The Trump Doctrine is simple: Allies can’t trust him

[Boats]

The Trump Doctrine is simple: Allies can’t trust him
By: Doyle McManus - Washington Columnist - 2019
RE: https://www.latimes.com/politics/sto...cant-trust-him

WASHINGTON — President Trump betrayed an American ally this week. It wasn’t the first time and it probably won’t be the last.
The victims this time were the Kurds, the minority ethnic group that provided most of the ground troops for the U.S. war against the militant group Islamic State in Syria. More than 11,000 Kurds died in that campaign. The number of U.S. combat deaths reported in Syria: six.

Trump’s betrayal was his failure to defend the Kurds against one of their mortal enemies: Turkey. Last weekend, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Trump he intends to send his army into northeastern Syria, where the Kurds have carved out a semiautonomous enclave near the border.

Trump’s response was, in effect, “OK by me.” He wants to get the last 1,000 U.S. troops out of Syria, and doesn’t seem to care much what happens after that. He told reporters it was time to get out and let others “figure the situation out.”

To the president’s surprise, Republicans revolted.

“The biggest lie being told by the administration is that ISIS is defeated,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the president’s golf partners, using an acronym for Islamic State. “This is going to lead to ISIS’ resurgence.”

So the president rolled his decision partway back — although nobody in his administration seemed to know what his new position was.

“We may be in the process of leaving Syria, but in no way have we Abandoned the Kurds, who are special people and wonderful fighters,” Trump insisted in a tweet.

Tell that to the Kurds, who fear they have been left defenseless in the face of the larger and more powerful Turkish army.

Then explain to the Kurds why they should continue guarding 12,000 imprisoned Islamic State militants if Turks begin invading Kurdish villages.

Before he reconsidered, Trump argued that he doesn’t owe anything to the Kurds despite Pentagon promises to them while they helped prevent Islamic State from becoming a direct threat to the United States.

“The Kurds fought with us, but were paid massive amounts of money and equipment to do so,” he tweeted.

The Kurds weren’t allies, it turns out; in Trump’s view, they were subcontractors.

Trump dismissed them the same way he dismissed the painters, carpenters, piano tuners and other contractors he underpaid or refused to pay on hotel projects in Las Vegas and Atlantic City: They should be glad they got paid anything at all.

The president’s disdain isn’t new. He’s abandoned allies before.

Last December, he abruptly announced that he was pulling all U.S. troops out of Syria, prompting Defense Secretary James N. Mattis to resign in protest. “You’re going to have to get the next secretary of Defense to lose to ISIS,” he told Trump.

This summer, the president blocked nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, a U.S. ally fighting a Russian-backed insurgency. House Democrats are examining whether he withheld the arms to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on a potential 2020 political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

In Europe, Trump has repeatedly questioned why the United States is still in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the 29-nation defense alliance that has protected the continent for 70 years — and which rushed to America’s aid in Afghanistan after 9/11.

He’s questioned the U.S. military alliance with Japan, complaining that Japan exports cars to the United States but isn’t required to defend our shores.

“Our allies take advantage of us far greater than our enemies,” he said en route to a recent summit — with our allies.

The lesson, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last year, is that Europe can no longer rely on the United States as a partner.

Trump treats domestic political allies that way, too.

In 2017, when his campaign to repeal Obamacare ran into trouble, he blamed House Republican leaders for passing an unpopular bill that he called “mean” — even though they had passed it with his approval.

And this week, as Trump announced his retreat in Syria, GOP senators said none of them had been consulted in advance — not even Graham, who had slavishly made himself a one-man cheering section for the White House.

Even though they were on recess and away from Washington, GOP senators took time to try to tutor the president in some basic principles of international relations.

“Honorable nations stand by their friends,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted. “Our enemies and rivals (Iran, Russia, etc.) don’t abandon their allies. If we want allies to stand with America in the future, we shouldn’t either.”

“By abandoning the Kurds we have sent the most dangerous signal possible: America is an unreliable ally,” Graham wrote. “This decision makes it difficult for the U.S. to recruit allies against radical Islam.”

