In installment six of finding the lies and contradictions in Trump’s foreign policy speech of April 27th, we take a look at one of the sweeping “big picture” statements made by Trump. He has a tendency to contradict himself, and this speech is no exception. We already covered the inherent contradictions in his proposed policy of both strengthening and alienating our allies.
Today we’ll examine some of his statements on the tenor of a Trump administration foreign policy. At one point he posits that the Obama administration, and a future Clinton administration, has been “a complete and total disaster” while his own policy would be “disciplined, deliberate and consistent.”
“Our goal is peace and prosperity, not war and destruction. The best way to achieve those goals is through a disciplined, deliberate and consistent foreign policy,” Trump explained. “With President Obama and Secretary Clinton we’ve had the exact opposite — a reckless, rudderless and aimless foreign policy, one that has blazed the path of destruction in its wake.”
Trump takes a few shots at Obama and Clinton, without backing up the “path of destruction” claim, but a “disciplined, deliberate and consistent foreign policy” sounds surprisingly reasoned from Mr. Trump. More chilling is his condemnation of war and destruction, while constantly hawking for war with ISIS.
From a little earlier in the speech:
“I have a simple message for [ISIS]. Their days are numbered. I won’t tell them where and I won’t tell them how. We must as a nation be more unpredictable. We are totally predictable. We tell everything. We’re sending troops. We tell them. We’re sending something else. We have a news conference. We have to be unpredictable. And we have to be unpredictable starting now.”
Trump did not elaborate on how he was going to crush ISIS other than being unpredictable, but he assures us that “they will be gone very, very quickly.” While some unpredictability in war is necessary, our allies may not appreciate it as much, not to mention the surrounding countries that our military material will have to pass through.
James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral, told the Washington Post that “no one wants an unpredictable ally. It sounds like isolationism.” In the same article former ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill said that this “is precisely what the world worries about.”
Trump’s statements on being “deliberate and consistent” do not jibe with most of his other proposals on an unplanned and reckless war with ISIS. Nowhere does he lay out a consistent or deliberate plan to deal with this threat, only assuring the American people that we can take out ISIS quickly with a completely inexperienced Donald Trump at the helm.
Sources:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feg-onymzXA
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