach and destroy weapons of mass destruction located in well-protected facilities
For 25 minutes, a total of 14 30,000-pound bombs are dropped on targets at Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz. The Tomahawk missiles land at Isfahan after bombs are dropped on the two other sites. No shots are fired at the planes as they leave Iranian airspace.
B-2 bomber drops “bunker buster” bomb
More than 125 U.S. aircraft participate in this mission, including the B-2 bombers, fighter jets, refueling planes and surveillance aircraft. More than 75 precision-guided weapons are used in the attack.
“Initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction,” says General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He notes that a full assessment will take time.
“Our forces remain on high alert and are fully postured to respond to any Iranian retaliation or proxy attacks, which would be an incredibly poor choice,” Caine said. “We will defend ourselves.”
Always intent on having the last word, Trump adds on his website, Truth Social: “ANY RETALIATION BY IRAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT.”
Like Hitler, it’s perfectly OK for him to ravage other countries. It’s just unfair for his enemies to strike back.
On April 12, 2025, Trump and Iran had begun a series of negotiations aimed at reaching a nuclear peace agreement. This followed a letter from Trump to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, setting a 60-day deadline for Iran to reach an agreement.
Like Hitler, Trump makes demands, offers no concessions and threatens destruction if his demands aren’t met.
Ali Khamenei
Khamenei.ir, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
On June 12, Israel launches all-out attacks on Iran, targeting Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, and politician Ali Shamkhani, who has been overseeing the negotiations with the United States.
Following the attacks, Iran suspends nuclear talks indefinitely.
There is no telling how Iran and its Islamic allies will respond. But that a response is coming is absolutely certain.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 16, 2025 at 1:18 am
Once again, the Middle East is at war.
Since October 7, 2023, it’s been Israel vs. Gaza. But as of June 12, it’s now Israel vs. Iran.
And, once again, there’s an excellent chance the United States will be dragged into this latest blood feud.
But there can be peace—for the United States—in the Middle East.
That is, if Americans are willing to make radical changes in their approach to that part of the world.
First, the United States must embark on a crash program to develop alternatives to oil.
The Islamic world offers only one reason for American concern: oil.
Yet its consumption threatens the future of the world through global warming. And it keeps America tethered to regimes that are fundamentally unstable and hostile to the West.
Second, once the United States frees itself from its dependency on fossil fuels, it can safely end its relationship with such regimes.
That means putting an end to spending billions of dollars every year to prop up regimes like those in Iraq and Egypt. And it also means stopping the supply of big-ticket military hardware (like fighter planes and missiles) to Islamic regimes.
When the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979, he was probably the best-armed Islamic leader in the Middle East. His army and air force bristled with sophisticated American weaponry he had bought with billions of dollars in oil revenues.
Shah of Iran
But he had thoroughly alienated his people. Liberals thought him a tyrant, and conservatives thought him a traitor to Islam. So when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini flew to Iran from his self-exile in Paris, no one in the Shah’s army and air force raised a hand in his defense.
Third, the United States should end its “Permanent Bodyguard” relationship with Israel.
Every nation—including Israel—has the absolute right to defend itself from aggression. But no nation—including Israel—has the right to expect another nation to act as its permanent bodyguard.
Millions of Americans believe they are morally obligated to defend Israel owing to the barbarism of the Holocaust—which ended 80 years ago. Yet America was never a party to this, and has nothing to atone for.
And millions of Americans feel committed to Israel but care nothing for the fates of Israelis.
As Christian fundamentalists, they believe that before Jesus Christ can awaken from his 2,000-year slumber, Israel must re-conquer all the territory it supposedly held during the reign of Kings David and Solomon.
There is absolutely no evidence that anyone has ever been resurrected, but this means nothing to them.
Right-wing Christian fantasy: Dead man hovering
After Christ returns, they believe, the Jews will face a choice: Become Christians or go to hell.
For evangelical Christians, Jews remain the eternal “Christ killers.”
And if Jews must assume temporary control of the Middle East to bring about the return of a man who died 2,000 years ago, so be it.
This is the view of many Right-wing members of the House of Representatives and Senate. Obviously, people holding such totally irrational views shouldn’t be allowed to hold public office.
Unfortunately, such unbalanced views are shared by millions of equally irrational evangelical Christians.
Fourth, the United States and its European allies should erect a “Sand Curtain” around the Middle East.
