Friday, February 22, 2019

The war with North Korea that Trump thinks he prevented (but didn’t)

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-war-north-korea-trump-thinks-he-prevented-didnt?fbclid=IwAR2nlf4J9BS1WgDKna1sh7yoBYbD9EnFB6PfiDruhGEFlkrpu3kohkTkqB8
"So what’s driving Trump to lie about this? There are a few angles to this to keep in mind. The first is that he’s desperate for some victories after a series of embarrassing defeats, and if that means exaggerating events beyond recognition, so be it. This president hasn’t accomplished anything of significance with North Korea, so he invented a success story: he prevented a war. On a related note, Trump could also use some kind of rationalization that puts his entire North Korea gambit in a favorable light, especially with another summit with Kim Jong-un coming up. The reality – Trump inherited a longstanding challenge, went out of his way to make it much worse, then eased tensions by giving a communist dictator what he wanted in exchange for nothing – isn’t exactly impressive. But if he can convince people he managed to steer the countries away from the brink, then the hapless diplomatic gambit might appear less pointless. Finally, there’s the broader concern over Trump peddling bogus claims about matters of war and peace. George Conway, a prominent lawyer who happens to be married to one of the president’s top aides, wrote via Twitter over the weekend, “We should highly question the mental stability of a president of the United States who would lie about whether the United States had been on the verge of starting ‘World War III’ with another state possessing nuclear weapons"."