Bleeding Edge

DEFEATISTS AND SELF-HATERS 

Just this past year, with the pomp and the colossal amounts of circumstance, befitting a rodeo or a county fair, we entered the American Presidential Electoral season.

And we did this without much polish, but with plenty of platitudes, and semi-coherent inanities, dripping from the open mouths of half baked and some fully baked candidates. Thus the 2016 presidential campaign went underway for the Soul of America. Of course it had all began almost eight years earlier when Obama made a deal with Hillary Clinton that he would support her for the top job after his time was up.

Deal making on the back of People’s Democracy.

That’s the vast corruption of the liberal left and of the Democrats who are making these unholy deals and are enforcing them via their power of the DNC and of the Obama White House led by their islamic fundamentalists.

Of course to enforce this idiocy one needs useful fools and daft tools, like Valerie Jarrett, who operated at the highest levels of Power, while being a secretive admirer of Iran and her Ayatollahs. Valerie Jarrett went as far as micromanaging president Obama himself, because she came form that particularly corrupt world of Chicago Municipal Politics and she had hired Michelle Obama back then and it follows that since Valerie was Michelle’s boss, and Michelle was Barack’s boss — then Valerie was Barracks bond too. Indeed she was his manager prior to this gig, for their days in Chicago where they first took a shine to each other…

Of course any deal between Barry and Hilly, as always has to be approved by Bill, and it has to be a “Pay To Play” deal. That is SOP [Standard Operating procedure] and is the only kind of deal the Clintons and the Obamas would have allowed to stand. So this deal was not different. For his side of the deal, Obama promised her the capacity to make unlimited loads of cash, and also get the support of the Bankers – provided that the Clinton Democrats won’t make trouble for him, and allow him to sell the country to the Banker-Wanker class of Special Interests. If you don’t believe me – just think of why did he give the job of forming a government to the CityBank Execs who also threw a bone to Ms Clinton and gave her the State Department job to keep her in the those nice & tight little golden handcuffs, to make sure to enrich her and own her appropriately. Still only Hillary Clinton prepared her run for the last eight years seemingly unopposed, and thus amassed a huge war chest and in the minds of the Special Interests, the Media, and her Handlers – she was scheduled to win hands down.

As for the Republicans, and the rest of the world, besides the crooked DNC and the crooked Hillary machine — the electoral season began in December of 2015, when the former Florida Governor Jeb Bush announced he was “actively exploring” a run for the White House. And although Jeb Bush is a weak man and stands far to the left of where much of the Republican base stands — on many issues —  his name identification is strong, with two ex-Presidents in his immediate family. Yet he was perhaps too weak to win his party’s nomination, according to statistical analysis. On foreign policy issues, however, Bush towed a hawkish line, pushing for a more aggressive U.S. posture against Syria, Russia, Iran, China, and Cuba in order to better promote and defend American ideals and interests throughout the globe.

On the whole, the Republican hopefuls thought that we’re “racing to the right” on foreign policy, arguing for a more muscular approach to international affairs. A strong narrative was taking hold, that many of the problems facing the world today are the result of the Obama Biden administrations’ “failed leadership.” More specifically, they were not brought about by America’s ill-conceived actions, but instead, because of U.S. inaction: a failure to intervene as often or aggressively as “needed” around the world, which to many conservatives’ minds projected American weakness and undermined U.S. credibility.

The solution?

Clear principled American leadership.

This line of reasoning permeated also the campaigns of noted surgeon Ben Carson, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and increasingly reflected the political strategy of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul as well as Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s admittedly weak simpleton personality and character.

