© Whitehouse.gov
The 19
th century Baptist Particular preacher from England, Charles Spurgeon, is best known for the one-line wisdom: "A lie spreads half way around the world while the truth is putting on his shoes."
But what of half-truths, do they spread a quarter-way, or a third? Are these more like lies, or more like the truth?
By now the half-truth that President Trump announced the pull-out of US forces from its activities aiding the Kurdish separatists in Syria, on Monday, for the sole purpose of distracting the whole discourse from the impeachment proceedings against the sitting president, has spread at least some portion around the world by now.
A half-truth? It is indeed true that Trump had said the time had come for the US to extricate itself from its series of "ridiculous endless wars", something which, before Trump, no Republican president in living memory has said.
The impeachment itself has the look and feel of yet another Democratic Party impeachment stunt, one which in all reality will have a difficult time getting through the House of Representatives and perhaps an impossible time getting through Senate, given Trump's overall popularity among the energized base which numerous critical Senators will rely on.
If the process would go through to the Senate, it is Chief Justice Roberts that would preside on the trial part, and being bound by his conservative record, it is nigh impossible that Roberts would be friendly to efforts to remove Trump on the extremely squishy grounds they would be presented on. After all, creating such future precedents would ultimately have a destabilizing effect on the executive branch, thereby threatening the constitutional framework of checks and balances between the two branches in question.
Comment: Curiously, Israeli has a 'secret' naval base - its largest overseas - on an island in the Red Sea...