As he prepares to leave leadership, McConnell challenges Trump on foreign policy

By MARY CLARE JALONICK December 16, 20240

(The dictator sticks his neck into Trump’s formal decisions; and warns him what he’ll do.WARMONGER FOREVER)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican Leader MitchMcConnell is challenging President-elect Donald Trump to reject the isolationist voiceswithin their party and build his foreign policy around military strength, arguing thatif the U.S. retreats from global engagement, “its enemies will be only too happy to fill the void.”

In an essay published Monday in Foreign Affairs,McConnell took the rare step of warning Trump directlyas he plans to step down from his post in the coming weeks. The Kentucky Republican plans to stay in the Senate and has made clear thathis top priority will be pushing for the United States to maintain and improve its global strength.

“The time to restore American hard power is now,”McConnell wrote, arguing that military readiness should override “both left-wing faith in hollow internationalism and right-wing flirtation with isolation and decline.”

McConnell has long pushed back against the growing isolationist wing in his party, making an aggressive, ultimately successful push this year to pass aid to Ukraine when many in his party in Congress were openly opposed to it.

But the essay is his most direct warning yet to Trump and his allies and advisers, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, an Ohio senator who was one of the loudest voices in opposition to the Ukraine aid.

Trump has railed against “forever wars” since before his first term in office and long spoken favorably of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He made clear during his campaign that he would move to end the war in Ukraine quickly and has called on Putin to reach an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine.

He has also said he would be open to reducing military aid to Ukraine and pulling the United States out of NATO.

McConnell wrote that Trump “deserves credit” for reversing some Obama-era limitations on assistance to Ukraine in his first term and authorizing a transfer of lethal weapons to Kyiv. But he writes that the former and future president “sometimes undermined these tough policies through his words and deeds,” including his relationship with Putin.

“He courted Putin, he treated allies and alliance commitments erratically and sometimes with hostility, and in 2019 he withheld $400 million in security assistance to Ukraine,” McConnell wrote. “These public episodes raised doubts about whether the United States was committed to standing up to Russian aggression, even when it actually did so.”

Trump should “commit to a significant and sustained increase in defense spending,” McConnell recommended, as well as investments in the defense industry and access to new military capabilities.

McConnell’s essay comes after years of an intensely complicated relationship with Trump, aligning with him when it served his purposes in the Senate while criticizing him behind his back and, to a lesser extent, in public. He did not speak to Trump for more than three years after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump’s supporters, but endorsed him earlier this year after it became clear that he would be the GOP presidential nominee.

The essay also comes as there is speculation about McConnell’s new role as a rank-and-file member, whether he will oppose some of Trump’s nominees and otherwise challenge him publicly now that he is freed from the responsibilities of leadership.

However that may play out, McConnell has made clear that “he wants to cement his legacy” by pushing the party to embrace the U.S. role as a global leader.

He writes that Trump will “no doubt hear from some that he should prioritize a single theater and downgrade U.S. interests and commitments elsewhere,” including by elevating Asia at the expense of interests in Europe and the Middle East. But if “the United States continues to retreat, its enemies will be only too happy to fill the void.”

“A Russian victory would not only damage the United States’ interest in European security and increase U.S. military requirements in Europe; it would also compound the threats from China, Iran, and North Korea,” McConnell writes.

https://apnews.com/article/mcconnell-trump-isolationism-foreign-affairs-dcad297fa82e1794612fa2582e21162f

>>22181542

Other articles in AP

US military flies American released from Syrian prison to Jordan, officials sayLOLITA C. BALDOR and AAMER MADHANI December 13, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military has transported out of Syria an American who had disappeared seven months ago into former President Bashar Assad’s notorious prison system and was among the thousands released this week by rebels, U.S. officials said Friday.

Travis Timmerman, 29, was flown to Jordan on a U.S. military helicopter, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing operation.

It’s unclear where Timmerman may go next.He thanked his rescuers for freeing him but has told American officials that he would like to stay in the region(CIA?), according to another person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly. Timmerman was detained after he crossed into Syria while on a Christian pilgrimage from a mountain along the eastern Lebanese town of Zahle in June.

He told The Associated Press in an interview earlier Friday thathe was not ill-treated while in Palestine Branch, a notorious detention facility operated by Syrian intelligence. In his prison cell, Timmerman said, he had a mattress, a plastic drinking container and two others for waste. He said the Friday calls to prayers helped keep track of days.

