Is Someone Else Making Trump’s Decisions for Him? It Certainly Seems That Way

(ANTIMEDIA) At the end of last week, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said arresting Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is now a “priority.” Not long after, CNN reported that authorities have prepared charges against Assange, who is currently seeking refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Donald Trump’s response to these recent developments was “It’s OK with me.” Trump is not included in the decision-making process as to whether Assange should be charged. Bear in mind, however, that Trump once told his fanbase, “I love Wikileaks,” and the fact that he is merely “OK” with the decision seems, if anything, to indicate he is claiming little to no say at all on what is going on in his administration regarding this issue.

Most of the world watched with horror — or awe, depending on your level of humanitarian indifference — as the U.S. military dropped the so-called Mother of all bombs (MOAB) on an ISIS position in Afghanistan. Conservative estimates show that for every ISIS fighter killed, the financial cost of the bomb was $450,000.

Yet, according to Fox News, Trump was told of the decision to drop the MOAB after it had already been detonated. Fox reported:

“The new approach was on display this week in Afghanistan, where Gen. John Nicholson, head of the U.S.-led coalition there, decided to use one of the military’s biggest nonnuclear bombs—a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB—to hit a remote Islamic State underground network of tunnels and caves.”

Fox adds:“A senior administration official said Mr. Trump didn’t know about the weapon’s use until it had been dropped.”

This recent development is part of a broader strategy that has seen the Trump administration give enormous power and responsibility to generals on the battlefield with very little oversight. The loosening of these restrictions was already done in Somalia and parts of Yemen but has now been deployed in the Iraq arena. Supposedly, the process put in place under the Obama administration frustrated many within the military, even as they were still able to drop over 26,000 bombs last year, alone. Now, the military establishment has almost free reign to do as it wishes.

We have already seen the effects of this, as an air strike was recently ordered in on a civilian area in Mosul, killing over 200 civilians in a single bombardment. In March alone, the U.S.-led coalition killed 1,782 civilians in Iraq and Syria.

In the words of the New Republic, “the Generals have won their war with Trump.”

Donald Trump’s original pick for national security advisor was Michael Flynn, who was well on his way to restoring ties with Russia before leaked intelligence forced his resignation. Flynn was replaced by General H.R. McMaster, a staunch cold warrior. It speaks volumes that not long after McMaster booted Steven Bannon off the National Security Council, the U.S. military struck the Syrian government directly. As noted by the New Yorker, Bannon, a genuine nationalist, would not have been in favor of such a move to strike Russia’s close ally:

“In the dystopian ‘Clash of Civilizations’ scenario that Bannon and his supporters subscribe to, Syria represents an important staging ground in the U.S.-led crusade against radical Islam, and an example of what future U.S.-Russian coöperation could look like.”

Asked about the decision to strike the Syrian government, Trump’s recollection of the cake he was eating at the time was far clearer than which country he actually bombed:

“I was sitting at the table. We had finished dinner. We are now having dessert. And we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you have ever seen. And President Xi was enjoying it,” Trump said, as reported by the Guardian.

“And I said: ‘Mr. President, let me explain something to you … we’ve just launched 59 missiles, heading to Iraq,’” he said before the interviewer interjected to clarify. He then corrected himself.

Without getting too entangled in these contradictory actions, it is also worth pointing out that Trump was dining with the Chinese president, a complete policy switch from his furious attempts to berate China in the early days of his political career.

Further, the following statement seems to cast doubt on how involved Trump really is in the formulation of these incredibly important decisions:

“And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded. What do you do? And we made a determination to do it. So the missiles were on the way.”

What do you do? You say no. You say what you said at least 18 times previously before you became president, namely that the U.S. should “stay the hell out of Syria.”

On a side note, it was McMaster who presented the Syrian military strike proposal to Trump in the first place. Shortly after the MOAB was dropped in Afghanistan, McMaster took an unannounced visit to the war-ravaged nation. According to the Military Times, McMaster’s visit was a surprise move not just to the Afghans, but also to Pentagon officials. As a result, the White House was forced to dispute the notion that McMaster is operating independently from the Department of Defense.

In the most recent development, which has resulted in the accumulation of Trump’s power giveaway, Vice President Mike Pence was busy last week threatening North Korea directly with war while the Donald played golf. As noted by Paul Craig Roberts, not even king of neoconservatives Dick Cheney took the spotlight away from Bush Junior to declare war on his behalf.

