TRUMP + SAUDI ARABIA + $$$ = MURDER IS A-OKAY

        It’s a great day for murderers! Murder has become tolerable, even chic. According to Donald Trump, murder is acceptable. Not just acceptable, but okay to the point of making money off of it.

Who cares what the Bible’s outdated 6^th Commandment means? Evangelicals who support Trump have to be so pleased that Trump has invalidated “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Whether that means “killing” or more precisely “murder” if you’re a Christian, who needs that kind of restriction or restraint? It’s all for the best that evangelicals encourage Trump to approve of and endorse murder, most especially by a foreign government from which Trump is personally making millions of dollars. White Christians claim God put Trump in the White House. Who are we to question what God does? Sure it throws into question their whole anti-abortion stance, but Trump needs to just be Trump, and if murder is alright, then that’s alright with Christians. They approved of Trump saying “I could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes.” And he meant it.

As was predicted in mid-October, when solid evidence established that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman not only knew of Jamal Khashoggi’s torture and murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2nd but actually orchestrated it, Trump would simply ignore it and defend the Saudis. Tuesday, November 20^th, Trump said the U.S. will not levy additional punitive measures at this time against Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi. And not just that, in a statement released today claiming that while the U.S. does not condone the killing of the U.S-based Saudi columnist, Trump reiterated that "foolishly" canceling $110 billion in arms sales would only mean that Saudi Arabia would go to other countries to acquire them. See, money is always more important than murder. If Trump stands to lose even a dollar, then murder by necessity must be condoned.

Is any of this really surprising?

Trump, of course, defended Vladimir Putin and validated his interference in the 2016 U.S. election guaranteeing Trump’s victory - even after our intelligence agencies had proof that Putin had ordered the killing of Denis Voronenkov, Boris Nemtsov, Boris Berezovsky, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Sergei Magnitsky, and Anna Politkovskaya, to name just a few. What are a few murders between bosom buddies?

He’s the same man who defended Nazis and Nazi sympathizers in Charlottesville, Va. in August 2017…even after one of them used his car to kill Heather Heyer and badly injured 19 others.

He also defended Xi Jinping who grabbed absolute power in China by abolishing term limits which now means he can serve as the country’s president for life. So whatever Xi says or does has the authority of supreme law in China. It means anyone challenging Xi can now be charged with committing a political crime. Political crimes in China are considered capital offenses. As recently as April 2018, Trump demanded that White House counsel Don McGahn order the Justice Department to criminally prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey. Is it any wonder why Trump approves of what Xi has done?

Trump’s repeated pissing on the military included him scoffing at retired Admiral William McRaven who led the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and tracked down Saddam Hussein in the second Gulf War. Why? For not killing them soon enough. Trump clearly has no issue with killing in any form, but he has to be able to make a buck off of it.

Maybe now Trump supporters can come to understand where their willingness to vote him into office - with an extra nudge from Putin - has led us. We have a president who not only mocks the word of the Biblical God’s commandment but thumbs his nose at common sense and decency as well. Approving of the killing of someone gets Trump another “mulligan” from his evangelical base and the Republican Party.

Because ignoring murder = $$$...and GOP votes.

Here is the key question his supporters now have to answer. If Trump says murder is okay, what is NOT okay?

I'd rather they live

                 

                In several recent e-mails I've received from family members, if they have anything to do with the military, the emails will almost always end with some ridiculous line like this: And remember only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ, and the American Soldier. Putting aside the a priori assumption of the first ‘defining force’, I’d like to address the bald assertion made at the end of that sentence about American soldiers offering to die.

                                        U.S. dead after rocket attack in Afghanistan, but did they offer to die?

               I don’t know about you but I don’t want any of our military people dying for me. I want them to live and kill the enemy combatants who aim to do me harm. It’s a very different thing to attack, defend, and fight, than to just up and die. Is the writer of this assertion claiming that men and women poured into recruiting offices with the goal of dying? Is he insinuating that when they were fully trained they appeared on battlefields and deliberately stood up in an exposed position to commit a planned suicide?  Did ANY of those soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen join up in order to die? Of course not. They may have joined because they felt it was their duty, or it was an adventure, or a chance to fight for their country. Death was possible, but I would wager not one of them said ‘yes, I’m signing up so I can die for the American people.’ It's like claiming that a driver who is killed in a traffic accident actually offered to die behind the wheel of his car for the American people.

             Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest is quoted as saying “War means fighting, and fighting means killing.” Notice he doesn’t say dying. Fighting men and women are trained to fight and kill the enemy; they are not trained to die. It may happen in the course of fighting but that is not their purpose, and I am sad to think ANY of them did die. In the hit movie “Patton”  the great General, portrayed by actor George C. Scott, makes a statement that the men are not to ‘lay down your life for your country; you are to make the other poor, dumb bastard lay down his life for his country.' That’s the way it is in every war. Even the famed 300 Spartans who held off the Persian army under Xerxes did not meet them in the mountain passes of northern Sparta in order to die. They knew it was a distinct possibility, but they fought as though they’d survive to see their families and homes again, not assume that they’d be slaughtered to a man. So the statement that U.S. soldiers have offered to ‘die for you’ is not just wrong; it is absurd, it makes a mockery of the life of the soldier, sailor, marine, or airman or woman, and it is patently false. How many wars are won by the soldiers all dying?

                     So many U.S. war dead returned from Iraq, one assumes their mass suicides were successful

               One email even ends with this line: “Of all the gifts you could give a U.S. Soldier, prayer is the very best one.” A quick test shows this is nonsense. Just as he goes into battle against a heavily armed enemy, if an unarmed American soldier is given the choice of a loaded automatic weapon you are holding out to him, or you offer to just pray for him, which will he choose? We can make this even easier on a more personal level. We’re alone dining and you start choking. You have two choices. One, I can perform the Heimlich maneuver on you…or Two, I can pray for you. Think carefully about your choice before you pass out.

Our military men and women are in my thoughts but I am not wasting time praying for them. I send letters of encouragement, books to read (but not bibles, korans, or other 'holy' publications) and contribute to funds that supply them with body armor and other necessary items to help protect them. I hope you will too.

              As for the Jesus Christ line, if Jesus is alive and now in heaven sitting at the right hand of himself (since christians claim he IS god), how is that death? What did he sacrifice? Regardless of what christians claim, no one died for me or you. It is simply an element of faith on the part of christians that Jesus did what the bible claims; and faith is simply believing in something without evidence. You just want it to be true. That’s not a pathway to truth.