The president chose an odd time to remind Republican lawmakers of his mercurial nature. The Senate may soon be sitting as a jury in his impeachment trial. He could use some allies over the next few months.

Instead, he’s taught the senators, as well as the Kurds, a useful lesson: You can offer your loyalty to Trump. Just don’t expect any in return.

About this writer: Doyle McManus has been a reporter for the Los Angeles Times in Washington, the Middle East and many other places for more than 40 years. Born in San Francisco, he’s a graduate of Stanford University.

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Personal note: This is old news but even today NATO (our former alias) don't trust Trump and/or his current US policy and NATO statements. It seems he wants the US to stand alone in the world and this could lead to some unfortunate results. But he's the Boss (not a president but the Boss!) and we got what we wanted and it's not working very well as we all can see. His supporters see nothing wrong in his process but as the world turns so does the worm. I foresee different results on the horizon (or near future) of which we may not recover - but I'm just one person whose outlook on these current events is taking us down a lonely road.

Boats

[Boats]

Trump pardons and emboldens war criminals — and the corruption of Trumpism spreads
By: Heather Digby Parton - 11-25-19
RE: https://www.salon.com/2019/11/25/tru...mpism-spreads/

Trump clears three accused war criminals and forces out the secretary of the Navy. It's a vicious, ugly power play

I have to admit that of all the spooky parallels between Donald Trump's and Richard Nixon's disregard for the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution, I didn't see the war-criminal coddling coming. I should have. Nixon famously had the My Lai mass murderer, Lt. William Calley, freed from prison and put under house arrest during his long appeal process. (He ended up only serving three years of his original life sentence and went on to live a quiet and peaceful life in Georgia.)

One of the pillars of Trump's 2016 campaign was his promise to order torture and his belief in the efficacy of mass summary executions, so it should come as no surprise that he too would be generous to members of the military who have done such things. Those two presidents have more in common than just hatred of the press and massive abuse of power.

Trump has taken an unusual interest in the military justice system since he entered politics. One of his oft-repeated shticks on the trail was to mock Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier who had abandoned his post in Afghanistan and was captured and tortured for five years by the Taliban. Trump declared he should have been summarily executed for being a "dirty, rotten traitor" the way we would have done back in the good old days "when we were strong." He was very upset when Bergdahl was given a dishonorable discharge with no prison time, tweeting “the decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military."

By contrast, this month Trump overruled military leaders and cleared three members of the military who had been accused or convicted of war crimes, but whom the hard-right has championed as heroes. He ordered full pardons for former Army Lt. Clint Lorance, who was serving a 19-year sentence for murdering two civilians and Special Forces Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, who was facing trial for the murder of an unarmed Afghan. The most infamous of the three, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL, had been acquitted of murder but found guilty of a lesser offense in a dramatic trial this summer that got the president's special attention through his friend Pete Hegseth, a commentator on Fox News. Trump reversed Gallagher's demotion to allow him to retire with a full pension — even though it was his own men who turned him in for committing murder and other atrocities, at great risk to their own military standing.

In his pardon statement, the president said, "When our soldiers have to fight for our country, I want to give them the confidence to fight." By that, he meant he wanted to give them the confidence to commit war crimes and not worry that they will be held liable. Last month, Trump tweeted, “we train our boys to be killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill!” He believes in all-out war with no limitations. We don't have to imagine where that could lead. History is full of horrific examples.

There has been some discussion about the prosecutions of these men being faulty. That may very well be true. But let's not kid ourselves about Trump's motivations. The contrast between the way he reacted to the Bergdahl case and these cases illustrates that his concerns are not about due process or mercy. We knew he was a fan of war crimes, and now we know he likes war criminals too.

