Deputy Asst. to President Donald Trump, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, sat down with Maria Bartiromo for an interview discussing the White House global policy.
…”The President is not an interventionist commander-in-chief. Nothing has changed from November 7th to today. He’s been explicit, we are not invading other peoples’ countries, we are not occupying them. This is not some neo-conservative Bush era administration.”…
~ Dr. Gorka.
A background briefing transcript from yesterday might aid in larger understanding of White House policy and strategic objectives toward Syria, Russia, North Korea and China.
[Transcript] – SENIOR ADMINISTRATON OFFICIAL: (In progress) — on the relationship between the leaders of the United States, our President and Premier Xi, and then applying that newly formed relationship to complex problem sets from the Middle East to Northeast Asia, and then a result in the United Nations, it helps advance our mutual interests and the interests of all civilized people.
So I think it’s difficult to portray this as anything but a really great week for our citizens and the United States.
♦ Q Thanks so much. Japanese media is reporting that the USS Carl Vinson is in operations with the Japanese naval forces. As you know, they have a (inaudible.) What happens if there is a confrontation this week between North Korean forces and Japanese and U.S. forces? And how will you prevent this from spiraling into a broader military conflict?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATON OFFICIAL: Well, as you heard from the President many times, we’re not in the business of trying to predict with a high degree of certainty precisely what our response is going to be.
I think what we demonstrated last week was the ability of the President’s national security team to come together, convened by the National Security Council, to look at events such as those that might occur on the Korean Peninsula, quickly analyze those events, place them in context with U.S. vital interests, establish objectives that protect American citizens and advance our interests, and then develop and present the President with options.
So we have a team that is, I think, particularly adept at doing that. And if there were to be continued destabilizing and aggressive behavior by the North Korean regime, that’s how the national security team would respond. (more…)
On September 30th 2016 the New York Times quietly released a leaked audio recording of Secretary John Kerry meeting with multiple factions associated within Syria.
The 40-minute discussion took place on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly in New York. The meeting took place at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations on Sept. 22nd 2016:
[…] Kerry’s off-record conversation was apparently with two dozen ‘Syrian civilians’, all from US backed opposition-linked NGO’s in education and medical groups supposedly working in ‘rebel-held’ (aka terrorist-held) areas in Syria.
This opposition conclave also included ‘rescue workers’ which can only be ambassadors from the White Helmets, a pseudo NGO which serves as Washington and London’s primary PR front in pursuit of a “No Fly Zone’ in Syria, and it’s being bankrolled by the US, UK, EU and other coalition states to the tune of well over $100 million (so far). (link)
When you listen to the audio recording (embedded below) it becomes immediately obvious what was going on in 2014, 2015 and 2016 as an outcome of policy from the White House. In addition, you discover why this jaw-dropping 2016 leak/story was buried by the U.S. media and how it connects to the prior 4 years of perplexing U.S. mid-east policy.
This evidence within this single story would/should forever remove any credibility toward the U.S. foreign policy under President Obama. It also destroys the credibility of a large number of well known republicans, and explains how the prior action has placed President Trump into a precarious position requiring a careful approach.
It would appear, based on constructs from alternate governmental releases, that thankfully the prior AP report is not a surprise to Secretary Rex Tillerson. A readout from a call between British Prime Minister Theresa May and U.S. President Donald Trump provides additional context to absorb the larger, and overarching, ally objectives.
As such it appears the international effort is focused on holding Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible for the actions of Syria’s Bashir Assad. Toward that objective the international leadership is putting an absolute ton of responsibility on U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to be the tip of the spear.
To say all eyes are on T-Rex today would be the understatement of the year. And ahead of his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Vladimir Putin is attempting to avoid the snare by refusing to grant T-Rex an audience. Apparently, based on the action of Putin, Secretary T-Rex is considered a more formidable adversary than former Secretary of State John Kerry.
(Via Reuters) The Kremlin said on Monday that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will not meet President Vladimir Putin when he visits Moscow on Wednesday, a move that could point to tensions over a U.S. missile attack on a Syrian air base last week.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appeared on two Sunday news programs today ABC (Stephanopoulos), and CBS (Dickerson) to describe the seismic foreign policy events of the past week.
The first interview, T-Rex explains the U.S. policy directly to John Dickerson:
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T-Rex outlines the appropriate distribution of responsibility for the chemical weapons attack in Syria.
Metaphor – A dangerously moldy red book keeps reappearing on the boardroom desk (the mid-east). No-one in the room will take responsibility for its origination. U.S. President Trump walks into the room, picks up the book and angrily, publicly, throws it in the trash.
Trump then looks sternly at the most influential task management in the room (Putin/Assad) and tells them deliberately: ‘if the book reappears they will be held to account’.
The entire organization (world) watched, and saw, the event. President Trump has assigned responsibility for the future, and accountability for the consequence.
The second interview delivered the same message. T-Rex appears on ABC with George Stephanopoulos.
There is a predictable disconnect amid political followers who have not paid close attention to the direct Mid-East visitors to the Donald Trump White House regarding the origin of the chemical weapons use in Syria.
Focusing on who used chemical weapons is a moot point in the larger issue of the Syrian conflict. It doesn’t matter whether ISIS “rebels” deployed them or whether Bashir Assad used them against the “rebels” when contemplating President Trump’s response to stop using them. The victims are Syrians. The regional alliance members don’t care who used them. The message is to stop.
We could make a solid argument that either interested party: Bashir Assad or “the rebels” (al-Qaeda, ISIS, al-Nusra et al) had motive and opportunity to use chemical weapons.