Timmerman said he was released Monday morning alongside a young Syrian man and 70 female prisoners, some of whom had their children with them, after rebels seized control of Damascus and forced Assad from power in a dramatic upheaval.

He said he was freed by “the liberators who came into the prison and knocked the door down (of his cell) with a hammer.”He had been held separately from Syrian and other Arab prisoners and said he didn’t know of any other Americans held in the facility.

Timmerman is from Urbana, Missouri, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Springfield in the southwestern part of the state.He earned a finance degree from Missouri State University in 2017. His mother, Stacey Gardiner, said she was told that he was being taken to a military base in Jordan. The family still had not spoken to him.

Mouaz Moustafa, a U.S.-based Syrian opposition activist who worked with rebels to arrange Timmerman’s transfer back to safety, tweeted a photo of the freed American standing next to a man in U.S. military uniform in the flat desert of the region.

“Safe and sound and back in American hands,” Moustafa wrote.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, are continuing their search for Austin Tice, an American journalist who disappeared 12 years ago near Damascus.

Nizar Zakka, president of the U.S.-based Hostage Aid Worldwide that was commissioned by Tice’s family to search for him, said he called Tice’s mother and sister after receiving a tip Thursday from a Syrian near where Timmerman was found. The caller thought the foreigner was Tice.

“We asked them for videos, we ask them for voice (recordings) to make sure,” Zakka said. “We had the feeling from the minute, especially from the age, that it’s not correct. But we sent it to the mom. It was 3 a.m. (in the U.S.), and we woke the sister, and she said to me one thing. She said that definitely it’s not Austin.”

In the search for Tice, Zakka said he had visited detention centers and the houses of prominent figures in Assad’s circle, but the search had so far not produced results.

The three possible scenarios, Zakka said, are that “we will find him somewhere in Damascus, in the jail that he was left in or in the house, in the safe house where he is”;that a high-ranking member of Assad’s circle took Tice along while escaping the country “as a security for his life”; or that Tice’s captors killed him and other prisoners to erase evidence of their crimes.

He criticized the U.S. for announcing a $10 million reward for information leading to Tice, saying that it had led to a flood of false tips and caused confusion.

https://apnews.com/article/syria-timmerman-assad-timmerman-443d1c3b2b9cf551cdcfdff22bdcedc9#

>>22181542

This article from Mitch is shortened, the entire article are 7 pages of dictating and threatening Trump

Here's the link to the full article.

Mitch is demanding always war, and pushing the MIC to be able to kill anyone and anything.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/price-american-retreat-trump-mitch-mcconnell

>>22181651

It's worse than that… the arrogant asshole doesn't get the citizens don't want perpetual war. While Mitch did everything Joe pushed, always more war.

I suspect Trump's response to him, will be muted for now, but when the time comes, he'll make it clear who's in control.

>>22181542

Foreign AffairsRead the Headlines of these articles, shows you this media, is not for American policies; it's always war!

November/December 2024

Volume 103, Number 6

Essays

1. The Return of Total War

Understanding—and Preparing for—a New Era of Comprehensive Conflict

Mara Karlin

1. Wars Are Not Accidents

Managing Risk in the Face of Escalation

Erik Lin-Greenberg

1. China’s Agents of Chaos

The Military Logic of Beijing’s Growing Partnerships

Oriana Skylar Mastro

1. Battles of Precise Mass

Technology Is Remaking War—and America Must Adapt

Michael C. Horowitz

1. The Age of Depopulation

Surviving a World Gone Gray

Nicholas Eberstadt

1. America’s Strategy of Renewal

Rebuilding Leadership for a New World

Antony J. Blinken

1. The New Battle for the Middle East

Saudi Arabia and Iran’s Clash of Visions

Karim Sadjadpour

1. The Fight for a New Israel

To End the War and Build a Lasting Peace, the Country Must Reinvent Its Own Democracy

Dahlia Scheindlin

1. The Populist Phantom

Threats to Democracy Start at the Top

Larry M. Bartels

1. How to End the Democratic Recession

The Fight Against Autocracy Needs a New Playbook

Larry Diamond

Our Own Worst Enemies

1. The Violent Style in American Politics

Robert A. Pape

Reviews & Responses

1. The Upside to Uncertainty on Taiwan

How to Avert Catastrophe at the World’s Most Dangerous Flash Point

James B. Steinberg

1. Whose Ronald Reagan?

Fighting Over the Legacy of a Conservative Hero in the Era of Trump

Susan B. Glasser

1. Can the United Nations Be Saved?

The Case for Getting Back to Basics

Thant Myint-U

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/issues/2024/103/6

US military flies American released from Syrian prison to Jordan, officials sayLOLITA C. BALDOR and AAMER MADHANI December 13, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military has transported out of Syria an American who had disappeared seven months ago into former President Bashar Assad’s notorious prison system and was among the thousands released this week by rebels, U.S. officials said Friday.

