Timothy Birdnow

James Pinkerton shows how Trump has lost far fewer Americans in overseas wars than any other President since the beginning of the millennium except 'old cut and run' Biden:

Here is the scorecard:

Bush 43: Total 4,865 (Iraq 4,239, Afghanistan 626)

Obama: Total 2,054 (Iraq 302, Afghanistan 1752)

Trump 45: Total 65 (Afghanistan 45)

Biden: Total 23 (13 Afghanistan)

Trump 47: Total 13 (Iran)

These casualty numbers are for troops sent into actual hot zones, battlegrounds, not random terrorist attacks or other such casualties.And these numbers only include military personnel, not contractors or aid workers or other such.

Biden, of course, largely inherited a peaceful world which he made more dangerous by his Charlie foxtrot in Afghanistan, his weak, vacillating approach to Ukraine, and his support for Iran and the "cash for peace" deal Obama made which only made Iran stronger. That he lost ANY troops is unacceptable given he had no wars to fight.

Pinkerton is under the delusion that Trump was pushed into attacking Iran by Bibi Netanyahu. I hate to break it to old Pinko but nobody, but nobody, pressed Donald Trump's buttons. He's strong as a mule and twice as stubborn.

And Pinkerton says "Trump chose war", being in complete denial about Iran's growing nuclear threat and not understanding that the military option was all the President had left to deal with them. He'd been in negotiations

Pinkerton says:

"If Trump has his way, the U.S. will be more Hamiltonian and less Wilsonian, seeing the world, as he does, through a mercantilist lens. If so, POLITICO reports, NATO will become a "cash machine,” good for not much more than American arms sales. And that mission, at least, seems to have been accomplished."

I disagree; I don't think Trump is Wilsonian at all but rather Jacksonian in his approach. Wilson was the proto-fascist and Wilson wanted a new world order before we had any such thing as the U.N. HE created the League of Nations. HE was not at all interested in profit for anyone. Trump is also not a "mercantilist" which is a fancy way of saying a heavily regulated economy at the service of the state. Fascism was mercantilist in nature (even while also being proto-socialist) and Trump still favors free trade - he just doesn't favor getting soaked by it. Pinkerton bemoans the end of NATO as anything but a "cash machine to buy American arms" but that would not be Wilsonian at all. Wilson was the architect of an international order. Trump was to stop playing footsie with people who take advantage of us.

Pinkerton goes on to speak about how Trump's efforts have gone nowhere and that Iran won't let him forget - having called for his assassination. Pinkerton seems to be unaware that an Iranian plot to kill Trump was foiled by the FBI well before the start of hostilities. They've ALWAYS wanted to assassinate Trump.

I'm hard on Pinkerton and have always disagreed with him on foreign policy. I actually owe my writing career to him, believe it or not! He wrote an article about the invasion of Afghanistan when we first went in and I left a critical comment. He e-mailed me back and we had a lively exchange (and I cleaned his clock). I remember thinking "hell, I could do that!" and so I did.

At any rate he did a fine job using the stats to show Trump knows how to project power without costing American lives. Hopefully that will continue, but I fear we must take the islands in the Gulf, especially Kharg and those near the strait itself. That will mean Marines. We're going to lose lives if we do that.

Or we can just bomb Iran into a parking lot. It would be a good place to store our newest lines of gas guzzling SUV's before being sold to a grateful world.

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