We’ve written for several years about the manipulative intentions of both sides, all sides, in the Syrian conflict. We’ve written about President Obama’s policies toward Syria and how his administration armed and equipped all elements; gaining nothing except a horrific death toll and chaotic civil war as an outcome.
We’ve provided lengthy and cited research on arms into Syria from Obama, Clinton and Kerry. The Benghazi Brief outlined Man-Pads and chemical weapons delivered to Syria as an outcome of the collapse within Libya. We’ve outlined the Libyan weapons caches that became the Jihadist market/yard-sale. We’ve also documented weapons deliveries directly from the State Department using actual recorded audio admissions of Secretary Kerry to his Syrian benefactors.
Additionally, no-one questions whether Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Assad’s BFF, delivered stock piles of his own chemical weapons to Syria, because it was well documented. Both Bashir Assad and Saddam Hussein previously used chemical weapons. Historically Hussein used Chemical Weapons to kill up to 300,000 Kurds in Northern Iraq.
None of this is in doubt.
To argue if Assad used chemical weapons again last week is really an irrelevant issue when you stop and think about Bashir Assad’s political position in 2017. (more…)
Political commentator and extraordinarily brilliant satirist Mark Steyn was on Fox and Friends this morning to provide his perspective on President Trump’s decision to take action in Syria.
Steyn brilliantly frames the issues. [Hat Tip Stella]
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Additionally, a point that apparently needs to be made. Idiot MSM pundits like Jake Tapper, though it’s not exclusive to Tapper, keep pointing out the 2013 tweet by President Trump warning Obama about action in Syria and framing their narrative about “what changed?” etc.
Just for clarity. Between the 2013 tweet by non candidate Trump and the 2017 action by President Trump, there was a 2014 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) voted and approved by Senate committee permitting military action in Syria against the backdrop of chemical weapon use and terrorism.
I swear sometimes the MSM are flippin’ idiots, then I remind myself of the David Mamet principle: “In order for left-wing ideologues to keep espousing their cognitively disconnected talking points they need to pretend they don’t know things.”
Yes, indeed. Pretending not to know things is a useful pretense.
Secretary Rex Tillerson delivered very important remarks today in Palm Beach Florida ahead of ongoing discussions with the Chinese delegation and President Xi Jinping meeting with President Donald Trump.
Following the segment by T-Rex outlining the parameters for the meetings today and tomorrow, Tillerson communicated a position of the Trump administration that Syrian leader Bashir Assad should step down from power.
“With the acts that he has taken, it would seem that there would be no rule for [Assad] to govern the Syrian people.
The process by which Assad would leave is something that I think requires and international community effort, both to first defeat ISIS within Syria, to stabilize the Syrian country to avoid further civil war, and then to work collectively with our partners around the world through a political process that would lead to Assad leaving.”
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Neither Secretary Tillserson or President Trump are proposing military action to remove Assad. However, the remarks by Secretary Tillerson about Syria and Bashir Assad are a shift in approach, and were almost simultaneously communicated by President Trump (albeit with nuance) aboard Air-Force One en route to Palm Beach. See below: (more…)
Fox News Brett Baier had a lengthy interview with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi earlier today which was partially broadcast on Fox. Within the interview al-Sisi spoke about his perspective of President Donald Trump and the optimistic outlook he holds toward the new relationship which has emerged after their meetings.
[…] “I fully trust the capabilities of President Trump … he can succeed in so many fields that others cannot. I trust him wholeheartedly.”…
President al-Sisi delivered a message of strong appreciation toward President Trump and allowed his presentation to express an exceptionally optimistic outlook. The road map for the Freedom Alliance is looking good; believe me. Bigly good. Very Bigly.
It’s a great interview. (Sorry about the sketchy format of the video, it’s Fox’s upload):
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Brett Baier: Your assessment of President Trump?
al-Sisi: “I first saw the campaign of his excellency President Trump, and I listened to his speech of the neccessity of facing and confronting terrorism all over the world; that he is a great personality and a unique individual, and that he will find great success.”
“I fully trust the capabilities of President Trump, and I have full conviction that he can do things, exert efforts, that very few people can do. And he can succeed in so many fields that others cannot. I trust him wholeheartedly. And again, I congratulate you for having him.”
The term: “for domestic consumption” is a term generally familiar to political observers who are accustomed to filtering out and separating ‘noise’ from ‘action’ when reviewing remarks made by international leaders outside the U.S.
However, in modern U.S. geo-political review it becomes important to apply the same cognitive transparency toward U.S. President Trump as he faces the three-headed swamp guardian, Cerberus.
The three heads of the modern Cerberus we identify as: •Deep State (foreign policy adversaries), •Big Club (domestic economic adversaries) and •U.S. Media.
All three oppositional entities view the insurgent Presidency of Donald Trump as adversarial to their long-term globalist interests.
Against the backdrop of Jordans King Abdullah II visiting President Trump in the White House; and knowing Jordan has approximately 2.8 million Syrian refugees, most of whom oppose Syrian President Bashir Assad; and in the aftermath of a “chemical agent” attack in Syria – President Trump was in a precarious position. The Deep Globalist State had laid their trap.
Within the 30,000 foot review, and against the historic backdrop of precedent for this type of action, we find the motive. However, it’s a motive that is virtually impossible to discuss from the office of the presidency while the adversarial U.S. media is also poised to strike.
Knowing King Abdullah is an ideological ally in the quest for the longer goal of peace, President Trump takes an outward approach (two-nation domestic consumption) to blame Syria’s Bashir Assad. This strategic approach deflects the fangs of Deep State, inoculates against a follow-up attack by MSM, and protects the domestic position of Abdullah.