Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes

Sowing the Seeds of Hate

In April 2017, after Donald Trump authorized airstrikes on a Syrian airfield in response to then president of Syria Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons, CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria said emphatically that “Donald Trump became president of the United States last night,”, and that “For the first time really as president, he talked about international norms, international rules, about America’s role in enforcing justice in the world,”[i] The likes of Hillary Clinton, John Bolton (who was his National Security Advisor at the time), and Nancy Pelosi all praised Trump for his missile attacks on Syria, with Democrats and corporate media hacks complaining more about Trump’s disregard for process and US institutions in his unilateral decision making, which is of course, how all presidents have used their executive authority, especially when it comes to warmaking, since the end of the Cold War.[ii]

Making war is what presidents do. As Vijay Prashad writes, “For the past quarter century, ever since 2001, presidents of the United States inaugurate their terms not with bottles of champagne but with drone and missile strikes.”, and in his first term “Donald Trump followed the rhythm.”[iii] He is referring to Trump’s missile strikes against ISIS insurgents in the Golis mountains in Somalia. Trump authorized many drone strikes and missile attacks throughout his first term, but these are not the actions that outrage the illiberal liberal class. They either cheered or ignored them. While many criticized him for getting rid of the Obama regime’s policy that required the government to publish the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in other countries, there was little disgust for his astronomical number of drone strikes, a system he inherited from Obama and greatly expanded. Just like Obama was never criticized by the illiberal liberal class for his use of drones, including on American citizens abroad, Trump received little to no criticism on his expansive and excessive use of drones. This is the sort of policy that is supported by the elites of both major political parties in service to the permanent regime.

We see a similar bipartisan euphoria in response to Trump’s ‘surgical strikes’ on three Iranian nuclear sites, in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan. Many who loathe Trump, like Bolton, are praising Trump’s decision. In fact, a few are saying Trump is not going far enough, or that he is being played by the mullahs. For example, Frum wrote an article in the Atlantic arguing that Trump is being played by the Ayatollah, citing Trump’s post on Truth Social indicating that he may take a couple of weeks to mull over whether to attack Iran, and Frum noted this illustrated Trump’s tendency to “chicken out” and evade responsibility.[iv] Bolton said on CNN’s State of the Union that “I think President Trump made the right decision for America to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”, and he also remarked that he thinks “we’re on the verge of potentially seeing regime change in Iran as part of that.” Bolton has been craving this for years. He even said on CNN that he “thought somebody should do it for a long time.”[v] In 2015, around the time of Obama’s negotiations of the Iran Nuclear Deal, Bolton wrote an op-ed for the New York Times arguing that in order to stop Iran from getting ‘the bomb’, the US should simply bomb Iran, and as he recounts in his memoir, The Room Where It Happened, he describes heated arguments he had with Trump and his advisers over Iran.[vi] He feels that America’s lackluster response to North Korea while it was developing nuclear weapons led to its now impressive arsenal of WMD’s. Thus, what Trump has just done is a fulfillment of what he has wanted for decades at this point.

Bolton is not alone. At the New York Times, columnists David French and Bret Stephens both lauded Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites.[vii] At the Atlantic, Eliot Cohen wrote an article noting that although Trump has made many poor choices, his bomb Iranian nuclear facilities is right.[viii] Frum, also writing in the Atlantic, argues that although Trump made the right move, the way he carried out his strikes is worrying for the future of how the conflict will turn out.[ix] The same illiberal liberals who, formerly prominent neoconservatives advocating for and advising the Bush regime on its military adventures in the Middle East, broke with Trump over his deviations from globalist rhetoric on American foreign policy during his 2015-16 presidential campaign and into his presidency, are in an extremely uncomfortable position. They may loathe Trump, or they have at least positioned themselves as vocal opposers of Trump and his moral depravity, but they have also been pushing for a hawkish approach to Iran for years, so Trump’s move to bomb Iran fulfills one of their sadistic, twisted wishes. Indeed, Iran is last on the list of 7 countries that General Wesley Clark said were part of the Bush regime’s 5-year plan after 9/11 for retaliation.[x] First was Iraq, with Saddam Hussein deposed handily, followed by a years long quagmire the US is still in, despite the Iraqi government asking US forces to withdraw on 2 separate occasions, once after Trump’s assassination of Qassim Soleimani at Baghdad Airport, and again during Biden’s presidency.[xi] In Syria, after a 10 year effort, which involved funding and arming al Queda, the stated enemy of the US and the driver of its military attacks in the Middle East, and fuelling a civil war and a migrant crisis which rocked Europe, Assad finally fell and in his place, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, an ex-member of HTS, an offshoot of Al Queda, took power. Importantly, all these wars were called for by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, in his congressional testimony in 2002 about Hussein’s supposed building of nuclear weapons, also warned about Iran.[xii] He claimed that Iran was a few years, maybe five years away, from having a nuclear weapon, however, as we know, the US military found no WMD’s when they stormed Iraq, proving Netanyahu and countless others wrong. So why should we believe these same cretins about Iran’s nuclear weapons program? Because the Iranian regime is bad and extremist? At least in the case of Hussein in Iraq, warmongers were claiming that he already had WMD’s. The narrative about Iran is that they will soon have a WMD.

