CNN: Donald Trump — keeper of promises
Yesterday, President Trump honored another campaign promise – he announced that the US would move our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Of course, the media expressed their surprise that he would do what he said he’d do. In CNN, Stephen Collinson writes, you know, how dare he?
So far, the President has not paid a tangible price for living up to his most controversial promises. But he is taking big risks, especially internationally, and a reckoning may yet come.
Washington has yet to learn whether the backlash among its allies over Trump’s latest declaration will leave it alone in an hour of need. Anyway, Trump supporters who believe in his America First concept care little that the President is infuriating the country’s friends around the world.
Several previous presidents have promised to do this, but they didn’t have the political courage to actually do it. Mostly, they wouldn’t do it because of their fear of the violence that it would cause in Jerusalem and around the Middle East – essentially, our policy was held hostage to terrorism. By not recognizing Israel’s capital, we acquiesced to that threat of terrorism, the terrorists won.
There is a reason Trump was breaking ground on Jerusalem: Previous presidents judged that the political capital they could gain with a similar move was not justified by the risks. Those have included concerns of inciting Middle East violence or offending Palestinians by prejudging final status peace talks on Jerusalem, a city they also regard as their future capital.
The fate of Americans abroad — easy targets in any violent backlash in the Middle East — also weighs heavily on presidential consciences. Trump decided to take the risk anyway.
Critics might also point out that Trump’s list of promises kept is an incomplete and politically expedient one.
If Americans die as a result of this particular Trump mandate, it’s not his fault – it’s fault of whoever pulls the trigger or flips the switch. Why do we have to concede our foreign policy decisions to the mindless violence that drives the extremists of that region?
CNN should stick to criticizing Trump’s Twitter feed and leave policy to the grown ups.
Category: Foreign Policy
Good for Trump. WAR STORY ALERT: My father was born in Jerusalem when it was still the Palestine Territories. He was not a school educated man but like most old school, he was smart and able to feed his family. His father and siblings immigrated to New Yawk to avoid being drafted into the Turkish Army which was the trend those days. Although he left at a young age, he never had anything good to say about an Arab. Israel has every right to decide where their country’s capitol will be and I am grateful we finally have a president with the fortitude to recognize that fact. As far as the Palestine’s and all of the hand wringer’s objections, (forgive me Chaplin), FUCK THEM.
Amen Brother!
CM,
As an ordained minister of the Gospel, please, allow me:
As for those who oppose Israel, may God send them sudden terror so that they live in anxiety, wasting diseases so that they live in agony, famine so that they live in want. May their enemies take their produce, so their labor is in vain. May drought and famine and destruction afflict their towns. May their wives and daughter become prostitutes, living without homes. May their children curse them and leave them without a future. May their lives end in prolonged agony and despair, and their death be painful.
May those who love Israel and her God rejoice to see the downfall of their foes, and mock their schemes.
May the foes of Israel die in agony and despair, without hope, without joy, without peace. And when they descend to the grave, may they find themselves in eternal agony without end.
Amen
Amen
So mote it be,
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Amen
So Mote it be.
So mote it be.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Amen
The palis blew up a good Friend and fellow Teamguy years ago.
He was armed security for DoS at the time, traveling in a vehicular convoy flying UN colors. Command detonated bomb took out his vehicle.
The palis are fucking animals, screw ’em all. They murder Israeli mothers and children in terror attacks while Israel brings sick pali kids into Israel for treatment at their best hospitals.
“The palis are fucking animals, screw ’em all.”
Not only what you said, I’ve read credible accounts of the paleoswinians using Women and Children as cover when they attack.
Amen🇮🇱🇺🇸
Amen!
Amen.
AMEN, Club Manager
Amen.
CNN…”Concentrated Nerd Nest”!!
The Clinton News Network? Yeah, they’re pretty useless. If it had been Cankles Rotten-Pantsuit announcing that they’d be tripping over themselves praising her courage for making such a bold move that many before had promised but none had delivered on. Hey, CNN sssssh. Grown ups are talking, take your brothers and sisters back to the children’s table and play nicely, they’ll call you when you’re needed and relevant.
