Gen. John Kelly - Trump Zealot (And New Chief Of Staff)

Click here for a Digby article at Salon from June 12, entitled "John Kelly the 'grownup'? Forget it -- Homeland Security chief turns out to be another Trump zealot." Subtitle: "Democrats are finally noticing Kelly is an immigration hard-liner and anti-drug fanatic with a dubious worldview."

She says: "For some reason they [Democrats] believed Kelly would rein in Trump’s draconian policies on immigration and security. They were wrong, according to Politico":

Instead, Kelly has moved to impose those policies with military rigor. He has pursued an aggressive deportation campaign; defended Trump’s effort to ban visitors from several Muslim-majority countries; and hinted that he might separate migrant parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border. Kelly has joked with Trump about using violence against reporters and defended Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, amid allegations that he tried to set up a secret back channel to the Russian government.

Today, it’s tough to find anyone on the left willing to defend Kelly. He has alienated potential allies on Capitol Hill, including Democrats who voted to confirm him, and is endangering his reputation as a nonpartisan figure in a presidential administration that has relatively few.

He's a border-security fanatic:

The Southern Command under Kelly was intensely focused on “narcoterrorism” and he was a zealot on the subject. He told BreakingDefense.com that he believed the nation was seriously threatened by a nexus between what “known terrorist organizations and illicit smuggling and money-laundering networks.” Kelly added, “There are those in the intelligence community who take the view that it is not a major threat and argue that those groups will never find common cause. I think those who take that view are simply trying to rationalize away the problem because no one wants to raise another major threat at a time when we face so many around the world.”

His views on marijuana:

Kelly’s stance on drugs is equally rabid. His view on marijuana legalization is that the U.S. won’t be able to ask other countries to cut back on their export of drugs to our country if we are making a substance legal. That’s an odd point of view to say the least, particularly since he says he has said doesn’t care if Americans smuggle pot into other countries. Marijuana legalization should lead to less smuggling, which would seem to be a good thing. Kelly also says he has “no doubt” that marijuana is a gateway to harder drugs but notes that he’s not a doctor so he doesn’t know if medical marijuana might be useful. He proves that he’s out of touch, however, by saying “every medicine is probably illegal unless you take it medicinally,” which is is somewhere between obviously not true and totally meaningless.

How about his position on immigrants?

In the first three months of the Trump administration, arrests of non-criminal immigrants rose by 157 percent over the same period a year earlier, according to data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In short, don't be reassured by Kelly's appointment as chief of staff, usually considered to be the second most powerful position in the White House. Priebus was, after all, a moderate; Kelly has drunk deeply of the Trump kool-aid.

Jared Kushner Answers All Questions

Kushner was questioned today, behind closed doors, by the Senate Intelligence Committee. His answers were immediately leaked. Apparently he answered every question the same way:

Pardon?

An Explanation Of The North Korea Problem

Click here for Digby's article at Hullabaloo entitled "Let's not forget who dropped the ball on North Korea."

In 1993, evidence came to light that in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which N. Korea was a signatory, they were secretly working on a program to produce nuclear weapons. Confronted with the evidence, Kim Il Sung abruptly announced his intention that North Korea would become the first nation ever to withdraw from the NNPT.

Efforts by the Clinton administration to reach a diplomatic solution led to the 1994 Agreed Framework. N. Korea, now under Kim Jong Il, received aid, trade, and diplomatic recognition in return for a promise to freeze its nuclear program in place. "The American right viewed the deal as 'appeasement' and an example of perceived American weakness abroad."

During the rest of the Clinton administration's time through the '90s, a delicate balance existed; the U.S. occasionally accused N. Korea of cheating, while N. Korea accused the U.S. of not providing all the benefits it had promised:

At least some of this was the case since the Republican Congress worked to scuttle the deal via its control of the appropriations process. Basically, they wouldn’t make the money available.

Nevertheless, the situation remained relatively stable. The Bush administration, however, resolved to demonstrate toughness against N. Korea, and took a hard line, repudiating the Agreed Framework and taking harsh economic measures against the Hermit Kingdom:

"... the Bush administration, not without some reason, said you don’t reward aggressive behavior. We’re going to get tough with North Korea and stop paying protection money. And they did get tough – to the extent that getting tough means saying mean things and showing resolve. But the Bush folks eventually came to grips with the reality the Clinton team had confronted which was that the US had no military options it deemed viable. Could the US invade and overthrow the North Korean government? Sure. But only at the cost of probably hundreds of thousands of lives, the risk of a conflict with China and a lot else.

But the key is this. As of 2002, the North Koreans had no active nuclear weapons program. The Bush administration used the intelligence about a uranium enrichment program as a confirmation of its doubts about the Agreed Framework and proceeded to scuttle the deal over the course of 2003. In 2006, North Korea detonated its first nuclear weapon.

In the Obama era, U.S options were quite a bit more limited. North Korea now had nuclear weapons, "with all the obvious deterrence that goes along with it." But as Digby says: "... Trump policy is really just a fast forward and much clumsier and stupider version of the Bush policy." Trump's approach was, "I’ll get tough and make North Korea behave. The Trump administration’s rhetoric of strength and resolve was comical even by Bush era standards."

Here's an example of the Trump administration's macho posturing:

Back in April Vice President Pence made the traditional presidential and vice presidential visit to the demilitarized zone. According to the Post, Pence actually was not scheduled to walk outside at ‘Freedom House’ on the South Korean side of the border. But he made an impromptu decision to go outside because he thought it was important that the North Koreans see US ‘resolve’ in his face. I’m not kidding. He really said this. “I thought it was important that we went outside. I thought it was important that people on the other side of the DMZ see our resolve in my face.”

So here we are. And as Digby says:

Trump is a bully who thinks if he threatens people they will back down. That's clearly not working. But he's also supposed to be a master negotiator who can get anyone to the bargaining table and make a great deal that everyone is happy with. You'd think he'd want to at least try that. But he's just blustering about nonsense because he's a fool who couldn't negotiate his way out of a paper bag.

So, here we are, with North Korea making it very clear that they are prepared to launch a missile at someone if they feel provoked and an imbecile for president who has no clue what he's gotten himself into and could easily fall for some Buck Turgidson type who wants to swing America's manhood around. It's a bad situation.

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