Fox News celebrated the releases of Lorance and Golsteyn, but the real star of this show is Gallagher, who has been all over TV, trash-talking everyone in the Navy hierarchy, including his former SEAL team and commanding officers. He's quite the performer and his appearance this weekend on Fox was one for the books:

The Navy had notified Gallagher that he was to face a review early next month to determine if he should retain membership in the elite SEAL force. Apparently, they do these reviews regularly and often remove members from that force for various infractions, none of which rise to the level of Gallagher's misconduct. His case is an obvious problem, not only because he is dangerously unhinged but because he can now act with impunity due to his close personal friend in the White House. That friend was watching Fox as they covered the story and immediately took to Twitter to countermand their plans, setting the president on a collision course with the Navy.

Over the past few days, there were conflicting stories in the press claiming that the review was off and then back on again, and that the secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, was threatening to quit and then not threatening to quit. On Sunday night it was announced that Spencer had been fired by Defense Secretary Mark Esper, allegedly for going directly to the White House to make a secret deal to allow the review but with a guarantee that Gallagher could keep his current rank and SEAL status. The Washington Post reported that this proposal was revealed to Esper by Trump himself:

Esper and Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, learned of Spencer's private offer to the White House when they spoke with President Trump on Friday ...

Spencer distributed a letter that indicates a different reason for his firing, which is far more likely since the president is an inveterate liar who would hardly be offended by such a suggestion in any case. In fact it's ridiculous, and reminiscent of Trump's equally absurd excuse that he fired James Comey for being unfair to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign.

I'm not sure why the media keeps saying this was a "resignation letter," since Spencer says he is "acknowledging his termination." Either way, and regardless of what came before, it's entirely likely that Trump watched that crazy Fox appearance by Gallagher in which he claimed the Navy secretary was being insubordinate to the president, and decided that Spencer was done.

The Washington Post's David Ignatius correctly observed that "the Gallagher case illustrates how an irascible, vengeful commander in chief is ready to override traditional limits to aid political allies in foreign policy, law enforcement and now military matters." It's hard to believe that any president in the middle of an impeachment investigation would do something this provocative but Trump may have decided that displaying his power over the military is just what the doctor ordered to prove his dominance and cow the opposition. Or maybe it's just the natural consequence of yet another institution trying to follow the rule of law and traditional norms of behavior, and butting up against a reckless president who has no respect or understanding of either.

Whatever the case, we've crossed another rubicon. Just as the Congress, the State Department and the Department of Justice have been polluted by Trumpism, so now has the U.S. military.

[Boats]

A Navy commander will have to clean up the SEAL mess
By: Mark Hertling - CNN Opionion Political Op-Eds - 11-25-19
RE: https://us.cnn.com/2019/11/25/opinio...ing/index.html

(CNN) -The legal and administrative case surrounding whether Navy SEAL Chief Eddie Gallagher will be allowed to retain his status as a SEAL took an interesting turn late Sunday, with the abrupt departure of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer from his position.

There are conflicting reports over the circumstances of Spencer's departure. Spencer, in a letter submitted to the President, wrote that he acknowledged his "termination," and that he could not in good conscience continue to serve when his views regarding ensuring discipline and standards in the Navy did not coincide with the President's view on the same. This appears to be directed at President Trump's approach toward Chief Eddie Gallagher.

According to other reports, however, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper asked for Spencer's resignation after "losing trust" and "confidence" in his Navy secretary upon discovering he had privately petitioned the White House to refrain from interfering in the board procedure that would determine if Gallagher could keep his SEAL Trident pin, in turn for a promise that the ruling would come out in favor of Gallagher.

No matter how the situation unfolded, it isn't Spencer or Esper who'll ultimately have to attend to the cleanup and consequences of the political deal-making over how to dispense discipline to Gallagher, who was convicted of posing for a photo with the corpse of an ISIS fighter but acquitted of other charges, which included shooting unarmed civilians and killing a captured teenage ISIS fighter with a knife. That task will be left to Rear Admiral Collin Green, who has "command authority" in this situation.

The military uses the term "command authority" to describe the power and responsibility allocated to those who are appointed to the critical position of "commander." The mission, moral, ethical and legal responsibilities of command are often defined in great detail in the various service and joint doctrinal manuals, and each branch of the military takes great pains to describe proper civil-military relationships and the kind of authority that flows directly from the President through the secretary of defense and the secretariats of each service, directly to subordinate commanders.

