Can Trump
Deliver?
By Paul Craig
Roberts
January 31,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- My view of Trump is conditional and awaits evidence. I
am encouraged by the One Percent’s opposition to Trump,
or we have just experienced the greatest ruse in
history. Indeed, a pointless ruse, as the Establishment
had its candidate in Hillary.
Trump’s
executive orders don’t support the argument that he is
acting for the One Percent. Trump nixed the global
corporations’ beloved TPP. He is trying to close down
the mass immigration that the corporations use to
suppress domestic wage rates. He is committed to
normalizing relations with Russia, much to the
discomfort of the neoconservatives and the
military/security complex.
As for Mnuchin,
he left Goldlman Sachs in 2002, the same year that Nomi
Prins left Goldman Sachs. That was 14 years ago. We know
for a fact that Nomi, a former managing director, is not
an operative for Goldman Sachs, so my position is to
wait and see what Mnuchin does before we declare him to
be a Goldman Sachs agent. For a different view see Nomi
Prins in the Guest section of this website.
Think about it
this way: If Trump is sincere, and the Ruling
Establishment seems to think that he is, about cleaning
out a nest of outlaws, what better help could he have
than one of the outlaws?
Change from the
top requires tough mean people. Anyone else would be run
over.
My position is
to wait for the evidence. For years my readers have said
that they need some hope. Trump’s attack on the Ruling
Establishment gives them hope. Why take this hope away
prematurely?
From the
beginning my concern has been that Trump has no
experience in the economic and foreign policy debates.
He doesn’t know the issues or the players. But he knows
two big things: the middle and working class are
hurting, and conflict with Russia could result in
thermo-nuclear war. My view is support him on these two
most important of all issues.
My worry is
that Trump has already gone off course on better
relations with Russia. Trump had the sense to speak
during his first week in office with Russia’s President
Putin. Reports are that the one hour conversation went
well. However, the report from the Trump administration
is that the sanctions were not mentioned and that Trump
is considering connecting the removal of the sanctions
with a reduction in nuclear arms.
Clearly, Trump
needs more astute advisors than he has. Confronted with
28 NATO countries, Russia, the population of which is
dwarfed by this collection of countries and armaments,
relies on its nuclear weapons to deal with the potential
threat. During the Obama regime, the threat to Russia
must have seemed to be very real, as the demonization of
Russia and its President were based entirely on obvious
lies and reached levels of provocation seldom seem in
history without leading to war.
If I had been
Trump’s advisor, I would have insisted that the first
thing that Trump tell Putin is that “the sanctions are
history and I apologize for the insult based on the
fabricated lies of my predecessor.”
This is what
was needed. Once trust is restored, then the matter of
reduction in nuclear arms can be raised without making
the Russian government concerned that the duplicitous
Americans are setting them up for attack.
If you were a
Russian, if you were a member of the Russian government,
if you were president of Russia, if you had experienced
an American coup that overthrew the elected government
of Ukraine, a province that was part of Russia for 300
years, if you had experienced an American inspired
attack on the Russian residents and Russian
peace-keeping forces in South Ossetia, long a province
of Russia, that caused the intervention of the Russian
armed forces, an intervention blamed by the US
government on “Russian aggression,” would you trust the
United States? Only if you are a complete fool.
Trump needs
advisors sufficiently knowledgable to tell him about the
situation that he has committed himself to improve.
Who are these
advisors?
Consider now
the “Muslim ban.” Muslim refugees are a problem for the
US and Europe because the US and its NATO puppets have
bombed a large number of Muslim countries entirely on
the basis of lies. One might have thought, that with all
its experience of war, the Western countries would be
aware that wars produce refugees. But apparently not.
The easiest and
most certain way to deal with the problem of Muslim
refugees is to stop the bombings that produce refugees.
Apparently,
this solution is beyond the grasp of the Trump
administration. According to news reports—and
considering the presstitute status of news organizations
one never knows—the new Trump administration authorized
a SEAL team attack in Yemen that murdered an 8 year old
girl along with a number of women and children on
January 29. As far as I can ascertain, no women are
marching in opposition to the Trump administration’s
continuation of the policy of the Bush/Obama regime of
murdering Muslims in the name of a hoax “war on terror.”
Trump’s
Archilles’ heel is his belief in the “Muslim threat,” an
orchestrated threat cooked up by the neoconservatives.
If Trump wants to defeat ISIS, all he needs to do is to
stop the US government and CIA from funding ISIS. ISIS
is Washington’s creation, used to overthrow Libya and
sent to Syria to overthrow Assad until the Russians
intervened.
Someone needs
to have enough geo-political knowledge to tell Trump
that he cannot simultaneously mend relations with Russia
and revive the conflict with Iran and threaten China.
As I feared,
Trump has no idea who to appoint in order to achieve his
agenda.
Now let’s turn
to Trump’s critics: Identity Politics, that is, the
explanation of Western history as the victimization of
everyone by white heterosexual males. The attacks on
Trump lack legitimacy, and everyone except those
immersed in victim politics sees that. The same people
who march against Trump and condemn his Muslim ban do
not march against the wars that produce the Muslim
refugees and immigrants. Trump’s opponents are in the
illogical position of supporting the “war on terror” and
the 9/11 story on which the war is based, but objecting
to the ban on entry of “Muslim terrorists” into the US.
If Muslims are terrorists as the Bush/Obama narative
claims, it is totally irresponsible to admit into the US
Muslims harmed by Washington’s attacks on their
countries who might have thoughts of revenge.
The
liberal/progressive/left long ago abandoned the working
class. The consequence of their illegitimate complaints
will be to lump all dissent into their illegitimate
category. Thus truth-tellers along with fiction-tellers
will be shut down. The public will not be able to
differenate between the orchestrated attacks on Trump
and those telling the truth.
My conclusion
is that the stupidity of Identity Politics by
discrediting dissent will empower the worst elements of
the right-wing. If Goldman Sachs is also operating
against us, as Nomi Prins believes, then the US is
history.
Dr. Paul
Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the
Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week,
Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He
has had many university appointments. His internet
columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts'
latest books are
The Failure of
Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the
West,
How America Was
Lost,
and
The
Neoconservative Threat to World Order.
The views
expressed in this article are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of
Information Clearing House. |