From President Trump's speech in Riyadh.
Here's how the NYT covered the tremendously important speech: "Trump’s Pledge to the Middle East: No More ‘Lectures on How to Live’/In Saudi Arabia, the president denounced Western intervention and nation-building, garnering both praise and eye rolls." (Yes, the speech garnered.) Excerpt:
He was effectively denouncing decades of American policy in the Middle East, playing to grievances long aired in cafes and sitting rooms from Morocco to Oman.... Reactions to his speech spread swiftly on mobile phone screens in a Middle East where the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan — and more recently, U.S. support for Israel... — are ingrained in public consciousness and criticized by monarchists and dissidents alike. Sultan Alamer, a Saudi academic, joked that Mr. Trump’s remarks sounded like they came from Frantz Fanon, a 20th century Marxist thinker who wrote about the dynamics of colonial oppression. Syrians posted celebratory memes when Mr. Trump announced that he would end American sanctions on their war-ravaged country “in order to give them a chance at greatness.”...
Clicking that linked on "announced," I was struck by this photograph:
I don't think it was an accident that the camera was positioned to make the sword go right through Trump's belly.
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65 comments:
I loved the diss of NGOs. :)
Trump knows what the definition of insanity is. Most of our politicians don’t.
This speech on non-intervention and the damage done by USAID could have been given by Noam Chomsky in 1968.
Shorter NYT: "Orange Man still bad."
It is becoming more obvious that the Trump Team is in MAGA alone. The seditious Democrats and their media pimps will partner with congressional eunuchs and SCOTUS squishes to preserves the dark state and its graft.
Read it and weep, neo-cons. It’s a new day…
"New generation of leaders"?
What did it take to end the border crisis?
I have high hopes for this new way in the middle east, and it clearly works with the wealthy elites there, but can they rein in their own crazy activists? I hope they have better luck than we are having with ours, who similarly seem to have no bottom. Like here, the key is wining over the common man, but they are lucky to not have millions of the AWFL to fight every sensible move toward a better life.
The other insanity that must end is the toxic Orwellian poison that comes from elite leftists and Hamas-Jew haters.
Palestinians teach their children to hate Jews from a very early age.
Great speech.
I assume this non-interventionism doesn't extend to shipping in the Red Sea or the Gulf. It's all well and good to announce that we're done meddling -and I'm all for that, especially the military version-- but that's only going to work if nobody f*cks with us and our interests.
The proof of our problem with AWFLs is the Supreme Court. It's ruined for a generation, and may be the only thing standing in the way of American greatness being reborn at home. What a terrible result of a few privileged people who have led a sheltered protected life now ruling over the rest of us despite or clear preferences for something else.
"Sultan Alamer, a Saudi academic, joked "
Sultan Alamer, a Saudi academic who apparently lives in the United States.
The real tectonic plates is the relationship between the US and Israel.
Trump’s base is split the isolationist wing who is angry that the US finances Israel’s defense with nothing seemingly in return and those who continue to support Israel.
This wing is also anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian in their sympathies and are pushing the Magaverse towards a general anti-Israel/anti-Ukraine position based on the idea that without US financing these two regimes the conflicts would end.
Their line of thinking is increasingly catching hold and will work it’s way through the U.S. administration to the policy-makers over the next 12 months.
What Trump is offering to the world is “come to the table, let’s make a deal, because it's better to make money than war. When I was young, the chant was, "make love not war". Trump seems to be saying, "make money, not war." He wants every country to grow prosperous and enjoy life, not fight to the death. I pray the leaders of these countries share the wealth with their people.
Watching President Trump this past week and the reactions of the leaders and countries he visited made me proud to be an American!!🇺🇲
Leftists support Hamas.
Actually, it was money from Japan, Europe and the USA that built all those "Gleaming skyscrapers". If it wasn't for us finding the oil, developing their oil/Gas fields, and then using the oil, and paying them for it - they'd be back selling dates and Camels.
Its a great attack on Globalist George Bush, the most witless and reckless of recent American Presidents. Bush has a lot of blood on his hands. Thank God neo-con Yeb! never became POTUS.
Anyone else notice the silent women tossing their hair?
Is that some cultural fossil, like ululation?
A sweet-talking Trump.
Honeyed words for Muzzie kings.
