Remember...?

Remember how we were told that Hillary would fill her administration with Goldman Sachs alumni? Then Trump got in -- and promptly filled his administration with Goldman Sachs alumni.

Remember how we were told that Hillary would be the warmonger-in-chief? Trump was attractive to many non-neocon conservatives, and even some liberals, because he advocated pulling out of Afghanistan and leaving Syria for the Russians to work out.

Ooops. Change of plans.

At times, Trump has portrayed Obama as unduly bellicose (especially toward Russia). At other times, Trump damned his predecessor as weak. In yesterday's speech, Trump practically called Obama a pansy. Yet for all practical purposes, Trump's Afghan policy is almost exactly the same as that of the previous two presidents. For example, Trump said the following...

Our troops will fight to win. We will fight to win. From now on, victory will have a clear definition. Attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing Al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge.

How the hell is this any different from what came before? Obama and Dubya might have said these same words. Kevin Drum has it right:

There really isn’t a whole lot we can do in Afghanistan. The Pentagon knows this. After all, a few years ago they had over 100,000 troops there and it barely budged the needle. They’ve been pushing on Pakistan the whole time, but if they push too hard we’ll lose our drone bases there and be in even worse shape. And looser rules of engagement just enrage the Afghan populace and provide the Taliban with recruiting material. It’s a no-win situation. All we can do is keep on training the Afghan army and cross our fingers. Maybe eventually the government will have enough support and the army will have enough discipline to maintain order without us.

Or we can pull out. If we do that, the Taliban will take over in short order and that’s politically unacceptable. No American president wants to be the guy who “lost Afghanistan.”

So we just stay there forever, fighting a low-level war meant to contain the Taliban—barely—and not get too many US soldiers killed. That’s what Bush did. It’s what Obama did. And it’s what Trump is doing.

Same shit as before, plus a little badass posturing to please the rubes.

My suggestion: After humbly admitting that the problem of Afghanistan is intractable, Trump should ask for the help of the UN. Since we lack good options, why not hand off the problem to others? Unfortunately, incessant propaganda about "American exceptionalism" has made this solution politically impossible.

Need I mention that everything Trump said about Pakistan and India was tone deaf and irresponsible? 

Elsewhere: What happened to Steve Bannon? A recent post included a photo of Steve Bannon taken from another site. In the photo, Bannon's mouth appears to be bleeding, and there is a drop of blood on his shirt. Snopes reveals that the blood was a bit of Photoshopping added in by the Onion, which used this picture to illustrate a gag story about Bannon eating his interns.

I should have used another image; sorry.

I don't think that the Onion added in that hexagonal pin on Bannon's lapel, where the flag usually goes. What's up with that? Is that a symbol employed by followers of Evola or Dugin?