A lot of people are not happy with Trump’s New member of National Security Council. Will he be able to make a positive change and Protect our Nation?
Let’s find out…
According to USAToday,
Steve Bannon, who has ascended in just months from relative obscurity to become one of President Trump’s most influential advisors, has said that Islam is “the most radical” religion in the world and the U.S. is engaged in a civilizational struggle potentially leading to “a major shooting war in the Middle East again.”
Trump installed Bannon this week as a member of his National Security Council, taking the unusual step of installing a political adviser on the powerful White House body responsible for shaping security and foreign policy.
Far more significant may be the views he brings to that table, which represent a sharp break from how previous administrations approached security issues, particularly around Islamic terrorism.
In dozens of hours of audio recordings reviewed by USA TODAY of his Breitbart News Daily radio show in 2015 and 2016, Bannon told his listeners that the United States and the Western world are engaged in a “global existential war,” and he entertained claims that a “fifth column” of Islamist sympathizers had infiltrated the U.S. government and news media. Those recordings, preserved online, offer an often unfiltered window into the thinking of Trump’s interview-averse senior adviser.
The views mark a stark shift from foreign policy doctrine under the previous two administrations.
In the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush was cautious in his public statements and gave a speech in which he said, “Islam is peace.” In a radio show last May, Bannon said those were “the dumbest” comments made by Bush during his presidency. On his radio show, Bannon repeatedly made sarcastic references to Islam as a “religion of peace.”
University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck said it’s “unprecedented to have someone who doesn’t just harbor those views but seems to have no compunction basing decisions on those views” as a member of the National Security Council.
“It seems like we’re headed for more of the jaw-dropping steps like the immigration order,” he said.
Bannon left a position as the executive chairman of the right-wing news organization Breitbart in August 2016 to become chief executive of Trump’s presidential campaign, and after the election, he was named the president’s chief strategist and senior counsel — a position equal in rank to the chief of staff.
His role in shaping Trump’s domestic and foreign policy has grown increasingly apparent in the early days of the administration. Bannon played a role in shaping a flurry of executive orders, including one that temporarily blocks immigration from seven majority-Muslim nations.
“He’s got a tremendous understanding of the world and the geopolitical landscape that we have now,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, defending Bannon’s place on the security post.
Diverging from longtime foreign policy
While hosting his radio program, Bannon made statements that diverged from decades of U.S. foreign policy.
“We’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years, aren’t we?” he said in March 2016. “There’s no doubt about that. They’re taking their sandbars and making basically stationary aircraft carriers and putting missiles on those. They come here to the United States in front of our face — and you understand how important face is — and say it’s an ancient territorial sea.”
The United States and China have a tenuous relationship in part because China is entangled in a dispute with Japan and other Asian nations in the region over an important trade channel in the South China Sea and the country’s attempts to assert its dominion by building islands topped with military installations.
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