The real reason Donald Trump is installing his own people at the Pentagon
After firing Secretary of Defense Mark Esper this week, Donald Trump has installed a few of his own loyal extremists in key civilian positions at the Pentagon. This has led to a fair amount of panic about what Trump might be up to.
At the risk of sounding cliche, whenever Donald Trump is involved, follow the money. It’s already become clear that Trump is only still pretending to “contest” the election results so he can keep fundraising from his supporters; the fine print even says that he’s going to stick the majority of the money into his own pocket. There is every reason to believe that what Trump is doing at the Pentagon is also about pilfering money for himself.
Yesterday the Trump regime formalized the sale of a massive amount of arms to the United Arab Emirates. This isn’t remotely surprising. Trump has a close financial relationship with the UAE government, and even has a golf resort in the city of Dubai. This comes after Trump did another massive arms deal a couple years ago with Saudi Arabia, another nation with whom he has close personal ties.
Although the UAE deal was announced by the State Department, we’d guess that Trump is planning to do more such corrupt deals on his way out the door, all with nations who are willing to corruptly kick back some of the money to him after he’s gone from office. Sooner or later some of these deals will involve the Pentagon, and this would explain why Trump has installed his own loyalists there.
To be as clear as possible, Trump has merely installed civilian loyalists at the Pentagon. These aren’t people who can magically start war; this isn’t what that’s about at all. And if Trump did try to start a war at this late date, he’d end up with zero chance of a soft landing on his way out of the presidency; he’s not that stupid or suicidal. As is always the case with Trump, this appears to simply be about stealing money.
