Posts Tagged ‘RUSSIA’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on May 7, 2026 at 12:13 am
When Donald Trump isn’t picking fights with Americans, he picks them with the leaders of democratic countries.
At a November 30, 2024 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!”
Trudeau had requested the Mar-a-Lago meeting to convince Trump that the northern border is completely different from the southern one with Mexico.
Canadian flag
“Less than one percent of migrants coming into the United States irregularly come from Canada and 0.2 percent of the fentanyl coming into the United States comes from Canada,” Trudeau said in Parliament.
During the last fiscal year, American customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border.
Most of the fentanyl reaching the U.S. is made by Mexican drug cartels using precursor chemicals smuggled from Asia.
Utterly unmentioned in Trump’s demand: It’s America’s insatiable demand for illicit drugs that is the root cause of the drug trade.
Heroin syringe
Also unmentioned—if not deliberately ignored by Trump: Canada plays a substantial role as a U.S. trading partner. About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports as well.
Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon eagerly desires. About 77% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S.
Trudeau pleaded with Trump not to impose the tariff because because it would “kill” Canada’s economy.
Trump responded: “So your country can’t survive unless it’s ripping off the US to the tune of $100 billion?”
His comments referred to the American trade deficit with Canada.
The U.S. had a $75 billion trade deficit with Canada in 2023 but a third of what Canada sells into the U.S. is energy exports and prices have been high.
Trudeau left the meeting without reassurance that Trump would not impose a 25% tariff on products from Canada.
But on March 5, 2025, Trump slapped 25% tariffs on Canada. Six days later, Trump announced that he would impose an additional 25% tariff on all Canadian steel and aluminum imports effective March 12.
Yet another country Trump has aimed his hostility at is Greenland.
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on December 23, 2024.
The next day, Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede told Trump to back off: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”
The Kingdom of Denmark holds control of the semi-autonomous Greenland.
Trump had previously floated the idea of the U.S. buying Greenland in 2019, which the Danish prime minister at the time called “absurd.”
Greenland is home to America’s Pituffik Space Base which “detects and reports attack assessments of sea-launched and intercontinental ballistic missile threats in support of strategic missile warning and missile defense,” according to the base’s website.
Greenland is strategically significant to the United States because it sits between Russia and the eastern coast of the United States, and is the fastest way from Europe to New York.
Some critics believe that Trump is floating headline-getting assaults on other nations to divert attention from his domestic agenda—which includes deporting millions of men, women and children from Hispanic countries.
Others believe it’s to divert attention from the recently released Epstein Files, which document his longtime ties to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein
In January, 2026, Danish military personnel were deployed to Greenland with instructions to prepare to disable key airport runways in Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq to prevent U.S. military aircraft from landing. Danish forces brought explosives and blood supplies in preparation for potential conflict.
NATO had been created in 1949 to deter Soviet Union aggression against Europe. For the first time in its 77-year history, its European members prepared to repulse an invasion by the United States.
Trump’s actions faced heavy opposition in Congress from both major parties. Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson described Trump’s threats as “completely inappropriate.”
On January 21, 2026, Trump reversed course, first ruling out military force and then abandoning tariff threats after talks with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte.
And while Trump picks needless fights with America’s longtime allies, China—the first peer competitor that can challenge America economically, militarily, and technologically—is deepening its ties with Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other countries that seek to weaken U.S. power.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 6, 2026 at 12:15 am
On August 22, 2025, 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, 2025, President Donald Trump, through Hegseth, 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
- Army Chief of Staff Randy George: The Army’s most senior general
Hegseth had stopped George from promoting several high-ranking service members—including four Army officers, two black men and two female soldiers—from becoming one-star generals.
The reason: To purge “woke” leadership and prevent a black female officer from standing next to the President.
Decades of experience have been wiped from the highest levels of the U.S. military through removals and retirements during the first year of the second Trump administration.
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.)
- 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 demanded absolute control over the smallest details of his forces.
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.
He refused to accept responsibility for his 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.
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.
The same has proven true for Donald Trump—and the United States.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 5, 2026 at 12:05 am
Donald Trump has often claimed himself an “America First” President. But his attitude and policies toward the military are clearly based on the “Germany First” policies of Adolf Hitler.
On August 2, 1934, the aged German President Paul von Hindenburg died.
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.
Like Hitler, Donald Trump has a plan of conquest. Since taking office on January 20, 2025, 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, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 23, 2026 at 12:10 am
There are literally no limits to which Donald Trump’s fanatical supporters will go to convince others he’s a heroic champion worthy of their reverence.
