The foreign policy of a Donald Trump presidency began to take shape last weekend in Boca, where "The Donald" addressed a massed throng of Tea Partiers celebrating (celebrating?) tax day. Here's a slide show from the Tax Day Rally.
The foreign policy portions of Trump's address were not the ones to make headlines, at least initially. No idea why. It took a fabulous column by Frank Cerabino -- a real barnburner, in which you can hear the blood vessels popping in Cerabino's stately forehead -- to make it an issue. And holy Jesus! Donald Trump is horrible!
Exegesis is probably beside the point in a situation like this, so let's just look at the quotes:
Of Iraq, Trump said:
Exegesis is probably beside the point in a situation like this, so let's just look at the quotes:
Of Iraq, Trump said:
For thousands of years when you won a war, you keep the nation. You keep the land. You keep the oil... We take the oil. It's estimated they have $15 trillion worth. We give some to Iraq. We pay back ourselves, plus, plus, plus.
Of Libya, Trump said:
I'm only interested in Libya if we get the oil. If we're not going to get the oil, no interest whatsoever.
Of a new diplomatic corps, Trump said:
In New York, I know all the great business people, and they're vicious, ruthless, horrible human beings. And I want them negotiating for me... You know, a diplomat is a person who studies hard. And you know what they learn? How to be nice to people. I don't want nice people.
Cerabino can barely contain his disgust. He derides the crowd's cheering of Trump's calls to appropriate Iraq's oil, "as if Iraq, a nation invaded under a false pretense and occupied for the past eight years at a tremendous human cost, is an American 'victory' that entitles us to that sovereign country's most valuable resource."
"... it's no wonder Trump mocked Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize," writes Cerabino. "Trump's foreign policy would be more worthy of the international criminal court in the Hague."
Righteo! Except we're in America, Frank, and the Hague doesn't matter here. Maistre said that every country gets the government it deserves, but when you're talking about us citizens of the U.S.A., every other country gets stuck with our government too. The fate of the world is in the hands of highly motivated illiterates whose preferred presidential candidate is a reality-TV star sufficiently disinterested in America to screw with her elections in order to drive up his own ratings. Keep howling into the void, though. It's a lovely noise, and we'd be poorer without it.
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