Turn turn turn the page.
Trump is trying to make peace in Ukraine, but Zelensky wont deal with reality. Every day the Russians gain more ground. Personally, I don't think it will end till the Russian get to Kiev and force Regime change. At this point, Zelensky is a dictator not a "Supporter of Democracy".
Althouse has not convinced me that "garner" should be sidelined (or should I say 86ed). As a long time Althouse reader, I find myself considering every use of the word that I encounter—every single one. I ask myself if there is some word that could have been substituted that would have done as well or better in that instance. About 50% of the time I come out supporting that use of "garner."
Which makes me a discriminating user of the word (and I thank Althouse for that), but my conclusion is that it is a perfectly cromulent word—a useful one even. (Full disclosure: I am wearing shorts.)
“Leftists support Hamas.”
The issue of Israel divides the Washington Establishment of the Democratic party (and its New York and West Los Angeles fundraising wings) from tens of millions of Democratic voters out in the states who care about social democracy and an equitable pro-growth society benefitting the many and not concentrating enormous rewards on the few. Biden and his acolytes represented the Likud wing of the Democratic party and a corona of fringe activist groups. And the issue of pro-Israel is now crystallized around the fact of 18,000 dead children from American supplied and empowered and enabled aerial bombardment. That is about 30 or 40 times the number of dead in the Nazi bombardment of the Spanish town that instigated Pablo Picasso's iconic painting "Guernica."
Gaza has separated tens of millions of Americans from their government in Washington. Six million didn't show up to support the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. That is a lot of collateral damage.
Trump has a lot less to do with this than the reality of the utter failure of the Joe Biden administration. It spent almost two years being dead man walking.
RCOCEANII ain't wrong. It was money and engineers from the First World who built what the oil kings own; that, and cheap labor from the Phillipines, Pakistan, and other less fortunate regions.
86 43 ?
"make money, not war."
Indeed. Not because money is great, but because 1) War sucks, and 2) Making money puts people in a cooperative, building mode, where they start to imagine and want wonderful things for themselves and their families, rather than looking for who to blame and kill over what they don't have. It can turn an entire people from dependent children into providing adults. We all need this.
Contrarian Clark @10:02 AM doing every bad thing the blog forbids except putting it into italics.
Garner is the word that destroyed Jeb Bush. It's just that simple.
Trump will draw a line under supporting Israel. What he has accomplished otherwise in the Middle East is exemplary.
"And the issue of pro-Israel is now crystallized around the fact of 18,000 dead children from American supplied and empowered and enabled aerial bombardment."
The number of dead children is 40,000 and has been since Day One. Get with the program.
If we are to banish garner because it's not needed, there are an awful lot of other words that we must conclude are superfluous as well.
The kleptocracy profits in the woke of abortive ideation processed through liberal, unaccountable license.
That excerpt of the speech tells me the foreign policy establishment will have to confront the following possibility:
That Trump is the greatest statesman of a generation.
Or will they instead try to sabotage peace and prosperity to preserve their relevance? Looking back, they've killed a lot more people for a lot less.
This reminds me of the quote from some guy in a third world country that the Chinese give them infrastructure, Americans give them lectures.
As with the Abraham Accords, when these countries have an economic interest in the region and world, ie skin in the game, they will act differently.
While we're at it, I would like to ease up on the use of "glean".
We shall see what happens next. The 800 lb gorilla in the room remains: who rules Jerusalem?
“I have high hopes for this new way in the middle east, and it clearly works with the wealthy elites there, but can they rein in their own crazy activists?”
It will if the wealthy elites stop funding the crazy activists. Which is, really, the offer Trump is making here.
But I can see why Dick Cheney Democrats don’t like it.
If you were politically sentient by the year 2000 you can probably understand the pure irony-fueled joy of writing “Dick Cheney Democrats”.
"Garner" is low energy "get".
Now garner out of here.
No problem with denouncing Bush 2 intervention in Iraq but what to make of the Bush 1 intervention that saved Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from Iraq?
Creola Soul said...
As with the Abraham Accords, when these countries have an economic interest in the region and world, ie skin in the game, they will act differently.
There are a lot of people who make money off the ME wars.
They do have skin in the game. Other people's skin.
