Trusting Trump Part 3

The swamp creature

Looking for evidence of his benificence, supporters of Donald Trump point to the fact that, whilst President, he did not start a war, but in a tweet, independent journalist, Vanessa Beeley, counters,

“Trump 1. Assassinated Soleimani and Mohandes. Two icons of the Resistance who defeated US ISIS proxies in Iraq and Syria.

2. Scorched earth policy in Syria. Dropped thermal balloons on essential agricultural crops and forestry

3. Introduced Caesar sanctions. Unprecedented coercive measures designed to starve Syrian people.

4. Stole Syrian oil depriving Syrian people of fuel, electricity, health care, water.

5. Supports Zionist genocide.

6. Increased military footprint in Syria despite claiming he would withdraw.

7. Recognised Zionist occupied Golan territory as Zionist not Syrian.

8. Introduced Abraham Accords to normalise relations between Gulf states and the genocidal entity. This is Greater Israel in part.

9. He may not have "started" a war but he sure as hell didn't end any. Assassination of Soleimani wasn't escalated into war because of Iran's cool heads only. Biden and Trump are on the same path. Different methods, same destination. A unipolar world with US cartel controlling all resources.”

Beeley observes,

“People are trying to persuade me that Trump was not behind the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al Mohandes. That it was all "deep state". Can they argue away Trump bragging that he wanted to assassinate Syrian President Assad but he was prevented from doing so? Can't have it both ways. Trumpwashing is an insane phenomenon.”

Beeley also points out that in his statement about the subject, “Trump literally pats himself on the back for the murder of General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Mohandes.”

The idea that Trump opposes the war hawks is also dismissed by commentator Robbie Martin. He draws attention to the neo-conservative think tank, ‘The Project for the New American Century (PNAC)’, that influenced the Bush administration. A year before 9/11 it spoke of the need for a 'catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor' that would provide the impetus for American military and economic dominance.

“Trump hired 2 members of PNAC on his campaign transition team in 2016, Frank Gaffney and James Woolsey, 1 additional PNAC'r Michael Ledeen was heavily rumored to be on the team but never officially confirmed, Trump hired at least 3 more PNAC neocons into the actual admin: John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, it was widely reported in msm that Paula Dobriansky also a PNAC member was working in some capacity in the Trump admin. Even if we don't count the rumored/unofficial PNAC Trump appointments, that still leaves *5* PNAC neocons *officially* hired into the Trump administration…

so when people claim that Trump is 'anti neocon' or that the 'neocons tried to stop Trump' they are either deeply misinformed or outright lying to you, these are PNAC neocons, some of the most dangerous and insane war hawks on this planet.”

Trump continued the trend of his predecessors, dropping “44,000 bombs in his first year in office,” and, “72,000 in his first three years,” compared with Bush’s 70,000, and Obama’s 100,000, in their eight year terms. In 2018, Trump was recorded as dropping, “a bomb every 12 minutes.”

“It was clearly no coincidence that Trump stopped publishing Airpower Summaries right after the February 2020 U.S. withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, reinforcing the false impression that the war in Afghanistan was over. In fact, U.S. bombing resumed after only an 11-day pause.”

Prior to his 2016 election Trump repeatedly maligned NATO, saying, “it’s obsolete, it’s old, it’s fat, it’s sloppy.” Once elected he declared, “it’s no longer obsolete.”

Far from draining the swamp as he had promised to do, Trump set about refilling it, giving employment to John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, CIA torturer Gina Haspel, and former NY mayor and 9/11 suspect Rudy Giuliani.

Trump's current running mate is JD Vance, to whose Senate campaign billionaire Peter Thiel donated more than $15 million.

Peter Thiel is the chairman of Palantir. “As of May 10, 2024, Thiel owns a staggering 99,462,293 shares of Palantir Technologies Inc,” whose technology is being used by Israel to target Palestinians. “Project Nimbus,” and “Project Lavender,” locate the homes and families of alleged militants resulting in, “an increased likelihood of civilian harm.”

On his first day as Donald Trump’s running mate Vance stated, “If you’re going to punch the Iranians, you punch them hard.” War with Iran would produce large profits for Peter Thiel and Palantir.