Of course, it is worth noting that Pence just recently announced this Saturday that this issue could be solved by “peaceful means.” However, the fact still remains that the issue to be solved is the establishment of a “nuclear-free Korean peninsula,” something North Korea would be unlikely to accept in the face of repeated provocation from the U.S. government over the last decade or so (including Obama’s use of cyber warfare). In North Korea’s eyes, the only thing stopping their country from turning into Iraq is their stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Pence has essentially given North Korea a lose-lose ultimatum: either give up their nuclear weapons and make themselves an easy target or prepare for a direct war with America’s naval fleet. As Anti-Media predicted in March, Mike Pence was likely always going to be the “Deep State’s Insurance Policy” against a nationalist Trump administration.

For those who voted Trump into office, his complete indifference — as demonstrated by him playing golf all day while the neocons completely infiltrate his administration to make important decisions on his behalf — is nothing more than a giant slap in the face.

The rest of the die-hard Trump supporters who will support him no matter what should know they are supporting Clinton-style policies that are being pursued by the neoconservatives inside his administration.

They may as well have voted for Clinton.

However, these Trump supporters can finally admit the fact that neither party represents them (something more and more people are realizing) and that America’s illusion of democracy is dangerous, at best. Even if Trump was genuine during his presidential campaign, many of the most important decisions taking place right now are not being formulated by anyone who was democratically elected — especially not Trump.

In McMaster’s case, he wasn’t even involved in Trump’s original assembly. He is only part of the Trump administration because someone from within the intelligence community decided the restoration of U.S.-Russia relations was a complete dealbreaker and forced Flynn’s resignation. At least when the American people were casting their votes for Trump, they were well aware of who Bannon was, for example. McMaster’s name would have hardly been commonplace at anyone’s dinner table, yet this is a man who is advising Trump directly (including on his potential plan to send as many as 50,000 Americans to fight and die in Syria in a war that Trump dismissed numerous times in the past due to its projected catastrophic consequences).

Is this democracy?

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“Nuclear War Much More Likely” Paul Craig Roberts: In Dangerous World, Putin Will Not Trust America

Don’t be fooled by appearances.

President Trump is only on war with the Deep State on one level.

On another, the Deep State already run everything – when it comes to foreign policy, economics, politics and the mainstream narrative that is meant to set & sync headlines, clocks and consumer habits around the world.

War is brewing, as Trump hinted strongly in his upstart presidential campaign, but it will come, ultimately, at the terms of the long-running organ that actually steers U.S. policy.

After a very dubious “chemical attack” in Syria to stir the pot (the White Helmets did not even use gloves when picking up, touching and treating supposedly contaminated children), it is clear that war could erupt overnight with any number of middle eastern ‘enemies,’ or with North Korea, Russia or just about anyone else.

And one narrative that has been almost constant from the establishment power base and their media lapdogs during the last cycle has been dogging Russia in anyway it can – from baseless hacking accusations, to controversial sanctions talks, to attributing ultimate responsibility for chemical warfare attacks.

One can clearly see that a fight is being picked. If the story doesn’t fit, they’ll force it, or just find another excuse.

This, in short, is why the well respected Paul Craig Roberts says we are one step closer to “going poof” – it is three steps back to the thermonuclear cold war, only this time the leaders aren’t even attempting to work it out diplomatically.

As Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com discussed with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, formerly a top editor at the Wall Street Journal, says nuclear war is the most dire problem Americans face. This comes at a time when trust between Russia and America is at all-time lows. Dr. Roberts says, “The danger is both warning systems, ours and the Soviets (Russians). During the period of the cold war, there were many false alarms of incoming missiles. Both sides would see incoming missiles, and yet no one believed it, and the reason they didn’t believe it was that the governments were working together to defuse tensions. You had Kennedy with Khrushchev.

You had Nixon who gave us SALT-1, an anti-ballistic missile treaty. You had Carter who gave us SALT-2. You had Reagan and Gorbachev who ended the cold war. So, all during these periods when false information of incoming missiles came in, no one believed it, but if you have distrust between the two powers as we now have, and Putin has said on a number of occasions we can no longer trust the Americans, if you can’t trust and you get incoming missile alerts, you are much more inclined to believe it. So, the prospect of nuclear war is more likely. Washington and the media . . . are creating distrust among their populations with Russia with this constant anti-Russian propaganda. With all this bogus and false allegations about Russia. . . . the chances of all this going poof are very high.”

via Greg Hunter’s YouTube channel

According to Dr. Roberts, foreign policy figures in the days of Kennedy and Krushchev were actually attempting to trust and deescalate, fearful of setting things off.

