The US military’s cruise missile attack on Syria reveals much. First, it lays waste to the idea and endless moronic bloviating in the US media (chiefly by MSNBC) about the purported Trump/Russia connection. There never was any, beyond Russian oligarchs with equally poor taste as our unctuous President Trump (but with deeper pockets) who buy his properties. Donald Trump tried for three decades to enter Russia’s property markets, as most major US hotel chains successfully did. Unlike them, however, Trump, failed at every turn. To be sure, there were figures linked to Trump’s presidential campaign like Paul Manafort and Matt Flynn with connections to Russia (and, incidentally, no small number of US Democrats too). They were the usual carpetbaggers (like so many before them) that monetized their positions of authority to cash in on ‘consulting’ opportunities in the post-Soviet world. This, however, seems more like business as usual than not, despite possible US laws violated in the case of Flynn. Increasingly like Russia, however, laws in the US seem only to be applied selectively to those threatening power and privilege.
Donald Trump’s chief ‘strategic advisor,’ Steve Bannon, however, was different. Having already made his fortune in finance, he is more ideologist than opportunist. Bannon seeks neither money, love, nor approval. Like Nixon, he wants power. Bannon believes war with Iran and China are inevitable and…