Why would anyone worry about Trump?

[Mr MojoRisin]

Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

Trump is a shitstain on the shorts of America. But he loves us, we're beautiful.

He is still pissed that he couldn't be a member of the Rat Pack.

IBJunior doesn't think Trump would issue unlawful orders, just threaten to do so...

Yeah but Obama is the turd that you've been trying to polish for the last eight years. Now sling it against the wall to see if it sticks, lol.


Jim

[bambino]

Originally Posted by The2Dogs

Trump is a carnival barker.

They all are.

[JD Barleycorn]

There are a lot of "ifs" in this article and assumptions. Okay, first assumption; is Trump being absolutely serious when he says inflammatory things like at the debate? He is a citizen of the world. He is also a showman. He knows that you have to start high and negoiate to something you can live with. General George S. Patton did the same thing. Now Trump is no Patton but they both had the same mindset about pushing the envelope with words. In my opinion Trump is offering rhetoric with his oratory. Is he serious about destroying ISIS? I would say yes. It's bad for business and the US (not to mentin the world). Will he target (this is important) as an act of revenge the families of terrorists? I don't think so.
Second assumption; will the military carry out unlawful orders issued by their superiors? The way we currently view the world, the orders would be unlawful but times do change. The US bombed the submarine pens in France to destroy German submarines (which killed Frenchmen). The US destroyed entire cities in Germany and Japan to get at munition factories. We killed tens of thousands of civilian women and children to do that job. That was then but now we have pinpoint bombs that can take out a single house in a city block. What if a high value target is accompanied by his wife, or wives, his children, a family friend or two, or how about a foreign reporter? Should we pass on an opportunity to kill an enemy because he surrounds himself with innocents? If the word got out that we would never kill innocents in any circumstance then we have just given our enemies a shield to hide behind.
So maybe it would unlawful and maybe it wouldn't. Would the generals play ball? Obama has replaced many good officers with political officers who would obey the orders of the CIC even if they may be questionable. That's the linchpin. These officers know better, they know the law, they remember their oath, but they are motivated to take orders. I don't have an answer as to what they will do. The rank and file I have more hope for.

To put it simply; I don't think Trump will issue any orders that the general staff will not obey without regard to the law.

[CuteOldGuy]

I am very anti-war, but if you must have a war, it would be nice to win. Quickly and decisively. The "War on Terror" is a joke and and a fraud, designed to siphon money from the middle class for the 1%, and keep us afraid so we will agree to more and more restrictions on our freedom. If I believed that Trump would let generals run wars without interference, I might vote for him. I just don't believe him.

[gnadfly]

Originally Posted by Old-T

From: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinio...%99/ar-AAgwAb1

Curious to hear any thoughts. This person references Gen Hayden, but it also reflects a lot of the comments I have heard among military in all services. The thought of Trump as president raises an issues I honestly never thought I would have to even think about: the possibility of a military "strike" in some areas. I always thought the military would vote heavily Republican, but the concept of Trump as CinC will, I am sure, cause many of them to rethink.

Of course some of the less rational folks here won't even understand how fundamental a concern it is if the military even start to contemplate such issues.

======================

As soldiers, we are called to respect and obey our commander-in-chief, but not if he issues unlawful orders. This moral commitment is one of the things that keeps soldiers from becoming barbaric in the most barbaric of circumstances—war. It also is a constant reminder that no man stands above the law he serves.

...

I just read the first couple of paragraphs. You're an idiot Low-T.

I don't expect Donald Trump to be any bigger embarrassment militarily than Barack Obama. First of all, the military didn't "torture" anybody even if you consider "waterboarding" as "torture." The CIA did it. As I pointed out many times it only happened to two people and even Obama said in his presser after he issued the EO that he reserved the right to use it in a "ticking time bomb" situation.

Barack Obama even expanded the use of targeting civilians with upscaled drone strikes. He just doesn't get any bad press because...well, he just doesn't get any bad press because the press is bad. Obama had several American citizens killed with drone strikes even after he said it was impossible that American citizens be killed without a "Terror Tuesday" hearing. That and Obama had definition of "collateral damage" changed. BTW, my understanding is that most of those drone strikes were done by the CIA.

In the last year at the Coast Guard graduation ceremony Obama said that the great threat to American's survival was "Climate Change." Not terrorism, not foreign countries, but "Climate Change."

Trump can threaten all he wants. He's also promised a stronger military and to get the VA in order. If most top military guys don't welcome Obama leaving the White House it's because they've already left in disgust in the last few years.

[Old-T]

Gonad, so typical of you. Can't even find the question much less answer it. The point has nothing to do with how the military feels about Obama--and yes, they will be quite glad when he is gone. The question was about what the impact would be if the military in large numbers questioned the legality of a president's orders--which has not happened with Obama.

CIA ops are a different issue, and not what the article addresse.

But you knew all that already, it just wasn't convenient for you.

[p98397]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

I am very anti-war, but if you must have a war, it would be nice to win. Quickly and decisively. The "War on Terror" is a joke and and a fraud, designed to siphon money from the middle class for the POLITICAL CLASS, and keep us afraid so we will agree to more and more restrictions on our freedom. If I believed that Trump would let generals run wars without interference, I might vote for him. I just don't believe him.

FTFY

[i'va biggen]

When things turn bad.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...for-the-truth/

[lustylad]

Old-T - maybe this will make you feel better....


Suffering From Trumphobia? Get Over It

Before the 1980 election, Reagan’s opponents said he would ignite a nuclear holocaust. Didn’t happen.

