monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Let down the nation is not failing? It shows.

Does it hit too close to home, glitter? Didn't you mention that you were once part of a similar lying USA organization?

There is obvious value to Woodward's books but his style of reporting insider accounts (even though the credibility of his accounts seems to be pretty well established) isn't the sort of material that I attend to very often.

Join our nutty right wing website and get in on our "Nutty meme a minute" plan. We include all the big favorites, the ones for fake patriots who have no knowledge of what it means to actually be a well engaged citizen.

I'm sure most of us have thought about this problem that will accrue to Dems up the road
WP

DONALD TRUMP LASHED OUT AT MILITARY FOR NOT MAKING MONEY ON LIBYA'S OIL
BY CRISTINA MAZA ON 9/6/18 AT 1:10 PM

President Donald Trump repeatedly came into conflict with national security officials as he struggled to understand the motivations of the military on a variety of policy issues, and instead pushed commanders to make money for the U.S., according to Bob Woodward’s new book, Fear.

In July 2017, then-National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster asked the president to sign an order related to Libya, but Trump lashed out and said the military wasn’t doing enough to make money from the country’s oil reserves, the book said.

“I'm not going to sign it, Trump said. The United States should be getting oil. The generals aren't sufficiently focused on getting or making money. They don't understand what our objectives should be and they have the United States engaged in all the wrong ways,” the book, which was obtained by Newsweek, stated.

This wasn’t the only time that the president’s priorities clashed with those of the military because of the president's focus on making money. A National Security Council meeting in January 2018 reportedly turned heated when Secretary of Defense James Mattis had to explain to the president why the U.S. relationship with South Korea was important for U.S. national security. Trump demanded to know why the U.S. maintained a friendly relationship with Taiwan and South Korea when Washington got so little in return.

“Mattis and General Dunford once more explained that the benefit was immense. We get a stable democracy in a part of the world where we really need it, Mattis said. South Korea was one of the strongest bastions of free elections and a vibrant capitalism,” the book said. “Mattis showed signs that he was tired of the disparaging of the military and intelligence capability. And of Trump's unwillingness to comprehend their significance. ‘We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,’" Mattis said.

Mattis was “at the end of his rope,” Woodward wrote. Nevertheless, Trump continued to argue that countries such as China and South Korea were stealing from the U.S. by maintaining large trade surpluses and said the U.S. was losing out by maintaining military partnerships with these nations. He also said the U.S. was getting “played” by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The president’s refusal to acknowledge the importance of U.S. military alliances left top national security officials irritated, according to the book.

“Among the principals there was exasperation with these questions. Why are we having to do this constantly? When is he going to learn? They couldn't believe they were having these conversations and had to justify their reasoning,” the book said. “Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like—and had the understanding of—‘a fifth or sixth grader.’”

As for Libya, it continued to be plagued by violence as competing factions struggled for control of the country. In 2017, reports suggested that the U.S. was considering increasing its presence in the country to try to broker a peace deal between warring factions. The country currently does not have a U.S. ambassador because the situation on the ground is considered too unstable. The country has one of the largest oil reserves in Africa, but oil field output has dropped since conflict broke out in 2011.

No Plans To Suspend More Major Exercises On Korean Peninsula: US Military
By Reuters
08/29/18 AT 12:55 AM

The U.S. military has no plans yet to suspend any more major military exercises with South Korea, the defense secretary said on Tuesday, in the middle of a breakdown in diplomacy with North Korea over its nuclear weapons.

Defense Secretary James Mattis told a Pentagon news conference that no decisions had been made about major exercises for next year but noted that the suspension of drills this summer as a good-faith gesture to North Korea was not open-ended.

President Donald Trump's June decision to unilaterally suspend the drills caught many American military planners off guard and was broadly criticized as a premature concession to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who Trump wants to give up his nuclear weapons.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis attends the swearing in ceremony for new Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, July 30, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

"We took the step to suspend several of the largest exercises as a good-faith measure coming out of the Singapore summit," Mattis told reporters, referring to the June 12 meeting between Trump and Kim.

"We have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises," he said, adding that no decisions had yet been made on major exercises for next year.

Mattis also said smaller exercises deemed to be exempt from the suspension were ongoing.

Mattis' comments on the drills come at a delicate time for negotiations between the United States and North Korea after Trump scrapped plans for a meeting between top officials from both countries.

At the June summit, the first meeting between a serving U.S. president and a North Korean leader, Kim agreed in broad terms to work toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. But North Korea has given no indication it is willing to give up its weapons unilaterally as the Trump administration has demanded.

Since then, diplomats have failed to advance the process.

North Korean officials even warned in a letter to U.S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week that denuclearization talks risked falling apart, U.S. officials told Reuters.