The claim that Iran is on the cusp of having a nuclear weapon contradicts America’s own intelligence reports, which recently concluded that although Iran has massive amounts of enriched uranium, it is not working towards developing a nuclear weapon.[xiii] Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, reiterated this same conclusion in her testimony to congress in March.[xiv]

Another argument cheerleaders for war with Iran make is that Iran has ‘regional ambitions’. What country has Iran invaded since the 1979 revolution? The illiberal liberal class seeks the overthrow of the Ayatollah simply because they are not pliant to the West, and they are rich in oil and their support for terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas are an affront to the West. It is not because they support terrorism, but because they are allied with the wrong terrorists. Iran and its proxies are fighting ISIS.

To oppose Trump’s actions in Iran is in no way advocacy for the Iranian regime, and those who claim so should be ashamed, and the US should cease its action in Iran, pull its funding for Israel and its other allies in the Middle East, and withdraw its troops from the region, and the money wasted could be put to much better use in America, and however, this will not happen anytime soon, and in his first presidential campaign, a moment that skyrocketed his success in the Republican primaries was an exchange he had with Jeb Bush, George Bush’s brother, about the invasion of Iraq, and Trump told Bush that the Iraq war was “a big, fat mistake”, and he said “we have destabilized the Middle East!”, and while some were shocked and disturbed, mostly neoconservatives like the late Charles Krauthammer, who claimed that Trump’s campaign was over after that diatribe against Bush’s legacy, the opposite turned out to be true.[xv] Even during his 2024 campaign, Trump used Liz and Dick Cheney’s endorsement of Kamala Harris against her, proclaiming that it proved he was the peace candidate, not Harris.[xvi] Yet, when faced with the ultimate decision, Trump could not stand up to the likes of Netanyahu and the hawks in his regime and the conservative elite.

Trump has declared a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. On Truth Social he said that that “It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE,”[xvii] According to the Iranians, however, they will only agree to a ceasefire if Israel stops its illegal aggression. Further, it is unclear that all of Iran’s enriched uranium was destroyed. As the New York Times reports, JD Vance and the head of the IAEA do not know where Iran’s near weapons grade uranium is located.[xviii] There are whispers that it may have been moved by the regime to prevent its destruction by the US or Israel. So not only is this mission not a total success, as Trump and his acolytes are stating, but Iran may still have near weapons grade uranium. If the US and Israeli attacks did anything, they likely drove the Ayatollah to build a nuclear weapon to stave off looming regime change.

Another issue with the coverage of this war between Iran and Israel, and now the US, is that, in the minds of many, the US is not at war, as if dropping massive ordinates is not a warlike action. If Iran or any other bad country took a similar action against a Western state, we would immediately deem it a declaration of war. Once again, the US acts with impunity and the illiberal liberal class rushes to defend and justify how it acts. When asked if the US is at war with Iran, Vance said that “We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”[xix] This is absurd. Would this argument work in any other instance? This same line of argument justifies militarism in countries across the world, from Pakistan to Somalia, as America is not officially at war with these countries, they are at war with the terror groups inhabiting these countries. The notion that dropping bombs on a country is not an act of war is so Orwellian that it feels like Western elites read 1984 as a manual, not a warning.

With Trump’s declaration of a ceasefire, the advocates of peace through strength are applauding, heralding Trump’s approach to Iran and its apparent nuclear ambitions as proof that peace through strength, not meek diplomacy, is the proper strategy. However, even if the ceasefire holds, it is evident that regime change in Iran is the goal, as it has been for the illiberal liberal class for decades. Despite opposition to foreign interventions being catastrophic being a pillar of the ‘America First’ platform Trump posted on Truth Social that “It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???”[xx] This is, like most of Trump’s statements, incredibly vague, as it is unclear who is going to change the regime.

It is refreshing to see some who, though they detest the Ayatollah, admit that it must be the Iranian people who change their government, not outside forces.[xxi] It is the imposition of the Shah in 1953, who ruled for 26 years with the total support of Western powers, that sowed the seeds of the Iranian revolution in 1979. There is great hostility towards the West and America in the Middle East. This manifested in the rise of the Ayatollah and this hostility was expressed in Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’. The actions of bin Laden and the Iranian regime may be horrendous and unjustified but setting the Middle East on fire beckoned hatred towards the West. To extinguish the hatred, the permanent regime opts for more of the same, perpetuating the cycle of hate. The chants of “death to America’ will not be silenced by bombs, they will only be increased in number and volume. Endless war can only foster endless war, not peace. If we in the West have not learned this lesson by now- it is unlikely we ever will.

