The more I think about it, the more I like this idea. Every couple of months, we select a military base, somewhere in the world, call up folks in advance so they have time to get planes, people, and their World’s Greatest Despot coffee mug out of the way, then we drop $100m of bombs on the place. The benefits of this are inestimable.
First, it’s a jobs program. It’s not just that we have to replace all the missiles—that’s some decent paying jobs right there—the people we bomb also have to hire folks to clean up and patch up. Plus, who says you have to build that base back the way it was? It’s a great excuse to upgrade, put in some thicker concrete, maybe 4K TVs. Give it a year. Military dictators everywhere will be lining up to get their ritual spanking.
And American jobs don’t stop with missile assembly. Dozens of graphic artists can be kept busy coming up with new Breaking News logos. Underemployed musicians can come up with scads of super-dramatic “the missiles are flying … again” themes. A cleaner in Manhattan will have to put on extra staff just to deal with Brian Williams’ underwear.
But most importantly, it gives Donald Trump delusions of usefulness. Sure, he’ll find a way to monetize the whole thing (Mar-a-lago members who join at the new $400,000 level will probably get to pick targets out of a fish bowl), but pounding missiles into sand keeps Trump amused, we’re getting off cheap. In fact, I think that should be the slogan for this whole operation: Donald Trump can go pound sand.
Now come on in. Let’s read some pundits.
Thomas Ricks outlines possible courses of action in Syria.
None of the options are good, I am sure Defense Secretary James Mattis told President Donald Trump at their meeting in Palm Beach, Florida.
If there were good courses of action, he would have explained, they would have been exercised long ago. That’s the nature of the business we’ve chosen, as someone once said in another meeting in Florida.
Sure, Foreign Policy is not part of the usual tour for APR, but consider this a special occasion. Ricks nails down the possible ways this can turn out well. Which are zip and doo dah.
So, first, to limber up, you chuck a bunch of sea-launched cruise missiles (also known as “slickems,” or SLCMs) at Syrian military airfields. That was done last night, and I would bet was just to keep them busy while you mull your next move.
But you can’t just leave it there — other wise you’re in former President Bill Clinton’s feckless position of responding to an atrocity by using million-dollar missiles to knock down plywood barracks and tents. Russian President Vladimir Putin got a heads-up, to get his guys out of the way, but that means the Syrians got it as well, and headed for the hills as well. (A Pentagon statement confirms that “Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line. U.S. military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield.”) And that means last night’s strikes really didn’t punish the perpetrators. It punished a tarmac and a few empty bunkers.
Actually, leaving it here is a fine idea. If there’s one thing Trump does well, it’s feckless. And while Ricks goes through possible options, none of them are easy and none of them are simple. Which is a problem, because …
Up to this point, I have written this item in a manner that treats our current situation as somewhat normal. So I want to state here, emphatically, that is it not. The best way to put it is that we, the American people, right now are governed by a child. He may look like an aging, overweight, hair-dyed man, but mentally and intellectually, he seems to me to be somewhere around 12 years old.
James Rubin attempts to explain something the news channels seem to have missed.
While the limited missile strike was a commendable and overdue response to the use of chemical weapons and to countless other war crimes perpetrated by the regime in Damascus, the public performance of President Trump and his team throughout this tragic episode hardly inspires confidence. On the contrary, the administration demonstrated a dangerous degree of incoherence and inconsistency.
The “commendability” of the missile strike would seem to be limited to the benefits I mention in Operation Donald Trump Can Pound Sand, but yes, terrifying levels of inconsistency were the theme of the week. That the media, politicians, or anyone was willing to accept a 180 policy flip in less than 24 hours on the basis of no more elaborate explanation than “he upset me,” should be ringing all kind of alarms.
It seems like at least a few of those television pundits moaning in ecstasy over “beautiful” missiles flying, should be capable of remembering all the way back to Tuesday, when Donald Trump gave Bashar Assad the green light to do as he wanted.
Consider the chronology. The debacle began with a remark by the new United States ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, in New York at the end of March. Despite a brutal six-year civil war in which Mr. Assad’s forces have been responsible for the deaths of about 200,000 civilians, and despite near universal opposition to his rule by leaders of the civilized world, Ms. Haley thought it was the right time to send a signal to Mr. Assad and his allies, Russia and Iran, that the new American president’s priority “is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirmed this new view, which Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, described as a simple recognition of “political reality.” Intentionally or not, American policy with respect to the world’s worst military and humanitarian crisis had been changed dramatically.
If Donald Trump had not spent the first part of the week expressly distancing himself from President Obama’s policy in Syria, there would have been no need to throw missiles at the place in the second half of the week. And no beautiful babies dying in between.
Fareed Zakaria is still heavily engaged in the applying for the George Will / Maureen Dowd club.
