The Tribune

By NICOLE BURROWS

THE newly-minted American president, Donald Trump, said this over a hot mic (Access Hollywood) while heading to a soap opera taping in 2005, to Billy Bush, co-host of the Today show on NBC until he was made to resign from the network in October, 2016:

“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful - I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Trump supporters - and even some who don’t support him - say it doesn’t matter that he said this ... it was 12 years ago ... and besides, that’s how men talk to each other about women.

I say it matters because it speaks to the core character of a man, one who believes he has a certain entitlement to a woman’s body - or anything, for that matter - because he’s a ‘star’. It’s an affliction of all power-mongers; look closely at the ones you know, too, though you may also be guilty of indulging them.

So Billy Bush laughed and egged Trump on, which is morally reprehensible, but Trump was obviously the perpetrator, flexing his ‘big man’ muscles in front of the boys. Then, over a decade later, Billy Bush got fired from the network. And Donald Trump got inaugurated to the presidency.

What a mad world we live in. Thankfully, there’s no statute of limitations on identifying classless, uncouth behaviour.

Trump is now the man who, for all intents and purposes, runs the world. And he’s still performing ... as though he were a ‘star’ and the presidency is his stage. It really is hard to resist calling Mr Trump by the same slang word he used to refer to the female’s special part he could feel so moved to freely and uninvitingly grab at.

For the past month of being the electoral college’s leader of the American people, instead of leading them in united opposition, against America’s adversaries and anything inherently un-American, Trump is causing Americans to become adversaries of their own leadership - and of one another. This is division, not unity.

Making America great again can’t happen by spitting the people into a multiplicity of factions and doing almost everything that makes them enraged. But maybe ‘divide and conquer’ is the goal.

Whenever in history has this occurred? When was the last time you saw/heard such mass and shockingly global protest against a president of the United States? The United States of America ... the biggest, baddest, and best of, at, and in everything?

What will be the long term effects of Trump’s divisive leadership on America, when a majority of very demonstrative people did not want him as president? Will he be allowed to remain in place for the next four years? What will go wrong versus right over that time?

A majority is not only ever always right, but look at the content of the protests. I suppose it only stands to reason that if Donald Trump did not win the popular vote last November then the majority would be against him, as seen in these mass and ongoing protests against him. But can we honestly say that we believe all these people representing such a diverse cross section of American citizens could all be mistaken?

Why ban Syrian refugees to America? The Trump administration’s new Syrian refugee ban ... pause ... timeout ... or whatever name the Trump camp wants to use today, cannot be believed to be about protecting America; there is nothing America is being protected against with such a ban, if no refugee from Syria is a terrorist in America. By all accounts, Syrian refugees have no record of being terrorists on American soil.

Either Trump and his advisors are very misinformed about ‘refugee terrorists’, or they are up to something sinister. If it’s the latter: is it a racially motivated order? Keep Syrians in their country because they don’t look like they belong here in America?

Is it motivated by religion? Christians are more appropriate to America than Muslims, so unless the Syrians are Christians leave them in Syria ... never mind that Christian extremists are very real in America?

Is it militarily motivated? Give the American army a reason to be physically present in Syria?

Whatever it is, it has more characteristics of something discriminatory, or something reckless, than anything else.

Syria is a war-torn country and civilians there die every day because a war was waged by the Syrian government against dissenting opinions, and led directly to the torture of teenagers and the death of a child, after which the people revolted. Since then, the war has drawn in many factions, but the primary cause still exists - the Syrian government will not accept dissent by Syrian citizens.

The Syrian people flee to save their own lives. Stopping their entry into America gives one less place for them to seek shelter from a war they did not start and cannot finish. If the United States maintains a ban on their asylum in America, how else can America assist Syrian civilians? There are no allies for America to fight with in Syria on behalf of the Syrian people. The Syrian rebels are not a formidable army.

The Syrian government is no longer fighting only its citizens, but also, primarily, the Islamic State (IS) ... with the help of Russia. Russia supplies Syria with arms for ground combat and has sent aircraft to conduct air raids on IS on behalf of the Syrian government, supposedly accidentally killing civilians.

Syria’s leader Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin have a similar ideology about civilian opposition - neither of them will tolerate it. With ground battle and air strikes, ultimately civilians die ... casualties of war, with no remorse by the Syrian government.

The only possible concern the Trump administration could have that would lead it to the idea of a ban of Syrian refugees is that IS soldiers will blend in with or pose as Syrian refugees and come to the United States via that refugee channel to attack America. It has not been the reality thus far. Refugees are known to be intensely vetted before their arrival into America, a process more stringent than visa issuance.

The real concern of the Trump administration should be IS-radicalised Americans in America, or, otherwise normal visa holders or everyday citizens whom no one would suspect of terrorist affiliation. The latter has proven thus far to be where the real threat lies.

So what else could be Trump’s reason for blocking the flow of refugees from Syria?

Well, if America is to help Syria, in a way other than permitting Syrians to enter into America for safe haven, the only other option is for America to deploy troops to Syria to fight IS and Assad’s army in ground battle, or to make more air strikes with many more citizens as collateral damage.

Ultimately, if America gets involved in a war in/with Syria, and Russia is backing Syria, providing ground weapons and carrying out air attacks that are killing civilians, it could easily draw America into a secondary war with Russia. With Iran also backing Syria, America could get pulled into a fight with Iran, too (note Trump’s recent provocation of Iran).

Could that be the endgame?

Since I wrote the first notes for this piece, there has been an announcement that some consideration is now being given to putting American boots on the ground in Syria, death trap though it will be.

Putin and Trump both want to revive the nuclear arms race. Is this why Russia - as evidence indicates - got involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee ... to sway public sentiment in favour of Trump at the 11th hour, just to lead to an opportunity to re-engage America in political hostilities?

What does Trump really think the United States has to gain by blocking Syrian refugees from entering America, other than a pathway to war? Is he deliberately setting America on a collision course to another world war?

What will the American people do, as the fate of the world rests on their shoulders? Will they wait until a war breaks out, nationally or internationally, before they declare Trump unfit for the office he doesn’t seem to realise is about more than him and his ratings?

Despite appearances and diplomacy (which Trump falls way short of), Putin is nobody’s friend. Trump - and the whole of America (and its remaining allies, post-Syrian ban) - would be wise to remember that.

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