{"id":42727,"date":"2019-01-14T07:48:07","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T12:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=42727"},"modified":"2019-01-14T07:48:07","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T12:48:07","slug":"embarrassing-speeches-signs-of-a-dying-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=42727","title":{"rendered":"Embarrassing Speeches: Signs of a Dying Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Embarrassing Speeches: Signs of a Dying Empire<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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\u201cWhat are you reading my lord?\u201d \u2014 Polonius<\/p>\n

\u201cWords.\u201d \u2014 Hamlet<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Something has changed in U.S. politics. And it may finally signal something changing for the better. Since the announcement (but no real follow through) to end our military involvement in Syria what passes for our statesmen \u2014 John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo \u2014 have been ignored, mocked or both.<\/p>\n

Bolton attempted to box Trump in on not leaving Syria while Israel chest-thumped about how they will not yield an inch to Iran. Turkish President Erdogan publicly lambasted him with no response from President Trump.<\/p>\n

Or anyone else for that matter.<\/p>\n

When was the last time you heard of a major U.S. political figure go overseas and be refused a meeting with a foreign head of state, publicly upbraided and sent home like an irrelevant flunkie?<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t think of one.<\/p>\n

Bolton came into the Middle East and made demands like he was the President which Bolton knew were clearly red lines for Erdogan \u2014 guaranteeing the safety of the Syrian Kurds.<\/p>\n

And he did this from Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

The insult couldn\u2019t be plainer. The lack of Bolton\u2019s self-awareness and understanding of the situation was embarrassing. And it left Erdogan the perfect opportunity to call out the Trump Administration\u2019s policies as beholden to a foreign power, Israel.<\/p>\n

Pompeo\u2019s Pomp<\/strong><\/p>\n

Next up we have His Rotundity, Mike Pompeo. He goes into Cairo and gives a speech which again shows a stunning lack of specific knowledge of history. Pompeo spent most of the speech doing what he does best.<\/p>\n

Misrepresenting history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East so ardently one really thought he should have done it in his private man place.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Embarrassing Speeches: Signs of a Dying Empire \u201cWhat are you reading my lord?\u201d \u2014 Polonius \u201cWords.\u201d \u2014 Hamlet Something has changed in U.S. politics. And it may finally signal something changing for the better. Since the announcement (but no real follow through) to end our military involvement in Syria what passes for our statesmen \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[130,7844,259,21273,4487,522,15128,694,16963,827,3142,978],"class_list":["post-42727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-empire","tag-gold-goats-and-guns","tag-john-bolton","tag-middle-east","tag-mike-pompeo","tag-russia","tag-tom-luongo","tag-united-states","tag-us-empire","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42728,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42727\/revisions\/42728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}