Trump's ignorance has created an international crisis

[Zorro]

During the early morning hours of Sept. 15, 1950, Gen. Douglas MacArthur would lead U.S. troops on the most audacious amphibious landing in U.S. history. The assault at Inchon in South Korea was viewed beforehand as being so reckless that the Joint Chiefs of Staff dismissed the proposal out of hand. “We drew up a list of every conceivable and natural handicap,” one naval officer remembered later, “and Inchon had them all.”

To succeed, U.S. troops would have to navigate their way through a tortuous, heavily fortified channel before facing some of the most deadly tides in Asia. With U.S. soldiers pinned down on the southeastern tip of the Korean Peninsula, failure at Inchon could have led to total defeat in Korea.

MacArthur’s arrogant belief in his own infallibility allowed him to see opportunity where others saw only peril. But the legendary general brought more than a bloated ego to battle; he also carried with him a mastery of military history and, with it, the knowledge of Japan’s successful 1904 landing at the same treacherous port. That insight served MacArthur well and reversed, almost overnight, the grim trajectory of America’s so-called Forgotten War.

President Trump’s decision last week to assassinate the most powerful military figure in the Middle East was, likewise, audacious. But unlike MacArthur at Inchon, Trump likely did not grasp the gravity of his decision. How could he? The former reality-TV star has long been ignorant of world history and current events. During a 2015 interview, then-candidate Trump did not even know who Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani was. After prompting, Trump mistakenly identified the Iranian general as a Kurdish commander. Once Trump’s ignorance was revealed, the frustrated candidate weakly attacked the interviewer for “throwing around names of people and where they live.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-has-all-of-macarthurs-arrogance--but-none-of-his-strategic-wisdom/2020/01/06/f883370a-30cb-11ea-9313-6cba89b1b9fb_story.html

[duforsure]

1. Countries around the world

Need to let republicans in Congress know he has to go asap now, or they will no longer consider us an ally, and work to find and release information against him and them if they don't.

[RockRaven]

2. Note that to Trump, people's "names" and "where they live" are totally irrelevant details.

People's literal identity -- who they are, what role they play in the world, etc -- is something he doesn't need to know, and something people should not question him about knowing.

On that basis, it mattered not one iota to him who he killed, because he does not care who is who. He is only constrained by the fact that his ignorance and laziness necessitate choosing from the options presented to him, but beyond that he just as easily could have killed almost any other person on earth -- including YOU --because they're all the same to him.

This means he killed just to kill -- in other words, indiscriminately -- and everything else is post hoc rationalization of satiating his murderous intent. That the military offered up assassinating this guy as an option is somewhat a smokescreen, because Trump was already on record that he didn't care who this guy was or what he did. But give Trump a chance to kill and he'll take it, even when he has no idea what it all means.

There is no parody possible which would show a POTUS to be less qualified or more careless than Trump is in reality.

[Thomas Hurt]

3. Characteristics of Fascism 3

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake. Action being
beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is
a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical
attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism,
from Goering's alleged statement ("When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun&quot to the
frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs,"
"universities are a nest of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in
attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional
values.

Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco (1995)

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Good line of questioning for the next presidential vetting.

The Title of this Section: Potential Ignorance Gaps in the Candidate's Knowledge Base that can result in an International Incident.