Maybe next the Clinton News Network will try and tell us President Trump ONLY did it at Putin’s behest?
On top of that, Trump is merely enforcing a law that was passed in 1995. Presidents before him simply waived taking action.
It’s been 22 years since the law passed, and peace in that region hasn’t been achieved yet.
https://www.congress.gov/104/plaws/publ45/PLAW-104publ45.pdf
Thanks for posting that link.
PUBLIC LAW Newt 104–45—NOV. 8, 1995
I wee ‘lil history for the kids …
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/238929
Steel on Target (figuratively), as usual.
Mr. Sharkman,
Great NSW news gonna’ break soon.
Say my crystal ball!
MCPO
Laws are not for the enforcing among the liberals and elites.
Could San Francisco, or California, chart their own course on this, a la “sanctuary city?”
Curse the hand-wringers.
The Communist News Network really needs to take a very deep breath and realize just how irrelevant they have made themselves.
And how for all their bluster, nobody cares. Afraid of pissing off Palestinians? When haven’t they been pissed off? They’ve made it pretty clear they’re for the total annihilation of Israel and the Jews. If they achieve that, who do you think they’ll want to eradicate next?
I’m sure they’d just keep being useful idiots until their masters decide it’s time for them to be stuffed into boxcars and shipped off to camps.
Watched him sign the order yesterday, the look on his face was like; here I am cleaning up another mess that many other Presidents should have taken care of.
He writes LARGE too, doesn’t he?
Its just my opinion, but Jerusalem is one city in the world where mankind should come together and show humanity and compassion to one another. Its a Holy City for three of the world’s major religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
2 of those religions teach tolerance and understanding, and one does not which is why there is no peace. It won’t matter if the embassy stays in Tel Aviv or moves to Jerusalem, one group of people won’t be satisfied until the other two are eradicated. Again…I’ll let you guess which group that is.
When I was in the Sinai doing a MFO rotation I had the pleasure of doing a Holy Land tour. I remember our tour guide in Jerusalem telling us that the gate that the Jews believe their Messiah will come though is in the Muslim sector and the Muslims bricked up the gate.
Stephen Collinson, liberal biased journalist, quit stomping your feet in frustration that real policies are being implemented, and quit presuming about what we care or don’t care about. If you pulled your head out of your ass, and removed your horse-blinders, you’d know that we care A LOT about whether a president is infuriating America’s friends or not. I mean, I lost count of how many times others, and I, criticized President Obama for catering to our enemies and adversaries at the same time he infuriated our country’s friends around the world and putting both their and our security and interests at a disadvantage. 🙄
This Collinson is basically ignorant of the realities of this world. America has no allies. Every country does what is in its own best interests first. Thus none of those other countries are to be fully trusted. We may share mutual objectives and goals from time to time, but NEVER fully trust any other country as an ally. I would much rather have all the other countries of the world fearing us than liking us.
And in order to best pursue shared interests, alliances and friendships have to be forged. Otherwise, our efforts to pursue our own interests would become more difficult and challenging.
Great Brittain found that out the hard way during the American Revolution.
And each country definitely pursues its own interests. If the United States were to “disappear overnight”, another country would fill the gap, and the process won’t necessarily be peaceful or bloodless.
I don’t know about that. If you look at the modern world, I am not sure there is any other country that could do what we do, nor do it as well at that. Not even Russia, if they were to get themselves unscrewed.
In the mind of a coward, all actions are fear inducing.
But the fact is that what makes the coward afraid is not what the other person is doing, but what they know about themselves.
And that, my friends, is why the coward must lash out at those least likely to actually meet their bullshit with force and so likely to actually defend the actions of the aggressor.
Fear is the mind killer….
Copy that.
As far as Israel-Palestine goes, I don’t root for solutions. I root for Israel to WIN.
Maybe in 1917 or 1948, I would have wanted an even-handed, balanced agreement that was palatable and beneficial for both sides. But knowing how the Arabs behaved on the day of Israeli independence, and how they’ve behaved every other time the Jews have made endless concessions for peace, I have little desire for any sort of fairness.
