New New World Otder

Donald Trump is either a doofus or a strategic genius. He is certainly jettisoning much of what had been the liberal agenda of the last fifty years -- "free" trade, NATO, "diversity, " open borders, socialism, China's  hegemony, high U.S. taxes, deferral to the Federal Reserve, global warming, nuclear proliferation, anti-Zionism, pro-EU, pro-Muslin, etc. -- together known as the "New World Order."

Trump is upsetting or redefining the tacit acceptance of these memes ... mostly to keep or restore America's place in the world's power structure. He has sensed that the path that China was following would, in very short order, place its foot on the neck of his country. And this was unacceptable to him and his MAGA pledge. Viewing many f Trump's moves  in this light begins to add some rationality to what, to many, has been characterized as bizarre behavior.

For example, let's look at the White House's opening to Russia. I am certain that Trump understands the risks involved in this strategic pirouette. Yes, Putin is a bad actor ... but so was Stalin ... much, much worse ... yet, our alliance with him was instrumental in winning World War II. I think Trump views America's current challenge to be the strategic equivalent. so do I ... and this is the primary reason I can overlook much of Trump's acerbic style.

Let's imagine for a minute what might have been discussed in that private room in Helsinki ... maybe merely implied if not explicitly stated. I can postulate two alliances:

- A swing toward neutralizing China's growing belligerence. Russia, although anemic economically is a military and nuclear powerhouse ... and it sits right on top of China. This neutralizing role would return Russia to a major layer on the world chessboard.

- If the Muslim world finally coalesced into a caliphate bent on world domination, a Russia-U.S. alliance would be a formidable counterbalance. Putin is thought to be a devout Christan and has had his fill of radical Islam. I believe he sees Trump as a potential buddy in this bar fight.

Thus a Trump-Purim bromance might ameliorate these two major conundrums ... enough for Trump to invite Putin back for another tête-à-tête at the White House this fall ... and enough for Trump to punch through the current media frenzy.

It seems that much of the power-player animosity toward Trump comes from a realization that he is fundamentally changing this world-order game. They either resent overturning their gravy train ... or fear the unknown. Trump is playing a high-stakes game .. with not a lot of allies ... except middle America.

Full Plate

President Trump has a full plate of problems ... mostly because of other presidents ignoring them. But he seems to recognize most of them and is willing to try to fix things.  Here are some:

- Our broken immigration system

- Our porous southern border

- The political mare's nest in the Middle East

- Our enormous negative balance of trade with China and the EU (read Germany)

- The burdensome cost of being the world's police force

- An economy burdened by regulation and a counter-productive taxing system

- Constitutional-guaranteed freedoms under constant assault

- A military unprepared for its looming challenges ... particularly from China

- The North Korean and Iranian nuclear threats

- The constant menace of Islam-inspired terrorism

- Soaring medical costs not matched by results (particularly for veterans)

- A growing national debt driven largely by feel-good entitlements

- Restoring the national dream of equal opportunity for all

You get the picture ... the list goes on and on. And, in most cases, Trump is fixing things ... or , at least, trying to. This is not something that could be said for our previous three prexies.

Will he remedy them all? Probably not ... but enough of them to be called very consequential and to MAGA. That is enough for me and most attentive Americans (maybe not Mueller).

UH-OH

A suspected radical Islamic terrorist, wearing a suicide vest, killed at least 20 people in an Orlando, Florida nightclub called Pulse and wounded possibly 42 others late last night ... before he was shot dead himself by a police officer ... see: Daily Mail Story. The reason that this is an uh- oh moment is that this nightclub is the premier gay gathering spot in this area.

This event now pits the liberals's refusal to identify such terrorist acts to the Muslim faith, in particular Bathhouse Barry's refusal, and these same lefties' celebration of the gay lifestyle. Muslims consider homosexual activities to be sins punishable by death even though they are reported to be rife within Muslim countries ... in particular Afghanistan. Thus, this is the cognitive dissonance that now will have to be resolved by the Obummer administration.

Prediction -- any statements made by the White House about this Orlando slaughter will say that this was an act of domestic homophobic rage and, again, not refer to radical Islamic terrorism or the Muslim Faith's mortal denouncement of homosexuality.

