Living with Trump: Watch His Hands, Use the Mute Button

The choice is between a Constitution that means what it says, and a dictatorship of regulatory agencies and rogue courts staffed with progressive "experts." If you favor a Constitution that means what it says, then you have to try to keep Trump from running off the rails, because he's the only chance we have. I'm not saying you have to like him. I am saying you have to avoid taking cheap shots, like a lot of this article. There is no possible decent alternative to Trump. The only real alternative is a resurgent Democrat controlled process moving towards a total Deep State takeover that completely ignores the Constitution.

The reason that progressives reacted so violently to Trump's election is that they were so close to putting the Constitution into the trash can of history. The Constitution currently means whatever the Supreme Court says it means 5 to 4. Supreme Court cases are like NFL games. On any given day, any interpretation is possible. We have almost totally lost the rule of law. That's how close we came.

The key to living with Trump is watching his hands and using the mute button. Trump has immediately approved every application for a natural gas export terminal. Trump has opened almost all federal land, including the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, to drilling. Trump withdrew from the Paris Global Warming Pact. Trump stopped the war on coal. Thanks to fracking, the US is now the number 2 oil producer in the world, second to Saudi Arabia. The flood of exported oil and natural gas from the US threatens to bankrupt Russia and Iran. Trump's energy policy is the number one reason that Putin rationally should have preferred Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump.

Trump has eliminated all the stupid rules of engagement that allowed ISIS to exist. Trump allowed the Air Force to drop the Mother of All Bombs in Afghanistan, killing 92 ISIS in Afghanistan fighters in a tunnel complex, showing we will use any weapon and drop it on any military target without worrying about whether two civilians and a goat might get killed in the process. Trump is letting the military set strategy. Trump's cabinet appointments are marvelous. Trump has ordered reinforcements to the Baltic Countries and Poland. ISIS got wiped out in Mosul and Raqaa is surrounded.

Trump and Congress eliminated a lot of nasty regulations that Obama pushed through at the last minute. Trump is appointing judges that believe the Constitution means what it says. Trump is actually trying to deliver on his campaign promises. Trump is a lot better than a crippled President Pence.

Republican alternatives to Trump are a fantasy. If Democrats succeed in getting rid of him, they see a big comeback in their future, just like after Watergate. That's what I see too. Why would any Republican or Conservative want that?

War Actually Does Solve Problems

The slogan, “War never solved anything,” and the hidden agenda behind the slogan, need to be clear to everyone.  Democrats need those big bucks for domestic spending to buy votes.  Military spending is easier to cut if the military looks ineffective.  So Democrats adopt policies that limit air strike targeting, and rules of engagement generally, that render US military force ineffective.  At that point, Democrats argue that "war never solved anything," so we might as well spend the money domestically.

The problem right now is the same problem we had in Vietnam. Since World War II, Democrats seem to intentionally mess up running wars. They try half measures that prolong the conflict until everybody wants to give up and go home. Democrats' motivation is to increase domestic spending over the long term. If military efforts are seen as ineffectual, it's easier to cut military budgets and use the money to buy votes domestically. Lyndon Johnson prolonged the Vietnam War by refusing to use US air power to shut down North Vietnam's seaports. Barack Obama is prolonging the ISIS conflict by also refusing to use US air power effectively. Obama has refused to hit oil production, transportation targets and infrastructure targets that are crucial to ISIS funding and operations. ISIS makes a million dollars a day selling oil. ISIS is moving men and supplies over open desert highways. ISIS has vehicle maintenance and bomb factories in civilian neighborhoods the US refuses to destroy.

War actually does solve problems very well.  War solved the world's Hitler problem.  War solved the Imperial Japan problem.  Through history, war solved the American Colonies' British problem, as well as Rome's Carthage problem.  War is the only solution to the ISIS problem.  

The slogan is absurd.  The only reason for it is to excuse poor military performance followed by budgets which shift spending to domestic investments in crony capitalism and programs encouraging government dependence.  If you're dependent on the government, you have to vote for the Democrats, or the gravy train is over. Quite easily done.

ISIS Is Nothing Like The Cold War

A recent Real Clear Politics article says fighting ISIS is another Cold War.  This analysis is completely wrong.  While the effort against Islamic terrorists may take years, this is not the time to settle in for a long siege of ISIS. The one thing that makes ISIS superior to other Islamic terrorists is that ISIS controls territory and proclaims their territory the restored caliphate. But unlike our Cold War opponents, ISIS is vulnerable because ISIS has an address that's not protected by nuclear weapons. ISIS has almost no air defense other than deploying civilian shields, which is a war crime. ISIS makes a million dollars a day from oil sales. All ISIS military and economic activity takes place in wide open desert. ISIS has just occupied Sirte, Libya, Muammar Gadaffi's home town. ISIS is shipping in troops and supplies by sea. As long as the US allows ISIS to hold territory, ISIS can claim divine intervention has given them victory of the so-called super power crusader country.