On the other side the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, who upon good forensic evidence — stole the primary elections from Democratic Socialist and ultra Liberal Bernie Sanders and his posse of disruptors; is perhaps even more aggressive still. Sure she is unwavering in her supposed advocacy of Israel, but she also supported the Iran Nuclear deal that has put Iran onto the Nuclear power club. But to just show strength in other areas she has been comparing Putin to Hitler over Ukraine, and the lady Secretary has been pushing for a more confrontational approach to China, while continuing to champion her silly form of Arab Spring messy interventions in Libya and Syria. This has always been her downfall. Her meddlesome and criminally corrupt ways. She does this often and she thinks it is correct, just as she previously did for Iraq, supporting the troop surge in Afghanistan as well, as the ill-fated campaign of first arming the Islamic militants and once they declared themselves the Caliphate turning against them belatedly. So now that she says that she is truly against ISIL, while defending the counterproductive drone program, and arguing for increased sanctions and the threat of force against Iran — nobody believes her. And although she really supports the nuclear deal that Obama and Kerry foisted upon the American people — she also admits that this deal is what allows the nuclear efforts of Iran to continue. And to top it all off — she wants to take away the guns of the American people…

And she wants to limit Free Speech too.

With one stone she wants to kill two “birds” or rather Two Amendments of the Constitution — that is if she were ever able to become the President of the land. And that is precisely why she shall never become one…

Good thing President Trump obstructed Hillary from ever reaching that exalted position. Well Done Donny Boy… Well Done.

Mind you, that during Hillary’s pre-announcement book tour, Clinton lambasted the Obama administration’s foreign policy, particularly the administration’s aspirational credo: “Don’t do stupid stuff.” Her complaint was not that the Obama administration has failed to live up to such a modest goal, but instead, that “don’t do stupid stuff” is not an organizing principle, and America instead needs doctrines to guide its foreign policy. Speaking as if her tutor Henry Kissinger was speaking through her or as if she was channelling the 1970s all over again…

Daft and Stupid.

Or Stupid and Daft…

Can’t decide…

Methinks the 1970s will come calling and ask her for their Foreign Policy back.

As for her criticism of “Not doing evil” as a bad policy — well that is a plain as day Clintonian absurdity.

Clearly, “avoid doing harm” is, in fact a great maxim. It is also designed as a guiding action. If you don’t believe me — just ask any medical professional. It’s the Physician’s oath of Hippocrates, and it serves for a Thousand years as a principle guiding what not to do. Rather than what to do, but for that very reason, it is the basis of, and more important than, any offensive strategy. Because it constrains what sorts of affirmative policies are desirable or even permissible — let alone par for the course to be engaged into.

But notwithstanding this apparent lack of understanding of the daft Madame about what “organizing principle” means, there is a more profound error that crooked Secretary Clinton holds in common with the majority of the Republican 2016 candidates, except Donald Trump: The assumption that grand strategies are necessary, and that Doctrinaire belief and SOP are useful in guiding foreign policy, and achieving optimal outcomes.

Yet as any smart student of Winston Churchill could tell you:

“They aren’t.”

They aren’t, because there are major Problems with “Grand Strategies” and with the fixed doctrinaire mental attitudes of their adherents, as it pertains to understanding the world and the Art of Strategy, and Statecraft.

Statesmanship does not come out of the bottle….

Fixed fortifications like the Maginot lines, never stopped anyone from going around them.

Capice Madame?

Capice Madame Secretary?

Let’s see if Hillary and the liberal Democrats have learned anything from all of these writings, as they feverishly prepare for the 2020 Presidential Elections — hoping to reclaim the White House.

Yet perhaps first they should study themselves and learn about their own limitations…

Old Charles Darwin told us quite some time ago that it is not the richest, the most corrupt, the most crooked, nor the most connected, nor the Mass Media supported, nor the dressed up smartest, nor the most big ass beautiful, nor the feminist member of the species that survives. And certainly where Elections are concerned it is not the one that is most ramrod straight, iron fisted, or inflexible, and wearing those detestable Dictator body suits, like Chairman Mao’s tailor sewed up for Madame Secretary in all the colors of the rainbow for this particularly pear shaped unicorn. And it is absolutely not the one that has grand yet fixed strategy ideas, and iron limiting beliefs, or doctrinal aspirations. Statesmanship is not for those that have a lot of fixed artillery, but for the ones with mobile artillery and for those who can easily unleash a fast shifting field of fire upon the enemy.