One such meme depicted Trump as a military hero, clad in full Army gear, leading his men into combat. 
The problem: Trump—a notorious draft-dodger—received five deferments to escape the Vietnam war, including one for bone spurs.
Now, as re-elected President of the United States, he’s plunged the country into a needless war against Iran.
On February 28, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched a series of devastating, unprovoked airstrikes against Iran.
Trump seemed to consider himself omnipotent. Asked by a reporter how long the war would last, the President replied: “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”
But then—to Trump’s surprise and fury—Iran closed the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20%-25% of the world’s total liquid petroleum consumption (about 20–21 million barrels per day) flows.
Overnight, gas prices rose. By April 5, the national average for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.11, compared to roughly $2.98 before military operations began.
With midterm elections eight months away, the war looked like a losing issue for Republicans.
On April 5—Easter Sunday, no less—Trump posted on his website, Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open up the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
This was followed on April 7 by another post: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
Legal experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.
As the hours ticked off April 6. American pilots were forced to decide: “Do we want to become war criminals?”
Donald Trump
There is no better way to trace the decline of the United States than to compare Trump’s threat to wipe out an entire civilization with the 1946 Memorial Day ceremony at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, near the town of Nettuno.
The cemetery held about 20,000 American graves, mostly of soldiers who had died in Sicily or at Anzio, fighting Nazi Germany.
Presiding over that event was Lt. General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., the U.S. Fifth Army Commander.
Unlike many other generals, Truscott had shared in the dangers of combat, pouring over maps on the hood of his jeep with company commanders as bullets or shells whizzed about him.
When it came his turn to speak, Truscott moved to the podium. Then he turned his back on the assembled visitors—which included several Congressmen.
The audience he now faced were the graves of his fellow soldiers.
Lt. General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr.
Among those who heard Truscott’s speech was Bill Mauldin, the famous cartoonist for the Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes. Mauldin had created Willie and Joe, the unshaved, slovenly-looking “dogfaces” who came to symbolize the GI.
It’s from Mauldin that we have the fullest account of Truscott’s speech that day.
“He apologized to the dead men for their presence there. He said that everybody tells leaders that it is not their fault that men get killed in war, but that every leader knows in his heart that this is not altogether true.
“He said he hoped anybody here through any mistake of his would forgive him, but he realized that he was asking a hell of a lot under the circumstances….
“Truscott said he would not speak of the ‘glorious’ dead because he didn’t see much glory in getting killed in your teens or early twenties.
“He promised that if in the future he ran into anybody, especially old men, who thought death in battle was glorious, he would straighten them out. He said he thought it was the least he could do.”
Then Truscott walked away, without acknowledging his audience of celebrities.
Bill Mauldin and “Willie and Joe,” the characters he made famous
Contrast the character of Lucian Truscott with that of the man who holds the office of President of the United States.
Donald Trump has:
- Equated his reckless sex life during the 1970s with the risks American soldiers faced in Vietnam.
- Relentlessly defended Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against all criticism, even as he’s slandered literally hundreds of his fellow citizens on his website, Truth Social.
- Attacked the FBI and CIA for concluding that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help him win the White House.
- Allowed the deadly COVID-19 virus to ravage the country, killing 400,000 Americans by the time he left office in 2021.
- Incited his followers to attack the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, to stop the Electoral Vote count, which he knew would prove Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 Presidential election.
Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg’s 1998 World War II epic, opens with a scene of an American flag snapping in the wind.
Except that the brilliant colors of Old Glory have been washed out, leaving only black-and-white stripes and black stars.
Small wonder that, for many Americans, Old Glory has taken on a darker, washed-out appearance—in real-life as in film.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 9, 2026 at 12:14 am
There are major similarities between Adolf Hitler’s 1941 invasion and intended conquest of the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s 2026 attack and intended conquest of Iran.
Even as late as January 30, 1945, Hitler claimed that God firmly stood on the side of the Third Reich—and thus would guarantee its eventual victory.
PAST – HITLER: God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence we are defending His work…Therefore, it is all the more necessary on this twelfth anniversary of the rise to power to strengthen the heart more than ever before and to steel ourselves in the holy determination to wield the sword, no matter where and under what circumstances, until final victory crowns our efforts.
Similarly, on March 22, 2026, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, hosting his monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon, prayed:
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed,” he read from Psalms 18:37. “Those who hated me I destroyed. They cried to the Lord, but He did not answer them.”