Trump’s presidential candidacy exists in a wider context that was exposed by former congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney. In seeking to represent her constituency in Georgia, she discovered that representatives of congress were obliged to pledge allegiance to Israel.

“The American Congress people have to sign this pledge... if you don't perform appropriately then you don't get money to run your campaign. The problem is that it requires an awful lot of money to run a campaign.”

Of the Democrat and Republican parties she adds,

“both of those parties have been captured by special interests and those special interests are quite frankly the antithesis of the interests of the people.”

This capture was made evident when McKinney, who refused to sign the pledge, was isolated after 9/11 as the, “first of 535 members of Congress to break the consensus of silence and point to the obvious - that the Bush administration had received advance warnings of an attack, and that this called for a full investigation, without limits on what line of questioning is acceptable. After saying so in March (2002), she was vilified without mercy in the press, until it became clear that many more people were believing her and supporting her than the pundits and spin managers imagined.”

For Trump's inauguration in 2016, “Dow Chemical and Pfizer each shelled out $1 million, and Amgen, Exxon Mobil, Altria, Microsoft and sugar company Florida Crystals gave $500,000.”

“Chevron, Boeing and Coca-Cola became big-money contributors, with Boeing giving $1 million to the inauguration and the oil giant contributing $500,000,”

Other donors included “Aetna, Anthem, MetLife Group, CVS Health and Monsanto.”

Trump was recently awarded a sum of $100 million,“by Miriam Adelson, who declared he will "save the Jewish people," and highlighted Trump's record as "the most pro-Israel president in US history," who will "crack down on anti-Semitism."

NYmag.com asks,

“What will she expect in return? Beyond unconditional support for the Israel-Hamas war, one can assume she’ll press for the unfinished items of Trump’s Israel agenda from last term. Top of that list: Israel annexing the West Bank and the U.S. recognizing its sovereignty there.

This is not just unpopular — it’s illegal under international law.”

“Adelson’s political leverage also came from payments to super-PACs. Along with the $25 million she and (her late husband) Sheldon gave to Trump super-PACs in 2016, they gave another $90 million during a three-month stretch of 2020. They gave more to federal GOP causes in 2019 and 2020 than the next three donors combined. Between 2016 and 2022, they gave $300 million to the Republican-focused Senate and Congressional Leadership Funds. This level of patronage kicked up enough influence for Adelson to secure from Trump the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It helped produce a pardon for Aviem Sella, Adelson’s high-school crush and handler for (Israeli spy) Jonathan Pollard. It led to Trump recognizing Israel’s sovereignty in Golan Heights, territory Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Adelson’s largesse seemed to stir within the Trump family a desire to keep her happy. This, in turn, produced Ivanka Trump talking in public about her conversion to Orthodox Judaism.”

“In 2019, Adelson wrote, “Would it be too much to pray for a day when the Bible gets a ‘Book of Trump,’ much like it has a ‘Book of Esther’ celebrating the deliverance of the Jews from ancient Persia?” Now, in 2024, the two have unfinished Israel business from Trump’s presidency. Along with annexing the West Bank, the first Trump administration proposed recognizing Israeli settlers’ right to remain in homes on occupied lands. Also for Israel to remain an occupying force in any future Palestinian state. “I would take them at their word,” says Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. They told us what they wanted to do in 2020. We should believe them, she thinks. “Last time around, they showed every interest in using antisemitism as a sharp-edged heavy weapon to try to shut down” talk of Palestinian rights.”

Trump has already agreed to ‘crush pro-Palestinian protests,’ saying he will deport any foreign student protestors.

“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave,” Trump said.

RFK observed similar reciprocation after,

“Pfizer gave a $1 million contribution to Trump and Trump appointed two (of) Pfizer’s handpicked candidates, Alex Azar to run HHS, and Scott Gottlieb who was a partner of Pfizer to run FDA…and Gottlieb came in there, did an $88 billion gift to Operation Warp Speed for Pfizer, and then left to join Pfizer board and collect his pay-off.

So, you know, that is the swamp.”

Part 4 is here.