There are reasons for this attention to detail. Few outside the military understand that military commanders, in addition to being responsible for accomplishing their assigned missions, are also tasked with ensuring the care, training and certification of each individual assigned to their organization, and the morale and welfare of the organization writ large. Importantly, commanders are granted authority to take administrative and legal actions, such as recommending a court martial, in order to assist them in accomplishing their tasks and upholding their service standards.

Balancing competing demands -- accomplishing the mission, caring for soldiers, ensuring standards for the team, asserting legal or administration disciplinary action -- is one of the toughest aspects of command responsibility.

During my 38-year military career, I served a total of 13 years in command positions, and much of the rest of the time on staffs or in school to prepare me for the next level of command responsibility that would come my way. Each command role I held -- ranging from overseeing organizations as small as a 100-soldier tank company to ones as large as a 60,000-strong Field Army (US Army, Europe) -- had different and complex missions, unique leadership tasks, an inherent requirement for training and certifying individuals and teams, and expanding legal support.

My years of experience taught me that there are no easy decisions, especially when it comes to disciplining soldiers. All commanders understand they can't be "liked" by everyone when trying to build a unit culture that is effective in accomplishing the mission, but the welfare and morale of the entire command is always at the forefront.

Two-star Rear Admiral Collin Green, a Naval Academy graduate who has been serving in Special Operations since 1988, is the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, and leads 9,200 sailors across eight Navy SEAL teams, three special boat teams, and various support organizations. His command has the tough mission of "providing leadership, doctrinal guidance, resources and oversight" to an organization that is considered by many the best small-unit fighting force in the world. But that command has had some challenges as of late.

In August 2019, after conducting a command-wide review of the ethics and culture of an organization that had suffered myriad embarrassing incidents of illegal, immoral and unethical behavior -- including Gallagher's alleged offenses -- RADM Green published an "all-hands" guidance that succinctly outlined what he would do to get that force back on track. He had the support and trust of his superiors in doing so, and many in the Navy knew Green had been placed in the command to do just that.

Green knows it is his duty to obey the lawful orders of his superiors, and that includes the President, who has called for Gallagher to retain his Trident pin, symbolizing membership in the SEALs. Green knows the President has the authority to pardon, and to issue legal orders, and that he has the responsibility to obey those orders.

But, he also knows there will be repercussions within the command, and within the Special Operations community, if someone who violated the standards and the culture of the military and his force is treated as "special."

He also has to live with the consequences within his organization of the President's orders. He will have to address this situation with other SEALs -- some who will surely question this action -- as he tries to reestablish the right culture in the force.

With President Trump intervening in both the legal case by reversing the demotion of Chief Gallagher and the administrative procedure of determining who continues to serve in the elite SEAL organization, RADM Green will have to address how others in his organization that might now believe they would be immune from the published standards and the command guidance that Green has put in place (there have been more than 150 other SEAL's who have had their Trident pulled due to misconduct or disciplinary infractions since 2011).

And he will be the one who has to maintain the trust of the American people -- and especially other members of the special operations community -- that he is training and certifying SEAL's appropriately.

As a first-year cadet at West Point, we were required to memorize Brevet Major William Worth's "Battalion Orders," a little known summary about "doing your duty" from an officer serving in the post-Civil War Army out West. These words were a reminder to all of us as to how best address soldiers subject to discipline issues within the ranks:

"An officer on duty knows no one. To be partial is to dishonor both himself and the object of his ill-advised favor. What will be thought of him who exacts of his friends that which disgraces him? Look at him who winks at and overlooks offenses in one, which he causes to be punished in another, and contrast him with the inflexible soldier who does his duty faithfully, notwithstanding it occasionally wars with his private feelings. The conduct of one will be venerated and emulated, the other detested as a satire upon soldiership and honor."

I hope the Naval Academy also requires the midshipmen to memorize this writing, and I'm pretty sure RADM Green is familiar with these words. Given the recent turn of events in this case, I believe Collin Green understands this quote, but perhaps those occupying the civilian positions in government may want to take note.