On December 31, 1939—more than three months into World War 11—Hitler made clear his ultimate war aims:
PAST – HITLER: We shall only talk of peace when we have won the war. The Jewish capitalist world will not survive the twentieth century.
PRESENT – PETE HEGSETH: Iran cannot outlast us. We are going to ensure through violence of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities, as I said, that we set the tone and the tempo of this fight.
Hitler believed that German airpower could force Great Britain to submit to his will. The Battle of Britain and The Blitz proved him wrong.
He also believed that his mechanized Panzers—which had defeated French and British armies in May-June,1940—would succeed where Napoleon’s horse-driven Grand Army had failed in 1812. The final proof of his mistake appeared on April 30, 1945, as Russian forces were almost literally knocking at his Fuhrerbunker door.
PAST – HITLER: We have only to kick in the front door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.
Hegseth believes that American airpower can force Iran to submit to his will. But the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to world shipping (except for those nations that Iran regards as friendly or neutral). So long as this continues, Americans’ gas prices will continue to rise with no end in sight—and pose a threat to Republicans’ continued control of the House and Senate.
About 20% of the world’s total oil consumption—roughly 20-21 million barrels per day—passes through this, making it the world’s most crucial oil chokepoint.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Iran will never possess a nuclear bomb, not on our watch, not ever. And this is why President Trump’s moral clarity on Iran today is so vital. Unlike the past, where vague red lines and endless negotiations let Iran fund terror and inch ever so slightly toward a bomb, this president sees the threat plainly and acts decisively, no more half measures, especially when Iran is at its weakest. No more letting Tehran play for time while our people pay the price.
PAST – HITLER: Russia is already broken and will never rise again.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Iran’s senior leaders are dead, the so-called governing council that might have selected a successor, dead, missing or cowering in bunkers, too terrified to even occupy the same room. Senior generals, mid-level officers, enlisted ranks, they can’t talk or communicate, let alone mount a coordinated and sustained offensive. That’s not great for morale.
PAST – HITLER: Moscow must disappear from the earth’s surface as soon as its riches have been brought to shelter.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: The enemy can no longer shoot the volume of missiles they once did, not even close, and the chairman will lay out some of those percentages. So, our air defenses and that of our allies have plenty of runway. We can sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to. And as I said yesterday, we set the terms.
PAST – HITLER: Today I am at the head of the strongest Army in the world, the most gigantic Air Force and of a proud Navy. Behind and around me stands the Party with which I became great and which has become great through me. Our enemies must not deceive themselves—in the 2,000 years of German history known to us, our people have never been more united than today.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: And we know their ability to shoot versus our ability to defend. That difference gets wider and wider every day. Our defense gets better. Their offense capabilities diminish as we are going into ammunitions that we, as we said, have tens of thousands of and can drop unlimited supplies on, with even more effects than the stand-off munitions we have now, which is why, when we say the throttle’s going up, the throttle’s going up. And it’s going to stay on high.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 8, 2026 at 12:10 am
There are major similarities between Adolf Hitler’s 1941 invasion and intended conquest of the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s 2026 attack and intended conquest of Iran.
But, for lack of courage and/or historical perspective, those similarities have not been featured during political and/or military commentaries on the ongoing conflict.
A good starting point: A comparison of the address given by German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler on the first day of “Operation Barbarossa” (June 22, 1941) and the one given by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (on May 4) four days after the start of “Operation Epic Fury.”
PAST – HITLER: German people! At this moment a march is taking place that, as regards extent, compares with the greatest the world hitherto has seen. United with their Finnish comrades, the fighters of the victory of Narvik are standing in the Northern Arctic. German divisions commanded by the conqueror of Norway, in cooperation with the heroes of Finnish freedom, under their marshal, are protecting Finnish soil.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: I stand before you today with one unmistakable message about Operation Epic Fury: America is winning decisively, devastatingly and without mercy. Under the direct command of President Trump, the War Department unleashed this operation early Saturday morning, just four days ago, which means we need to remember two things.
Second, we are only four days into this, and the results have been incredible, historic really. Only the United States of America could lead this, only us. But when you add the Israeli Defense Forces, a devastatingly capable force, the combination is sheer destruction for our radical Islamist Iranian adversaries. They are toast and they know it, or at least soon enough they will know it. And we have only just begun to hunt, dismantle, demoralize, destroy and defeat their capabilities just four days in.
