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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump will "get rid of ISIS big league"; "wipe them out."
This is pathetic. Trump acts like he's back in the Celebrity Apprentice boardroom playacting a tough guy for the cameras. He declares that he will get "unbelievable intelligence"; he will "get rid of ISIS big league"; and he will "wipe them out." But when Lesley Stahl repeatedly asks him about ground troops, he repeatedly says this isn't in the cards. Maybe NATO will do it. Maybe other Arab countries will do it. Maybe troops will magically appear from a genie's bottle. Even though Trump claims that we're at war and President Obama is too weak and stupid to get it, in the end he basically endorses what Obama is doing right now. Like all the other armchair generals, he doesn't have the backbone to risk taking an unpopular stand, even if it's the only thing that would actually make a significant difference.
And when he's done with this empty blather, what does Mike Pence say? "This is the kind of leadership America needs." Heaven help us.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/07/listen-donald-trumps-pathetic-fakery-isis
avebury
(10,952 posts)Terrorism is like a cockroach. Get rid of one group and a new group emerges. They also lack geographic borders which make them fluid.
BlueMTexpat
(15,369 posts)about everything.
He is a disastrous buffoon!
sinkingfeeling
(51,457 posts)using those of the USA? Maybe he has fairies.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)I hear Trump has a guy who knows this guy who has dragon's teeth, see . . .
Johonny
(20,851 posts)and then the next president will inherit the mess...
hamsterjill
(15,220 posts)He just keeps rambling and eventually the journalist who is interviewing the idiot gives up and moves on.
Just once, I'd like to see a journalist say "look, we've got 30 minutes here and I'm not moving on from this question until you give me an answer".
Won't happen.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)He has no idea how to lead anything or how to do anything. He's a pathetic turd.
IgelJames4
(50 posts)God, this guy is seriously dangerous. I'm 100% certain he'll start WW3 with his reckless policies.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)Tries to BS people into thinking he's saying "big league."
He's an inarticulate buffoon.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)He has the intellectual developement of a typical adolescent, and Americans, by and large, see nothing wrong with this in a national political leader.
karynnj
(59,503 posts)countries and many countries in the area. (I doubt that Trump could have made that deal if he tried. )
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,412 posts)Obama has already been pretty active (and quite successful) in terms of going after Al-Queda, ISIS, etc. There's no way, however, that what Obama is doing will prevent every.single.incident of terrorism but nothing that Trump, et. al might do is going to do that either. And, no, calling it "Radical Islamic Terrorism" isn't a solution either.
0rganism
(23,953 posts)this is actually winning rhetoric. when people vote for a president, they're voting top-level priorities.
policy detail is secondary, arguably for good reasons: situations change, congress gets hold of it, etc. when a president goes to the trouble of laying out detailed policies, it rarely turns out as promised. so voters are okay with a candidate who's willing to say "i'll demand this and that" and let it roll from there. vagueness is not necessarily a deal-killer.
so when Trump says "i'm going to kill them all" it doesn't matter that he won't say how he'll do it, or how he'll avoid civilian casualties, or how he'll handle whatever ugly phoenix rises from their ashes in 3 years. no, that doesn't make a lot of difference in this context. what he's doing is stating clearly a priority that a lot of voters find agreeable: destroy ISIS. this is one of the less controversial things he's done, and it's got Manafort written all over it: "Just talk about killing our enemies, Donald, and for fuck's sake stay on script."
Hillary's going to snow him on policy anyway, she is the ultimate policy wonk. but on issues of national security people vote for the appearance of strong leadership, not ultimate wonkiness, so that's where Trump can make a play based on attitude and flim flam.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,412 posts)got Osama Bin-Laden. Obama has also knocked off a bunch of other terrorists during his two terms. Don't know how Hillary looks weaker than Trump, especially considering how harsh her rhetoric can be. And we just got done being reminded during the past primary just how much of a "hawk" Hillary is.
0rganism
(23,953 posts)and HRC knows it far better than either of us: it starts with a B, ends with an I, and has a whole bunch of republican bullshit artists in the middle
i hope she has a response planned that sticks and stings. she's capable of completely torching the entire GOP on this issue with the right rebuttal.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,412 posts)I believe that they've devoted an evening to Benghazi this week and, presumably, how evil and/or incompetent Hillary was and how she sent those four Americans to their doom in Benghazi and coldly refused their pleas for assistance while blaming a YouTube video for the attacks. Oh, and how Congress threw bucketfuls of money at her to help pay for diplomatic security but she deliberately kept the Libya mission woefully under protected. I'm actually surprised at this point, they haven't suggested that she either hired terrorists to kill Ambassador Stevens and the other people or was there doing the deed herself.
While what happened in Benghazi is a tragedy (Americans died, so it's definitely more of a tragedy whenever that happens- by default), why do Republicans keep getting away with over-scrutizing what happened in Benghazi when they BARELY wanted to investigate 3000 people being killed on 9/11/01 (and knowing that Bush sat on a "historical" PDB about a possible attack for almost a month beforehand) and didn't do any oversight AFAIK for the 60 or so people who died in embassy attacks during the Bush II (mis-)Administration. Yet, they're all over Benghazi and the four dead diplomats like flies on...........
Response to Proud Liberal Dem (Reply #15)
0rganism This message was self-deleted by its author.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,316 posts)Apart from the problem with the literal interpretation of that, it's as if he sees it as a business decision - just purchase classier intelligence, and you can do anything. He just believes that someone out there will sell him intelligence with gold trimmings, like the fittings in his buildings that he thinks makes them 'classy' and 'unbelievable'. He thinks he can govern and solve international problems by describing them with superlatives.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,412 posts)womanofthehills
(8,706 posts)http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/trump-pence-60-minutes-interview-totally-sad.html
sorefeet
(1,241 posts)Then why do people believe the lying bullshit that comes out of his mouth but ignore his bankruptcies, no taxes, non payment to contractors, three wives, daughter pervert comment and all of his corrupt actions?
tenderfoot
(8,432 posts)eom
redStateBlueHeart
(265 posts)Or carpet bombing entire countries.