Readering: "No problem with denouncing Bush 2 intervention in Iraq but what to make of the Bush 1 intervention that saved Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from Iraq?"
Definitely a screwup in the sense that we gave mixed signals to Saddam when he was about to invade. Also a screwup on the longer timeline, in that we should have exploited the fall of the USSR to become Saddam's sole patron and make him an secular Arab nationalist client like Mubarak. That would have avoided the war entirely.
Once he invaded? Could have been worse outcomes than seeing more of the Gulf ruled by an unabashedly secular authoritarian, rather than royal houses playing various degrees of footsie with Sunni fundamentalists. Saddam funded with Kuwaiti and peninsular oil could have been a self-sustaining bulwark against Iran.
On the other hand, it was instructive for the world to see what our AirLand Battle doctrine and gear could do.
Saying all this as a Gulf veteran who really thought I was going to get gassed and/or blown to bits by an army with more artillery tubes than ours. And actually did get 'gassed' by Saddam's oil well fires.
JSM
Gaza has separated tens of millions of Americans from their government in Washington. Six million didn't show up to support the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. That is a lot of collateral damage.
In a national of over 330,000,000 people, a few million is 1-3% of the population. We’re talking rounding errors here. At least that many have full body tattoos. At least that many don’t shower regularly. Far fewer are trannies. Once in awhile, one or two of them posts their dopey shit on Althouse. Gaza has the attention of fewer Americans than those with hairy warts on the tips of their noses…and those are largely the same folks.
- Krumhorn
Donald Trump said...
"No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called ‘nation-builders,’ ‘neo-cons,’ or ‘liberal non-profits,’ like those who spent trillions failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad, so many other cities."
Sounds like an real life example of Friedrich Hayek's comments about the central planners of socialism/comunism/fascism/marxism...
"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
john mosby said...
Definitely a screwup in the sense that we gave mixed signals to Saddam when he was about to invade. Also a screwup on the longer timeline, in that we should have exploited the fall of the USSR to become Saddam's sole patron and make him an secular Arab nationalist client like Mubarak. That would have avoided the war entirely.
I think this was about as innocent and Biden's "Minor Incursion" BS.
These people all wanted war, Any war anywhere they could get it.
It's true that all those gleaming towers in the Gulf states are not a monument to the hard work and rigid adherence to the Protestant ethic of it citizens. They mostly just watched the oil being pumped and the checks coming it. Nonetheless, give them credit for not adapting a stance of belligerence to the people whose checks they were cashing.......Saddam, Qaddaffi, Assad, et al mostly built palaces for themselves and slightly outdated equipment for their armies. They could have negotiated better deals for themselves and for their people. Neocons are not the only ones who made bad decisions......The kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan did not lead their people off a cliff, and that should be the highest priority for the leader of any nation.
I read somewhere that the civil war in Syria claimed over 600,000 lives and produced two million refugees. Those figures are rather more impressive than the comparable figures in Gaza. Since neither Israel nor the USA were responsible not much attention is paid to those casualties, but they bleed just the same.
Does this mean our Arab friends can give back all those Gay Pride flags the last administration sent out there?
well much of the oil and gas wealth, went to either foreign capital, or towering palaces like what we saw in the Gulf States
I wonder why so many are eager to say Ukraine needs to suck it up and accept that Russia invaded their country and took parts (for now) of it, to rule as their own. Why does Russia get a free pass on this? Really.
Maybe because Obama said, "no worries" when Putin claimed Crimea. Translation: We have lots of nukes, too but are far too civilized to use them. EVER. Now we dare not tell Putin to fuck-off (or tolerate Zelensky doing so) because Russia "has nukes".
Russia also has a lot to lose. It has a growing affluent class that cares more about prosperity than risking it for Putin being a bad boy, when he's in the mood. If Ukraine leveled a "nice" part of Moscow with conventional weapons, will Putin disappear immediately or pull the trigger? The stakes are huge but if you don't hit the bully back, he's gonna keep hitting you.
if we were directly funding Russia with foreign aid, as it was in the 90s, when Sachs and Summers were involved then maybe,
Sure, it's Western technology and Western oil money that built those towers, but running down your hosts and dismissing such achievements as they have had is not a winning strategy. East - West = Zero was a Cold War book. I didn't think that underestimating one's enemies was wise, and dismissing such progress as there has been in other parts of the world isn't any wiser.
