America only has one President at a time. Currently that is Donald Trump. I don’t have to like that fact, but the only rational choice is to accept it. Trump is incredibly bad at his job! I could spend the following paragraphs detailing a plethora of examples. Instead I’m going to use one that came to my attention the other day. You will probably be a shocked as I was. Trump’s incompetence is actually worse than I thought. Let’s explore.
Of all the current international hot spots the one that has concerned me the most is the situation with North Korea. I am not alone in my concern. Many of us breathed a sigh of relief when North Korea didn’t launch a weaponized missile last Saturday (their time). I feel not coincidentally they did test an unarmed missile minutes after Vice President Mike Pence’s plane took off for Seoul, South Korea. Fortunately the test was a failure, blowing up just after launch. Was the failure part of North Korea’s learning curve or was it cyber sabotaged by American or allied forces? That is a matter of national security and I hope we don’t learn the answer to my question in the near future.
In one of the many discussions I listened to on this subject I heard the claim that we did not have an ambassador to South Korea (North Korea’s most likely target and the home to about 30,000 American service personnel). My first thoughts were that this was preposterous and that the speaker was misinformed. I had to check that claim out. Well it was true. Next I thought that certainly Trump had nominated an ambassador but the Senate just hadn’t gotten around to confirming them yet. I was met with another disappointment. Unfortunately the situation is much worse than I had anticipated.
The best data I could find was as of March 27th; over sixty days after Trump took office. The United States normally has 188 people of ambassador rank deployed around the world. As of March 27, 2017 Trump had only nominated six people. That is slightly over 3% of the positions. We are not talking about Democratic obstruction and unconfirmed; I am counting the nominated. Even somehow rounding Trump’s grade up to 4% that represents a dismal failure on any curve I can conceive of!
This situation is compounded by the fact that South Korea is currently trying to extricate itself from a political scandal that has left it with somewhat of a caretaker government. I’m sure the embassy isn’t empty, but wouldn’t it be reassuring to know that a person with the rank of ambassador could pick up the phone and represent America’s interest when it looks like we might be on the brink of a nuclear exchange?
For the record here are the six posts that have nominations and/or confirmations: China, the Republic of Congo, Israel, Japan, Senegal and Guinea-Bissau along with the United Nations. It is worth noting that there are vacancies for ten UN posts with specific portfolios.
Well I guess if Trump decides to make Senegal or Guinea-Bissau his Grenada at least we have an ambassador in place. That’s not much reassurance to me!
This article is the property of tellthetruthonthem.com and its content may not be used without citing the source. It may not be reproduced without the permission of Larry Marciniak.