In particular, the North wants steps toward a peace treaty. The 1950-1953 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving U.S.-led U.N. forces technically still at war with North Korea.

U.S. officials fear North Korea might turn its attention to cutting a separate deal with South Korea and driving a wedge between the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

Stalemate

A South Korea presidential spokesman acknowledged that talks between Washington and Pyongyang were at a stalemate.

"With North Korea and the U.S. remaining stalemated, there is an even bigger need for an inter-Korea summit," Kim Eui-kyeom, a spokesman for the presidential Blue House, told a briefing.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said this month his planned third summit with North Korea's Kim next month would be another step toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and an end to the Korean War.

"Secretary Mattis' comment appears to be an extension of the previous U.S.-South Korea agreement concerning the postponement of joint drills, and there has been no other agreement," South Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

Trump abruptly canceled his top diplomat’s planned trip to North Korea on Friday, publicly acknowledging for the first time that his effort to get Pyongyang to denuclearize had stalled since his summit with the North's leader.

Trump partly blamed China for the lack of progress with North Korea and suggested that talks with Pyongyang, led so far by Pompeo, could be on hold until after Washington resolved its bitter trade dispute with Beijing.

North Korea's state media accused the United States of "double-dealing" and "hatching a criminal plot" on Sunday but did not mention Pompeo's canceled visit.

U.S. intelligence and defense officials have repeatedly expressed doubts about North Korea's willingness to give up its nuclear weapons and they had not expected Pompeo's trip to yield positive results.

Mattis declined to comment on the broader diplomatic efforts, deferring to Pompeo's State Department.

"We will work very closely, as I said, with the secretary of state and what he needs done we will certainly do to reinforce his effort. But at this time, there is no discussion about further suspensions," Mattis said.

The traditional U.S. calendar for other major drills does not pick up again until next spring, officials say, which could give diplomats and military planners time.

The U.S.-South Korean exercise calendar hits a high point every spring with the Foal Eagle and Max Thunder drills, which take months to plan.

One U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said preliminary planning for next year's drills was already taking place. Still, the official acknowledged that would not be indicative of whether the drills will go forward.

Max Thunder's air combat exercises so unnerved North Korea this year that it issued threatening statements that nearly scuttled the June summit between Trump and Kim.

Huge surprise, that.

Trump says his relationship with Kim Jong Un is so “warm” there’s no need for war games
By Alice TruongAugust 30, 2018

North Korea hates them. China and Russia wanted them gone. And now Donald Trump says he doesn’t see any reason to continue the US’s joint military exercises with South Korea.

Instead, he’ll rely on his soft power, citing his “very good and warm” relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, to push the regime to denuclearize. That description comes less than a week after Trump asked secretary of state Mike Pompeo to cancel a planned trip to North Korea, citing insufficient progress toward denuclearization in the wake of the president’s historic Singapore summit with Kim in June.

North Korea said at the time it would work toward denuclearization, but critics of Trump’s approach note the US hasn’t received binding commitments on transparency or a timeline. Satellite evidence suggests Pyongyang is continuing to build new missiles, make fuel for nuclear bombs, and expand its test sites.

Trump’s new statement is at odds with defense secretary Jim Mattis’s remarks this week that seemed to indicate that drills could resume. The US decided in June to “indefinitely suspend” some of its biggest military exercises with South Korea—which Donald Trump had called “provocative” after meeting with Kim, echoing a word used by Beijing and Pyongyang. The move, which blindsided South Korea and US military command in Korea, was seen as a major concession to the North.

The first major drill affected was Operation Ulchi-Freedom Guardian, originally slated for this month.

“We took the step to suspend several of the largest exercises as a good-faith measure coming out of the Singapore summit,” Mattis said on Tuesday (Aug. 28). “We have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises.”

In his latest statement, Trump justified the move by saying there wasn’t a need to spend “large amounts of money” on the exercises. On the campaign trail, though, he often said he would increase the US’s military budget. Military spending for 2019, at $716 billion, will be the highest ever after accounting for inflation, except during the height of the Iraq war.

“Besides, the President can instantly start the joint exercises again,” he said, referring to himself. “If he does, they will be far bigger than ever before.”

And y'all say zilch about the 75 years of US terrorism against the people of Korea. On it goes, relentlessly and the kind, generous USians whine about how tough life is for them.

Do you even care that the US murdered some 23% of the population of Korea, nb?

https://twitter.com/KaptanHindustan/status/1038094073427632130

Hoping that will work for you.

Right wing false flag events, cj, you know that.

I don't even know the guy — I just read what people say about him. I hear he plays a pretty mean game of golf.