Update: Now it is reported that 50 have been killed and 53 wounded ... not sure about the suicide vest.

Afterward: It is now 49 dead plus the shooter. Obummer surprisingly did mention terrorists in his comments but not Muslim nor Islamic radicals ... but, as many had predicted, guns were highlighted by our president as the true villian in this massacre. And, in another bizarre twist, Donald Trump has somehow been singled out as at fault by the lefties. This I haven't yet quite figured out.

Signal Flags

How is it that the Bush/Chaney administration carried this country through seven years terrorist-attack free while the Obama/Biden duo has had three serious events in its first eleven months? Personally, I don't believe that our operational intelligence apparatus has appreciably changed. However, what has changed is the signals that this administration is sending to Al-Qaeda, viz: the planned closing of Gitmo, no more waterboarding, turning terrorist acts into criminal offenses, renaming the "war on terrorism" into "overseas contingency operations", the non-existence of our "High Value Detainee Interrogation Group" (HIG) ten months after Obama announced its creation, making a Girl Scout leader the head of Homeland Security, closing down military tribunals, moving the KSM trial to New York City, the president's slow, low-key responses to each terrorist act, sending Chinese Islamic terrorists to Bermuda, refocusing our government on global-warming/health-care/fire-hose domestic spending, and finally blaming everything that goes wrong on Bush.

One other point that needs to be reiterated: during the Bush years the war in Iraq was a magnet that drew disenchanted Muslims from around the globe to sacrifice themselves there in the name of Allah. Now, that Iraq is being deemphasized, many more venues have become attractive to would-be martyrs ... including unfortunately the U.S.A. This last reason clearly is not of Obama's doing alone, but our haste to leave Iraq may turn out to be a gigantic mistake ... witness the dramatic increase in terrorists bombings there recently.

So, it may be that style is just as important as substance in combating the terrorist threat we suffer. And, if Obama does not do a convincing 180-degree turn in his rhetoric, we may be in for three more years of "isolated incidents".

The Enabler

I do give President Obama credit for his good intentions toward Old Europe. (God help us if he were making these mistakes on purpose.) But, it doesn’t take much to view Old Europe as a pack of spoiled children. On his G20/NATO swing Obama has kissed the cuffs and hems of all the leaders of Old Europe and, other than fawning and adoring groupie audiences, what has he gotten in return? -- certainly no real help in Afghanistan, continued tut-tuting about America’s role in the world’s financial crisis, and an opportunity to surrender U.S. sovereignty to a bunch of Brussels bureaucrats who want to tell our financial institutions how to operate. Excuse me … it is not like the European banks did not swallow the financial-derivative bait with as much gusto and avarice as their American counterparts … only to be bailed our by the U.S. taxpayer (with the AIG pass-throughs). Obama said recently in Strasbourg, France that we Americans have been “dismissive, even derisive" of Old Europe. To my mind we have not been “dismissive, even derisive" enough.

Twice in this last century the United States has spent considerable blood and treasure to stop Europe’s self-annulations. Then we helped them rebuild after the Armageddon of World War II. We watched in painful silence as they dismantled their national defenses and forced the United States to become the world’s policemen and the only counterparty to Communist threats. (This alone permitted them their numerous self-indulgent social engineering experiments.) We tolerated their (and the Far East’s) thumb-on-the-scale trading practices that helped deplete our monetary reserves. We have bowed to their snobbish cackling about the threat of global warming and are poised to allow them even to tax our domestic energy usage. We have put up with the monstrous graft and kickback schemes between their politicians and the dictators in the Middle East and Africa. We have squirmed as they let NATO go sickly and they have done squat to help us stop the spread of nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea. And we have borne their pompous preachings on how really awful we have been in trying to protect them and the rest of the world from Islamic extremism.

Posh! Enough of this enabling of European effetism! I sincerely hope that this G20/NATO trip will cause the scales fall from Obama’s eyes and he will finally start encouraging the United States to act more in its own self interest … that is, at least until such time as Old Europe grows up and a pair.