PAST – HITLER: Formations of the German Eastern Front extend from East Prussia to the Carpathians. German and Rumanian soldiers are united under Chief of State Antonescu from the banks of the Pruth along the lower reaches of the Danube to the shores of the Black Sea. The task of this front, therefore, no longer is the protection of single countries, but the safeguarding of Europe and thereby the salvation of all.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Starting last night and to be completed in a few days, in under a week, the two most powerful Air Forces in the world will have complete control of Iranian skies, uncontested airspace. I hope all the folks watching understand what uncontested airspace and complete control means.
It means we will fly all day, all night, day and night finding, fixing and finishing the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military, finding and fixing their leaders and their military leaders, flying over Tehran, flying over Iran, flying over their capital, flying over the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only US and Israeli air power every minute of every day until we decide it’s over.
PAST – HITLER: I therefore decided today again to lay the fate and future of the German Reich and our people in the hands of our soldiers.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: And Iran will be able to do nothing about it. B-2s, B-52s, B-1s, Predator drones, fighters controlling the skies, picking targets, death and destruction from the sky all day long. We’re playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly.
On August 22, 1939—nine days before he launched an unprovoked attack on Poland on September 1—Hitler summoned his top generals to Berchtesgaden. There he lectured:
PAST – HITLER: I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war. Never mind whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterward whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging a 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…The stronger man is right…Be harsh and remorseless! Be steeled against all signs of compassion!
The instructions Hitler issued for the conduct of war on Poland applied just as fervently when the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. And the Russians quickly responded with a campaign of vengeance.
As General Gotthard Heinrici noted: “The Russian soldiers are told by their commanders that they will be executed by us, so they are reluctant to surrender—and sometimes fire on our soldiers from the rear. This, of course, demands countermeasures on our side, which are harsh. So both sides step things up, and as a result there are masses of casualties.”
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it. This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be. Thus far, Operation Epic Fury has delivered twice the air power of shock and awe of Iraq in 2003, minus Paul Bremer and the Nation Building.
The campaign has seven times the intensity of Israel’s previous operations against Iran during the 12-day war, seven times. And as President Trump said, more and larger waves are coming; we are just getting started. We are accelerating, not decelerating. Iran’s capabilities are evaporating by the hour. While American strength grows, fiercer smarter and utterly dominant.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 13, 2026 at 12:10 am
James Comey has had a long and distinguished career in American law enforcement:
- 2002 – 2003: United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York
- 2003 – 2005: United States Deputy Attorney General
- 2013 – 2017: Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
As a result, Comey has firsthand experience in attacking organized crime—and in spotting its leaders.
In his bestselling memoir, A Higher Loyalty, he writes:
“As I found myself thrust into the Trump orbit, I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and the truth.”
On May 9, 2017, President Donald Trump fired Comey as FBI director. There were five reasons for this:
- Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. Trump had made the “request” during a private dinner at the White House in January.
- Comey told Trump that he would always be honest with him. But that didn’t satisfy Trump’s demand that the head of the FBI act as his personal secret police chief—as was the case in the former Soviet Union.
- Trump had tried to coerce Comey into dropping the FBI’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, for his secret ties to Russia and Turkey. Comey had similarly resisted that demand.
- Comey had recently asked the Justice Department to fund an expanded FBI investigation into well-documented contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
- The goal of that collaboration: To elect Trump over Hillary Clinton, a longtime foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
James Comey
Trump and his shills have adamantly denied that he demanded that Comey serve as his private police chief.
But then Trump proved that he—and not Comey—was the liar. And more like a mobster than a President.
On August 21, 2018, his former attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud. And, more worrisome for Trump, Cohen said he had made illegal campaign contributions “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office”—Donald Trump.
On August 23, on the Fox News program, “Fox and Friends,” Trump attacked Cohen for “flipping” on him:
“For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers. Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they—they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go. It—it almost ought to be outlawed. It’s not fair.
“You know, campaign violations are considered not a big deal, frankly. But if somebody defrauded a bank and he’s going to get 10 years in jail or 20 years in jail but if you can say something bad about Donald Trump and you’ll go down to two years or three years, which is the deal he made.”
Making “flipping” illegal would undo decades of organized crime prosecutions—and make future ones almost impossible.
“It takes a small bum to catch a big bum,” as one deputy U.S. marshal once stated.
Boy Scouts simply won’t hang out with career criminals. To penetrate the secrets of criminal organizations, investigators and prosecutors need the testimony of those who are parties to those secrets.
The Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 gave Justice Department prosecutors unprecedented weapons for attacking crime syndicates across the country. One of these was the authority to give witnesses immunity from prosecution on the basis of their own testimony.
Thus, a witness to a criminal conspiracy could be forced to tell all he knew—and thus implicate his accomplices—and bosses. In turn, he wouldn’t be prosecuted on the basis of his testimony. (He could, however, be prosecuted if someone else accused him of criminal acts.)
Organized crime members aggressively damn such “rats.” There is no more obscene word in a mobster’s vocabulary.
But no President—until Trump—has ever attacked those who make possible a war on organized crime.
His former lawyer and mentor, Roy Cohn, represented some of the most notorious Mafiosi in the country—such as John Gotti and Carmine Galante. And both Gotti and Galante went to prison owing to “flippers.”
In 1973, former White House Counsel John Dean testified before the United States Senate on a litany of crimes committed by President Richard M. Nixon. Dean didn’t lie about Nixon—who ultimately resigned in disgrace.
For Trump, Dean’s sin is that he “flipped” on his former boss, violating the Mafia’s code of omerta, or silence.
For Donald Trump, there is no greater nightmare than becoming the victim of those who know—and are willing to share—his criminal secrets.
That’s why he fought the release of the “Epstein files,” which document his social relationship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein from the late 1980s to at least the early 2000s.
Since their partial release, he’s repeatedly tried to divert attention from their revelations. On January 3, 2026, he ordered the invasion of Venezuela to kidnap its dictator/president, Nicolás Maduro. Then on February 28 he launched an attack on Iran.
Both these assaults have only partially succeeded in obscuring revelations of the Epstein files.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 12, 2026 at 12:39 am
On February 28, 2022, CNN’s website published the following headline: RUSSIA FACES FINANCIAL MELTDOWN AS SANCTIONS SLAM ITS ECONOMY.
The story opened:
“Russia was scrambling to prevent financial meltdown Monday as its economy was slammed by a broadside of crushing Western sanctions imposed over the weekend in response to the invasion of Ukraine.”
That unprovoked attack had opened on February 24, with missile and artillery attacks, striking major Ukrainian cities, including Kiev.
Ukraine vs. Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin believed that the conquest of Ukraine would be a cakewalk. Intent on restoring the borders of the former Soviet Union, he had swept from one successful war to the next:
- In 1999-2000, he waged the Second Chechen War, restoring federal control of Chechnya.
- In 2008, he invaded the Republic of Georgia, which had declared its independence as the Soviet Union began to crumble. By war’s end, Russia occupied 20% of Georgia’s territory.
- In 2014, Putin invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched only verbal condemnations.
The reasons:
- Fear of igniting a nuclear war;
- Belief that Russia was simply acting within its own sphere of influence; and/or
- Then-President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on NATO and displays of subservience to Putin.
NATO emblem
Russia had began massing troops on the Ukrainian border in 2021.
When the invasion came, the United States and its Western European allies retaliated with unprecedented economic sanctions.
Among the resulting casualties:
- The ruble crashed.
- Russia’s central bank more than doubled interest rates to 20%.
- Economists predicted the Russian economy could decline by five percent.
- The West—especially the United States—froze at least half of the $630 billion in international reserves that Putin had amassed to stave off tough sanctions.
Then the war bogged down for Russia. By 2026:
- Russia occupied approximately 20% of Ukraine.
- Russia made slow expansions in the east, but Ukraine regained about 400 square kilometers of territory.
- The war has become a conflict fought with drones, Vehicle movement near the front has become impossible.
- Russian drones and missiles target civilian infrastructure and residential areas.
- Ukraine has launched deep-strike operations against Russian military production and energy facilities.
- Russian casualties are estimated between 1.1 million and 1.3 million.
- Ukrainian casualties are estimated between 500,000 and 600,000.
- In short: The war is not going the way Putin assumed it would.
Vladimir Putin
Пресс-служба Президента РФ, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Putin attacked Ukraine to prevent it from joining NATO. But:
- It has frightened Sweden and Finland into joining NATO.
- Russia has suffered a series of humiliating battlefield defeats and its draft has enraged millions of Russians.
- Putin has refused to withdraw from Ukraine and become bogged down in a seemingly endless war.
- As a result, Putin has locked himself into a no-win position.
- And NATO is now fully revitalized to meet future Russian threats.
This is not the first time a dictator has guessed wrong about the results of his actions.
On September 1, 1939, German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler ordered his armies to invade Poland.
