Ιsn’t Trump the Greater Security Threat?

Isn’t Trump the Greater Security Threat?

While Trump decided to play up the tragedy of the Weiner-Abedin marriage as a threat to national security, Trump’s behavior shows him to be the real threat to national security.

First of all, Secretary Clinton has been out of the administration for four years, and what she and her assistant Huma Abedin knew four years ago is probably already public or irrelevant. Also, as far as Anthony Weiner goes, his aberrant behavior would only be a security risk if it was a blackmail-able secret. Instead, it is one of the most public embarrassments in the media. As of now, both Trump and Clinton were given identical national security updates.

Turning to Donald Trump, there are a plethora of security problems:

1 What is he hiding in his tax returns? Is this blackmail-able?
2 What is he hiding in not having a public health assessment?  Is this a blackmail target?
3 Why did he hire Russian agent Paul Manafort to be his campaign manager?
4 Why did he hire Russian reporter Lt. Gen. Flynn as his national security advisor?
5 What are his involvements with Russian banks and oligarchs?
6 What funds are he keeping off-shore?
7 Why is Trump undermining our European shield and allies in NATO, and our defense commitments with them?
8 Why did he imply that we would not defend the Baltic states, which are NATO members?
9 Why did he not acknowledge Russian aggression in Crimea and Ukraine?
10 Why did he say it might be okay for Russia to keep Crimea? We have pointed out that that gives Russia claim to a trillion dollars of Black Sea oil resources.
11 Why did he indicate that we might pull away our nuclear shield from South Korea and Japan?
12 Why does he not realize that running 500 businesses while President will leave him open to all manner of foreign conflicts and accusations of looking out for his own interests?
13 Why does he imply he will toss out our nuclear weapon prevention agreement with Iran?
14 Why will he end or revise all of our trade agreements, which lead to international business dependence, cooperation, and security?
15 Why has he been so intolerant of Muslims, after being informed that that would be a recruiting tool for ISIS?

16 Why did he not denounce Russia for interfering in an American election by hacking the DNC and Democratic fund raising committee, and releasing the files on Wikileaks?

17 Why did he double down by asking Russia to release the rest of Clinton’s emails if they had hacked her email server?

18 Why did he ask Apple to construct a backdoor to all iPhones for government spying?  IPhones of the million of government workers with security clearances could also then be hacked by a foreign power.  The San Bernadino attackers cell phone was eventually hacked, and no important information was ever announced about it.

19  Why did he say that he knows more about defeating ISIS than the generals know?

20. Why does he ignore the Pentagon assessment that climate change will lead to future conflict and mass refugee flows?

21  Why does he ignore climate change which has occured, and climate science that predicts serious climate threats to the US in droughts, floods, heat waves, and other costly stresses?

22  Whys does he choose only oilmen as energy advisors, since they know nothing about energy sources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

23  Whys does he promise to disavow the Paris climate agreements, which the world can follow to slow the growth of greenhouse gases.

24  Why does he demand to build a wall on the Mexican border when there is already a net outflow of illegals, which will become a torrent if he becomes President.

25  Why does he ignore the valuable help that Mexico has given us in our war on drugs, slowing the flow of drugs into the US, at great cost to Mexicans both in money and lives?

26  Why does he threaten NAFTA and insist that Mexico pay for the wall when they are our third largest trading partner, and which NAFTA keeps Mexicans from coming to the US to do the same jobs?

27  Why does he not mention that Canada is the other partner in NAFTA, and our largest trading partner?  Canada and Mexico are our two largest export partners.

Finally, we bring this full circle:

28  Whys does Trump hire Roger Ailes, previous head of Fox News and a multiply accused sexual harasser, to help him with debate preparation.  Trump now knows as much current national security information as Clinton does, yet he hires someone who may be blackmailed for sexual perversion by a foreign power.

Update on Sept. 10, rather than writing another article:

29  In response to the story that the crew of a small Iranian boat had given an insulting sign with their hands, Trump declares he would have fired on the boat.  This would have started a war with Iran, and probably cost the nuclear non-proliferation  agreement with them.  Why does Trump take each insult to our troops personally, and react so strongly that it could have triggered a nuclear buildup throughout the Middle East?

30  This reminds me of the capture of one of our patrol boats crossing Iranian waters, where the sailors were made to kneel with their hands behind their head, which I think our police are trained to require of potentially armed suspects.  Trump wanted an armed response to that incident, which was resolved quickly and peacefully.  That reminds me of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where one of our destroyers may or may not have been attacked by a North Vietnamese patrol boat.  That started the Vietnam war.  How did that work out for us?

31  Trump’s response to the Chinese slight of Obama by not giving him a normal staircase upon landing in China, would have been to immediately leave China.  This would have left us out of a G20 meeting, and a signing of the important clean energy pact with China.  Probably Air Force 1 also might have needed refueling.  Obama also met with world leaders privately at the G20 meeting.  Why does Trump react to any incident as if he were a petulant child who had been called a name on the playground.  Is this the intelligence, the temperament, and the composure we expect of a Commander in Chief?

32  Trump gave a phone interview to Larry King, not knowing that Larry King now works for RT America, a subsidiary of the Russian government Russia Today.  He said that it was unlikely that Russia hacked the DNC.  This directly ignores the analysis of American intelligence.  Why does he not believe American intelligence.  Why did he and his campaign not know that this would appear on Russian television?  Isn’t this a breakdown of his vigilance of national security?

 

 

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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