Indeed it is the most malleable, flexible, and fluid, people whose ideas can be seen to always be adjusting and adopting to changing circumstances. That indeed is the only Statesman acting as a foreign policy animal; that will survive and thrive.

Got That?

To understand why foreign policy doctrines are counterproductive, let us begin with a handful of humble axioms:

First, situations are importantly different from one another. Libya is not Ukraine. The Syria of the 1950s is neither the Syria of 2011, nor the Syria of 2014.

The many crises America faces today are not the same as those of Rome at the time of its collapse, nor anything like those the British empire faced. And while drawing analogies can sometimes be useful, taking historical and geographical out of place comparisons too far and far too seriously — will only serve to obscure and obfuscate, rather than elucidate the problems policymakers are currently faced with. A policymaker’s over reliance on historical tropes is a sign that they probably lack a nuanced grasp on the actual situation at hand — and are likely not well-informed about history, either, and therefore doomed to fail.

Secondly, situations are fluid and often volatile: they evolve over time in response to myriad factors, most of which are difficult to predict or control. Therefore, mindfulness of the present will be far more useful in guiding policy than attempts to model the future, draw analogies from the past, or frame contemporary developments within pre-existing narratives.

Thirdly, U.S. interest, and the optimal means of promoting them, are also heavily context-dependent and evolve along with the situation to which they’re indexed. Accordingly, strategies which take American interests for granted are likely to be blind to critical opportunities and risks presented by particular circumstances.

Fourthly, even what is morally right is heavily determined by the context in which options are presented — both at the personal and institutional levels.

In light of these propositions, we are left with the question: why would policymakers approach fluid and dynamic problems through rigid principles and reactionary applications?

Let’s first tackle the Incentive Problem which is rather disturbing, in that policymakers seem so willing to embrace policies driven by ideology or abstract projection at the expense of paying attention to the facts on the ground, or even in outright defiance of known empirical realities.

But worse still is that even as it becomes glaringly obvious that these ill-conceived measures are failing, or even backfiring, the typical response by policymakers is to explain problems away with empty counterfactual explanations about how the strategy is essentially sound, and could even have worked better under alternative circumstances. After a show for the press and media, the proposed “solution” typically is to double-down on the current policies, rather than to rethink their Strategy, their tactics and thus revise the failing aims and ineffective methods. You can fill here the blanks about the US middle East policy, the doubling down on Afghanistan, Iraq and all other failed campaigns at war footing, the US has undertaken during the last six Presidents’ tenures.

And if you are anything like me and choose to follow the reality train – you recognize this malaise because this is virtually the definition of fundamentalism. Doctrinaire belief is faith based and truly resembles religious dogma. There is no space for “Pure Reason” there…

And yet, after all this knowledge has become available out there — it still never fails to surprise me that fundamental nationalists, or the plain vanilla old nationalists, or even old school religious fundamentalists – are the ones who customarily win these elections. Nothing gave the militant terrorist organizations, like the Islamic Brotherhood, or ISIS, or even rogue states like Iran and North Korea, more freedom to operate, than this inflexible approach to Foreign policy. And in some cases, we give them the “license” to form governments up and down the Middle East, like the US inspired, faultily designed, and stupidly unleashed “Arab Spring” that was the handiwork of the famous Obama – Clinton partnership and the Tech smart cookies relying on Facebook and Twitter to change the world. You can sit down now and see what a giant waste of blood, souls, and manpower this whole stupid exercise there was.

Indeed, we’ve seen how badly this played out for all of us, and especially for the poor people of Egypt, Libya, Algiers, Tunis, Syria, and the whole lot of Northern Africa and the Middle East.

And this is no less true in America either, as it is in the Middle East — during the wake of the Arab Uprisings. It is a problem so intrinsic to democracy itself, same as the blowback of the dissatisfied Muslim fundamentalists the have been displaced and now stream into America as refugees seeking to effect some measure of “Blowback” against our country.

So while doctrines generally give rise to terrible policies, they also make excellent sound bites, and provide for political slogans. The public loves the melodrama created by the apparent clashes of these lofty ideals, and the Politicos are lapping it up. So go ahead and give it to them, albeit with a bit of ketchup… to remind them of the vast rivers of blood these policies spill.