Today, foreign policy men and woman seem dogged and emboldened by the chance for destruction.

As USA Watchdog reported:

Dr. Roberts, formerly a top editor at the Wall Street Journal, says nuclear war is the most dire problem Americans face. This comes at a time when trust between Russia and America is at all-time lows.  Dr. Roberts says, “The danger is both warning systems, ours and the Soviets (Russians).  During the period of the cold war, there were many false alarms of incoming missiles.  Both sides would see incoming missiles, and yet no one believed it, and the reason they didn’t believe it was that the governments were working together to defuse tensions.”

“You had Kennedy with Khrushchev.  You had Nixon who gave us SALT-1, an anti-ballistic missile treaty.  You had Carter who gave us SALT-2.  You had Reagan and Gorbachev who ended the cold war.  So, all during these periods when false information of incoming missiles came in, no one believed it, but if you have distrust between the two powers as we now have, and Putin has said on a number of occasions we can no longer trust the Americans, if you can’t trust and you get incoming missile alerts, you are much more inclined to believe it.  So, the prospect of nuclear war is more likely.  Washington and the media . . . are creating distrust among their populations with Russia with this constant anti-Russian propaganda.  With all this bogus and false allegations about Russia. . . . the chances of all this going poof are very high.”

Combine all the mistrust, aggression and attempts to conflate conflicts into a larger disaster.

The debt situation, the economics and the social indicators are all abysmal and depressing. The morale of the country has devolved, and mutated strangely with the pockets of information and counter-information that reside online.

And there are those who’d prefer to torch things off, collect on military industrial contracts during prolonged war, and start things over when people have sobered up to the grim new realities.

These will be trying times.

Read more:

Washington Puts Nuclear War With Russia on the Table: “Time to Pay Attention”

Nuclear War Is On The Horizon: “This Is Not Just Talk… Action Has Been Taken”

Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear: Are You Ready For An Attack On U.S. Soil?

A Step-By-Step Guide To Prepare For Any Disaster

The Threat is Real and Imminent: “Two North Korean Satellites Orbiting Over U.S. May Be Armed With Miniaturized Super-EMP Weapon”

Federal courts say foreigners, not U.S. citizens, are entitled to due process

The US Constitution applies to US citizens, and the amendments known as the Bill of Rights guarantee due process as a protection of US citizens’ civil liberties. That’s the theory but not the practice.

Trump’s travel ban applies to non-US citizens, primarily to refugees from the Bush/Obama bombings of numerous Muslim countries. Some of these refugees, whose families and countries were destroyed by American troops, could harbor feelings of revenge against Americans. The Ninth Circuit Panel’s injunction against Trump’s executive order gives the Constitution’s protection of US citizens to non-citizens, apparently on the basis of due process and religious discrimination arguments. The panel of judges said that Trump’s executive order “runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy.”

So too does bombing numerous Muslim countries over the course of the past 16 years, about which nothing has been done. One would think that, with the Democratic Party’s merger with Identity Politics and with the liberal/progressive/left leaning of the Ninth Circuit, more of a stink would have been raised about bombing Muslims gratuitously than by placing a mere ban on their entry into the US. But it all depends on who does the bombing and who does the ban. Identity Politics requires “America’s First Black President” to be supported at all costs, and Trump, a white heterosexual male billionaire, to be hated at all costs.

Dear readers, note that the US federal courts roll out the Constitution in order to protect non-citizens from a president’s executive order preventing their entry into the US, but refused to protect the constitutional rights of American citizens from arbitrary indefinite detention and execution without due process.

The fact that constitutional rights no longer apply to citizens, only to non-citizens has evoked no comment from the liberal/progressive/left, from the Democratic Party, from Harvard Law School, from the American Bar Association, or from the Federalist Society. Not from anyone, and for my reward for telling the truth Harvard University Library has published a large list of “False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical ‘News’ Sources” on which paulcraigroberts.org is included. http://guides.library.harvard.edu/fake

Harvard’s library does not say where the list came from or why the list is credible. I am on the list for “bias” and “conspiracy.” The “bias” means that I do not accept the Ruling Establishment’s self-serving explanations, and “conspiracy” means that I report on the findings of the 3,000 highrise architects and structural engineers who comprise A&E for 9/11 Truth, the Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, and the Scientists for 9/11 Truth, all of whom are far more knowledgeable about 9/11 than the Harvard librarian or the Harvard faculty.