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I hope we'll be able to talk about Ukraine without pigeonholing everyone as pro-Russia or pro-Ukraine, and feel the same about the Middle East. Tossing around labels is a way of not discussing the issues involved.
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This reminds me of the quote from some guy in a third world country that the Chinese give them infrastructure, Americans give them lectures.
Larry Summers said an African told him that. But who actually said it first, who knows?
Fantastic and history worthy great speech. It was an on the point critique of our arrogance. Our “we came they died” foreign policy. He has already done more for Middle East peace than any president in history. It is a shame that we will now see democrats become neocons.
You can intervene in a low-trust, familial loyalty society only and change it. It requires a level of brutality that the Western world is not willing to embrace. That is probably for the best. Because the only way to make is stick is for every one of them to be convinced that if they violate British customs, they will face British justice. Worked pretty good in India. Not so much in Afghanistan. Much success in the British possessions in the Carribean. Very little in Rhodesia and it appears South Africa is heading downhill fast. Any bets on how long before they fall into the trap Zimbabwe is in? Are there enough resources in SA to keep them afloat? Time will tell. In the end, if the people of a country do not WANT a country, they will not HAVE a country.
well partition in India has lead to four wars with Pakistan, including the Bangladesh one,
the ISI arose out of the former, after a decent interval, and they enabled the Taliban and Al Queda, for their own reasons,
now General Intelligence whose headquarters was probably not from where the President spoke, probably has a similar legacy,
Hard to square the speech with Trump's grandiose plans for redevelopment of Gaza minus Gazans who would be moved to Libya.
This is all about isolating Iran.
"Hard to square the speech with Trump's grandiose plans for redevelopment of Gaza minus Gazans who would be moved to Libya."
Well, this is because you refuse to recognize that the main problem with Gaza is that it is filled with Gazans.
I'm not complaining that Trump is buddying up to those guys. I just hope it does some long-term good.
..."I wonder why so many are eager to say Ukraine needs to suck it up and accept that Russia invaded their country and took parts (for now) of it, to rule as their own. Why does Russia get a free pass on this? Really...."
I think it's less about 'Russia get a free pass' and more about the US, having stirred the pot in the most meddlesome, war-mongering, nation-building way, is in no position to dictate how things should turn out. Our input is inevitably tainted, which is why it's probably time for pragmatism. I wish Jimmy Baker was still around, because he was very good at that sort of thing - even though it was thoroughly trashed by the subsequent administrations.
"Why does Russia get a free pass on this?"
Losing a million men and billions in materiel is hardly a free pass, but to answer your question the reason is to stop the 5000 men being killed every week, which will ultimately end in the same thing if not worse for Ukraine. I only see two realistic choices and they both leave Russia with more territory than it started with. One kills thousand more men, and the other does not. Thus is the power of nuclear weapons. Lots of them compared to weak friends with appetites for Russian energy .
If there is a better option, we all know the name of the one world leader who could find it, even if we can't imagine what it might be.
"Why does Russia get a free pass on this?"
1. Russia is using its own money, not ours.
2. What is the end game?
NKP suggests that "levelling a 'nice' part of Moscow with conventional weapons" is the way to go. If Ukraine could do that, with or without our money and weapons, then perhaps Ukraine wouldn't be in the position it is in, and Russia wouldn't be in a position to dictate terms. But that isn't what the reality is.
And that doesn't even take into account the downsides of playing chicken with nuclear weapons.
After reading all the comments here, I figure Rusty's is the one that makes the most sense ("This is all about isolating Iran."). I hope Rusty is right, and I hope it works. Trump is playing a tricky game here, but not 4-D chess. If he can add one or two to the Abraham Accords, we will know it's working. I just hope Qatar is not one of those one or two. Meanwhile, has it occurred to anyone that by leaving Israel out in the hostage dealings, Trump got one of ours back without Israel having to give up 1,000 more terrorists in their jails. I do not think Israel feels left out by that.
I wonder how much his reception among Mideast nations and autocrats benefitted from his very recent destruction of much of the Iranian-proxy Houthi's ability to perform terrorism against commerce in the Red Sea. Pirate smashers are generally well liked in social circles, and Trump just smashed some.
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