Almost a year earlier—on September 29, 1938—he had bullied British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier into surrendering the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia, inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans.
The Munich Agreement whetted Hitler’s appetite for greater conquests—and fueled his contempt for England and France: “Our enemies are little worms,” he said in a conference with his generals. “I saw them at Munich.”
He believed he could conquer Poland, and Chamberlain and Daladier would meekly ratify his latest acquisition.
Adolf Hitler
So he was stunned when, on September 3, 1939, Britain and France—however reluctantly—honored their pledged word to Poland and declared war on Germany.
“What now?” Hitler furiously asked his Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Ribbentrop had no answer.
Knowing that Germany lacked the resources for a long war, Hitler had intended to fight a series of quick, small wars, gobbling up one country at a time. Now he found himself locked in an endless war with heavyweights France and England—and eventually the Soviet Union and the United States.
He stayed locked into that war until he committed suicide on April 30, 1945, and the Third Reich officially collapsed on May 7.
Fifty-eight years later, on March 21, 2003, President George W. Bush’s attacked Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
George W. Bush
The war started impressively, with 1,700 air sorties and 504 Cruise missiles.
Within two weeks, American ground forces entered Baghdad. After four days of intense fighting, the Iraqi regime fell. By April 14, the Pentagon reported that major military operations had ended.
On May 1, 2003, Bush declared that the war was won.
But then American forces became embroiled in an endless, nationwide guerrilla war. Eighteen years later, the United States was still fighting in Iraq.
The war that Bush had deliberately provoked:
- Took the lives of 4,484 Americans.
- Cost the United States Treasury at least $2 trillion.
- Allowed Iran—Iraq’s arch enemy—to eagerly fill it the vacuum.
- Killed at least 655,000 Iraqis.
- Frightened China and Russia into expanding the size of their militaries.
On February 28, 2026, President Donald J. Trump—in collusion with Israel—launched massive airstrikes against Iran, predicting, on March 9: “It’s going to be ended soon….”
Thus do the worst intentions of hubristic dictators often come undone.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 6, 2026 at 12:58 am
Of all the threats that President Donald Trump poses to American democracy, none may be more deadly than his repeated threats to invoke the Insurrection Act.
This is an 1807 law that empowers the President to deploy the Armed Forces to individual states in specific circumstances, such as the suppression of civil disorder, insurrection, and armed rebellion against the federal government.
What is arousing Trump’s fury is the civil unrest he’s ignited in Minneapolis, Minnesota—especially following the January 7 shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old writer and poet, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross.
Renee Good
He’s ordered the Justice Department to criminally investigate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for allegedly conspiring to impede federal immigration agents.
Their “crime”: Daring to criticize the aggressive behavior of thousands of ICE and Border Patrol agents deployed in Minnesota.
Walz said in a statement: “Weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents is a dangerous, authoritarian tactic. The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her.”
“This is an obvious attempt to intimidate me for standing up for Minneapolis, our local law enforcement, and our residents against the chaos and danger this Administration has brought to our streets,” Frey said in a statement to CBS News.
“I will not be intimidated. My focus will remain where it’s always been: keeping our city safe.”
Jacob Frey
Czbik, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Attorney Ty Cobb—who served as a White House lawyer in the first Trump Administration but is now a scathing critic of the president—warns that the tensions in Minneapolis could go from bad to worse if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act.
“During the first Trump administration, there were guardrails back then. There were people who could say ‘no’ to the president. And now, he’s surrounded by sycophants and enablers and people who don’t say no.
“I mean, it’s just stunning the number of people that have signed on for what’s going on in Minnesota and what’s going on in Greenland—you know, things that would have never been tolerated in the first 250 years of our democracy.
Ty Cobb
John Mathew Smith & http://www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“But I do think he wants—desperately wants—to invoke the Insurrection Act….I think martial law is definitely in the cards. And it’s a way that he’ll be able to control the elections.”
* * * * *
Countless historians have tried to answer the question: “Was the rise of Adolf Hitler—and the catastrophe he unleashed—inevitable?”
William L. Shirer, author of the monumental The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, apportioned German guilt as follows:
“The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 percent of the vote. But the 63 percent of [Germans] who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out.”
Competent future historians may reach the same conclusion about American voters in 2024.
- Republicans: Who feared that Trump’s Fascistic supporters would deprive them of political office if they didn’t abase themselves to a lifelong criminal and would-be dictator.
- Republican judges: Who bent and/or broke the law to enable Trump to escape justice.
