Just back from Israel, Congressman Dusty Johnson signals his lack of confidence in the Trump Administration’s ability to achieve peace in the Middle East:
Johnson toured Israel extensively from Jerusalem to the Golan Heights and met with many leaders, including former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
The congressman says he left the Middle East, believing that peace between Israel and the Palestinians may take years, but is attainable [Mark Russo, “Dusty in a Hookah Bar and Other Details,” KELO Radio, 2019.11.13].
I know, I’m reading between the lines, but South Dakota’s lone Congressman appears to be acknowledging that Trump’s vague promise of a “deal of the century” in the Middle East is nowhere near a complete working draft, let alone fruition. Trump has thrown cronies instead of experts into the process, and the consequent dawdling on the nowheresville plan has contributed to the political stalemate in Israel, which in turn the Trump Administration is using as an excuse to indefinitely delay releasing its vague plan.
Perhaps Congressman Johnson is referring to the time it will take for a new administration to rebuild the trust Trump has trashed on all sides by abandoning our Kurdish allies and putting Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Russia in a better position to push Israel around. Trump has done nothing to revive or advance the mouldering Israel-Jordan peace deal. Trump’s entire incoherent approach to the Middle East appears to rely on lazy magic, a dismissal of all past efforts and a belief that he can pull out and count on regional players to avoid catastrophe.
Now sure, peace in the Middle East is really hard to do. But Trump has only made it harder:
During [Trump envoy Jason] Greenblatt’s time in office, the US severed its diplomatic links with the Palestinians, closed down its consulate in Jerusalem, and ordered the Palestinian mission in Washington to shut down. Earlier this year, the US cut all aid to the Palestinian territories.
“The Trump administration inherited very poor prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace, which wasn’t their fault,” said Daniel Shapiro, the former US ambassador to Israel. “But everything they have done in the field since has made it even harder to achieve a breakthrough” [Julian Borger, “Kushner’s Middle East Peace Plan Drifts Further Astray as Envoy Resigns,” UK Guardian, 2019.09.05].
Maybe we should put Dusty Johnson on a primary ballot against Donald Trump. Congressman Johnson has fewer corrupt and bumbling cronies to put in sinecures, so he’d have to appoint more experts to key diplomatic positions, and a President Johnson might actually try to get things done, in the Middle East and elsewhere.
drumpf’s actions have virtually assured the region there will be no two state solution. drumpf moved the embassy to Jerusalem, defunded help for Palestinians and went whole hog for moar Israeli settlements in Palestinian lands. He agrees the Golan Heights, which international law says belongs to Syria, belongs to Israel by right of conquest.
I thought Jared Kushner had fixed that whole Middle East strife thinggy long ago. Didn’t President-Father-in-Law give him that task at the beginning of his term?
Kushner has yet to extract himself from Saudi Crown Prince of Murder’s pocket.
Yep. I thought Jared had this all fixed up.
Seriously, if you wanted to end prospects for peace without quite saying it, you’d do pretty much exactly what Diplomatic Dunce has done. I guess that’s a summation of how he’s bolixed all our diplomatic relationships.
One more thing, Israel has to get rid of Netanyahu. He makes everything worse for them. He’s corrupt and power hungry. They came very close to dumping him last time. C’mon Israelis!
P.S. I give Dustmop credit for talking to Olmert. He’s a much better leader than their current crook.
So what is Dusty or any of our other Reps.; going to do about it?? Dusty took a very educational trip on tax dollars. What is the gain??
What is the gain? AIPAC campaign contributions most likely. Another secure vote to feed Israel moar tax payer’s bucks.
There is no way to reasonably prove how far we were, are or will be from middle east peace. This is to disrespect the problem, whether he is in touch with this statement or not.
John Dale, I reject your attempt at excuse-making nihilism. There are plenty of ways we can tell if we are closer to or farther from achieving certain policy goals. Donald Trump has clearly not moved us any closer with his bumbling, erratic, inattentive, and uncaring approach to foreign policy. Dan Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, a person closer to the issue than any of us in this conversation, says prospects have gone from bad to worse due to Trump’s actions and inaction. We don’t get to sit here in our relative ignorance and reject such observations based on experience and intelligent study.
Trump has made things worse for Middle East peace, in part by trusting his son-in-law more than the professional and experienced diplomatic corps. Removing Trump and replacing him with a thoughtful leader dedicated to public service and to public servants will move us closer to effective negotiations and agreements in the Middle East.
