Stupidity as National Security Risk
By Finian Cunningham
June 21, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" -
The White House wants to ban John Bolton’s
memoir book, by claiming that revealing
conversations with President Trump poses a
“national security risk” to the United States.
The implication is that the former national
security advisor may divulge classified
information which foreign enemies can exploit to
penetrate US defenses.
Legal experts are arguing over whether Bolton
is breaking the law in making classified details
public. Trump is maintaining that all his
conversations with White House staff are
classified. The Department of Justice is seeking
a restraining order on the book’s release, but
it may be too late. Various news outlets have
already published leaked sections of the memoir.
However, from reported excerpts of the text – which
is due to be published next week if the Trump
administration fails to get it banned – the greatest
risk to US national security is not some arcane,
sensitive information to do with defenses or grand
misdemeanors. It is rather a more prosaic problem: the
open knowledge that the president of the United States –
supposedly the world’s most powerful office – is an
utter buffoon.
How is a nation that presumes to be the leader of the
world supposed to be taken seriously when
it is run by an imbecile surrounded by flunkies?
|
Are You Tired Of
The Lies And
Non-Stop Propaganda?
|
So far as we can glean from Bolton’s memoirs,
President Trump hasn’t a clue about matters of basic
geography or politics. He thinks Finland is part of
Russia, doesn’t know that Britain possesses nuclear
weapons, and seems to believe that Venezuela belongs to
US territory in which a military invasion would be
“cool”.
Trump’s vanity and venality knows no bounds,
according to his former aide, whom the president sacked
in September 2019 after more than a year in the post of
national security advisor. Bolton claims Trump begged
China’s President Xi Jinping last year to help get him
re-elected in the forthcoming US elections. When Xi
declined that intrigue, Trump has presumably responded
with pique by ratcheting up the trade war and
vilification of China over the Covid-19 pandemic. If a
Cold War can be pursued on the basis of petty personal
huff, then the US and the world is surely in grave
danger.
Can you imagine if such charges were made against
Russian President Putin by a former advisor? Or China’s
Xi? There would be Western media howls of horror at the
global security implications.
But Bolton doesn’t come out of this debacle with any
kudos either.
There is a distinct smell of rat in the air. He declined
to bring his allegations of impropriety against Trump to
congressional hearings during the impeachment trial
against the president at the end of last year.
Apparently, Bolton had his greedy eyes on securing the
publishing deal for his memoir which reputedly earned
him $2 million by keeping his dirty laundry under wraps.
That hardly recommends his “tell all” claims as having
integrity or principled motive.
Maybe Trump is right in dismissing the former aide as
a “disgruntled boring fool”. No doubt, too, ardent Trump
supporters will not be dissuaded from voting for him in
November following Bolton’s perceived “treachery”.
As a chief propagandist in the former GW Bush
administration who made the fraudulent case for a
genocidal war on Iraq, as well as wanting to bomb Iran
for regime change and countless other aggressions,
Bolton has a credibility problem, to say the least. It
is also known that he was kicked out of his advisor post
by Trump who accused him of “never seeing a war he
didn’t like.” So, it’s a fair bet to assume that John
“Mad Hatter” Bolton, has an axe or two to grind, and
therefore what he says about his former boss in the
White House should be taken with an outsized pinch of
salt.
The unseemly squabbling is a slur on the office of
the American presidency. A former advisor on matters of
global importance and international security is diving
into the sewer for a big pay day.
While the president mocks his former security aide –
a position with one of the supposedly most onerous
responsibilities – as a cranky old fool. No one comes
out of this spat good, least of all the image of the
United States.
Nonetheless, from what we know of Trump’s previous
gaffes there seems to be a semblance of truth in
Bolton’s depictions. After all, this is the president
who thinks injecting household
bleach could be a cure for COVID-19 and who engages
in unhinged conspiracy theories. His insatiable, fragile
egomania makes him flip with uncontrollable anger at
every perceived slight.
The greatest national security for the United States
is the knowledge that the guy with a finger on the
nuclear button is a total buffoon.
How is a country to govern its own people when the
highest office is a clown show? That is the real danger
of Bolton’s book.
Finian Cunningham has written
extensively on international affairs, with articles
published in several languages. He is a Master’s
graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a
scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry,
Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in
newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and
songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor
and writer in major news media organisations, including
The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. - -
"Source"
-
Post your comment below
