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"We will have a very
good relationship with Russia" promises the mercurial Republican nominee for president who once referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as his
60 Minutes "stablemate." Republican nominee Donald Trump is anything but conventional bandying around suggestions that the United States force
Mexico to pay for a wall to keep undocumented immigrants from fleeing into America, refinancing US debt as though the faith and credit of the dollar were akin to high-risk junk bonds, and declaring "you bet your ass I would"
bring back waterboarding because the other side is "chopping off heads and drowning people in steel cages."The man who has played a starring role over the course of the presidential campaign in
celebrity dust ups with the Pope and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg often
elicits scorn from the mainstream media who point to his
fervent nationalist streak, history of
controversial investment dealings, and outright
bigoted statements against Mexicans and Muslims calling the former murderers and rapists while remarking that the latter should be banned from the country altogether.
Trump has also
won favor with a great many people across the country, however, for his
willingness to fire back against the country's military and defense establishment bludgeoning conventional thought that all too often pulls the world towards chaos, disorder, and war.Trump has notably called for
scaling back NATO, the massive military alliance that plays the role of arch-villain in the minds of the Russian people who fear the West plans to invade. The Republican nominee believes that
Russia is not the enemy of the West suggesting instead that the defense alliance
should focus on the specter of "radical Islamic terrorism" or cease to exist.
The Republican also argues that
NATO is costing the United States disproportionately in war and treasure with America vowing to play world police with nothing coming in return.
Apart from seeing the
growing danger of Daesh terrorism as the focal point of the American national security imperative, Trump also has a
positive view on the Russian government and her people breaking from his Republican rivals on the debate stage who all vowed to "stand up to Putin" saying instead that he liked the Russian President saying the two were "stablemates" on the seminal
60 Minutes television news show on which both men appeared for interviews.
โHe also
contests predominant Beltway wisdom that Russia is somehow an issue to be contained in the fight against Daesh in Syria instead
viewing the Kremlin's role in maintaining stability in the Assad government as crucial to preventing the country from falling in its entirety to Daesh terrorism. Trump declared before a crowd at the Oklahoma State Fair that "if Russia wants to get ISIS, let them get ISIS."
The former reality television star and billionaire real estate tycoon who lives in a world of Twitter feeds and self-impersonating interviews with reporters somehow has a more
realistic view on America's policy of arming rebels in Syria, Iraq, and throughout the region - weapons that all too often fall into the hands of terrorist groups only to be turned against US soldiers.
Speaking on
Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, Donald Trump fired back on the notion that Russia was somehow the United States adversary in bring peace and stability to Syria. "Where they're hitting people, we're talking about people that we don't even know. I was talking to a general two days ago. He said,
'We have no idea who these people are. We're training people. We don't know who they are. We're giving them billions of dollars to fight Assad,'" explained Trump.
"And you know what?" Trump continued. "I'm not saying Assad's a good guy, because he's probably a bad guy, but I've watched him interviewed many times and you can make the case, if you
look at Libya, look at what we did there - it's a mess - if you look at Saddam Hussein with Iraq, look what we did there - it's a mess - it's going to be the same thing [if the United States ousts Assad]."The same Republican nominee who has called for torture and the killing of terrorists' family members in violation of the Geneva Conventions
may also be the world's last best hope for a lasting peace in the Middle East and the key to defusing the explosion of a new Cold War.
As much as I hate to say it, but, at least at this point, I tend to agree.
On the other hand, will the USA actually last until November?