Cory examples TRump’s disrespect for the professional and experienced diplomatic corps. This was on full display yesterday with the Impeachment testimony of “Masha” Yovanovitch. She laid out the reason Trump must be impeached and removed from office. There’s no doubt he’s guilty of bribing a foreign President to initiate a smear campaign against Joe Biden. Heck, Trump admitted it and then doubled down and did it again, in public. The task is to convince America of the magnitude of the crime. Ms. Yovanovitch laid it out. Trump has weakened our diplomatic corps to the point that every bad actor across the world now sees that sucking up to Trump is a route around USA’s diplomatic mission. That significantly lowers America’s world standing and must be stopped and punished. It’s an impeachable crime that warrants removal from office.
Cory – Name calling notwithstanding (nihilist), other than vague assertions, can you reverse engineer your own assertion into something more cogent?
Let’s take one argument for example:
“[Trump has cronies that have failed in their middle East policy therefore he has failed in what would have happened under some other leadership]”
The premises do not support the conclusion. Who are the cronies? What were their contributions? Are there *ahem* other factors that might affect the outcome?
Without the benefit of a hot tub time machine, how could anyone possibly know what would have happened? Is your faith in the conclusion too strong? Perhaps you could have tried building a foundation for the assertion, acknowledging the difficulty in determining what “would” or “might” or “could” have happened.
The Middle East has been a quagmire for a very long time, mostly because political interests, not true desire for peace, have driven interventionist policies there.
I guess, in short, I find the assertion by Johnson to be a hedge in case Trump doesn’t survive the Senate and/or get reelected in 2020 regardless.
My primary concern for Trump if Huntsman doesn’t get appointed to Trump’s cabinet to countermand Romney is that he has enough lead time for the logistics to re-run as an Impeached entity (impeachment, for President Trump’s base, is a signal that he’s taking flak and RIGHT OVER THE TARGET of corruption).
The type of bureaucrats that are testifying now are exactly the type of deep state swamp things we elected Trump to fire.
If anything, Trump needs to get more savage and fire 50% of the CIA immediately, can the DNI, and start revoking security clearance of everyone as the avowed Communist Brennan and his lackey Clapper go on trial for treason.
So, Trump’s foreign policy is a very delicate matter that is more delicate in an election year with all the meddling from all quarters. It’s impossible to say.
Something that is beyond doubt, though, is how Clapper LIED TO Congress about spying on Americans with Brennan’s blessing and support. What say you to something like that? Should we be looking into the unconstitutional mass surveillance of Americans before we get worried about how much Middle East peace we could have achieved under the architect of the Arab Spring?
Porter Lansing – “Trump has weakened our diplomatic corps to the point that every bad actor across the world”
This is a talking point, but it doesn’t hold water in an age of the Internet and digital diplomacy.
Do we really need all these international CIA forward operating bases .. I mean .. embassies around the world exerting America’s imperialist interests on foreign nations?
I really hope the age of the life-long, career six figure diplomat are over. I think a lot of folks are missing the picture .. we want smaller government, not larger government. We want fewer wars, not more wars. We want more national sovereignty, not less self national (language, border, culture) determination.
This is what it looks like when a President actually tries to accomplish these things; a totalitarian fascist borderless bank fueled regime fights back by leveraging every legal loophole available, defying common sense, and wasting everybody’s time and money.
What a wast of money has been Mueller, this latest witch hunt, and the massive sprawling sordid bureaucracy.
Let’s take one argument for example: Why does Johnny Fraud pick a hot tub time machine? Is it possible he has a financial stake in hot tub time machines? If so, that renders he entire diatribe meaningless and a waste of time, as per usual.
mike from iowa – I can’t even classify this as rhetoric since it doesn’t support any particular position.
I love your opinions, Daley. You’ve co-opted them from others, but you do have a certain emphasis declaration.
America must show the world that we, as a nation of kindness and empathy to those under the thumb of dictators, don’t tolerate bullies. Especially those exploiting the office of the Presidency for illegal, emolulents, and enrichment.
Impeachment and removal of the bully is of the highest necessity.
I hate that we have been mind-control-herded into two opposing factions. Republicans and Democrats have been designed to fight .. it reminds me of the Russian roulette scene in the Deer Hunter. We’re forced to fight using cash flow.
It’s disgusting.
Rand Paul’s platform can shine a lot of light on the situation, but he also has some flaws.
I don’t like fighting .. I do love discussion and finding truth together. Let’s keep doing that as respectfully as possible, mike from iowa notwithstanding.
