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socraticgadfly 's review for:
The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir
by John Bolton
I rated this dreck as 2 stars, not 1, for three basic reasons.
The forthrightness of Bolton even when telling repeated packs of lies.
The few new tidbits about Trump, that were part of the reason many #Resistance Democrats were salivating about this.
The fact that Democrats were salivating, given point 1.
OK, on to details. First, Bolton lies like hell on Syria. We know that the Assad govt was NOT behind the Douma or Khan Shaykoun attacks. I’ll take the likes of Robert Fisk as 1,000x more truthful, AND knowledgable on the ground, on issues like this, than Bolton.
Related? Bolton’s big lie by omission about Israeli nukes, of course. (Related to that? His idea that we should formally, in terms of international law, accept Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights.)
Beyond this, is his overall strident neocon lies, half-lies and shading about anything related to that.
Then, there’s his Wilsonian interventionism, which doesn’t stop with wanting to overthrow Iran.
He thought the US govt should have officially, or at least semi-officially, intervened in Broxit with official “Leave” support. Ye gads! (Later on, he says with a straight face that he’s not a nation builder. Guess he’s just a nation wrecker instead?) And, after that, again with a straight face, he goes on to talk about nation building/wrecking in Venezuela.
As for bits of stuff about Trump? The biggest tell was his claim that, after all his time of personal interaction with Trump, he found Trump’s take on Putin to still be a total mystery. THAT said, I get the distinct impression Bolton didn’t push too hard on trying to figure this out.
Elsewhere? He throws Obama under the bus for not doing MORE about 2016 election meddling, and says so to a clearly rhetorical Trump statement. So, this partially undermines the straight talker schtick.
Makes fun of Finnish place names. Wunderbar from a national security advisor.
Despite Bolton’s sneering about how no US biz would want to invest in Russia, it has a PPP per capita almost 50 percent higher than China. (That said, Russia is considered far more corrupt.)
His churlishness is on display, namely, a churlish backing of American exceptionalism and American warmongering, when he defends Trump not choppering into Belleau Wood, unlike other world leaders, because they don’t command US armed forces might.
On Venezuela, he ignores that his puppet Guaidó, like Maduro, backs a Venezuelan claim to land disputed with Guyana.
On China, is “social credit,” albeit by the government, not private individuals, really THAT different from bank redlining? And is Belt and Road “debt diplomacy” THAT different from World Bank/IMF forced austerity?
Then there’s his push to get Ukraine and even Georgia in NATO. He repeatedly touts Poppy Bush’s years, but ignores that he pledged to Yeltsin not to expand NATO eastward.
His dissing on Mattis and Mnuchin, and a lesser degree on Tillerson, is interesting.
That said, speaking of that, Scott Ritter had this to say about Bolton in light of Trump’s weathervanes in Afghanistan: “One doesn’t take on two decades of systemic investment in military failure that had become ingrained in both the psyche and structure of the U.S. military establishment, fire a popular secretary of defense, and then follow that act up with the dismissal of one of the most vindictive bureaucratic infighters in the business without accumulating enemies.” That “vindictive bureaucratic infighter” can only be Bolton.
The forthrightness of Bolton even when telling repeated packs of lies.
The few new tidbits about Trump, that were part of the reason many #Resistance Democrats were salivating about this.
The fact that Democrats were salivating, given point 1.
OK, on to details. First, Bolton lies like hell on Syria. We know that the Assad govt was NOT behind the Douma or Khan Shaykoun attacks. I’ll take the likes of Robert Fisk as 1,000x more truthful, AND knowledgable on the ground, on issues like this, than Bolton.
Related? Bolton’s big lie by omission about Israeli nukes, of course. (Related to that? His idea that we should formally, in terms of international law, accept Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights.)
Beyond this, is his overall strident neocon lies, half-lies and shading about anything related to that.
Then, there’s his Wilsonian interventionism, which doesn’t stop with wanting to overthrow Iran.
He thought the US govt should have officially, or at least semi-officially, intervened in Broxit with official “Leave” support. Ye gads! (Later on, he says with a straight face that he’s not a nation builder. Guess he’s just a nation wrecker instead?) And, after that, again with a straight face, he goes on to talk about nation building/wrecking in Venezuela.
As for bits of stuff about Trump? The biggest tell was his claim that, after all his time of personal interaction with Trump, he found Trump’s take on Putin to still be a total mystery. THAT said, I get the distinct impression Bolton didn’t push too hard on trying to figure this out.
Elsewhere? He throws Obama under the bus for not doing MORE about 2016 election meddling, and says so to a clearly rhetorical Trump statement. So, this partially undermines the straight talker schtick.
Makes fun of Finnish place names. Wunderbar from a national security advisor.
Despite Bolton’s sneering about how no US biz would want to invest in Russia, it has a PPP per capita almost 50 percent higher than China. (That said, Russia is considered far more corrupt.)
His churlishness is on display, namely, a churlish backing of American exceptionalism and American warmongering, when he defends Trump not choppering into Belleau Wood, unlike other world leaders, because they don’t command US armed forces might.
On Venezuela, he ignores that his puppet Guaidó, like Maduro, backs a Venezuelan claim to land disputed with Guyana.
On China, is “social credit,” albeit by the government, not private individuals, really THAT different from bank redlining? And is Belt and Road “debt diplomacy” THAT different from World Bank/IMF forced austerity?
Then there’s his push to get Ukraine and even Georgia in NATO. He repeatedly touts Poppy Bush’s years, but ignores that he pledged to Yeltsin not to expand NATO eastward.
His dissing on Mattis and Mnuchin, and a lesser degree on Tillerson, is interesting.
That said, speaking of that, Scott Ritter had this to say about Bolton in light of Trump’s weathervanes in Afghanistan: “One doesn’t take on two decades of systemic investment in military failure that had become ingrained in both the psyche and structure of the U.S. military establishment, fire a popular secretary of defense, and then follow that act up with the dismissal of one of the most vindictive bureaucratic infighters in the business without accumulating enemies.” That “vindictive bureaucratic infighter” can only be Bolton.