One side is a democratic, multicultural, tolerant state that is western in every sense of the word, and the other side is a backwards, Hamas-electing group of nutjobs who want to drive the Jews into the sea. The only reason they fall short of Nazi-levels of evil is because their attempts at genocide are entirely incompetent.
I’ll support the good guys, without hesitation.
Well said. Victory for our friends, death to our enemies.
I’m confused. A nation decides where its capital is. Nations who wish to have diplomatic relations with said nation erects an embassy in that capital. What am I missing?
There ya go again, sj – looking at this with maturity instead of wishing for unicorns.
Resistance losers are demanding to know why Trump thinks he can determine the capital of Israel, apparently unknowing or uncaring that Israel made this decision on its own. So much dumb.
How right you are. A Lib acquaintance posted this on FB: “The U.S. has no business making decisions outside the U.S.”
Ridiculous. Well, I wouldn’t know what liberal acquaintances are saying on FB, since I terminated all of their asses. Except for my father, who Trump somehow transformed from a libertarian into a leftist. The old man pulled a Bill Kristol more than Bill Kristol did.
And yeah, getting rid of FB friends for political views may be juvenile, but to the little extent I use that crap anymore, it’s to see pictures of my friends’ kids and to share pictures of my own, not to hear dumbass political opinions. So, bye.
I have a number of FB friends who share a lot of what I label as “fabricated outrage” stuff – left & right viewpoints.
What I’ve found is that when they share a link that specializes in that stuff, I can block the link but not the FB friend.
I can keep track of them as people and not have to see the “OMG can you believe what ____ did?” junk.
Hard to keep a conversation going when you hang up the phone.
those networks change names regularly. A new click/block every few days. “breaking news” or ” you’ll never believe…” gets an instant clicky
Some still fall for that shtick, but I ‘spect that the numbers are dwindling.
A lot of them are names I’ve seen for some time before I decided to just spend the time up front to block them. That means I’ll still get one or two from the new-and-improved-mousetrap sites until I block them. But the numbers are getting whittled down.
FB Purity (a browser add-on for FB) works wonders at eliminating a lot of that trash.
“Ridiculous. Well, I wouldn’t know what liberal acquaintances are saying on FB, since I terminated all of their asses.”
Not me, I debated them using logic, facts and common sense and next thing I knew they de-friended and blocked me, like the trash taking itself out!
Two observations on your post CPT11A, can your father actually articulate when challenged, why he so hates Trump to the point that he went left? Also, I have noticed that some of my buddies were hardcore Hillary supporters, and when I looked at that, I found that if someone could back that slimy mass murdering criminal as our leader, probably knowing the shit she would pull, then there was something wrong enough with them that I didn’t care to associate with them. Serious character deficiencies and such.
Great question, Steve. What my dad seems to hate most about Trump is all personal stuff. Discriminating against blacks in the NYC housing markets in the 1970s, grabbing them by the pussy, tweeting all manner of random and sometimes obnoxious things, etc. It does seem like the old man has shifted in some policy views (like immigration and healthcare), but he spends so little time on it that I can’t really tell. I don’t get the impression he’s ever coming back, though.
What he doesn’t get, however, is that I am no Trump superfan. The man is an oaf. He’s crass and somewhat immature, and many of his tweets are pointless (if mildly amusing). He’s gone bankrupt too many times to really count as a great businessman. I wouldn’t personally trust him to be alone with my wife.
Yet…I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THAT. I want policy. Tax reform? I don’t care if it’s passed by a complete boob, just give it to me! Destroying the Kim crime regime? I don’t care if Trump calls him a fatass on Twitter, let’s do this already! Same goes for national reciprocity, and border security, and Jerusalem, and Obamacare repeal, and welfare reform, and SCOTUS justices, and on and on and on.