- Justice Department prosecutors: Whose awe of the Presidency allowed Trump to slander and threaten federal prosecutors and judges.
- Attorney General Merrick Garland: Whose cowardice prevented him from appointing Jack Smith Special Counsel until November 18, 2022—giving Trump time to delay justice and again win the Presidency.
- Democrats: Whose cowardice toward Trump encouraged Republicans to ever more extreme measures.
- Police officers: The International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police issued a joint statement condemning clemency for criminals who assault law enforcement officers—but did not explicitly indict the January 6 actions. The Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Donald Trump in 2024.
- History illiterate voters: Who were eager to scrap alliances—such as NATO—that had checked Soviet aggression since the end of World War II.
- Nihilists: With nothing positive to contribute, their attitude was to destroy American institutions that had created prosperity and security for decades.
- Blacks: Voted for a racist in hopes of a bigger paycheck.
- Muslims: Refused to vote for Kamala Harris because Joe Biden wouldn’t stop Israel’s military campaign to free Hamas-captured hostages.
- Hispanics: Like the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, who couldn’t believe that Trump would carry out his threats to imprison and/or deport them.
- The Biden administration: Which refused to stem the tide of illegal aliens invading America—and thus enraged millions of law-abiding Americans into supporting Trump.
- Toxic masculinity voters: Whose misogynistic attitudes toward women led them to reject a former local and state prosecutor for a 34-times convicted felon.
- American voters: Whose hatred of Hispanic illegal aliens and inflationary grocery prices led them to ignore overwhelming evidence of Trump’s intent to overturn the democratic process and make himself absolute dictator.
In short: Those opposed to Donald Trump’s evil were too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 5, 2026 at 12:10 am
In 2024, nihilism—and its adherents—played a key role in reelecting Donald Trump President of the United States.
During the 2024 Presidential campaign Trump promised to appoint Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
On October 27, 2024, Trump told a rally in Madison Square Garden: “I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines.”
Kennedy, the son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, is a self-admitted former 14-year heroin addict, which he has said began at age 15. In a 2012 deposition he claimed that doctors found a dead parasitic worm in his brain, which he believed caused significant memory loss and brain fog around 2010.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Since 2005, Kennedy has peddled vaccine misinformation and public health conspiracy theories. Among these:
- Vaccines cause autism.
- The COVID-19 vaccine—which has saved countless lives—is “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
- There is no comprehensive system for monitoring vaccine safety.
Since Kennedy took office on February 13, 2025:
- February 14, 2025: Around 1,300 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were laid off by the administration, including all first-year officers of the Epidemic Intelligence Service.
- August: Over 600 CDC employees were laid off. Among programs completely dismantled: Maternal and child health services, oral health, and the Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys.
- By July 7, 2025, 1,281 measles cases had been reported, more than the 1,274 measles cases reported in all of 2019. This was the highest level of cases since the disease had been declared eliminated in 2000.
- Roughly 93% of infections in 2025 and 95% so far in January, 2026, were among unvaccinated people or those with an unknown vaccination status. And this can be directly traced to the influence of anti-vaccine conspiracy-spreaders like Kennedy.
Measles virus
Since becoming President again on January 20, 2025, Donald J. Trump has aggressively committed a series of outrages against his fellow Americans, including:
- Granting clemency to more than 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack.
- Signing 26 executive orders reversing climate change initiatives, eliminating DEI programs, changing the federal designation for the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” and initiating a federal hiring freeze.
- Revoking an executive order on Artificial Intelligence safety signed by former President Joseph Biden, to establish safeguards for the rapidly advancing AI technology.
- Firing the inspectors general—who are charged with protecting the government from waste and corruption—from more than a dozen federal agencies.
- Purging about a half-dozen executive assistant directors at the FBI. These were some of the bureau’s top managers overseeing criminal, national security and cyber investigations. Their “crime”: Investigating Trump’s inciting the January 6, 2021 coup attempt and illegally holding highly sensitive national security documents after leaving office.
- Following Trump’s anti-DEI executive order, the Department of Defense deleted content that included the achievements of nonwhites—such as Navajo code talkers, black Tuskegee Airmen, Medal of Honor winners and women veterans.
- Firing the board members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and appointing himself as chairman—just as Joseph Stalin made himself arbiter of what was permissible for artists in the Soviet Union.
- Ordering the Justice Department to indict his critics such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
- James had convicted him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Comey had sought to investigate Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential campaign to ensure Trump’s election.