There is much to applaud in President Trump’s decision to attack the Bashar al-Assad regime this week. It punished a regime that has engaged in war crimes against its own people. It upheld an international norm against chemical weapons. It ended Trump’s strange flirtation with Vladimir Putin on the Middle East. And, most significantly, it seems to reflect a belated recognition from Trump that he cannot simply put America first — that the president of the United States must act on behalf of broader interests and ideals. Trump, as candidate and as president, had avoided the language of global norms and international order. Yet in explaining his actions Thursday night, he invoked both and ended his remarks with a prayer that President Barack Obama would never have dared to make: “God bless America — and the entire world.”
Good. Frickin. God. He makes it at least six sentences without getting a single fact correct. Then Zakaria goes into the “but where do we go from here” mode as if that is somehow supposed to make sense after the first part. Gee, Louise, it was a brilliant how you drove off that cliff. It sure showed them. But, you know, now that the canyon floor is rushing up toward us ...
Jim Hoagland demonstrates the other thing that’s driving me nuts this week.
Most of what President Trump has done and said in his brief time in office has bordered on squalid, incompetent or unbalanced. The bold moral clarity of his missile attack against a Syrian air base involved in chemical warfare deepens rather than resolves the mystery of the real character of this president.
Every day, in practically every sentence, Donald Trump has lied to the nation. Every day. On every subject. But let Trump say “beautiful babies” and everyone nods along. Yup. Golly gosh, he sure was moved. No one seems to even blink at the thought that Donald Trump’s 2013 stream of “stay out of Syria” comments came after a chemical attack that left twenty times as many kids dead. No one seems to think this is in conflict with the Syrian kids he is still booting back into a war zone with his tightened rules for refugees.
Perhaps this is a moment similar to the one Ronald Reagan faced when confronted early in his presidency with a strike by the nation’s air-traffic controllers. Aides clustered around Reagan to warn him of the complexity and dangers of trying to break the work stoppage.
Oh. Now I get it. Dropping bombs in Syria shows the same moral courage as firing union workers on strike for decent working conditions. That makes so much damn sense that I can barely stand it. Reagan showed those union workers, and their families, not to cross him. And now Trump has shown Assad … who waited a whole eight hours before launching a new strike from the same air base Trump hit. But after all, showing you’re tough is what matters, not accomplishing anything.
Jim Hoagland, ladies and gentlemen, has won the Pulitzer. Twice.
The New York Times on Trump’s wall fixation.
Trump: By the way, if you want to know if a wall works, just ask Israel. Israel built a wall and it works.
Reporter: And they heave rockets over it.
Trump: Yeah, I know. Well, no. Now they’re doing the rockets, yeah. That’s a — they have a — they have a different — they probably have a bigger — they have a different kind of a problem. You have to build a real wall. They don’t have a real wall right now. They don’t have a wall that works.
How high do you have to build a wall before people can’t get over it with a rocket? Maybe we should go straight to a dome.
Mr. Trump has always said stuff like this, things that are self-contradictory or untrue or breathtakingly mindless. It didn’t matter so much back when he was just a rich guy who liked to share his opinions with the world the way some people talk at the TV.
I want to provide you with a fine example of the kind of deep thinking Donald Trump was engaged in right before he decided it would peachy-keen to make the government into the new Trump University.
Dana Milbank waves at the guy who has a column on the same editorial page this morning.
“No majority leader wants written on his tombstone that he presided over the end of the Senate,” the minority leader said.
He continued: “Breaking the rules to change the rules is un-American. I just hope the majority leader thinks about his legacy, the future of his party, and, most importantly, the future of our country before he acts.”
Are these the words of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as the Republican majority changed Senate rules this week to do away with filibusters of Supreme Court nominations?
Actually, they were uttered in 2013, by then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), when Democrats pushed through a similar filibuster change for lesser nominations.
McConnell, I kid you not, devotes his column to explaining how his blowing up the Senate was the fault of the Democrats. Who, apparently like Assad, had it coming.
That McConnell did a 180 on the topic — going from the institutional defender of the filibuster to the man who destroyed it — is unsurprising. He has frequently shifted his views to suit the needs of the moment. But in this case McConnell was correct in 2013, and what he just did this week was even more ruinous than what he accused the Democrats of doing then.
Somebody start carving that tombstone.
Nicholas Kristof on Hillary’s new found freedom of speech.
In the most wrenching, humiliating way possible, Hillary Clinton has been liberated. She is now out of the woods again, and speaking her mind. ...
I’ve known Clinton a bit for many years, and when she was running for office she was always monumentally careful in her language — a natural impulse when critics are circling, but it also diminished her authenticity as a politician. Her prudence came across to voters as “calculating.”
Clinton’s statements were mostly what you would expect, and reflect the kind of gracious, self-deprecating attitude that Donald Trump could not produce under any circumstance. Her advice to future women candidates was direct, and unfortunately true.