Perhaps more importantly, because the voters like simple narratives about what is happening and why; they will also like hopeful and bold (even if poorly substantiated) visions of the future.

Our constituents want complex issues related and explained in an accessible fashion, short enough to fit between commercial breaks, distill into an op-ed column, or squeeze into a 140-character tweet. And so, for these reasons, voters are more likely to elect someone who has some neat, tidy ideological package to offer — rather than the intellectual who has command of all the subjects yet little belief in any of them. And this may be why Americans, despite being generally and consistently averse to military interventions, tend to elect politicians who are likely to resort to force to resolve foreign policy challenges, while decrying their political opponents as “weak” or “isolationist” or even sanctimonious poseurs.

If we want to avoid that — then we have to confront our own short-sightedness and skewed vision, with pragmatism and realpolitik to replace our abundantly flawed idealism and populism — as the new doctrinaire approach.

Perhaps the one exception to the aforementioned trend has been the original Nixon-Kissinger team themselves, who had tended to base critical policy decisions on what the public wanted in the moment, albeit with a delayed reaction — rather than subscribing to any particular doctrine of political party affiliation. It worked so well as you might well remember that the people thought that they can keep the Nixon Kissinger doctrine alive and on life support all the way to Barack Obama’s presidency. Which is an idiotic policy idea because it caters to the constantly shifting whims of the media led and ill informed populace that is not very much interested to educate themselves in the nuances of Foreign Policy. And yet ironically, many voters even resented him for his “whoring” himself to the public, as these elections clearly underscored.

Indeed it is hard to blame them, because the man was elected to LEAD and not to FOLLOW. Yet nobody said that this silver tongued demagogue was anything else but a gift horse to the Big Banks and to the Establishment Oligarchy. Indeed Barack has always been a shallow fellow with little if any ideological value besides his abiding belief in the stoner’s herb — his cannabis smoke…

Yet today we have to confront reality because even those that think that Americans are notoriously ignorant and reactionary about issues related to foreign affairs and national security, and far too disengaged from our military — know that on a guttural level all Americans know all that’s necessary about their Leaders and their Government and can “smell” or “ferret” out all the rest. And because of that, we have the good fortune of living in a representative, rather than direct democracy, where citizens elect politicians who are supposed to have the temperament, the courage, the balls, and the informational analysis and problem solving expertise, necessary to make tough, often controversial, decisions on their behalf.

And while accountable to the citizens via occasional elections, precisely what American politicians are not supposed to do is reflexively defer to the public in the interim.

The properly maligned & malignant foreign policy track record of the Obama administration should serve as a cautionary tale for why not to do what Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry did.

Because if you are the occupant of the White House, working at the Resolute desk, inside the Oval Office, YOU MUST LEAD – AND NOT FOLLOW…

American leadership of the last six Presidents doesn’t lack it’s share of populism or idealism — but what it really lacked is pragmatism. But the progressive narrative goes that given the proclivities of the American voter, perhaps the best that one can hope for is leaders who are great at exploiting narrative tropes to explain their policies to the public, while their actions are determined by careful, informed, and realistic assessments of the challenges the U.S. faces. In a sense they want Leaders who lie to the people like Ms Clinton and Mr Obama did.

However the conservative belief is that Americans shouldn’t hold their breath in anticipation of such a noble and masterful liar anytime soon because we already had one Barack Obama and we clearly don’t need another.

Furthermore, we have now got a far better Chief today in the House, who says and does exactly what he believes in, since he is not a career politician. That is true because the White House occupant now is Donald Trump. And Trump is a man who doesn’t like to play these nasty women’s games, and instead rocks the House with bravado and effective management. And although our politicians in total, tend to be cynical in all the wrong ways – sometimes this cynicism allows a true believer like Trump, to slip through the cracks, because all the others are killing themselves with their own gudgeons of false reality.

Winston Churchill feels far removed from these ideological falsities of the liberal elites that are used to control the population as plantation politics from the Democratic party all over again.

To be continued…