Travis Timmerman, 29, was flown to Jordan on a U.S. military helicopter, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing operation.

It’s unclear where Timmerman may go next.He thanked his rescuers for freeing him but has told American officials that he would like to stay in the region(CIA?), according to another person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly. Timmerman was detained after he crossed into Syria while on a Christian pilgrimage from a mountain along the eastern Lebanese town of Zahle in June.

He told The Associated Press in an interview earlier Friday thathe was not ill-treated while in Palestine Branch, a notorious detention facility operated by Syrian intelligence. In his prison cell, Timmerman said, he had a mattress, a plastic drinking container and two others for waste. He said the Friday calls to prayers helped keep track of days.

Timmerman said he was released Monday morning alongside a young Syrian man and 70 female prisoners, some of whom had their children with them, after rebels seized control of Damascus and forced Assad from power in a dramatic upheaval.

He said he was freed by “the liberators who came into the prison and knocked the door down (of his cell) with a hammer.”He had been held separately from Syrian and other Arab prisoners and said he didn’t know of any other Americans held in the facility.

Timmerman is from Urbana, Missouri, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Springfield in the southwestern part of the state.He earned a finance degree from Missouri State University in 2017. His mother, Stacey Gardiner, said she was told that he was being taken to a military base in Jordan. The family still had not spoken to him.

Mouaz Moustafa, a U.S.-based Syrian opposition activist who worked with rebels to arrange Timmerman’s transfer back to safety, tweeted a photo of the freed American standing next to a man in U.S. military uniform in the flat desert of the region.

“Safe and sound and back in American hands,” Moustafa wrote.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, are continuing their search for Austin Tice, an American journalist who disappeared 12 years ago near Damascus.

Nizar Zakka, president of the U.S.-based Hostage Aid Worldwide that was commissioned by Tice’s family to search for him, said he called Tice’s mother and sister after receiving a tip Thursday from a Syrian near where Timmerman was found. The caller thought the foreigner was Tice.

“We asked them for videos, we ask them for voice (recordings) to make sure,” Zakka said. “We had the feeling from the minute, especially from the age, that it’s not correct. But we sent it to the mom. It was 3 a.m. (in the U.S.), and we woke the sister, and she said to me one thing. She said that definitely it’s not Austin.”

In the search for Tice, Zakka said he had visited detention centers and the houses of prominent figures in Assad’s circle, but the search had so far not produced results.

The three possible scenarios, Zakka said, are that “we will find him somewhere in Damascus, in the jail that he was left in or in the house, in the safe house where he is”;that a high-ranking member of Assad’s circle took Tice along while escaping the country “as a security for his life”; or that Tice’s captors killed him and other prisoners to erase evidence of their crimes.

He criticized the U.S. for announcing a $10 million reward for information leading to Tice, saying that it had led to a flood of false tips and caused confusion.

https://apnews.com/article/syria-timmerman-assad-timmerman-443d1c3b2b9cf551cdcfdff22bdcedc9#

James Rickards: Zelensky Is A Military Director Right Now

13:32

https://rumble.com/embed/v5xzya8/?pub=4

Chris Cillizza and Van Jones tell truth (timestamped).

Van Jones & Chris Cincilla, talks all about how Trump won and knew how to win.Jones says Trump is the smartest person in the world. We got beat by Trump, because it's something we don't understand. The left always says Trump is dumb, he's not.

https://youtu.be/ZKd8ZM-TJU4

Citizen Free Press

@CitizenFreePres

'I ASK YOU TO REMEMBER THE CONTEXT IN WHICH YOU EXIST.'

Get ready for California governor Kamala Harris.

She really needs to stop talking

2:19 PM · Dec 17, 2024

·

14.2K

Views

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1869100164939690178