I hate and distrust ALL politicians. I will not smile at any human who wants power over me, and in the perfect world, they’d do their jobs at gunpoint. So this Trumpian sliminess that so repulses my father, I automatically assume of EVERY pol. I don’t care about the people and their personal proclivities; I just want the right policies, no matter what. Do your part to remove the hand of government from our lives, and then STFU and sit in the corner.
There are those that hold that there is method in Trump’s madness. Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, correctly predicted Trump’s election and many of his actions afterwards. Mr. Adams seems to hold that Trump’s tweeting and other actions that seem outrageous or childish are, in all actuality, methods for deflecting and distracting the opposition while accomplishing quite a bit of work. That is, like a magician gets one to look to the left while he is doing something on the right and then pulls the rabbit/card/coin “out of thin air” Trump manipulates the MSM and Dim-0-crats with a tweet while actually accomplishing something else they would otherwise impede.
I am not sure I would like Trump personally, were I to be in a position to get to know him personally. But I am beginning to suspect that Scott Adams is correct about his methods. Trump is as stupid as a fox.
Those same losers would, apparently, not have a problem with locating the U.S. Embassy to the French Republic in Lyon, or the embassy to the United Kingdom in Liverpool. Cuz feelings or some other weird shit.
If the terror situation in London doesn’t get fixed, we might have to move the embassy.
Now if we could just move the US Capital to oh, lets say Utah or Wyoming.
No capital was moved:
The capital of Israel is Jerusalem. West Jerusalem was established as the national capital in 1950; and in 1980 the Jerusalem Law made the entire unified city of Jerusalem the Israeli capital.
However, I would support moving US capital to your suggested location. But, please leave monuments.
Only if we could fence it off from the more rational citizens already extant.
All of the great DC edifices were built during the time of slavery, ergo they must come down. They be rayciss an shit.
“Washington has yet to learn whether the backlash among its allies over Trump’s latest declaration will leave it alone in an hour of need.”
Eat this backlash, Mr. Collinson: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/12/06/prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-thanks-president-donald-trump/ ; and what the heck in your Trump Derangement fevered mind is the ‘hour of need’?
Hour of need. The US can level the planet if it has to. I’m not too worried about the hour of need. The problem is a bunch of professional pansies in The State Department and a decade worth of a spineless President that has convinced the world the US will never do anything other than draw meaningless lines in the sand.
And send strongly-worded letters.
Not too many countries willing to come to our need as it is. We bend over backwards and send millions of dollars overseas to win them with kindness. Hasn’t made us any more liked. Probably cause people like a hand up and resent a hand out.
The dumpster fire is about to level-up.
Agreed.
But it will get worse before it gets better.
It is. The last 8yrs of punting the world’s problems so The Prezzy can style with Hollywood and throw parties has left the world a dangerous place. This is the price for not having the USA leading the world from the front. Now there are a bunch of dumpster fires that are going to have to be put out both foreign and domestic. The ones that threw gasoline on it will be the first ones to point the fingers at the adults that have to deal with it.
“care little that the President is infuriating the country’s friends around the world.”
Israel IS a friend. The Palestinians ARE NOT our friends.
►Liberals LOVE the Palestinians.
►Palestinians DO NOT love the western liberals – but they will use these useful idiots while convenient.
►Liberals would be the first up against the wall when the Caliphate took over.
“Gays, drug users, transsexuals, philanderers, sexual predators, abortionists – please form one line up the stairwell so we can throw you off of the building”
~~by order of the Caliph
Exhibit A to your three claims here would be Vittorio Arrigoni.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittorio_Arrigoni
When I was taking my degree, there was an annual protest on campus where the pro-Palestinian idiots put up cardboard tombstones with ‘facts’ (many of them verifiably false) making Palestine look like the bullied good guys and Israel the villain.
The Jewish students on campus, myself included, largely kept our heads down and kept moving, feeling uncomfortable with revealing ourselves, let alone engaging with a hostile majority.
Not long after I graduated, the school underwent a period of targeted harassment against faculty and students deemed politically incorrect (I’m being vague for anonymity here, but suffice to say, stripped down to its basics, it was a case of someone not being left *enough*), which included acts of and threats of violence and a lot of rugsweeping by the administration. The more which came to light, the uglier the picture became.
