The Trump presidency is a case study in bad and grossly incompetent leadership. The man is simply temperamentally and mentally incompetent to lead a great and powerful nation like America. All he is telling America is to trust him, but how do you trust a weather cock and a pathological liar who can change his mind at any time and reverse himself without any acknowledgment or apology?
When he fails to deliver on any promise, he quickly declares victory and moves on because he creates his own reality and illusion and that is the way he has operated for much of his adult life as a 5-year-old baby trapped in a 71-year-old’s body.
That you have power like a lion does not mean that you can use that power like a lion does in the wild. A good leader does not start his tenure by trashing and totally discrediting all of his predecessors in office, only to go back to what they did without any feeling of shame or remorse. You would have thought he was going to summarily withdraw American troops from Afghanistan with immediate effect given all of his condemnations of American policy in that country for 16 years. Trump is like a dog going back to his vomit and doing so with shameless levity.
With more than 6 months in the most powerful seat of power in the world, he is still behaving like the hoodlum and the unrepentant and diabolical businessman and risk taker that he was before he walked his way to the presidency.
Trump is so terribly troubled by guilty conscience, if he has any, that he cannot get himself out of the siege mentality he put himself into by pulling off one of the worst upset victories in American election history by subterfuge. He sees every opposition to his victory as a plan to delegitimize his presidency and as fake news, which was the major plank of his victory in that election. Can you imagine Theresa May or Queen Elizabeth describing BBC, the mother of all television stations in the world, as fake news!
Donald Trump has done just that by tarnishing the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN, the most trusted names in news, as ‘fake news’ just because they totally disagree with his view of the world. Thank God, Americans do not sleep with their heads turned in the same direction. There is always room for a second opinion, but Donald Trump is trying to silence or obliterate that room, which is why the silent majority is vehemently opposed to him and his perverted ideology.
He behaves as if he is still actively at war with Barack Obama, the first black president, and Hillary Clinton who was robbed of her victory by a devious Trump working hand in hand with Moscow to make Trump president by all means, because Russian President Vladimir Putin saw Trump as the weakest link in the American chain and the best possible way to reverse some of the traumatic losses Russia has endured in her endless rivalry and competition with America.
Donald Trump began his presidency by promising America the moon, but has so far woefully failed to deliver on that promise, but the guy would bold-faced tell anyone who cares to listen he is the greatest achiever and problem solver in the world who can make an omelet without breaking an egg. If you believe him, you will believe anything.
He started his Presidency by taking sides with Russia against NATO and the European Union. He started by taking sides with the Christians to vilify and blackmail the Islamic World. When that campaign blew up in his face, he shifted his emphasis to divide and rule by declaring war he can never win with Islam and by siding with the Wahhabi sect of Islam led by Saudi Arabia against the Shiites led by Iran. It is a rivalry that has existed for centuries but Donald Trump in his delusion thinks that taking sides is going to advance his own agenda to change the pillars and the fundamentals that have held the World together under all of his predecessors before Donald Trump showed up his ugly face.
He had to demonize North Korea for aspiring to become a nuclear nation as a leveler to guarantee her own security and sovereignty as a nation. His policy is to incite China, Japan and South Korea against North Korea to perpetually keep the Korean Peninsula in a state of war to make way for the American domination of the Pacific. In doing so he completely forgets that China as the dominant world power in that region has her own economic self-interest which does not want to see a crippled and defeated North Korea which would give America a clear edge in the Korean Peninsula and thereby constitute a bigger threat to China down the road if not immediately.
A crippled North Korea could lead to the influx of refugees to China at an alarming rate that could be very detrimental to China and her progress as the next super power in that region and in the whole world whether America likes it or not. Trump calls himself a uniter but he is truly a divider per excellence and a great threat to world peace, all things considered.
His new policy in the South Asian region with some emphasis on Afghanistan is like pouring gasoline to that region and looking for a match to ignite an inferno by inciting India, a nuclear power against Pakistan, another nuclear nation. The two nations have been rivals for as long as any of us can remember. By trying to lure India into the Afghanistan quagmire, Donald Trump is playing with fire. Afghanistan is not called the “grave of the imperialist” for nothing. Russia with all her power tried to subjugate Afghanistan but it had to beat a retreat with ignominy.
The most troubling aspect of the Trump’s so-called agenda in Afghanistan is his abrasive declaration that Trump is there to win. There is no way in the world that Trump can win the way he has described. He gleefully declares he is not there for nation building but how do you help Afghanistan mend and heal without some element of nation-building strategy which would be devoted to do four goals as listed below:
· Realistically reduce the level of violence in that country
· Regain all of the territories already lost to the Taliban
· Build a workable constitutional Government and the rule of Law
· Cooperatively work with Pakistan thru whose territory all of the help coming from the rest of the world must pass thru to reach Afghanistan.
Much of what Donald Trump is saying is easier said than done. I could not care less what Paul Ryan and Lindsey Graham say about the so-called Trump Doctrine which he says is condition-based. Much of what he is saying is contradictory in practical terms, and would prove totally unworkable when the rubber meets the road. Trump is setting no time frame for American disengagement and no fixed number of troops in a country that is war-weary and in a country that quickly turns against those in authority when the coffins start returning home draped with American flags.
Americans like most humans want to go to Heaven but they hate to die but there is no way you get to Heaven without first tasting Death. If the going gets tough, America would simply beat a retreat pretty much like the Russians did when they faced a similar cul-de-sac in Afghanistan or when America faced a similar conundrum in Vietnam. Donald Trump told a bogus lie when he says Americans have never lost a war. They sure did in Vietnam and even arguably so in Japan which they had to rebuild after destroying the country. The same thing could presumably happen to North and South Korea if America succeeds in destroying it like they did to Germany after the Second World War. Those who fail to learn from History are doomed to repeat it. The so-called Trump Doctrine is a time bomb waiting to explode. It is not a strategic or realistic doctrine as far as I am concerned. It is a doctrine based on quicksand.
The good part is that Donald Trump owns the Afghanistan policy right now and he would have no one but himself to blame if things turn ugly as they sure will. The scary part is that Donald Trump always finds some way to blame others but himself when things get ugly. A good leader takes responsibility for his actions to regroup and re-strategize. “Mad Dog” General Mathis, his Defense Secretary and brain box dodged the bullet when he tactically forced his boss to own up to the Afghanistan policy and to make it impossible for Donald Trump to put all the blame on the Generals if things don’t work out as envisaged.
My hypothesis is that Trump is not that kind of a trustworthy leader. He is all beef but no cattle. He remains a pathological liar so temperamentally unqualified to lead the best experiment in human history and the most powerful nation on Earth.
I rest my case.