- Shutting down the Federal Government on October 1, when Democrats refused to agree to his gutting Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), causing 10-15 million Americans to lose health insurance coverage.
- Among those not getting paid: Air traffic controllers for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Owing to many controllers refusing to work, the FAA reduced air traffic by 10% at many airports.
- Shutting off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the poor to pressure Democrats to support his gutting of healthcare programs.
- Flooding the streets of Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago with federalized National Guard troops against state governors’ wishes during immigration crackdowns and civil unrest.
- Flooding Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, with 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who are terrorizing (and in one case murdering) both American citizens and illegal aliens.
- Governors have requested the deployment of federal troops—such as in Arkansas in 1957 for school desegregation and in California in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King verdict. But Trump is the first President to deploy troops against the wishes of states’ governors.
- Pardoning favored political allies and loyalists. Among these: Seventy-seven people associated with the Trump fake electors plot to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, including Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
- Others included: Former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced to 45 years’ imprisonment for moving tons of cocaine to the United States.
- Threatening to invade Greenland, 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.
- As Denmark is a member of NATO, an attack on Greenland would ignite a war between the United States and its NATO allies.
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LIKE HITLER, LIKE TRUMP: AGGRESSION AS HEROISM: PART THREE (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on May 7, 2026 at 12:13 amWhen Donald Trump isn’t picking fights with Americans, he picks them with the leaders of democratic countries.
At a November 30, 2024 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!”
Trudeau had requested the Mar-a-Lago meeting to convince Trump that the northern border is completely different from the southern one with Mexico.
Canadian flag
“Less than one percent of migrants coming into the United States irregularly come from Canada and 0.2 percent of the fentanyl coming into the United States comes from Canada,” Trudeau said in Parliament.
During the last fiscal year, American customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border.
Most of the fentanyl reaching the U.S. is made by Mexican drug cartels using precursor chemicals smuggled from Asia.
Utterly unmentioned in Trump’s demand: It’s America’s insatiable demand for illicit drugs that is the root cause of the drug trade.
Heroin syringe
Also unmentioned—if not deliberately ignored by Trump: Canada plays a substantial role as a U.S. trading partner. About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports as well.
Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon eagerly desires. About 77% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S.
Trudeau pleaded with Trump not to impose the tariff because because it would “kill” Canada’s economy.
Trump responded: “So your country can’t survive unless it’s ripping off the US to the tune of $100 billion?”
His comments referred to the American trade deficit with Canada.
The U.S. had a $75 billion trade deficit with Canada in 2023 but a third of what Canada sells into the U.S. is energy exports and prices have been high.
Trudeau left the meeting without reassurance that Trump would not impose a 25% tariff on products from Canada.
But on March 5, 2025, Trump slapped 25% tariffs on Canada. Six days later, Trump announced that he would impose an additional 25% tariff on all Canadian steel and aluminum imports effective March 12.
Yet another country Trump has aimed his hostility at is Greenland.
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on December 23, 2024.
The next day, Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede told Trump to back off: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”
The Kingdom of Denmark holds control of the semi-autonomous Greenland.
Trump had previously floated the idea of the U.S. buying Greenland in 2019, which the Danish prime minister at the time called “absurd.”
Greenland is home to America’s Pituffik Space Base which “detects and reports attack assessments of sea-launched and intercontinental ballistic missile threats in support of strategic missile warning and missile defense,” according to the base’s website.
Greenland is strategically significant to the United States because it sits between Russia and the eastern coast of the United States, and is the fastest way from Europe to New York.
Some critics believe that Trump is floating headline-getting assaults on other nations to divert attention from his domestic agenda—which includes deporting millions of men, women and children from Hispanic countries.
Others believe it’s to divert attention from the recently released Epstein Files, which document his longtime ties to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein
In January, 2026, Danish military personnel were deployed to Greenland with instructions to prepare to disable key airport runways in Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq to prevent U.S. military aircraft from landing. Danish forces brought explosives and blood supplies in preparation for potential conflict.
NATO had been created in 1949 to deter Soviet Union aggression against Europe. For the first time in its 77-year history, its European members prepared to repulse an invasion by the United States.
Trump’s actions faced heavy opposition in Congress from both major parties. Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson described Trump’s threats as “completely inappropriate.”
On January 21, 2026, Trump reversed course, first ruling out military force and then abandoning tariff threats after talks with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte.
And while Trump picks needless fights with America’s longtime allies, China—the first peer competitor that can challenge America economically, militarily, and technologically—is deepening its ties with Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other countries that seek to weaken U.S. power.
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