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Friday, June 9, 2017

Playing The Dishonest Washington Game

There is a confrontation at the moment between Qatar on the one side and a coalition of Arab powers including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain etc. on the other side.  The point of contention is the support given by Qatar to terror groups like Hamas, the Moslem Brotherhood and others.  After President Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, the coalition of Arab nations cracked down on Qatar for trying to play both sides of the terrorism issue.  Each member of the Arab coalition broke diplomatic relations with Qatar and closed their borders with Qatar.  They also closed their airspace and waters to Qatari vessels and planes.  This closure has had devastating effect on Qatar.  It means that no supplies can be brought to Qatar by truck or train since there is no land entrance to the country.  It also means that the use of Doha airport as a regional hub has been severely undermined.  For example, planes that used to fly over Saudi Arabia to get to Europe now have to go hundreds of miles out of their way to fly over Iran and then some central Asian nations before heading west to Europe.

A fast analysis of this situation provides the conclusion that this is a very good development for the USA and American foreign policy.  Qatar has been providing billions of dollars in support to terrorist groups while nominally supporting the war against terrorism.  If the action by the Arab coalition forces Qatar to stop sending these fund, it will be a major blow against the terrorists.  For the entirety of the Obama years, we were told that the real battle against the terrorists had to be fought by other Muslims, especially those in the Middle East.  Of course, Obama did nothing to help that to happen, and the other Arab nations pretty much ignored the fight.  President Trump, however, managed in four months to get more from the Arabs than Obama ever did.

In view of the favorable turn of events regarding Qatar, the sad thing is that many Democrats in Washington are playing a dishonest game in discussing American policy.  The best example of this is the moron who represents my state in the senate, Democrat Chris Murphy.  Murphy styles himself a foreign policy expert, although I doubt he knows enough about foreign matters to know what kind of food is served in a Chinese restaurant.  Ignorance never stops Chris Murphy, however.  Let me give you an example.

The closing of the border with Qatar by Saudi Arabia is being called a "blockade" by some hysterics like Murphy.  There's no fighting.  There's no one preventing the Qataris from importing goods by sea.  Nevertheless, Murphy calls it a blockade.  And Murphy cannot stand the idea that the action by the Arab coalition might reduce terrorism with President Trump getting some of the credit for that.  As a result, Murphy has been lying about what has been said and done.  Yesterday, Murphy announced that President Trump had tweeted in support of the blockade.  That is a total lie.  The President tweeted in support of cutting off funds to terrorists as a means of fighting them.  He said that Qatar had to comply with such a cut off.  To morons like Murphy, that is support for a "blockade".  (It isn't.)  Today, the Secretary of State told the media that the USA was of the opinion that the Saudis should let food and other necessary supplies cross the border into Qatar in order to prevent humanitarian problems in that country.  Not long after that, President Trump was asked about whether he supported having Qatar cut off funding for terrorists.  Not surprisingly, Trump said that we do support such a cut off of funding.  Murphy immediately tweeted that the Secretary of State spoke against the "blockade" while the President "supported" the blockade.  Of course, Trump never mentioned blockades or anything close to them.  It doesn't matter, Murphy just lies about it and then complains.  Murphy even "worries" that US troops stationed in Qatar might be put at risk due to the blockade and the supposedly unclear policy of President Trump.

It's disgusting that an American senator would just continually lie about things like this.  Murphy can contend that America should follow different policies to his heart's content.  As a senator, he's supposed to have opinions on subjects like this.  It is wrong, however, for a senator to spread fake news to the American people.  Most people reading senator Murphy's tweets don't know what the President actually said about "blockades".  They don't know that Murphy is just making this stuff up.

Senator Murphy loves to play the dishonest Washington game.  Hopefully, the people of Connecticut will replace Murphy at the earliest possible moment.  He's a disgrace.

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