Afterthought: I think that

artappraiser — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 23:43:47 +0000

In reply to Yes the first sane grownup

Afterthought: I think that Boot gets Trump's number, knows what button to push, with the following:

"We’ll see if Trump is man enough to take it.”

Now if Fox News or Morning Joe will just requote that, Trump will probably see it. Because I betcha no one on the White House staff dares point out to him something that is in the NYT.

Yes the first sane grownup

artappraiser — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 23:16:21 +0000

In reply to McMaster on death watch. "No 'Radical islamic Terrori' bullshit, thank you"

Yes the first sane grownup has spoken up. We don't know how Trump (Col. Kurtz II) will react. Both the NYT piece that The Hill links to and the NYT companion piece from today are well worth reading, espeically Max Boot's comments in the companion piece; I give snippets from both:

H.R. McMaster Breaks With Administration on Views of Islam

By Mark Landler & Eric Schmitt, Feb. 24

[....] That is a repudiation of the language regularly used by both the president and General McMaster’s predecessor, Michael T. Flynn [....]

It is also a sign that General McMaster, a veteran of the Iraq war known for his sense of history and independent streak, might move the council away from the ideologically charged views of Mr. Flynn [....]

Within a day of his appointment on Monday, General McMaster was popping into offices to introduce himself to the council’s professional staff members. The staff members, many of them holdovers from the Obama administration, felt viewed with suspicion by Mr. Trump’s team and shut out of the policy-making process, according to current and former officials.

In his language, General McMaster is closer to the positions of former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Both took pains to separate acts of terrorism from Islamic teaching, in part because they argued that the United States needed the help of Muslim allies to hunt down terrorists.

“This is very much a repudiation of his new boss’s lexicon and worldview,” said William McCants, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of “The ISIS Apocalypse.” [....]

Will Trump Take 'Brutally Forthright’ Advice From McMaster?

By Peter Baker, Feb. 25

[....] But those are relatively small matters compared to what may come. Already, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired four-star Marine general, has led the president to put aside his desire to reinstitute torture in interrogations of terrorism suspects, at least by the military. Mr. Trump places great faith in the generals he has surrounded himself with, but he and General McMaster had never met until a week ago, and the book’s reputation may set a hard-to-meet standard for the general.

“The difficulty is that Trump has a lot of crazy ideas in his head — like we should steal Iraq’s oil or we should kill the relatives of terrorists or we need to ban Muslims from coming here,” said Max Boot, a military historian at the Council on Foreign Relations. “And I’m sure someone like McMaster, like Mattis, understands how crackpot these ideas are.

“So can you say to the president, ‘Hey, Sir, you’re full” of it? Mr. Boot continued. “Or do you have to sugarcoat it and handle him with kid gloves? I suspect it’s the latter, and that’s not been H. R.’s approach. We’ll see if Trump is man enough to take it.”

The book is central to General McMaster’s identity and career. As he embarked on graduate studies after the gulf war, he approached his adviser, Richard H. Kohn, a professor who specialized in civil-military relations, and said he wanted to explore the role of the Joint Chiefs during Vietnam [....]

Jolly... McFarland?

oldenGoldenDecoy — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 14:48:52 +0000

In reply to McMaster on death watch. "No 'Radical islamic Terrori' bullshit, thank you"

Jolly... McFarland?

Wasn't she one of Kissenger's young hotties?

Put a pack on her back, some boots oh her feet and hand her a
parachute and dump her ass out of the plane over Northern Iraq.

~OGD~

dagblog - Comments for "McMaster on death watch. "No 'Radical islamic Terrori' bullshit, thank you""

Afterthought: I think that

Yes the first sane grownup

Jolly... McFarland?