Yet these Palestinian supporters fail to see that they are the thin end of the wedge and the cracks are getting bigger all the time.
so, our embassy plan is:
“Next year, in Jerusalem.”
…
Works for me. Mazel Tov
Mazel Tov!
ROFL
As someone pointed out earlier, Israel established Jerusalem as their capital by law in 1980, and the US has actually recognized it as such since 1995- we simply haven’t moved our embassy. I don’t know why everyone is surprised Trump did promised to do this during the election, although it seems to run counter to one of his other promises to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Of course Jared is working that, so I’m sure this is all part of the plan. What that plan could possibly be I have no idea. I get it, the US can do what it wants, Trump fulfilled a promise, and the Israelis love this. That’s just politics and signaling to his base (by the way, while we usually use the term ‘political decision’ pejoratively, it is really just another way to say ‘acknowledging the will of the people’). The real question is this: How does this move support US National Interest in the region? The President gets to define National Interest for his administration. It sure seems like Trump has defined US National Interest in the region as firmly establishing Israeli sovereignty over the entirety of Jerusalem and strongly signaling US alignment with Israel. These are not bad things per se. However, if peace in the region and/or a two state solution are also in our interest, I can’t see how this will help- if any of you can, please tell me. Again, I get it, many of you don’t care about that, and you aren’t necessarily wrong. There hasn’t been peace for years, what are the odds of it breaking out any time soon, right? Of course, the other consideration is that this is needlessly antagonistic at a time when the US has a lot on its plate. This will be used by ISIS as a recruiting tool, it will cause uprisings across the Middle East, pisses off our allies, and we have a serious conflict with North Korea on the horizon. A big, risky move with minor practical benefits (that I can see) and lots of potential downsides. In… Read more »
I believe Mr. Trump is establishing, beyond doubt, that refusing to participate in a the negotiations has -costs-.
That has been part of the problem since the beginning. The position of one side is “give us everything we demand, without exception, or we won’t accept.” (And riot/rocket/rant/etc)
Keep in mind that “from the river to the sea” is -not- a two state solution. It is far closer to the “Final solution” .
Hit it on the head: “Keep stalling, see what comes off the table NEXT.”
What we (USA) have been doing for decades hasn’t brought any real movement in the talks. I doubt that real peace is possible (am I right, Greybeard?) BUT now the message is clear: stalling won’t work any longer.
His -next- move may be an offer to build a -second- embassy in -east- Jerusalem, but if and only if there is some gesture of a true “two state” progress. An example woudl be recognition of both embassies.
He could leverage a move such he as that to separate the crazies from the disgruntled. So woudl moving our (considerable) financial support to whomever is actually negotiating in good faith. Since some of that loot -always- get skimmed, there is then a huge cost to be excluded, and huge gain to be reasonable.
Next nudge: “OK. No one spoke up, so we have just broken ground on this -wonderful- new place (shows map). Our ambassador will be at the local Consulate until its done. (Directs aids to pass out sweets to audience.)
And the idiots self-identifying as “violent-crazy” does simplify targeting solutions, under rationalized rules of engagement.
Hopefully, the announcement is part of a strategy, not just yet another (essentially permanently) “deferred” move.
The President made promises that the people of The USA liked and voted him into office. He is one of the few politicians that is actually trying to do what he said which is what the majority of American’s want.
This whole Jerusalem thing is laughable on so many levels. As late as June of this year there was a 90-0 vote in the Senate confirming Jerusalem was the capitol. It’s just that Trump has the backbone to carry out the law the Congress passed in 1995 and every President since then has been punting on. We are worried the South Syrian Sheep Herders are going to be mad? The riot at the drop of a hat anyways. There was never going to be peace when the PLO was involved so why keep trying. Bold moves to call everyones bluff is what is needed and Trump is doing it. Sorry if you don’t like it.
Let’s try to stay focused.
The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 is a public law of the United States passed by the 104th Congress on October 23, 1995.