For 44 years—1947 to 1991—the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a Cold War. Essentially, the United States drew a ring around the Soviet Union—including those nations its armies had seized following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
The United States said, in effect: “We can’t liberate the countries you’re now occupying”—because trying to do so would have triggered a nuclear World War III. “But we won’t allow you to occupy and enslave any other countries. And if you try to do so, it will mean total war.”
Thus, the United States should erect a “sand curtain” around the Middle East. This could be attained by withdrawing all of its forces but keeping a good portion stationed in Europe.
It would then publicly announce: “From now on, you are the masters of your own destinies—so long as what you do affects only those of you living in the Middle East.
“We recognize that barbarism and violence have always been a part of life in the Middle East. And we don’t expect this to change.
“So go ahead and destroy as many of your own citizens as you wish—either because they’re Jewish or Christians, or because Sunni Muslims hate Shiite Muslims and Shiite Muslims hate Sunni Muslims.
“Just don’t do anything that poses a threat to those living outside your barbaric lands. In short: Europe and the United States are strictly off-limits to you.
“And if you aim your aggression at either, we will consider this an act of war and use all the weapons at our disposal—including nuclear ones—to wipe you from the face of the Earth.“
The United States cannot enforce peace between Islamics and Israelis. Nor between Christians and Islamics. Nor between Islamics and Islamics.
But it can impose an embargo to confine such barbarism to only the Middle East.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 25, 2025 at 12:19 am
In Stalingrad, a 1993 German-made war movie, a platoon of German Army soldiers leaves behind the beaches and beauties of Italy and find themselves fighting desperately to stay alive in Russia.
Early in the film, there is an exchange that has its real-life counterpart almost 75 years later.
A young, idealistic German lieutenant, newly transferred to the Russian front, is horrified when he sees a fellow soldier from another unit sadistically beat a Russian prisoner to death.
He seeks out the man’s superior, a captain, and says: “Captain, I must protest about the behavior of your men.”
“You want to protest?” asks the captain, grinning sardonically. “Tell the Fuhrer.”
Fast forward to January 28, 2017, the day after President Donald J. Trump signed into law an executive order which:
- Suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days;
- Barred Syrian refugees indefinitely;, and
- Blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The new rules—and the efforts of security personnel at major international airports to enforce them—triggered a tsunami of chaos and fear among travelers.
“We’ve gotten reports of people being detained all over the country,” said Becca Heller, the director of the International Refugee Assistance Project. “They’re literally pouring in by the minute.”
Refugees on flights when the order was signed on January 27 were detained upon arrival.
Donald Trump
Many students attending American universities were blocked from returning to the United States from visits abroad.
According to Homeland Security officials, 109 people who were already in transit to the United States when the order was signed were denied access; 173 were stopped before boarding planes heading to America. Eighty-one people who were stopped were eventually given waivers to enter the United States.
Internationally, travelers were seized by panic when they were not allowed to board flights to the United States. In Dubai and Istanbul, airport and immigration officials turned passengers away at boarding gates. At least one family was removed from a flight it had boarded.
Earlier on January 28, Trump, isolated in the White House from all the chaos he had unleashed in airports across the nation and throughout the world, said:
“It’s not a Muslim ban, but we were totally prepared. It’s working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over.”
Then the American Civil Liberties Union intervened.
Two Iraqi immigrants, defended by the ACLU, accused Trump of legal and constitutional overreach.
The Iraqis had been detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. One had served as an interpreter for American forces in Iraq for a decade. The other was en route to reunite with his wife and son in Texas.
The interpreter, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, was released after nearly 19 hours of detention. So was the other traveler, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi.
Before the two men were released, one of their lawyers, Mark Doss, a supervising attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, asked an official, “Who is the person we need to talk to?”
“Call Mr. Trump,” said the official, who refused to identify himself.
He might just as well have said: “You want to protest? Tell the Fuhrer.”
The ACLU action secured at least a temporary blocking of part of Trump’s order. A Brooklyn judge barred the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the Presidential order.
Judge Ann M. Donnelly of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, ruled that sending the travelers home could cause them “irreparable harm.” She said the government was “enjoined and restrained from, in any manner and by any means, removing individuals” who had arrived in the United States with valid visas or refugee status.
But she did not force the administration to let in people otherwise blocked by the executive order who have not yet traveled to the United States. Nor did she issue a broader ruling on the constitutionality of the order.