By Edward N. Luttwak
March 9, 2016 6:13 p.m. ET


Unlike the fear of Islam, which is a rational response to Islamist violence across the world, the fear of Donald Trump really is a phobia. There is a precedent for this: the panicked Reaganphobia that preceded the 1980 election. We heard that Ronald Reagan was a member of the John Birch Society—whose essential creed was “Better Dead Than Red.” He therefore rejected “mutual assured destruction,” the bedrock strategy of the liberal consensus to guarantee coexistence by nuclear deterrence. Reagan, it was said, believed in “counterforce,” that is in a disarming first strike to win a nuclear war.

Mr. Trump irritates many with his vulgarities but Reagan was insistently depicted as a threat to human survival, so that most of the columnists and editorial writers of the quality press reluctantly called for Jimmy Carter’s re-election, despite the clamorous failures of his hopelessly irresolute administration. In Europe there was no reluctance. In London, Paris and Bonn, then the capital of West Germany, the re-election of Jimmy Carter was seen as a necessity to keep the bomb-thrower Reagan out of the White House, and well away from the nuclear button.

So many eminent people, including W. Averell Harriman, adviser to five U.S. presidents and chief negotiator of the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, asserted that Reagan wanted to start a nuclear war that the KGB went on maximum alert from inauguration day for more than two years, forcing its officers around the world to take shifts on 24-hour watches of all U.S. strategic air bases to detect the telltale simultaneous launchings of a nuclear first strike.

In 1983, two years into his first term, Reagan did send U.S. troops into action to fight a war . . . in tiny Grenada, whose 133 square miles was the only territory that Reagan invaded in eight years. As for nuclear weapons, Reagan horrified his advisers at the 1986 Reykjavik Summit with Mikhail Gorbachev with his eagerness for nuclear disarmament, thereby disclosing that he didn’t even believe in strike-back, let alone in attacking first. He wanted ballistic-missile defenses, not ballistic missiles.

Mr. Trump’s lack of good manners may be disconcerting, but as president his foreign policies are unlikely to deviate from standard conservative norms. He would only disappoint those who believe that the U.S. should send troops to Syria to somehow end a barbaric civil war, or send troops to Libya to miraculously disarm militias, or send troops back to Iraq to preserve its Iran-dominated government, or send more troops back to Afghanistan where the Taliban are winning because of the government’s incapacity and corruption.

President Trump would do none of the above. He will send troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq, while refusing to intervene in Libya or Syria, or anywhere else in the Muslim world, where U.S. troops are invariably attacked by those they are seeking to protect. Real conservatives want to conserve blood and treasure, not expend them lavishly to pursue ambitious political schemes.

As for trade, yes, Mr. Trump has called for tariffs against China and Mexico. Most economists now agree that wage stagnation in the U.S. and other advanced countries is caused by imports from China and other newly industrialized countries. Tariffs are unlikely, but one should expect vigorous antidumping measures, instead of allowing entire industries to be submerged.

What about the racism then? Born and raised in New York City, Mr. Trump has met one or two people during his life who are not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. He is unlikely to be startled by an encounter with a person of “Hispanic” or “Latino” origin. He has worked successfully with any number of African-Americans, and he has certainly shared a meal or two with Jews, including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

True, Mr. Trump launched his campaign by denouncing the supposed crimes of illegal immigrants from Mexico. But given his personal history, one may seriously doubt the sincerity of his anti-Mexican sentiments. He must certainly find ways of undoing the damage—starting with a fulsome apology—but nobody should view Mr. Trump as a racist because of those remarks.

That said, Mr. Trump is unlikely to persist with the State Department’s “resettlement” programs that keep flying Iraqis, Somalis and assorted others to Maine and other states supposedly in need of diversity—although the locals think otherwise.

The hysteria in certain circles notwithstanding, a Trump presidency would offer only the prosaic changes of any conservative administration: less activism across the board, with a view to saving some money; less environmentalist extremism; fewer “programs” instead of more of them; and no special efforts to add to minority representation in new categories, such as the transgender Supreme Court nominee that some are calling for.

In practice, these are all changes at the margin—a matter of 5% less spending rather than 5% more. In this election, though, that in itself would offer a clear alternative to the huge increases in government spending advocated by Bernie Sanders and followed by Hillary Clinton. While Mrs. Clinton may not follow through, one should not count on her insincerity.

So those who are planning to emigrate if Mr. Trump is elected president—one heard lots of emigration vows when Reagan was winning—might wait a week or two after inauguration day before fleeing. They might discover that President Trump is as good an administrator of the public weal as he was in his presidential campaign—the cheapest by far, and successful too.

Mr. Luttwak’s books include “The Endangered American Dream” (Simon & Schuster, 1993) and “The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy” (Harvard, 2012).

[gnadfly]

Originally Posted by Old-T

As I said, some folks won't even understand the issue.��

Originally Posted by Old-T

.....

#1. As with IIFFy you missed the point (not surprising, given it is you)

.....

So now--care to actually comment on Trump giving orders to torture and target civilians? I suspect what LL says is true, that this is election hyperbole. But then what does it say about the brainless morons who hear that any say "yes. I want a immoral thug like Trum leading our country."

Originally Posted by Old-T

Gonad, so typical of you. Can't even find the question much less answer it. .....

Stop dodging Low-T. You had your ass handed to you by several posters in this thread. Playing the "you didn't understand the question" troll trick only works with the Austin Reacharound Crew.

[RALPHEY BOY]

Originally Posted by UB9IB6

If Trumpet is elected, there will be a 3rd WW.

we are already in WW3..... been that way for about 20 years now..

[Yssup Rider]

So IBJunior says Trump is the next Reagan?

I beg to differ.

[IIFFOFRDB]

[i'va biggen]

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

So IBJunior says Trump is the next Reagan?

I beg to differ.

nice try pig. it appears it's your candidate who's channeling Der Fuhrer eh?