Clinton did not veto it.
It was mandated for 1999. That was 18 years ago.
The fact that Trump is implementing it now is why
liberals’ panties are all in a wad over it.
AND for the Dimwits who are moaning loudest, there were in fact Dimwits in that congressional body who signed off on it.
It seems to me the issue of moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is an issue only because CNN wants to make it one. Notice the repetitive use of terms such as, “widely acknowledged risks,” “international fury,” “controversial promises,” and so forth which occur in an editorial commentary with almost no supporting evidence for those terms. And what weak quotes there are tend to be buried way down in the copy.
I’ll cheerfully admit to seldom understanding the Arab zeitgeist but it seems strange the Palestinians should object to the embassy move at all. Except as another excuse to complain about something.
Not long ago, I was reading the book In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. It covers a time at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin in the years just prior to World War II. Even though it had become obvious Hitler and his pals were getting out of control, nobody ever suggested moving the American embassy to, say, Hamburg for the sake of political correctness. Embassies are supposed to be in a location designated by the host country as its seat of government. Being a foreign government and having an embassy in the host’s capital doesn’t automatically mean an endorsement of the host’s policies.
The Arab Muslim position is Jerusalem is their capital, and their nation extends “from the river to the sea” .
That kinda requires the Israelis to “relocate in the east” or something.
Kinda hard to realistically plan to drive the Israelis into the sea (as they have often promised) if we put our embassy in the capital of Israel.
The former Jordanian Arab Muslims are -not- kidding. The Israelis know it (mostly).
Unless and until intransigency has serious cost, one side has zero incentive for genuine negotiations.
Trump just applied a -small- cost.
And they -know- he can do -more-.
Popcorn anyone?
As said Earlier, Jerusalem is central to three of the world’s major religions, two of which want to live in peace and be productive while the third one does all it can to exterminate everyone else while they exterminate each other on a regular basis as well. They were given land that Israelis had turned into productive farmland as well as buildings with amenities, they turned it into a third world hellhole and it is the same most of the time they take over any turf anywhere. Snowflake liberals say”coexist” while those of us who have been to that part of the world KNOW that you cannot coexist with religious fanatics that want to kill you, your family, neighbors and everyone else at the drop of a hat! I support Israel 100%, it is the ONLY Democratic Nation surrounded by monarchies and dictatorships frothing at the mouth for her eradication, yet she has kicked the shit out of anyone dumb enough to attack her and the only thing muslim savages respect is brute force, they will only show respect to you when you are willing and capable of wiping them off the face of the earth. Jewish People? Look at the multitude of contributions they’ve made to the world in Medical Science alone, it’s quite huge and like Mr. Sharkman said, the Israelis will take and treat paleoswinians while the paleos attack Women and Children before they do adults, he’s right, they’re ANIMALS.
Bravo! Well-stated.
The Communist News Network is once again showing how badly infected it is with Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder (TARD) and its minions are letting it turn them into Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder Operatives (TARDOs) thus any time I see them or their fellow DNC media minions screeching I merely think “Here go the media TARDOs on yet another nonsensical rampage!”.
Didn’t several previous admins to include Obama say that Jerusalem was the capitol and they never did anything to follow through? Yep. That’s what I thought. DJT, one campaign promise at a time!
And, when the hand-wringing stops but talks stay stalemated, what will POTUS do next?
Probably look for someone willing to negotiate, declare them the “legitimate” recipient of our extensive financial aid, and then start that process in exchange for some tangible concession or agreement.
Possibly combined with cooperative US/Israeli strikes on the inevitable violent-crazy folks.
In other words, stop the absurdity of trying for a one-size does-it-all “peace” solution with organizations (and ideology) with a demonstrated interest in a Reich-sized “Final Solution”. Go instead for cutting out the genuine willing-to-settle (sane) folks, incentivizing and recognizing them, then go for small measurable gainful agreements, and solve it step by step.
In other words, turn over the (bleep)ing table on the rigged game, and start dealing from an honest deck with more reasonable players.