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Financial Times

CommentaryFariborz S. Fatemi April 10, 2017Former Professional Staff MemberHouse Foreign Affairs CommitteeSenate Foreign Relations Committee
There hegoes again. Trump, “Putin’s usefulidiot.” Close to his 100th day inoffice, the lies, made up stories, ignorance and incompetence continue unabatedon the part of him and his associates. As one neutral historian and observer of the Presidency noted, “Theproblem is, they don’t know anything and they don’t know that they don’t knowanything.” Therefore, chaos reigns supreme. As Trump’s and his associates’Russian connections continue to unravel, like peeling an onion, as his jobapproval is the lowest in the history of polling, and as his initiativesfalter, one after another, what to do, what to do? Trump loves to watch cable TV,his source of news. When he saw a skit about himself and Bannon, his Rasputin,Svengali, on Saturday Night Live, though he hated it, it gave him an idea. For those who missed it, Bannon tells him,“Let’s call some countries and scare them.” In real life, we have Syria, poisongas, and Trump’s numerous tweets in 2013 telling President Obama, “Don’t bombSyria, don’t get us involved.” No one knows conclusively wherethe poison gas came from. It is easy to blame Assad. During the Syrian civilwar, there have been other incidents of gas use. It has been used by the Arab terrorists Daesh(ISIL). Being supported by Saudi and Gulf State’s money, the terrorists thatTrump purports to want to fight. Also, usedby Al-Qaeda, and its affiliates. Now Trump, the Tin Man, developsa heart. He didn’t have one when he ordered the Yemenincursion that killed women and children and one of our best service members. Thesame Yemen where the World Food Program has reported that one half of thechildren are stunted because of hunger and the war being conducted by SaudiArabia with our support. He didn’t shed tears when sites were bombed in Mosuland Aleppo, killing many civilians, including women and children. The intelligence people saythere is a story going around that Trump and his associates seized upon theSyrian poison gas issue to bomb Syria with the complicity of his friend,Putin. The story goes, Putin woulddenounce the bombing and make a lot of noise. Trump in turn would do the same.Then Trump ahead of time tells him what he is bombing and therefore there isminimal damage and loss of life. Assad continues to do what he has been doing,nothing changes. Syrians on all sides continue to die. For Trump, what better way to improve his poll numbers byshowing he is man of action. It also deflects attention away from the manyinvestigations of his Russian connection. Remember, this is all happeningwhen Nunes, part of his transition and chairman of the House of RepresentativesIntelligence Committee, had to recuse himself from the Russian investigationbecause he is a target of ethics violation for lying to his colleagues and fordisclosing classified information. There are reports that Bannon has hadfinancial dealings with the Saudis and the Gulf States and back doorconnections through that to the Russians. Carter Page, one of Trump’s foreignpolicy advisors, is someone who the Russians have openly spoken about as anasset. Then there is Cohen-Watnick, brought in by former National SecurityAdviser Flynn as a senior director of Intelligence at the National SecurityCouncil. H.R. McMasters wanted to getrid of him and Bannon helped him to keep his job. Why? And there are still others in the WhiteHouse probably under investigation. No matter how many lies Trumptells, incidence he creates or takes advantage of, there is a clear and presentdanger to our national security by his Russian connection and it must beeliminated. There is still no answer as to the how the aforementionedassociates got their jobs in the White House. Who vetted them knowing of their odious past relations? Pence was the head oftransition. What did he know aboutBannon, Flynn, etc.? If he didn’t know,what does that say about his competence? If he did know, how does he explain recommending them for theirpositions? Same goes for Nunes, who wasnot only part of the transition, but also chairman of the House IntelligenceCommittee. He would have had access toall the records. Why did they allow this to happen? What does Putin hold overthese people? Slowly as this chaosunravels, how very sad for our country.