Hey, At Least We Bombed Somebody

For a totally different angle on the encrypted app story, I thought that instead of discussing how plans for bombing the Houthis were leaked, I’d discuss the bombing of the Houthis.

Including any journalist in a top-secret discussion of war plans demonstrates shocking incompetence. But the fact that National Security Adviser Mike Waltz included The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg — though not technically a journalist — is a big middle finger to President Trump.

Forget that Goldberg is responsible for the disgusting lie — featured nightly on MSNBC — that Trump called American soldiers who died in war “suckers” and “losers.” Both Waltz and Goldberg represent the dominant foreign policy establishment that Trump expressly ran against. Instead of “Make America Great Again,” they think the government’s job is to “Make the Middle East Great Again.”

This train wreck will be a test to see: 1) if Trump has an ounce of self-respect and will fire a national security adviser who has an anti-Trump zealot on speed dial; and 2) whether Trump intends to betray voters on his clearly stated opposition to Forever Wars.

Because right now, his foreign policy team is looking like John Bolton without the ridiculous Wilford Brimley mustache. Since Trump keeps hiring these people, it’s a good time to remind him that, in 2016, he won more primary votes than any Republican in U.S. history (as well as the election) by saying things like this about a war that had a million more justifications than his recent bombing of the Houthis:

Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake. … We spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives … George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.

The one person in that chat within shouting distance of Trump’s idea to put America first was Vice President JD Vance, who briefly interrupted the drums of war to say:

I think we are making a mistake. 3 percent of US trade runs through the Suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.

Naturally, The Wall Street Journal put Vance’s remarks through the Murdoch 2000 computer and came out with an editorial as stupid as it was snarky, claiming that the vice president was being disloyal to Trump. In fact, he was about the only one in that group chat being faithful to Trump’s avowed policy.

The single counter argument given by the warmongers was “deterrence,” the endlessly malleable excuse for killing anyone, anywhere, anytime.

While I understand the satisfaction of having random bad guys’ heads blown off — and much as we all enjoyed the Israeli exploding pager affair — it’s hard not to notice that incessantly bombing the rest of the world has not made America safer. This is why I strongly support Trump’s decision to remove Secret Service protection from his first term’s version of Waltz: Bolton and Mike Pompeo.

But the reason Bolton and Pompeo received full-time protection was because of their insistence that Trump assassinate Qassem Soleimani, a high-ranking Iranian official, in January 2020.

Soleimani was a bad guy, but not nearly as bad as some of our dearest allies, like Jared Kushner’s BFF, Saudi Crown Prince “Bone Cutter” Mohammed bin Salman. And he was in the process of meeting with an Iraqi official — at the U.S.’s request — to strike a truce with Saudi Arabia. And he was beloved by the Iranian people, who credit him — not Trump — with wiping out ISIS.

But assassinating Soleimani made Bolton and Pompeo feel like Masters of the Universe. Who cares if they stirred up a hornet’s nest in a not-especially rational part of the world? Iraq was enraged, Iran vowed retaliation, and Americans in the region were warned to leave because of the inevitable reprisal. No Secret Service protection for them!

What is usually enraging about reckless policies that endanger innocent Americans is that the people who implement them remain comfortably insulated from their effects. No-bail laws, open borders, Obamacare, gun control, TSA, actually having to watch Nicolle Wallace — somehow the people responsible for these policies always have a work-around.

Similarly, self-imagined geopolitical chess players can carelessly risk American lives by ticking off the rest of the world and inviting payback, secure in the knowledge that they, personally, will have 24-7 Secret Service protection for the rest of their lives.

Instead of MAGA having to constantly remind Trump what the first “A” stands for, why not incentivize the people who keep dropping bombs on people’s heads to adopt a more humble foreign policy by removing their Secret Service protection?

Trump can be enraging, maddening, frustrating. But like the Coca-Cola recipe, he’s at his best when he sticks to the original formula. We don’t want Trump Lite, “As Inspired By” Donald Trump or Trump-adjacent. He was very clear about what he wanted, he won the presidency, and there’s a good chance he’ll be on Mount Rushmore. There’s no chance Mike Waltz will be.

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