Tag: Elliott Abrams

Making Excuses for Trump: Where Does the Buck Stop?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Making Excuses for Trump: Where Does the Buck Stop?

But Trump’s seemingly aimless foreign and national security policies are only part of the problem. More to the point, the president keeps appointing people to senior level positions where they have a hand in shaping the policies ranging from hardline on civil liberties issues to complete interventionism vis-à-vis America’s role worldwide. The list is long and includes John Bolton, Rick Grenell, Mike Pompeo, Brian Hook, James Jeffrey, Robert O’Brien, John Ratcliffe and Gina Haspel. And one might suggest that the latest move might very well be the worst of all, naming Eliot Abrams as Special Envoy on Iran.

Empire of Absurdity: Recycled Neocons, Recycled Enemies

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Empire of Absurdity: Recycled Neocons, Recycled Enemies

There are times when I wish that the United States would just drop the charade and declare itself a global empire. As a veteran of two imperial wars, a witness to the dark underside of America’s empire-denial, I’ve grown tired of the equivocation and denials from senior policymakers. The U.S. can’t be an empire, we’re told, because – unlike the Brits and Romans – America doesn’t annex territories outright, and our school children don’t color its colonies in red-white-and-blue on cute educational maps.