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[i] Hensch, Mark. “CNN Host: ‘Donald Trump Became President’ Last Night.” The Hill, April 7, 2017. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/327779-cnn-host-donald-trump-became-president-last-night/.

[ii] Beauchamp, Nika Knight. “Disgust as Corporate Media and DC Politicians Gush over Trump’s New War | Common Dreams.” Common Dreams, April 7, 2017. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/04/07/disgust-corporate-media-and-dc-politicians-gush-over-trumps-new-war., Gramer, Robbie. “Trump Gets Rare Praise from Democrats on Syria.” POLITICO, May 14, 2025. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2025/05/14/trump-gets-rare-praise-from-democrats-on-syria-00350143., Greenwald, Glenn. “The Spoils of War: Trump Lavished with Media and Bipartisan Praise for Bombing Syria.” The Intercept, April 7, 2017. https://theintercept.com/2017/04/07/the-spoils-of-war-trump-lavished-with-media-and-bipartisan-praise-for-bombing-syria/. and for similar analysis on anti-Trump commentators praising Trump’s strikes on Iran, see: Klion, David. “Those Sometimes-Trump Neocons Are Returning to the Fold over Iran.” The Nation, June 20, 2025. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-neocons-iran-war/.

[iii] Prashad, Vijay. “Barack Obama’s First Drone Strike.” CounterPunch.org. CounterPunch, February 4, 2025. https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/04/barack-obamas-first-drone-strike/.

[iv] Frum, David. “What Iran Knows About Trump.” The Atlantic. theatlantic, June 21, 2025. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/iran-trump-taco-play/683271/.

[v] Hunt, Kasie. “John Bolton Reacts to U.S. Strikes on Iran: ‘This Regime Is in Trouble.’” CNN, June 22, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/22/politics/video/bolton-reacts-to-strikes-on-iran-the-regime-is-in-trouble.

[vi] Bolton, John. “Opinion | to Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” The New York Times, March 26, 2015, sec. Opinion. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/opinion/to-stop-irans-bomb-bomb-iran.html. and The Room Where It Happened. Simon Schuster, 2020.

[vii] French, David. “David French Tweet.” X, June 22, 2025. https://x.com/DavidAFrench/status/1936586217983820006?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1936586217983820006%7Ctwgr%5Ea54a23f1d762a7bc363d6e7819dc2252d4afe84c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fmedia%2Ftrump-critics-john-bolton-adam-kinzinger-praise-presidents-decision-strike-iran. and Stephens, Bret. “Opinion | Trump’s Courageous Decision to Strike Iran’s Nuclear Sites.” The New York Times, June 22, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/opinion/us-military-strike-iran-trump.html.

[viii] Cohen, Eliot A. “Trump Got This One Right.” The Atlantic. theatlantic, June 22, 2025. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/trump-iran/683287/.

[ix] Frum. “Right Move, Wrong Team.” The Atlantic. theatlantic, June 22, 2025. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/right-move-wrong-team/683283/.

[x] Greenwald. “Wes Clark and the Neocon Dream.” Salon, November 26, 2011. https://www.salon.com/2011/11/26/wes_clark_and_the_neocon_dream/.

[xi] Azhari, Timour. “Exclusive: Iraq Seeks Quick Exit of US Forces but No Deadline Set, PM Says.” Reuters, January 10, 2024. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iraq-seeks-quick-exit-us-forces-no-deadline-set-pm-says-2024-01-10/. and Qiblawi, Tamara, Jomana Karadsheh, and Arwa Damon. “Iraq Has Voted to Expel US Troops. Whether They’ll Actually Be Kicked out Is far from Clear.” CNN, January 6, 2020. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/06/middleeast/iraq-us-troops-explainer-intl.

[xii] C-SPAN, and Benjamin Netanyahu. “Israeli Perspective on Conflict with Iraq.” C-SPAN.org. C-SPAN, September 12, 2002. https://www.c-span.org/program/house-committee/israeli-perspective-on-conflict-with-iraq/125088.

[xiii] Branko Marcetic. “Tulsi Said Iran Not Building Nukes. One Senator after Another Ignored Her.” Responsible Statecraft, June 18, 2025. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/tulsi-iran-bomb/.

[xiv] Marcetic. “Tulsi Said Iran Not Building Nukes. One Senator after Another Ignored Her.”

[xv] Grunwald, Michael. “Trump Goes Code Pink on George W. Bush.” POLITICO Magazine, February 14, 2016. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/trump-code-pink-bush-iraq-9-11-213630/.

