Kiriakou writes: "In the 1950s, Americans allowed Senator Joe McCarthy to
spout his hate unchallenged. He accused political enemies, liberals, and
anybody else he didn't like of being communists, and thus threats to the
national security, just as Trump is doing today. The result was the
destruction of untold lives and livelihoods."
Donald Trump. (photo: AP)
Donald Trump and the Legacy of Joe McCarthy
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
25 November 15
I can't tell whether Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump really
believes the nonsense he's been spouting on the campaign trail or if he's
just having such a good time stirring the political pot that he doesn't
realize the damage he's causing to the body politic. Trump has denounced
Senator John McCain, a bona fide war hero who spent seven years as a
prisoner of war in Vietnam, as "not a hero" because "heroes don't get
caught." He famously derided undocumented Mexican workers as "rapists and
drug smugglers." He called for the forced closure of mosques across the
United States. And he advocated a database where Americans who happen to be
Muslims would be forced to register, ignoring the United States' ugly,
racist, and illegal history of interning Japanese-Americans during World War
II.
Trump's foreign policy can be distilled to a speech he gave last week when
he said, in response to the Paris terrorist attacks, "We need to bomb the
shit out of these people." That's not a policy. That's the musings of a
demagogue who doesn't understand the complexities of policy or of war, and
who doesn't care about the innocent people he would kill in the process.
Trump even backed the use of violence against a protestor at one of his
recent rallies. When the man, a member of the Black Lives Matter movement,
shouted something at a Trump rally in Alabama, Trump supporters beat him
while Trump said, "Maybe he should have been roughed up. What he did
(protesting Trump's racist comments on the campaign trail) was disgusting."
It's easy to laugh at the lunacy of Trump's positions on a wide variety of
issues, many of which are patently unconstitutional. But Trump is attracting
enough support that some pundits posit that he could actually win the
Republican nomination for President. He's vocalizing the hate of a sizeable
chuck of the Republican Party's right wing. There's still time to send Trump
packing, and there's still time to smother his hate speech in its crib.
We've made the mistake of tolerating a demagogue in the past, when Americans
danced with a populist hate-monger. We must not make the same mistake again.
In the 1950s, Americans allowed Senator Joe McCarthy to spout his hate
unchallenged. He accused political enemies, liberals, and anybody else he
didn't like of being communists, and thus threats to the national security,
just as Trump is doing today. The result was the destruction of untold lives
and livelihoods, a shameful "black list" of Hollywood writers, directors,
producers, and actors, and even suicides.
Americans finally got wise to McCarthy, but not until he had left his black
mark on history. We can, and should, kick Trump to the curb before he does
any more damage.
Perhaps the most egregious and obvious reason to not support Trump is his
unapologetic support of George W. Bush's torture regime. Trump said only a
week ago that he would bring back waterboarding and other forms of torture
employed by the Bush administration. Completely ignoring the fact that the
Federal Torture Act outlaws torture in the United States, the
McCain-Feinstein Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act outlaws
torture, and the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which the US not
only signed, but authored, outlaws torture, Trump said, "Even if it doesn't
work, they deserve it anyway."
What Trump is thus advocating is what the Constitution calls "high crimes
and misdemeanors." Torture is illegal in this country. If a President
implements a policy that is illegal, he is guilty of high crimes and
misdemeanors and would then be subject to impeachment, trial, and
conviction.
But for goodness sake, let's not let it get to that point. Americans need to
stop the Trump abomination now. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Trump has to go.
________________________________________
John Kiriakou is an associate fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies.
He is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator
with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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Donald Trump. (photo: AP)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
Donald Trump and the Legacy of Joe McCarthy
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
25 November 15
can't tell whether Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump really
believes the nonsense he's been spouting on the campaign trail or if he's
just having such a good time stirring the political pot that he doesn't
realize the damage he's causing to the body politic. Trump has denounced
Senator John McCain, a bona fide war hero who spent seven years as a
prisoner of war in Vietnam, as "not a hero" because "heroes don't get
caught." He famously derided undocumented Mexican workers as "rapists and
drug smugglers." He called for the forced closure of mosques across the
United States. And he advocated a database where Americans who happen to be
Muslims would be forced to register, ignoring the United States' ugly,
racist, and illegal history of interning Japanese-Americans during World War
II.
Trump's foreign policy can be distilled to a speech he gave last week when
he said, in response to the Paris terrorist attacks, "We need to bomb the
shit out of these people." That's not a policy. That's the musings of a
demagogue who doesn't understand the complexities of policy or of war, and
who doesn't care about the innocent people he would kill in the process.
Trump even backed the use of violence against a protestor at one of his
recent rallies. When the man, a member of the Black Lives Matter movement,
shouted something at a Trump rally in Alabama, Trump supporters beat him
while Trump said, "Maybe he should have been roughed up. What he did
(protesting Trump's racist comments on the campaign trail) was disgusting."
It's easy to laugh at the lunacy of Trump's positions on a wide variety of
issues, many of which are patently unconstitutional. But Trump is attracting
enough support that some pundits posit that he could actually win the
Republican nomination for President. He's vocalizing the hate of a sizeable
chuck of the Republican Party's right wing. There's still time to send Trump
packing, and there's still time to smother his hate speech in its crib.
We've made the mistake of tolerating a demagogue in the past, when Americans
danced with a populist hate-monger. We must not make the same mistake again.
In the 1950s, Americans allowed Senator Joe McCarthy to spout his hate
unchallenged. He accused political enemies, liberals, and anybody else he
didn't like of being communists, and thus threats to the national security,
just as Trump is doing today. The result was the destruction of untold lives
and livelihoods, a shameful "black list" of Hollywood writers, directors,
producers, and actors, and even suicides.
Americans finally got wise to McCarthy, but not until he had left his black
mark on history. We can, and should, kick Trump to the curb before he does
any more damage.
Perhaps the most egregious and obvious reason to not support Trump is his
unapologetic support of George W. Bush's torture regime. Trump said only a
week ago that he would bring back waterboarding and other forms of torture
employed by the Bush administration. Completely ignoring the fact that the
Federal Torture Act outlaws torture in the United States, the
McCain-Feinstein Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act outlaws
torture, and the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which the US not
only signed, but authored, outlaws torture, Trump said, "Even if it doesn't
work, they deserve it anyway."
What Trump is thus advocating is what the Constitution calls "high crimes
and misdemeanors." Torture is illegal in this country. If a President
implements a policy that is illegal, he is guilty of high crimes and
misdemeanors and would then be subject to impeachment, trial, and
conviction.
But for goodness sake, let's not let it get to that point. Americans need to
stop the Trump abomination now. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Trump has to go.
John Kiriakou is an associate fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies.
He is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator
with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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