Last week Donald J Trump declared that as president of the United States, he believes he has the “right to do anything I want to do.” The assertion explains a lot in terms of how an unhinged Trump regards himself and his office and it should serve as a warning that more ego driven inanity is yet to come. Trump’s most heinous crimes are related to foreign policy, most particularly his complicity in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians as well as his continued arming of Ukraine to prolong the slaughter in its war with Russia. It now appears that Trump might be arranging to arm Kiev with US manufactured “extended range” cruise missiles capable of hitting targets deep inside Russia, to include both Moscow and St Petersburg. In a typically bizarre outburst Trump has opined that Ukraine is losing because it has been on “defense” and needs to shift its thinking of taking the “offensive” which the US will apparently assist. And Trump continues to throw threats about sanctions and military action at virtually everyone in the world that he encounters. Can World War 3 be creeping ever nearer, replete with nuclear weapons on the front line?
And then there is stink of unprovoked aggression elsewhere in world, to include the bombing of Iran and the recent dispatch of three warships toward Venezuela. Has either country threatened the United States? And relations with India and Brazil have also taken a dive due to pressure and insults from Washington. And there is always arch competitor China waiting in the wings for a shift of US military might in its direction while even little Greenland is not safe as Trump has stated that he is seeking to acquire it. Last week the Danish Foreign Ministry called in the US Ambassador to complain about Washington’s efforts to destabilize Greenland, which is a Danish possession. How utterly appropriate is it that Trump wants to rename the Defense Department, calling it by its old name the War Department!
Given Trump’s track record, astonishingly, while speaking at a Cabinet meeting, Trump’s special envoy and business associate Steve Witkoff actually said to the president and those assembled with regards to the upcoming Nobel Peace Prize: “There’s only one thing I wish for—that the Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since this Nobel award was ever talked about. Your success is game-changing out in the world today, and I hope everybody wakes up and realizes that.”
Good point Steve, so why stop there in your flattering of a lunkhead? Why not expand that accolade for the Trump War Department to go along with the already suggested renaming of the Kennedy Center in his honor as well as Dulles International Airport. And the Smithsonian is under the gun from Trump as it has displays on slavery that he disapproves of. Why not rename that too? President Trump does not seem aware that these are all public institutions and he has no right to slap his name on them to enhance his own ego. And look at the White House, where the Oval Office has been gilded, reflecting Trump’s bad and extremely tacky taste, turning it into a version of Mar-a-Lago. The portraits of preceding presidents have even been removed from sight to be replaced by even worse bad taste painting showing a warlike and aggressive President Trump in all his glory. Federal buildings in Washington also now feature huge banners hanging from their facades featuring Donald Trump’s scowling face. And he has further messed with the so-called People’s House, where he is a temporary resident at best, by destroying the Rose Garden and building a $300 million dollar ballroom monstrosity that will dwarf the size of the original historic White House building.
To be sure, Donald J Trump is an ignorant monster who will do his best to shred the US Constitution and destroy our republic before he is finished. Yes, he can do anything, including sending federal troops to occupy our cities on the pretext that there is too much crime going on.
There is only one exception to the general impression that Trump is running around Washington and the country, when he is not playing golf with his business buddies, with a chain saw prepared to tear down and cut to pieces everything in his path. That exception is how he treats Israel, deferring constantly to the interests of the Jewish state and to the domestic exhortations by the Israel Lobby. The flow of US supplies weapons to Israel has been constant while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu carries out a genocide that seeks nothing less than the extermination of the Palestinian people. Last week, Israel slaughtered five international journalists and fifteen medical workers in a phased attack on a hospital that was one of the few health facilities remaining in Gaza. Trump and his choice ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee did nothing in response. Huckabee in fact has made it clear that he believes that Jews are “Chosen by God” and are free to do whatever they want to the helpless Palestinians. Once upon a time, US Ambassadors were chosen based on their ability to represent American interests. No longer under Donald Trump!
