Just another NY Times attack on Trump
Trump’s ‘Very Friendly’ Talk With Duterte Stuns Aides and Critics Alike
“By essentially endorsing Duterte’s murderous war on drugs, Trump is now morally complicit in future killings,” said John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch. “Although the traits of his personality likely make it impossible, Trump should be ashamed of himself.”
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No, friends. This isn’t a parody from Saturday night’s “White House Propagandists Dinner”.
This is a “news story/opinion piece” in the New York Times, taking Trump to task for talking to a leader of a southeast Asian nation which may be critical in a potential crisis in Asia if China continues to exert muscle over US allies there.
Readers will surely recall the many Times stories deploring our previous president’s very friendly chats with the world’s leading sponsor of terror and premier human rights violator, Iran. Remember too how the Times castigated the new Wall Street speechifyer , the same guy, Barack O., for capitulating to all demands by Iran and the Taliban.
Oh wait! That’s right. The Times did not criticize those “friendly chats” and it even applauded Mr. Obama’s disastrous “Leading from His Behind” strategy.
My mistake. DLH
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WASHINGTON — When President Trump called President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines on Saturday, White House officials saw it as part of a routine diplomatic outreach to Southeast Asian leaders. Mr. Trump, characteristically, had his own ideas.
During their “very friendly conversation,” the administration said in a late-night statement, Mr. Trump invited Mr. Duterte, an authoritarian leader accused of ordering extrajudicial killings of drug suspects in the Philippines, to visit him at the White House.
Now, the administration is bracing for an avalanche of criticism from human rights groups. Two senior officials said they expected the State Department and the National Security Council, both of which were caught off guard by the invitation, to raise objections internally.
The White House disclosed the news on a day when Mr. Trump fired up his supporters at a campaign-style rally in Harrisburg, Pa. The timing of the announcement — after a speech that was a grievance-filled jeremiad— encapsulated this president after 100 days in office: still ready to say and do things that leave people, even on his staff, slack-jawed.