Americans, and apparently Harvard’s library, are unaware that hardly any of the experts who have chosen to speak out about the official 9/11 story, including those First Responders inside the two towers, believe a word of the official story. Harvard’s librarians are apparently so ill-read that they are unfamiliar with books by the 9/11 Commission’s chairman, vice chairman and legal counsel, who wrote that information was witheld from the 9/11 Commission and that the Commission was “set up to fail.” Harvard’s librarian is apparantly unfamiliar with the testimony of demolition experts that the buildings came down as a result of controlled demolition. Harvard’s librarian is apparently ignorant of the panel of scientists headed by a University of Copahagen nano-chemist who reported finding both reacted and unreacted nano-thermite in the dust of the twin towers and who offered their samples for confirmation by other scientists.

Harvard University has no interest in truth. Harvard’s sole interest is to remain a member of the Ruling Establishment. As that requires telling lies, Harvard will tell lies. Lies bring Harvard riches, making Harvard so rich that, as Ron Unz argues, Harvard does not need to charge tuition and does so only out of greed.

Decades ago my University of California, Berkeley, economics professor became Dean of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. My term paper for the course had been published in the prestigeous journal, Classica et Medievalia. Years later when he learned that my book, The Supply-Side Revolution, had passed the peer-review process of Harvard University Press and was slated for publication, he sent for me.

He said that he wanted to have me appointed to the Harvard economics faculty, because the university’s belief in econometrics had proven false and the economics faculty needed a broad-based person such as myself to bring the subject back to life in the real world. I wished him good luck and wondered how a dean this naive had survived at Harvard.

For the dean at Harvard, my work was a strong point. I was the first to explain the Soviet economy both as an organizational system and in terms of the original Marxist asperations. I had reformulated the Pirenne Thesis, and my reformulation had been included into reading texts used in courses in medieval history and urban economics. I had produced new insights into economic policy and had identified regulation as a factor of production. My macroeconomic contributions had corrected the Keynesian deficiencies and extended the role of relative prices into macroeconomics. This seminal work had passed the peer-review process of Harvard University Press and resulted in the publication of my book, The Supply-Side Revolution, recently republished in the Chinese language in China, but still derided by American ignoramuses as “trickle-down economics.”

Harvard University Press kept The Supply-Side Revolution in print for decades. Despite this fact, even people I highly respect, such as Michael Hudson and Lewis Lapham, have no idea what supply-side economics is about and misrepresent it as some kind of preferment for the rich, which shows the power of the Establishment to control the understanding of even highly intelligent people.

To get back to the story. My appointment to Harvard’s economic faculty was blocked by the economic department’s resistance on the basis that I was too disruptive of the orthodoxy. Me and Michael Hudson.

The othodoxy has a large investment in human capital in protecting the rights of the one percent to plunder the rest of us. Those academics who support this plunder are the ones who prosper in the American acadamy, just as the presstitutes who lie for a living do in the American media.

So here I am, a peer-reviewed and published Harvard University Press author and peer-reviewed Oxford University Press author, whose books are now available in Chinese (2), Russian, German (3), Czech, Turkish, French, Spanish (2) and Korean, a person who has held the highest security clearances and once had subpoena power over the CIA, who has the French Legion of Honor, who has the US Treasury’s Silver Medal, who has letters of thanks from President Reagan for my contributions to US eonomic policy, who is asked to speak all over the world, who was Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University for decades, the William E. Simon Chair of Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University for 12 years, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week and the Scripp Howard News Service, etc., and so on, and some dumbshit at the Harvard library posts a list that says I am a suspect source of information.

This is the world we live in. Even the most prestigeous institutions are utterly corrupt. No one is there for the American people or for truth, or for anything or anyone except the One Percent. Americans are shot down in the streets, whites along with blacks, by militarized police trained to see the people who pay their salaries as enemies. Muslims are bombed into the stone age. Reformist Latin American governments are routinely overthrown. European countries are intimidated, bribed, and reduced to vassal status. Aggression is displayed toward Russia, China, and Iran. America has become a great collection of evil. The good in the country is voiceless and without power. Evil rules us.

This is why this site is important. If you do not support it, you are bringing about your own demise.

I don’t have to write. My writing brings me insults from narcistic ignorant egomanics, puts me on black lists, makes overseas travel difficult, and possibly negatively impacts my relatives. The United States has devolved into a police state where truth is “the enemy of the state,” which makes me suspect. Why should I write without your support? If you aren’t willing to support the fight, for whom am I writing?

Via PaulCraigRoberts.org

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.

Featured Image: Phil Roeder/Flickr

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