I asked what advice she would offer the countless young women who have been galvanized by her loss — in a way they never were by her candidacy — to become more engaged in public life. “Toughen up your skin,” she counseled, referring to the nastiness often directed at prominent women. “Be ready. It’s not a new phenomenon, but it feels new and painful every time it happens to you.”
Margaret Renkl on what the evangelicals that helped put Trump in office can expect now.
In the world of apostolic betrayals, it’s Judas who gets the headlines, but the everyday believer is more apt to fall in line behind Peter. Coldly handing Jesus over to his death in exchange for 30 pieces of silver was an over-the-top, cartoon-level move, but Peter’s terrified denial of the man he believed to be the savior of the world? That one seems immensely human to me.
I have a lot of sympathy for Peter these days. Here it is nearly Easter, and for the first time in my life I don’t want anyone to know I’m a believer. To many, “Christian” has become synonymous with angry white voters in red hats, personally responsible for handcuffing all those undocumented mothers and wrenching them out of their sobbing children’s arms.
Personally, I’m taking the growing reluctance to launch into rah-rah talk on the part of former Trump supporters in many areas, including church, as a sign of failing confidence, if not outright buyer’s remorse.
Republicans now have what they’ve long wanted: the chance to turn this into a Christian nation. But what’s being planned in Washington will hit my fellow Southerners harder than almost anyone else. Where are the immigrants? Mostly in the South. Which states execute more prisoners? The Southern states. Which region has the highest poverty rates? The South. Where are you most likely to drink poisoned water? Right here in the South. Where is affordable health care hardest to find? You guessed it. My people are among the least prepared to survive a Trump presidency, but the “Christian” president they elected is about to demonstrate exactly what betrayal really looks like — and for a lot more than 30 pieces of silver.
Well. They could be really large pieces of silver.
Louis Hyman has an interesting take on the Main Street half of that Main Street / Wall Street dichotomy.
Main Street is a place but it is also an idea. It’s small-town retail. It’s locally owned shops selling products to hardworking townspeople. It’s neighbors with dependable blue-collar jobs in auto plants and coal mines. It’s a feeling of community and of having control over your life. It’s everything, in short, that seems threatened by global capitalism and cosmopolitan elites in big cities and fancy suburbs.
Mr. Trump’s campaign slogan was “Make America Great Again,” but it could just as easily have been “Bring Main Street Back.” Since taking office, he has signed an executive order designed to revive the coal industry, promised a $1 trillion infrastructure bill and continued to express support for tariffs and to criticize globalism and international free trade. “The jobs and wealth have been stripped from our country,” he said last month, signing executive orders meant to improve the trade deficit. “We’re bringing manufacturing and jobs back.”
Except he’s not. Not bringing back coal, not bringing back manufacturing, not bringing back Main Street. Because all that stuff failed decades ago.
But nostalgia for Main Street is misplaced — and costly. Small stores are inefficient. Local manufacturers, lacking access to economies of scale, usually are inefficient as well. To live in that kind of world is expensive.
Consumer choice killed Main Street; the kind of selective pressure that said a pair of socks made in Vietnam and sold at Walmart for $2 beats out a pair of locally made socks sold on Main Street for $5. or even $3.
George W. Bush … yes, that George W. Bush.
In the past six years, more than 370,000 women have been screened for cervical cancer and 24,000 for breast cancer through Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon. More than 119,000 girls have been vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV), which can lead to cervical and other cancers. Nearly 1,000 health workers have been trained. With the proper resources and international commitment, we could end cervical cancer deaths on the continent in 30 years.
Critical to this effort is our Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon partner, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). My administration launched PEPFAR in 2003 to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic that threatened to wipe out an entire generation on the continent of Africa. Nearly 15 years later, the program has achieved remarkable results in the fight against disease. Today, because of the commitment of many foreign governments, investments by partners, the resilience of the African people and the generosity of the American people, nearly 12 million lives have been saved. And nearly 2 million babies have been born HIV-free to infected mothers.
The program is, of course, cut out of Donald Trump’s budget. Bush, like the rest of us, is reduced to hoping that Congress … this Congress … will do something sensible.
Leonard Pitts on that Pepsi commercial, but not just that Pepsi commercial.
Yes, that Pepsi ad was an insult.
But if you think it was the worst insult Black Lives Matter suffered last week, then you weren’t paying attention.
On the ad …
It was a naked attempt to co-opt the methods and message of Black Lives Matter to sell carbonated sugar water and the Internet, predictably, went guano. “If only daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi,” tweeted Martin Luther King’s daughter, Bernice.
On what was much worse than the ad ...
Pepsi was forced to yank the ad and apologize. But if many of us were angered and energized by that, comparatively few noticed as, at roughly the same time, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered a sweeping review of consent decrees reached by the Obama Department of Justice with police departments around the country.
Jeff Sessions is genuinely, openly working to make it easier for police to abuse and kill without consequence. Because not shooting black people gives police a sad.
Sessions also frets over how consent decrees affect the “morale” of these departments. The morale of African-American people goes unmentioned.