Another recent ambassador tale linked personally to Trump comes from France, where Trump appointed his son-in-law’s father Charles Kushner to the ambassadorial post in Paris. Kushner is a convicted felon with only one thing in his favor, which is, of course, that he is inevitably Jewish and an Israel Firster in his political orientation. It is clear that Kushner shouldn’t even have this job to begin with—he spent two years in jail for tax evasion, illegal campaign donations to the Democratic Party, and witness tampering. He even attacked his own sister—who was a cooperating witness against him—by paying a sex worker to seduce her husband and film it for blackmail material. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie investigated Charles Kushner as district attorney and described the case as “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he’d ever encountered. Trump nevertheless pardoned Kushner in 2020 during his first term.
Last week Ambassador Kushner outraged the French government by publicly denouncing what he chose to describe as the surging antisemitism in France. Kushner published “A Letter to Emmanuel Macron” in The Wall Street Journal on August 24th. It included “I write out of deep concern over the dramatic rise of antisemitism in France and the lack of sufficient action by your government to confront it. Antisemitism has long scarred French life, but it has exploded since Hamas’s barbaric assault on Oct. 7, 2023. Since then, pro-Hamas extremists and radical activists have waged a campaign of intimidation and violence across Europe. In France, not a day passes without Jews assaulted in the street, synagogues or schools defaced, or Jewish-owned businesses vandalized. In today’s world, anti-Zionism is antisemitism—plain and simple. President Trump and I have Jewish children and share Jewish grandchildren. I know how he feels about antisemitism, as do all Americans…. I urge you to act decisively: enforce hate-crime laws without exception; ensure the safety of Jewish schools, synagogues and businesses, prosecute offenders to the fullest extent; and abandon steps that give legitimacy to Hamas and its allies.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, Kushner’s letter appeared a few days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote something similar to Macron, condemning him for declaring that France would recognize Palestinian statehood. France refuted Kushner’s allegations immediately and summoned him to appear before Macron and the French foreign ministry, but he did not show up and refused to apologize. “France firmly refutes these latest allegations,” the foreign ministry had stated adding that “The Ambassador’s allegations are unacceptable.”
Donald Trump and the US Senate, which approved the appointment of Kushner, might ask themselves why is the American ambassador to France more focused on lobbying on Israel’s behalf than protecting the interests of the United States? It is a question that needs to be asked regarding both Kushner and Huckabee in Israel.
A final story hopefully will make many readers upset over new evidence of just how deep the Israeli hooks are into the US government and all that pertains to it. Several American soldiers have gone on record reporting how they have been harassed and punished for sharing their views with friends criticizing the hideous slaughter of the Palestinians taking place in Gaza. It has been observed that First Amendment free speech only exists in the United States as long as one is not criticizing Israel, but it is disgusting to see that soldiers who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution are themselves being denied fundamental civil rights.
One of the soldiers, Jonathan Estridge, an army sergeant with twenty years of service, was summoned into an officer’s room and advised that he was being investigated as a threat to national security because he had posted on social media criticism of Israel. As he observed, he was being denied the right to criticize a foreign nation’s policies solely because that nation happens to be Israel. A second soldier who has been subjected to punishment was a Green Beret who is part of the elite Special Forces parachute team. He described how he was phone called by an officer and told that he could no longer be a member of the group because he had spoken out against Israel. He was interviewed regarding his claims by Greyzone journalist Max Blumenthal.
And if that is not enough to shock you, how about the latest news from a Federal Judge Trevor McFadden here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. McFadden, who presides over a Washington DC court, has ruled that burning a US flag is free speech but burning an Israeli flag is “racial discrimination” which is a “hate crime.” The judge declared that the Star of David on Israel’s flag represents a “racial heritage,” elevating a political symbol of a foreign state into a sacred racial identity — putting it on the same level as America’s civil rights laws. The decision means that what would normally be political protest against Israel can now be branded as racism in the United States and made illegal, free speech and the First Amendment be damned. Ironically, Donald Trump has just signed an executive order making conviction for US flag burning a crime that automatically mandates one year in prison. It seems the various components of the US government just cannot agree on anything beyond protecting Israel and its estimable Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.