… from Russia Today, Moscow
[ Editor’s Note: President Tweet used a White House cabinet meeting to play the fool for a change. Addicted to his big bad wolf persona, he thought he would put the whammy on the Pentagon Inspector-General report to the public, letting us know if we are getting a good bang for our buck, pardon the expression.
Never one to put his foot in his mouth, he thought he would fake being a genius and point out to us that the information critical of the job being done, or not being done, is helpful to the enemy, citing the usual areas under government control, with the rest under the Taliban or contested.
Because Trump never clears his talking points with competent staff before grandstanding, he missed having someone point out to him that the Taliban already know how much of the country they control.
President Tweet has used harsh language to disparage those who see through his fake “know it all” myth, by using phrases like dumb as rock.
That is not something I would suggest he continue doing, putting that term out in front of the public that might remember grandma’s story about the pot calling the kettle black.
It does not take a genius to see the man is locked into his TV-show mantra of firing people, maybe even having a god complex, although I fear god would step in to object if he did.
Good staff people would have pointed out to him that just maybe the Afghan war is not winnable with the current troop levels, or maybe with double the troop levels; and there will never be peace while we are there, which some suspicious people at VT think may be the real scam.
As with Vietnam, where in hindsight we all can see we had dead-ended ourselves, the military industrial complex and its political allies would not be denied the profits they wanted from the war.
The main Vietnam war military supply companies even moved their headquarters to Texas, wanting to be close to LBJ land. Even though LBJ bailed out of running for a second term, the companies were still in the game, as presidents are just donkeys to be ridden by those guys.
Dear Donald, the public has a right to know what is really happening with America’s wars. It’s called being “informed”, without which they cannot vote correctly for the people they need to run things properly. …Jim W. Dean ]
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– First published … January 02, 2018 –
US President Donald Trump has slammed the Pentagon’s inspector-general for releasing reports about Iraq and Afghanistan to the public, demanding even less transparency from one of the country’s least transparent agencies.
Trump told acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan he wanted to stop releasing the watchdog reports to the public immediately, calling the practice “insane” during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Is new acting Pentagon boss a ‘fox in henhouse’ or easily bullied yes-man?
“What kind of stuff is this? We’re fighting wars, and they’re doing reports and releasing it to the public. Now the public means the enemy. The enemy reads those reports,” Trump insisted, adding that the watchdog could continue compiling the reports, but “they should be private reports and be locked up” unless a member of Congress wants to consult them.
His comments came amidst a rant about outgoing Defense Secretary James Mattis, who tendered his letter of resignation last month and was subsequently fired before he could step down at the end of February.
Mattis’s departure was apparently sparked by Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria, which he followed up with an announcement that the US would also be leaving Afghanistan – another sore spot for Mattis, who had pushed for a troop surge last year.
“How has he done in Afghanistan? Not too good!” Trump reminded his Cabinet. “As you know, President Obama fired him… and essentially, so did I.”
The government controls “or has influence over” just 55.5 percent of the country’s districts, home to 65 percent of the population, according to the quarterly report, which proved his generals’ Afghanistan strategy of throwing more troops at the 17-year-old conflict was not working.
SIGAR also revealed the Pentagon had wasted at least $15.5 billion in Afghanistan since 2008 just a few months before spectacularly failing its first-ever audit. Shanahan, then deputy Defense Secretary under Mattis, defended the failure, praising the Pentagon for following through with the audit at all.
A bombshell report last year revealed the Pentagon had “misplaced” $21 trillion over the past few decades, and the Government Accountability Office, which tracks fraud across US government agencies, consistently places it at the top of the list. With US soldiers involved in dozens of undeclared conflicts around the world, insider dealing isn’t exactly unknown.
Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
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Hypocrite Janus of the Neo-Roman Empire caught again. Transparency not opaqueness. Honesty is like pregnancy, you either are or are not. Fighting for peace is like copulating for virginity.
If it weren’t for secrets this democracy thing might actually work.
“The pot calling the kettle black” or simply projecting your own beliefs on others. Either way it’s always interesting to hear our president use words like “stupid”.
Looks like Israel Lover Liar Secrecy lover Trump is getting us off to another year of secrecy protected by the full armed military force of government so the fools in the public won’t learn how incompetent and corrupt our reprehensible military traitor four star generals really are as recently described by Gordon Duff through the eyes of Mr. Steele. Of course anyone with eyes to see observed the dismal failure of these four star traitors on 9/11/01 where they obviously did not lift a finger to “defend” the country from attack because obviously they were in on the con itself perpetuated by thugs in Israel! Yet none of these criminals have been arrested and indicted and tried for their crimes, let alone jailed, but instead permitted to retire on lavish pensions. This is all another day at the plant of the dictatorial, secret, totalitarian cesspool called America today with gangsters in Israel pulling the strings of the big mouth monkey in charge Israel lover liar Trump.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/9-11/Israel_did_it
I challenge just one of these four star general criminal traitors to the country they “serve”, come out of your undeserved lavish retirement and tell the truth of what happened on 9/11/01 to the citizens and taxpayers you purportedly “served” for a change instead of hiding in the depths of you home. How about demonstrating some real courage and guts for a change like two time medal of honor recipient General Smedley Butler who died in 1940 but wrote “War is a Racket” with generals like you the racketeers or one time medal of honor winner Chaplain Captain Charlie Liteky who returned his medal to the corrupt dictatorial totalitarian government and even spent two stints in federal prison for having the guts to demonstrate against the totally corrupt School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia and even gave up a lifetime pension from our totally corrupt government! What a dismal disgrace you gutless cowards are to the uniform you wore! You sold out your country on 9/11/01 and lied to the citizens about it all along with traitors Bush and Cheney too!
How about some redemption with the truth instead of lie, lie, lies forever?
Is this your perception and concept of what the word “HONOR” means? What a disgusting reprehensible bunch of traitor pieces of cowardly garbage you are. How about it? You could still redeem yourself by speaking TRUTH to the lowly citizens and taxpayers who pay your pension and whom you “served”! Why do you protect criminal traitors like Bush and Cheney anyway and the criminal gangsters in Israel who were responsible for this attack on the Towers in New York?
Hey, Generals X or Y or Z who are cowardly protecting the lies of 9/11/01 and traitors Bush and Cheney and gangsters in Israel, is this about a five letter obscene word MONEY? Do you want MONEY to reveal the sordid details of the crimes of 9/11/01? How much dinero? $ 1 million, $10 million, $ 1 billion? Is this your concept of HONOR?
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