Saturday, April 8, 2017

Moon of Alabama — The Khan Sheikoun Show Was Trump's Production

The pictures and scenes were not constructed for Trump's consumption. They were constructed for consumption by the "western" public. They followed Trump's persuasion style. The same style he used during the campaign and that let him win. Trump had several reasons to create such an incident. This was a stunt to his liking. It was his production. Trump proudly presented "Trump the President".
Master persuader at work? b thinks so, and so does Scott Adams.

Is the world becoming surreal.

It gets better.
Some people have wondered why the Chinese criticism of the attack at the UN Security Council or during Xi's meeting with Trump was rather mild. The Chinese believe that the best that can happen to them is a United States bogged down in further Middle East calamities. If the U.S. is busy in Iraq, Yemen and Syria it will have fewer capacity to mess up North Korea or seek a conflict over this or that atoll in the South China Sea. I can not blame them for that position.
Classic Chinese strategy based on SunTzu on the Art of War.

Moon of Alabama
The Khan Sheikoun Show Was Trump's Production
b

Whatever, it apparently worked to create the desired effect.
“I think Donald Trump became president of the United States” last night, CNNhost Fareed Zakaria said when asked about the significance of Trump’s airstrikes on Syria….
FAIR — fairness and accuracy in reporting

3 comments:

Penguin pop said...

When approval ratings are sucking, nothing like a bit of military intervention to bring a temporary boost to the numbers.

However, I guarantee you this guy will do something unbelievably dumb another week that will bring those numbers back down yet again. This just reminds me of how Van Jones was calling this guy "presidential." Just a week later, Trump was doing the same old shit.

lastgreek said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
lastgreek said...

Tom, not sure if you came across this excellent analysis :

"The Low Rewards, High Risks of Trump’s Syria Strike," by Matthew Fay

Btw, Taleb's point of US resolve was also brought up ... and easily debunked :)

There is also a line of thinking that Trump may have used the strike to signal resolve to North Korea and to make an impression on Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who is meeting with the president this weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Given what political scientists have found about the limited transferability of reputation in international politics, neither Xi or North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are going to be more likely to believe future Trump administration coercive threats against them than they were the day before. If trying to bolster American credibility was part of the Trump administration’s calculus for striking Syria, then it has created a great deal of risk for what is likely to be little gain.


https://niskanencenter.org/blog/trump-strikes-syria-low-rewards-high-risk/