This is not rocket science. Henry Kissinger's diplomacy is not required. The way to stop ISIS is to destroy their assets, especially any transportation assets.

There is no way ISIS should be able to move men and supplies between Raqqa and Mosul over open desert roads against US air dominance. There is no way ISIS should be able to move its oil from oil fields to market by truck in the face of competent air attacks. There is no way ISIS oil fields should still be in operation given what one well planned air attack can do to a defenseless oil field. There is no way that ISIS should be able to move men and supplies through the Mediterranean Sea to Sirte, Libya, without a navy.

Even after budget sequesters, the US military can do the job as long as the White House lets them do it. And that's the point. The only reason we need patience is because the White House isn't trying to win and maybe doesn't even want to win. The White House isn't allowing our pilots to do the job. The White House is just trying to play out the clock to the end of the term in January, 2017. Mr. Cannon is probably right that problems with Islamic terrorists will continue for a long time. But there is no reason to slow walk the destruction of ISIS.

Article I was reacting to:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/12/20/combating_isis_another_cold_war_129091.html

The Right Way and the Wrong Way to Fight ISIS

Lanny Davis, a Clinton supporter, wrote a fascinating article about how to fight ISIS recently.  (See link.)  In the article he explains that military force alone can’t defeat ISIS.  Mr. Davis then quotes Hillary saying, "We are in a contest of ideas against an ideology of hate and we have to win."  I couldn’t disagree more.  ISIS believes that their violent cause is commanded and aided by God.  Jihadists view military success as evidence of divine favor.  Quaker style gentle persuasion is not going to change the hearts and minds of ISIS fanatics.

The right way to fight ISIS is to remove their funding by destroying their ability to sell oil. The wrong way to fight ISIS is to forbid air attacks on oil trucks because the drivers might be civilians. The right way to fight ISIS is to strafe and bomb military convoys moving ISIS fighters and supplies on ISIS highways. The wrong way is to forbid air attacks on military convoys if any civilian human shields are sighted traveling with the convoys. The right way to fight ISIS is to bomb Improvised explosive device factories. The wrong way to fight ISIS is to avoid bombing improvised explosive device factories because ISIS locates them is civilian neighborhoods. The right way to fight ISIS is to make sure that the most effective allies we have on the ground, the Kurds, are very well supplied with whatever they need to push ISIS out of Northern Iraq and Norther Syria. The wrong way is to route all military aid through Baghdad, whose army is ISIS' major supplier of weapons when they abandon them and run away.

To sum up, the only way to defeat the rabid dogs of ISIS is to kill a lot of them and take their territory away from them, which will discourage their potential recruits. What the Obama - Clinton team has been doing is pretending to fight ISIS, giving the appearance that ISIS is easily beating the US. This attracts more recruits to commit more terrorism. It gives Jihadist elements world-wide the impression that the US is a paper tiger that can be easily vanquished.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/11/25/the_right_way_and_wrong_way_to_defeat_isis_128847.html

Why Air Power Isn't Stopping ISIS

It’s fashionable in the past couple of months to say that air power is ineffective against ISIS.  The effectiveness of air power depends on the rules of engagement, which are set by the White House. The White House has decided that it's more important to avoid civilian casualties than it is to defeat ISIS. There is no way that ISIS should be able to move vehicles with troops and supplies on desert highways in the face of US total air dominance. The fact that ISIS is moving troops and supplies means that the rules of engagement are too restrictive to allow victory.

Given how many civilians ISIS kills when they take over an area, it seems to me that even in humanitarian terms restrictive rules of engagement are self-defeating. Even if attacking ISIS targets means some civilians will die, far more will die if ISIS is allowed to continue its rampage across the Middle East.

I think any vehicle convoy which includes military vehicles should be a free fire zone. Military vehicles should be defined to include armored vehicles, Humvees, pickup trucks with mounted machine guns, or civilian vehicles with a lot of gun barrels pointing out all of the windows. Even if these convoys contain civilian human shields, attacking them will prevent ISIS from killing a lot more people when they overrun the next town.

The same policy should be extended to bomb factories. If we know that ISIS has a lot of explosives in a residential neighborhood, we should still bomb the building. If ISIS uses the explosives to take another town, they will kill hundreds or thousands of civilians themselves. The casualty count will be a lot lower from the secondary explosion of the bomb factory.

In the long run, it's them or us. ISIS has made it clear they plan to attack us and kill us if we don't convert to their brand of Islam. We should take them at their word and stop them now, before they become an existential threat to the US. The leaders who did not believe Hitler meant what he said lived to regret it.