Sure it points out a particular position, mine, and you’re a fraud.
John, I am afraid it is you have been brainwashed. The whole fear of the government — to the point of disdain for those who serve in that government (SERVE — not elected to) — has lead to this idea that we need to just hand this nation over to our corporations, unchecked corporations, monolithic, sociopathic, corporations, and the 1% who use everything but free markets to amass the wealth they horde. Who do you think fills the vacuums when government fades? It is not the meek as your good book promises; human experience is quite the opposite.
“nihilist” isn’t name-calling: it accurately describes the philosophical consequences of telling us nothing can be known or believed. Would you have preferred “moral anarchist”?
“delicate” is not a term that can be accurately used to describe Donald Trump’s approach to anything.
You cannot use quote marks, then place the entire statement in brackets. Either quote me accurately (completely, with the links to the sources that back up what I’m saying), or leave off the quote marks.
I packed six reliable sources into one sentence, and they all support what I say. No wonder you want to wish away experts, because the experts are saying what I’m saying and saying you and Trump are wrong.
Why spend so much time making excuses for a failure? Admit Trump is failing and help the country move on to better management.
Fire half of the CIA—yes, more nihilism, more rejection of expertise and information in favor of letting Il Duce do whatever he wants, without evidence.
The CIA’s well documented activities around the globe have created immeasurable (sorry, more nihilism) but drastic blow back for our country.
They seem to have no moral sensibilities except the sociopathic domination of the successful in the name of the few for the true purpose of self-enrichment.
I stand by my comments that we need to clean out the CIA and other redundant branches of government if for no other reason (but yes, there are many other reasons that are well documented throughout my writing) than to make the federal government infertile ground for totalitarianism.
“you and Trump are wrong”
This statement abjectly fails to support your recommendation to “admit Trump is failing and help the country move on to better management”.
The opposition to President Trump is substantiated, but not justified.
We could go back and forth about it, but why don’t I simply cast a wide net, now.
Show me another impeachment proceeding where no members of the opposing party cross party lines.
Even you – the unapologetic left wing pundit (I like you because you don’t try to hide it) – have to admit that the manner in which Schiff is conducting the proceedings is a clear and present threat to democracy.
Look at what this SCUMBAG does to the gentlewoman from New York (the next NY Governor?):
https://twitter.com/EliseStefanik/status/1195357024663605251
Cory – “You cannot use quote marks”
When I do this, I am paraphrasing. If there is something you disagree with in terms of my classification of the idea contained within the brackets, please just write your objection and you know I’ll read it and respond thoughtfully.
But I can’t guarantee that I will never again use brackets in this fashion. I believe the decision about using them falls within the purview of my literary license for art.
“telling us nothing can be known or believed”
I never said that “nothing can be known”
I am familiar with Descartes and the brain in the vat argument, but I’m too practical to apply that to my every day life. This is not, nor was it ever, a fair classification of my argument.
I was referring to a specific topic which, in my view, lacked sufficient evidence justifying belief or action based thereon.
Take it from someone with a degree in Philosophy – what I did was not nihilism.
o – “I am afraid it is you have been brainwashed”
As one of the more cogent operators here, please accept my compliments.
I am most certainly not brainwashed.
I am, however, steeped for just the right amount of time in the tea of the truth, which is neither neo-right or neo-left.
#merica
Johnny Fraud fails again. Stefanik and Numbnuts deliberately staged a mini drama to gain sympathy from Fake Noize viewers like JF. They both knowingly and willingly violated House impeachment rules both sides agreed to. Nunes and Stefanik colluded against democratic principles.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schiff-refuse-gop-talk/
As for the backlash drumpf is receiving, he and his rollback policies on the environment, social programs for the poor, destroying trade relations and butt kissing dictators, deserve every bit of it.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/us-officials-were-aware-of-trumps-pressure-on-ukraine-before-july-phone-call-report?ref=home
Zolensky was feeling pressured long before July phone call according to sources.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/18/politics/pompeo-west-bank-settlements-announcement/index.html
drumpf and Pompeo cite Raygun claim Israeli settlements in west bank aren’t illegal although International law clearly states they are. Another slap at Palestinians and another setback for any chance at two state peace agreement.
Fake Christians and their equality fake hero don’t want a 2 state solution. They want Israel to take the entire area, then, per their bogus bible prophecy — Armageddon, the rapture, 2nd coming and free pizza delivery will all happen. Of course they will all disappear while the rest of us on earth celebrate their absence!