5/23/2017

Trump Abroad: Let's Hear It for the Rainbow Tour

Unlike your run-o'-the-mill members of the punditocracy, I refuse to pretend that I know shit that I know I don't know. I'm not gonna dissect the ins and outs of Brexit or the upcoming German election because fuck if I understand it. I comprehend a little bit about the distinctions between Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims, but no one's inviting me onto the BBC to answer questions, thank Allah.

However, I do know fucked up. And it's pretty fucked up that the United States has gone from supporting the Sunni with Saddam Hussein to supporting the Shiite in ousting Saddam Hussein and shitcanning all the Sunni in Iraq to supporting the Sunni because fuck those Shiite Iranians and let's ignore the fact that ISIS is Sunni. That was one of the gists of President Donald Trump's sleepy maunder of a speech in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Shit's complicated, man, shit's complicated. That's why you don't take a side in a 1000-year battle that you don't understand.

The once-mighty criticizer of Saudi Arabia was a bowing, curtsying little bitch, continuing Trump's pattern of folding like a dog, as he might say, whenever he's in the presence of a world leader whose country he's shit on. He was blowing the Saudi leaders like a desperate old porn star trying to prove that he's still got what it takes. And that just scratches the surface of the bullshit contradictions within the speech itself, as well as the mind-boggling array of flip-flops.

For instance, Trump said, "We are not here to lecture — we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship." Essentially, that's the President of the United States telling a bunch of corrupt, murderous, terrorist-supporting, women-abusing, gay-murdering theocrats that "It's all good, babe." Meanwhile, further on in the speech, Trump specifically did lecture Iran on how to live, etc. "The Iranian regime's longest-suffering victims are its own people. Iran has a rich history and culture, but the people of Iran have endured hardship and despair under their leaders' reckless pursuit of conflict and terror," he said, apparently willing to overlook the hardship and despair of a good chunk of the Saudi population, as well as Iran's implicit desire to liberalize and open up (even if the religious leaders there are holding it back).

Trump also remarked, "Among Iran's most tragic and destabilizing interventions have been in Syria," and, well, okay, but, you know, the Saudis have been bombing the shit out of Yemen and the arms deal Trump just made guarantees more misery.

It's not that President Obama didn't make arms deals with Saudi Arabia, with negotiation assistance from Hillary Clinton. It's not that the Clinton Foundation didn't take money from Saudi Arabia. It's that Trump made a big goddamn show of how he was going to be different, and he's not. He's just a pathetic suck-up, only wanting to trash the progress made in Iran out of his continuing spite against Obama, not out of any real understanding or even interest in the region beyond whether Turkey or Jordan will approve the next Trump building. Shit, Iranian President Rouhani should tell Ivanka that they can build a hotel in Tehran.

If you go from stating "I think Islam hates us" to praising the religion effusively, as Trump did, you are admitting that either you didn't know shit about what you were talking, the very shit that got you elected, and now you know better. Or you're just a capricious dick, willing to say nice things to whomever is putting a gold necklace around your bowed head. Or you're Donald Trump, and you're both, covered in a special spice of not even caring.

To put this simply, Trump lied to the dear, dumb, racist Trump voters, and he was never the great warrior for Christian white supremacy that they hoped he'd be. He was just a liar who seems to be trying to get us into a war with Iran for no good reason.

On to Israel, where he just finished sucking some cut cock while trying to make amends for dicking over that nation's intelligence service by outing a source to the Russians. In another bargain-basement discount speech, Trump said, "Making peace will not be easy. We all know that. Both sides will face tough decisions. But with determination, compromise on both sides, and the belief that peace is possible, Israelis and Palestinians can make a deal." And that sounds good, if dumb. But just remember, as many have learned: If you make a deal with Trump, you will get stiffed when the bill comes due.

And then he said the perpetrators (if there is more than one) of the terrible Manchester bombing are "evil losers," saying they'd want to be called "monsters." Sure, that'll make the suicide bombers of the future think twice: "Wait, am I an evil loser? I wanted to be a monster."

Now to Rome, and he can brag that he hit some kind of trifecta of faith. Don't tell him that there are more Hindus and Buddhists in the world than Jews. Those are facts, and why bother with them now.

(The "Rainbow Tour" up there in the title is a reference to a song from the musical Evita.)