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about John Bolton’s departure from government

John Bolton has been a Washington, DC, fixture since I was in college, which is a long long time ago. He has held a number of high level government jobs in that long time, as well as the usual garden variety of middlin’ roles that regular revolving door people in DC have. Like mid-level government, academic, lobbying, and think tank jobs.

And all that time John Bolton has been a staunch, unabashed defender of America and American interests.

John Bolton was our hero when he worked for the last Bush administration and he took on the gun prohibitionists at the United Nations. That was a proud day for America, with Bolton at the podium, when American government told European tyrants that one of the great defining characteristics of America is the right and the ability of our people to make an effective armed revolt against our own government, and so No, we would not be signing their small arms treaty as a back door way to strip American citizens of their Constitutional rights.

Over the past year or two, US National Security Advisor John Bolton has been hugely criticized by conservatives for being a war hawk, someone too eager to use full American force at the drop of a hat. A warmonger some call him.

“We are so tired of wars. We are not the world’s police man,” goes one refrain, which on its face certainly makes sense, within certain basic parameters.

Another common refrain which does not make sense goes “Iran is not a threat to America, and we should do everything we can to avoid war with Iran.”

Thus, with that second refrain, anyone promoting a strong deterrent policy and posture with Iran, like John Bolton, is automatically risking another Mid East war, which we are told, we absolutely must avoid at all costs. Apparently even at the cost of letting Iran nuke a few of our major cities.

The left-right crossover by these so-called anti-war conservatives is fascinating to me, and Bolton became the friction plane for where their war-weary criticism met the Trump Administration’s foreign policy activities. As a Bush II legacy, Bolton reminded everyone too much of poorly implemented wars, in which the USA rules of engagement put our warriors’ lives and limbs at unnecessary risk, and where America foolishly sought to implement a second Marshall Plan, this time in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Like Bolton, I also say Give War a Chance, but let it always be total war, uninhibited war, completely and immediately successful war, not the war of namby pamby uniparty globalists worried about how America will be perceived poorly as some sort of meany arch defender of its own interests. Hell, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and China do not give a damn about how anyone else perceives their pursuit of their national interests. They do whatever they want, come hell or high water, with a lot of extra brutality thrown in, just so the defeated remember the high price of resisting.

So, in turn, I believe, America should be just as ruthless and just as bold as they, our main competitors, if we are to survive them. John Bolton was a proud promoter of this stance. He believes in America, a successful, strong, defiant America.

It is certain that Bolton was a nettlesome cowboy inside the Trump Administration. He was well suited to the first year or two of this administration, when America was being felt abroad for the first time in decades, but Bolton was not a good fit in the third or fourth years, where Trump is beginning to tame the bureaucracy and bring his own more nuanced policies to bear. Anyone with a huge manly mustache like Bolton has, in this day and age, is living in the 1950s past, where mustachioed gunslingers in chaps and dusty cowboy hats still represented the best that America had been and the best that she still could be.

It is no surprise that Bolton was taken down by Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, because no matter who runs the State Department, they all at that agency are always the weanies, the wimps, the “war-no-more” tip-toeing weasel fairies of our foreign touch. Everyone at the State Department believes fervently that all our conflicts can be resolved amicably, if America just gives in and gives away enough of its own interests.

On the other hand, every day he was on the job John Bolton was leading the US cavalry straight up San Juan Hill with the American flag in his left hand and a smoking Colt .45 revolver in his right. I will miss the guy.

John Bolton’s approach to American foreign policy: TR’s famous charge up San Juan Hill with the Rough Riders

 

The US State Department: Obsequious weasel with a toothy beaming sycophantic smile looking perky and wide eyed, always