* * * * *
On November 5, 75 million ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans re-elected Donald Trump—a man reflecting their own hate and ignorance—to the Presidency.
Summing up Trump’s character in a March 25, 2016 broadcast of The PBS Newshour, conservative political columnist David Brooks warned: “The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love….
“And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality.”
There were countless warning signs available for Trump’s supporters to see—if they had wanted to see them:
- His facing 91 criminal counts in four cases;
- His threats against his political opponents and Justice Department prosecutors;
- His conviction for raping columnist E. Jean Carroll;
- His continued lying about winning the 2020 Presidential election;
- His conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records;
- His unjustified attacks the integrity of the FBI—causing previously “law and order” Republicans to demand its defunding.
Those who voted for Trump will now learn the meaning of the Nazi slogan: “The Fuhrer proposes and disposes for all.” Those who voted against him knew this already.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 24, 2025 at 12:06 am
When historians—-and ordinary citizens—think about the Third Reich, the name of Werner Willikens doesn’t immediately spring to mind.
Adolf Hitler, Herman Goring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann—yes.
But why Werner Willikens?
British historian and author Ian Kershaw has unearthed the reason.
He has written extensively about the Third Reich. He is best-known for his monumental, two-volume biography, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris (1998) and Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (2000).
Ian Kershaw
Willikens, State Secretary in the Ministry of Food, gave a speech on February 21, 1934 that casts new light on how Hitler came to exercise vast authority over Nazi Germany:
“Everyone who has the opportunity to observe it knows that the Fuhrer can hardly dictate from above everything he intends to realize sooner or later.
“On the contrary, up till now everyone with a post in the new Germany has worked best when he has, so to speak, worked towards the Fuhrer….
Werner Willikens
“In fact, it is the duty of everybody to try to work towards the Fuhrer along the lines he would wish. Anyone who makes mistakes will notice it soon enough.
“But anyone who really works towards the Fuhrer along his lines and towards his goal will certainly both now and in the future one day have the finest reward in the form of the sudden legal confirmation of his work.”
Volker Ullrich, bestselling author of Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939, summed up the results of this interplay between Hitler and his subjects:
“Kershaw tried to show that in many instances Hitler didn’t need to do very much at all since German society–everyone from the underlings surrounding him to ordinary people on the street—-were increasingly inclined to anticipate and fulfill the Fuhrer’s every wish, ‘working towards him.’
“…Kershaw…. illustrate[d] that without the readiness of many people to work for the man in charge, there would have been no way he could have achieved his murderous aims.
“Kershaw’s main thesis was that the dynamics of the Nazi regime arose from the interplay of Hitler’s intentions with activism emanating from subordinate individuals and institutions. The results were ever more radical ‘solutions.'”
On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler simultaneously bit on a cyanide capsule and fired a pistol shot into his right temple.
The concept of “working towards the Fuhrer” seemed to have come to a literally fiery end.
Fast forward almost 80 years later–to January 20, 2025.
Donald J. Trump, upon resuming the office of President, has declared all-out war on illegal aliens within the United States. He has given Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) full powers to seize and deport anyone fitting that description.
Even if that person is a legal resident who has lived in the United States legally with a work permit since 2011 and is protected from deportation by a 2019 court order.
Such was the case with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen living in Maryland. He illegally entered the United States at age 18 to escape being drafted into the 18th Street Gang.
In 2019 he was arrested in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities. An immigration judge granted Garcia protection from deportation because he might risk violence from local gangs in El Salvador.
On March 12, 2025, Garcia was stopped and detained by immigration agents and questioned about his alleged affiliation with the MS-13 gang. MS-13 was originally formed by Salvadoran immigrants fleeing civil war in their homeland and is now involved in myriad illegal enterprises,
ICE deported him to El Salvador, alongside hundreds of other men accused of being gang members.
There was just one problem: Garcia was deported due to a clerical error.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered that Garcia be returned to Maryland: “His detention appears wholly lawless.”
In turn, the Justice Department claimed that it could not return him from a sovereign nation.
On April 5, Erez Reuveni, the acting deputy director of the department’s immigration litigation division, struggled to answer questions from the judge about the circumstances of Garcia’s deportation.
Asked why the U.S. couldn’t ask for his return, Reuveni said: “The first thing I did when I got this case on my desk is ask my clients the same question. Our only arguments are jurisdictional. He should not have been sent to El Salvador.
