Analysis, Commentary

America Deserves Better Than This: Trump’s Dangerous and Divisive National Security Proposals


NEW YORK–(ENEWSPF)–July 18, 2016.  From Trump and his running mate Mike Pence’s shared support for a ban on Muslims, to their advocacy for the use of torture, to Trump’s proposals to allow more countries to have nuclear weapons, to his secret plan to defeat ISIS, to his cozying up to strongmen and dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung Un, to his threat of abandoning our allies, one thing is clear: a Trump presidency would leave both our country and the world dramatically less safe.
“If elected, Donald Trump would severely damage our economy, diminish our standing in the world, and make our communities less safe. He is divisive, dangerous, and lacks the judgment and temperament to be president. So every day this week, we are going to hold him accountable,” said DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.  “We are better than this.  We need a president who will bring us together, not tear us apart.  We need a president who is fit to lead on day one, and every day after – not one whose ego is bigger than Trump’s tabloid-derived base of knowledge.”
“Trump may be the first candidate that I have ever seen that treats our enemies like allies and our allies like enemies,” said U.S. Representative Ruben Gallego.
“Donald Trump would be a dangerous and a divisive Commander-in-Chief. He has a tendency to sow division and discord, rather than trying to pull people together and get them to work together as patriotic Americans,” said former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland.

TRUMP’S DANGEROUS NATIONAL SECURITY:

ISLAMOPHOBIA: Trump and Pence support banning Muslims from entering the United States.  Trump toyed with the idea of creating a national database to track all Muslims. Not only are these plans un-American, but experts agree that they would play right into terrorists’ hands.
TRUMP: “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
PENCE: “”I am very supportive of Donald Trump’s call to temporarily suspend immigration from countries where terrorist influence and impact represents a threat to the United States.”

TORTURE: Trump and Pence have both repeatedly called for returning to Bush-era torture, which has been widely denounced as ineffective, unethical, and dangerous for American service members around the world.

TRUMP: “Don’t tell me it doesn’t work — torture works… Waterboarding is fine, but it’s not nearly tough enough, ok?”
PENCE: “Some have said relationship-building interrogation techniques are preferable and even more reliable in the long run than stress methods. … I can tell by your grin that you acknowledge the somewhat absurd thought that you could move people who have masterminded the death of 3,000 Americans by Oprah Winfrey methods.”

NUCLEAR WEAPONS: Trump has displayed a reckless disregard for the dangers of nuclear proliferation, saying Japan and South Korea may need nuclear weapons and Saudi Arabia should have nuclear weapons.

ANDERSON COOPER: “Saudi Arabia, nuclear weapons?”
TRUMP: “Saudi Arabia, absolutely.”

ISIS: Trump won’t say what his plan is to defeat ISIS because it is a “secret.”  He has suggested letting ISIS take control of Syria and called for sending tens of thousands of American ground troops to back into the Middle East to fight ISIS.

TRUMP: “I do know what to do and I would know how to bring ISIS to the table or beyond that, defeat ISIS very quickly and I’m not going to tell you what is… All I can tell you it is a foolproof way of winning.”
TRUMP: “It’s really rather amazing, maybe Syria should be a free zone for ISIS, let them fight and then you pick up the remnants.”
TRUMP: “We really have no choice. We have to knock out ISIS. We have to knock the hell out of them… I would listen to the generals but I’m hearing numbers of 20,000 to 30,000. We have to knock them out fast.”
PRAISE FOR DICTATORS: Trump praises dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung Un.
On Vladimir Putin…
TRUMP: “I will tell you, in terms of leadership, he’s getting an ‘A,’ and our president is not doing so well.”
TRUMP: “I got to know him very well, because we were both on 60 minutes, we were stablemates and we did very well that night. You know that.”
On Kim Jong Un…
TRUMP: “And you’ve got to give him credit. How many young guys — he was like 26 or 25 when his father died — take over these tough generals…. It’s incredible. He wiped out the uncle. He wiped out this one, that one. I mean, this guy doesn’t play games.”
ABANDONS OUR ALLIES: Trump has threatened to abandon our allies in NATO and picks fights with friendly world leaders.
TRUMP: “We don’t really need NATO in its current form. NATO is obsolete… if we have to walk, we walk.”
On the mayor of London…
TRUMP: “Let’s take an I.Q. test… I think they’re very rude statements and frankly, tell him, I will remember those statements.”
the German chancellor…
TRUMP: “What Merkel has done is incredible, it’s actually mind boggling. Everyone thought she was a really great leader and now she’s turned out to be this catastrophic leader. And she’ll be out if they don’t have a revolution.”

CALLS AMERICA A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY: For someone who wants to lead the country, Donald Trump thinks very little of the United States.  Trump has called the military a disaster. He thinks we have become a Third World country. He says the world is laughing at us and we have become the “world’s whipping boy.” And it goes on…

TRUMP (2012): “The world is laughing at us.”
TRUMP (2013): “After Syria, our enemies are laughing!”
TRUMP (2014): “Mexican leadership has been laughing at us for many years”
TRUMP (2015): “The Persians are great negotiators. They are laughing at the stupidity of the deal we’re making”
TRUMP (2016): “We can’t afford to be so nice and so foolish anymore. Our country is in trouble. ISIS is laughing at us.”
Washington Post: “The 100-plus times Donald Trump assured us that America is a laughingstock”

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