Conflicts in praising dictators

[struggle4progress]

May 2, 2017 11:43 AM ET
Domenico Montanaro

He invited the brutal Philippine leader, Rodrigo Duterte, to the White House .. despite Duterte's violent crackdown on drugs, that has left more than 7,000 of his countrymen dead since he took power less than a year ago ...

Potential Trump conflict: His name is on a 57-story, $150 million building in Manila. Duterte named the head of the corporation that developed it as an envoy to the United States ...

A long-time general in the country's military, <Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi> rose to power in a bloody coup ... Some 800 protesters were killed in a single day ... Public criticism of the government is squashed ... Anti-government protests are banned ... Scores of people have been arrested ...

"... I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President al-Sisi ..."

Potential Trump conflict: Trump lists two companies in Egpyt on his financial disclosure — Trump Marks Egypt and Trump Marks Egypt LLC. There is not a lot of information about the companies ...

https://www.npr.org/2017/05/02/526520042/6-strongmen-trumps-praised-and-the-conflicts-it-presents

[struggle4progress]

1. Shout-outs to dictators

KRISHNADEV CALAMUR
MAR 4, 2018

... “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great,” Trump said of Xi at a lunch and fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago estate, according to CNN, which obtained a recording of the remarks. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day” ...

... praising Putin’s strong leadership in a country where the Russian leader’s political opponents are harassed, jailed, or simply disappear is a bit like praising the punctuality of the railways in a fascist regime. The U.S. State Department, in its most recent human-rights report, described restrictions in Russia on political participation; the suppression of civil society; and allegations of torture ...

Trump .. said in 2016 that Libya would be better off “if <Moammar> Gaddafi were in charge right now.” He once tweeted a quote from Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist leader, and later defended the tweet, saying: “Mussolini was Mussolini ... It’s a very good quote. It’s a very interesting quote... what difference does it make whether it’s Mussolini or somebody else?” ...

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/trump-xi-jinping-dictators/554810/

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2. Working for any dictator who flatters him

By WILLIAM SALETAN
MARCH 29, 2019 5:45 AM

... He has shilled for Vladimir Putin, urged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, defended a secret meeting to get Russian dirt on her, attacked U.S. intelligence agencies that documented Russia’s election interference, and fired the FBI director who was investigating that interference. All of these betrayals are recorded or acknowledged on video ...

... Transcripts, videos, and government records show that he has repeatedly collaborated with tyrants against our country. He has defended North Korea’s Kim Jong-un against U.S. intelligence that shows Kim is lying about his nuclear programs. He has defended Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, against American intelligence that exposes the crown prince’s role in the murder of a U.S. resident. He has sided with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, against American generals and U.S. law enforcement. He has declared that the Chinese government is more honorable than the American Democratic Party ...

... Trump isn’t a Russian agent. Trump doesn’t particularly care about any country, just as he doesn’t particularly care about any of his employees or wives. And the list of countries Trump is willing to betray includes the one that elected him. He chooses his friends and enemies based on their utility to him, not based on their national allegiance ...

The lesson of the Mueller investigation isn’t that Trump is less treacherous than his critics feared. It’s that he’s more treacherous. He’s been selling out his country to a series of dictators. Don’t take it from me. Don’t even take it from Mueller. It’s all in the public record, one damning story after another ...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/03/trumps-treachery-goes-way-beyond-russia.html

[struggle4progress]

3. Praised dictators

BY STEPH BAZZLE
April 18, 2019

... At a campaign stop in January 2016, Trump — then still a candidate for the Republican nomination for President — spoke of Kim Jong Un. He called the North Korean leader a maniac, then lauded him for the deaths of an uncle and brother who stood to challenge his power ...

At another campaign stop in the summer leading up to the 2016 elections, Trump paid tribute to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, known for acts such as having a critic’s tongue sliced out, and executing people he claimed were part of a “Zionist spy ring” ...

In an interview with the Washington Post in October 2018 Trump described Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman as “a person who can keep things under check,” and “a strong person” with “very good control” ...

https://hillreporter.com/times-donald-trump-praised-dictators-and-controversial-leaders-31009

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4. Easily manipulated by dictators

By Max Boot
April 30

... he has gone from listening to fast-buck artists peddling get-rich-quick schemes to listening to dictators peddling fly-by-night geopolitical schemes ...

... after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hamburg, Trump announced that the United States and Russia might form “an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded.” That laughable proposal faded away within 12 hours — only to be resurrected when Putin and Trump met in Helsinki in July 2018 ...

... there is no policy process in the Trump administration to weigh the pros and cons. The New Yorker’s Dexter Filkins quotes a “former senior national-security official” saying that the policy “process has completely broken down” and “I don’t remember the last time there was a f---ing principals’ meeting.” Instead, foreign policy is made on Twitter after the president has heard from his favorite dictators ...

... the “America First” president, far more than the “globalist” presidents he reviles, is a tool of foreign leaders who don’t have America’s best interests at heart.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/30/why-trump-shouldnt-designate-muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-organization/?utm_term=.b5cf7042de5e