by William Skink

The politics of tragedy are moving quick as partisans seek to take advantage of the carnage to attack their political opponents. At Intelligent Discontent, Pete Talbot intertwines comments from the great boogeyman, Donald Trump, with a statement from Ryan Zinke in a post titled Zinke and Trump and AR-15’s. Here is the quote from Trump that Talbot uses:

When it comes to Radical Islamic terrorism, ignorance is not bliss – it’s deadly. We need to tell the truth, also, about how Radical Islam is coming to our shores. We are importing Radical Islamic Terrorism into the West through a failed immigration system — and through an intelligence community held back by our president … I don’t want them in our country.

The problem with calling out Trump when he erroneously conflates a failed immigration system (with which Obama has deported more illegals than even Bush) with Radical Islamic Terrorism is that, with Hillary as their nominee, Democrats have zero credibility. And that will make attacks like this one from Trump quite effective:

Donald Trump on Monday demanded that Hillary Clinton return $25 million the Clinton Foundation reportedly received from Saudi Arabia.

“Crooked Hillary says we must call on Saudi Arabia and other countries to stop funding hate,” Trump posted to Facebook. “I am calling on her to immediately return the $25 million plus she got from them for the Clinton Foundation!”
…
“Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays,” Trump wrote in a separate post. “Hillary must return all money from such countries!”

Democrats can mock and ridicule and shame Trump supporters till they turn blue in the face, trying desperately to smear local Republicans with his words, but because Democrats don’t have the courage to oppose “Crooked Hillary”, too many of Trumps attacks will be both accurate, and effective.

Lost in all this is the actual truth behind America’s special relationship with Saudi Arabia. To get that truth a great place to start is Bitter Lake, a fascinating documentary by Adam Curtis.

America has been entangled with the Saudis for over half a century, especially the the Bush family. And that relationship will continue to thrive under the coming Clinton regime.

Pete Talbot concluded his post by linking to a little pep-talk from a former CIA officer suggesting it’s critical to listen to one’s enemies. I know, I puked in my mouth a little bit to. From the link:

“If I learned one lesson from my time with the CIA, it is this: Everybody believes they are the good guy,” Fox said in a video shared by AJ+ on Facebook Monday.

When it comes to the Islamic State militant group, Fox says the public conversation is “more oversimplified than ever” and encompasses stories “manufactured” by a small minority of powerful people who remain in power by “convincing the rest of us to keep killing each other.”

She believes understanding comes with listening.

“The only real way to disarm your enemy is to listen to them,” she said. “If you hear them out, if you’re brave enough to really listen to their story, you can see that more often than not you might’ve made some of the same choices if you’d lived their life instead of yours.”

I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but honestly, fuck the CIA. If one were to read just Russ Baker’s Family of Secrets and David Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard one would understand that much of the global carnage that has killed millions and put us on the precipice of another world war stems from what the CIA has done under monsters like Allen Dulles and George Bush, Sr.

Because too many Americans–Democrats and Republicans alike–are blinded by American Exceptionalism and ignorant of this dark history, that small minority of powerful people will continue manufacturing oversimplified stories (read: propaganda) to keep the rest of us killing each other.

And to show how little difference there truly is between The Donald and Killery, they’re both getting a big hard on for bombing ISIS:

HILLARY CLINTON AND Donald Trump reacted to the Orlando shooting with evidence that they can agree on at least one thing: bombing people. Both candidates called for an escalation of the U.S.-led bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

“We have generals that feel we can win this thing so fast and so strong, but we have to be furious for a short period of time, and we’re not doing it!” Trump complained on Fox & Friends Monday morning.

“Are you saying hit Raqqa right now?” asked host Brian Kilmeade. “We’re going to have to start thinking about something,” Trump replied.

Along the same lines, Clinton suggested during her post-Orlando speech Monday afternoon that “We should keep the pressure on ramping up the air campaign.”