Wednesday, January 15, 2020

How Trump Derangement Syndrome Makes You Stupid

 Trump Derangement Syndrome


 Article by Philip Carl Salzman in "PJMedia":

Trump Derangement Syndrome is an obsession, virtually universal among Democrats and the mass media, who are opposing, discrediting, and destroying President Trump. The result is that policies and issues that should be considered on their substance and merit are instead judged according to whatever the president supports or however the president acts. Opposition to the president is the overriding necessity for those with TDS, even if that requires rejecting previous held positions, or siding with bad policies and with evil actors. In other words, Democrat politicians and members of the mass media have jettisoned their moral responsibilities to provide reasoned consideration and objective information, in their quest to overthrow a duly elected president.

Let us take, for example, the recent engagement between the Trump administration and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Democrat and media TDS is seen clearly in their attempt to blame the president for executing an internationally acknowledged terrorist threat, whitewashing a leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard immediately responsible for acts of violence against Americans, as well as a long history of the same, and plans for more in the future. His death was likened in the media to the deaths of Princess Diana and Martin Luther King. Probably on some program I missed, the death of Soleimani was compared with the deaths of Gandhi and Mother Theresa. It is telling that the Democrat House majority denounced Trump’s elimination of the world’s most notorious terrorist, when they had nothing whatever to say when President Obama used drones to eliminate hundreds, yes, hundreds of terrorists. It would be fair to call this TDS hypocrisy.

Democrat legislators and candidates for the presidency have been so blinded by TDS that they have forgotten what Iran is, which I would like to remind them here: The Islamic Republic Regime is a theocratic totalitarian despotism, compelling their subjects to conform to their radical religious ideas and rules, on pain of imprisonment, torture, and execution. The ayatollahs running the Iran theocracy adopted as their raison d’etre the expansion of Shia dominance and supremacy. Throughout the history of Islam, from the sixth century, there has been a strong imperialistic tendency, seen in the imposition of Islam through the sword everywhere from India to Morocco, West Africa to Iberia. Now Iran is working to establish the Shia crescent, from Iran through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to the Mediterranean. These basic facts are avoided in the West, lest the enunciators be accused of ISLAMOPHOBIA!

It is important to keep in mind that the Islamic Republic holds to no earthly rules, following only the exclusive rules of Allah, as the founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, made clear. “The fundamental difference between Islamic government, on the one hand, and constitutional monarchy and republics, on the other, is this: whereas the representatives of the people or the monarch in such regimes engage in legislation, in Islam the legislative power and competence to establish laws belong exclusively to God Almighty.” Khomeini also made explicit what Westerners often have trouble grasping, that Islam is not just a personal religion, but also a political movement and structure: “When anyone studies a little or pays a little attention to the rules of Islamic government, Islamic politics, Islamic society and Islamic economy he will realize that Islam is a very political religion. Anyone who will say that religion is separate from politics is a fool; he does not know Islam or politics.”

Forty years ago, the newly formed Islamic Republic of Iran declared war on the United States, as they made and make clear with their slogans, “Death of America” and “America the Great Satan.” The ayatollahs see destroying Satan as their duty to Allah, above which nothing is more important. Ayatollah Khomeini said, “Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all....There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of Mohammed] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim!” He continued, “Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life, and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours.”

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic today is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He governs in the spirit of Ayatollah Khomeini, and his views on the United States are much the same: “We seriously suspect the agents of the Americans and Israelis in conducting such horrendous terrorist acts and cannot believe the people who kidnap Philippines nationals, for instance, or behead U.S. nationals are Muslims.” Khamenei has consistently endorsed Iranian expansionism by supporting the Revolutionary Guard Quds Force in its organization and funding of Arab Shia proxies. He says, “The Islamic Republic is proud to be the target of the rage of the world's greatest Satan.” Khamenei is equally beneficent about the “Little Satan.” Israel: “The great powers have dominated the destiny of the Islamic countries for years and... installed the Zionist cancerous tumor in the heart of the Islamic world... Many of the problems facing the Muslim world are due to the existence of the Zionist regime.” But, in his view, condemnation is not sufficient: “It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region.”

TDS Americans nonetheless rush to the defense of Iran, blaming Iranian actions on America, that is, on President Trump. Major figures in national Democrat politics, such as TDS Democrat primary contenders for the presidential nomination, have blamed President Trump for the Iranian ground-to-air missile that shot down a passenger liner killing all 290 aboard. Mayor Pete Buttigieg said, “Innocent civilians are now dead because they were caught in the middle of an unnecessary and unwanted military tit for tat.” Because Mayor Pete does not think that the president should defend America by killing terrorists who are attacking it, because whatever President Trump does is, by definition, wrong. So too with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, candidate for the Democrat nomination for president, who claims, “Make no mistake: Trump’s actions are an act of war,” as if Iran has not been at war with the U.S. since the founding of the Islamic Republic, and as recent attacks have confirmed yet again. But if TDS Democrats and media blame President Trump for the Iranian downing of the flight, the many Iranians in the streets of Iranian cities are calling out “clerics get lost” and “death to the dictator,” while avoiding stepping on American and Israeli flags on the streets. A Canadian business executive echoes TDS Democrat-blaming, which is fairly common in today’s pacifist and socialist Canada.

Another TDS reaction to Commander-in-Chief Trump’s order to execute the world’s top terrorists was that this was going to lead to World War Three. This is factually nonsense, as Iran is relatively weak militarily compared to any of the great powers, and especially compared to the U.S. And no great power would be likely to intervene militarily on Iran’s behalf. If the U.S. were to invade Iran, it would no more be “the mother of all battles” than America’s intervention in Iraq against Saddam’s forces was. Slightly more serious was Tucker Carlson’s argument that any further action on the part of the U.S. would lead to a land invasion of hundreds of thousands of troops and a new Middle East quagmire full of American blood and lost billions. But that is simplistic thinking, and ignores the examples of President Trump’s previous interventions, such as his successful air and special forces attack on the Islamic State territorial Caliphate, which Trump destroyed. If we could but avoid hysteria, it is clear that President Trump’s policy of “maximum [economic] pressure” has borne fruit, and is likely to undermine the Islamic Republic Regime in the longer run. Beyond that, there are many different gradations of military intervention, like destroying through air attacks military targets such as nuclear bomb sites, and economic sites, such as oil wells and processing plants. These would not require boots on the ground and excessive risk to American personnel. And this is the preferred military strategy of President Trump, who is not in favor of foreign land wars.

The tragedy of TDS is that it keeps opponent legislators and candidates and their media lackeys from thinking clearly as they strive to obstruct the president no matter at what cost to the national interest. Where are the careful and well-informed critiques? They are submerged in the extreme rhetoric of “never Trump” TDS, so that intelligent and grounded options are no longer put forward. The Democrat opposition and the mass media have given up doing their duty to America and for the American people, blocked by their virulent TDS.