“My answer to a lot of these questions is going to be frustrating, and I am frustrated. The government made a choice here to produce no evidence.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi took issue with how Reuveni handled the case in court. The next day, she ordered him put on administrative leave by Deputy U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche. He is no longer working on the Abrego Garcia case or in the Justice Department in general.
August Flentje, Reuveni’s supervisor, was also placed on administrative leave. Flentje was told he had failed to supervise a subordinate.
In a statement to CNN, Bondi said: “At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States. Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”
Reuveni had been praised as a “top-notched” prosecutor by his superiors in an email announcing his promotion two weeks ago. His crime lay in his failure to “work toward the Fuhrer.“
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A TYRANT AND HIS BRAINS
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 13, 2026 at 12:23 am“The first impression that one gets of a ruler and his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him.
“When they are competent and loyal one can always consider him wise, as he has been able to recognize their ability and keep them faithful.
“But when they are the reverse, one can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.”
So wrote the Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli more than 500 years ago in his famous treatise on politics, The Prince.
And his words remain as true in our day as they were in his.
In fact, he could have been writing about the ability of Donald Trump to choose competent subordinates.
Niccolo Machiavelli
As a Presidential candidate, Trump repeatedly previewed his administrative incompetence—which he has continued to demonstrate as President.
The latest example of this: Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy. He previously served as senior advisor to the President and director of speechwriting from 2017 to 2021 during the first Trump administration.
His politics have been described as anti-immigration, white nationalist and far-right. His policies have resulted in mass deportations, arrests and shootings of innocent American citizens and the testing of the constitutional tenets that grant American citizenship.
Stephen Miller
And thanks to retiring North Carolina United States Senator Thom Tillis, there is another way to describe him: “Stupid.”
“Look, either Stephen Miller needs to get into a lane where he knows what he’s talking about or get out of this job,” Tillis told CNN’s Jake Tapper on the January 7 edition of “The Lead.”
Three days earlier, on January 4, Miller, appearing on the same show, had said: “Greenland should be part of the United States.”
This reflects Trump’s long-held obsession that he should acquire Greenland—by buying it or conquering it.
“What is the basis for their territorial claim?” demanded Miller. “What is their basis of having Greenland as a colony of Denmark?”
The answer: Greenland is a self-governing, autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The United States has recognized Denmark’s ties to Greenland since 1917 and signed a joint defense agreement in 1951.
This was updated in 2004, acknowledging Greenland’s connection to Denmark.
During the same interview, Miller made it clear that the use of brute force was not only on the table but was the Trump administration’s preferred way to behave on the world stage:
“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
Adolf Hitler could not have said it better. In fact, Miller—who is Jewish—could have been reciting the Fuhrer’s August 22, 1939 speech to his generals before the invasion of Poland:
“I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not. When starting and waging war it is not right that matters, but victory.
“Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. Eighty million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The stronger man is right.”
Adolf Hitler
Senator Tillis’ response was equally blunt. Calling the NATO alliance—of which Denmark is a member—critically important, he said:
“Shaking that alliance sends a signal to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that he’s winning. And Stephen Miller doesn’t represent the United States government. He represents the Article 11 [Executive] branch.
Thom Tillis
“And I, as a member of the United States Senate, get to weigh in to this issue. And I know, whether they say it out loud or not, most of my colleagues agree with me.
“We need to make it very clear that our strength and our ability to project power to stand off against Putin, to stand off Russia, to stand off China, Iran, it all rests on this exquisite capability that we have under NATO.”
Tillis’ remarks came only hours after he delivered a scathing speech to his fellow Senators: “I’m sick of stupid. I want good advice for the president, because I want this president to have a good legacy.
“And this nonsense on what’s going on with Greenland is a distraction from the good work he’s doing, and the amateurs who said it was a good idea should lose their jobs.”
Tillis’ remarks ignore several brutal truths:
First, as Machiavelli notes, when a ruler’s advisors are incompetent, he is to blame for making those choices.
Second, Miller was speaking for Trump, not advising him.
Third, Donald Trump’s legacy will be one of unsurpassed greed, egomania, vindictiveness and authoritarianism.
He has turned America’s longstanding democratic allies into enemies and embraced the ruthless dictators of Russia, China and North Korea—and their style of governing.
His ultimate legacy will be one of infamy.
Nothing Tillis can do will alter that.
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