[xvi] Vakil, Caroline. “Trump Lashes out at Cheney, Calls Her a ‘Muslim-Hating Warmonger.’” The Hill, October 26, 2024. https://thehill.com/homenews/4955368-trump-lashes-out-at-cheney-muslim-hating-warmonger/.

[xvii] Borger, Julian, Andrew Roth, Hugo Lowell, and William Christou. “Israel and Iran Continue to Exchange Fire despite Trump’s Ceasefire Declaration.” the Guardian. The Guardian, June 24, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/23/trump-israel-iran-ceasefire.

[xviii] Sanger, David E. “Officials Concede They Don’t Know the Fate of Iran’s Uranium Stockpile.” The New York Times, June 22, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/us/politics/iran-uranium-stockpile-whereabouts.html.

[xix] Fortinsky, Sarah. “Vance Says US ‘Not at War with Iran,’ but ‘with Iran’s Nuclear Program.’” The Hill, June 22, 2025. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5362854-vance-not-at-war-with-iran-but-with-nuclear-program/.

[xx] Krauss, Joseph, and Will Weissert. “Attempts to Remake the MidEast Offer Trump Warnings amid Iran and US Strikes.” AP News, June 23, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/iran-regime-change-us-intervention-middle-east-de06f9958c3367769e6cdafd080bdb8b.  Trump walked back these comments soon after, see: Traylor, Jake. “Trump Backtracks on ‘Regime Change’ Talk in Iran.” POLITICO. Politico, June 24, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/24/trump-backtracks-on-regime-change-talk-in-iran-00420867.

[xxi] Black, Tim. “Regime Change in Iran Can Only Come from Within.” Spiked-online.com. spiked, June 23, 2025. https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/06/23/regime-change-in-iran-can-only-come-from-within/. and Shannon, Kelly. “The United States Needs a New Iran Policy—and It Involves Regime Change, but Not the Traditional Kind.” Atlantic Council, February 22, 2024. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/regime-change-iran-women-life-freedom/.

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References

Azhari, Timour. “Exclusive: Iraq Seeks Quick Exit of US Forces but No Deadline Set, PM Says.” Reuters, January 10, 2024. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iraq-seeks-quick-exit-us-forces-no-deadline-set-pm-says-2024-01-10/.

Beauchamp, Nika Knight. “Disgust as Corporate Media and DC Politicians Gush over Trump’s New War | Common Dreams.” Common Dreams, April 7, 2017. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/04/07/disgust-corporate-media-and-dc-politicians-gush-over-trumps-new-war.

Black, Tim. “Regime Change in Iran Can Only Come from Within.” Spiked-online.com. spiked, June 23, 2025. https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/06/23/regime-change-in-iran-can-only-come-from-within/.

Bolton, John. “Opinion | to Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” The New York Times, March 26, 2015, sec. Opinion. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/opinion/to-stop-irans-bomb-bomb-iran.html.

———. The Room Where It Happened. Simon Schuster, 2020.

Borger, Julian, Andrew Roth, Hugo Lowell, and William Christou. “Israel and Iran Continue to Exchange Fire despite Trump’s Ceasefire Declaration.” the Guardian. The Guardian, June 24, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/23/trump-israel-iran-ceasefire.

Branko Marcetic. “Tulsi Said Iran Not Building Nukes. One Senator after Another Ignored Her.” Responsible Statecraft, June 18, 2025. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/tulsi-iran-bomb/.

C-SPAN, and Benjamin Netanyahu. “Israeli Perspective on Conflict with Iraq.” C-SPAN.org. C-SPAN, September 12, 2002. https://www.c-span.org/program/house-committee/israeli-perspective-on-conflict-with-iraq/125088.

Cohen, Eliot A. “Trump Got This One Right.” The Atlantic. theatlantic, June 22, 2025. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/trump-iran/683287/.

Fortinsky, Sarah. “Vance Says US ‘Not at War with Iran,’ but ‘with Iran’s Nuclear Program.’” The Hill, June 22, 2025. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5362854-vance-not-at-war-with-iran-but-with-nuclear-program/.

French, David. “David French Tweet.” X, June 22, 2025. https://x.com/DavidAFrench/status/1936586217983820006?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1936586217983820006%7Ctwgr%5Ea54a23f1d762a7bc363d6e7819dc2252d4afe84c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fmedia%2Ftrump-critics-john-bolton-adam-kinzinger-praise-presidents-decision-strike-iran.

Frum, David. “What Iran Knows About Trump.” The Atlantic. theatlantic, June 21, 2025. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/iran-trump-taco-play/683271/.

———. “Right Move, Wrong Team.” The Atlantic. theatlantic, June 22, 2025. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/right-move-wrong-team/683283/.

Gramer, Robbie. “Trump Gets Rare Praise from Democrats on Syria.” POLITICO, May 14, 2025. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2025/05/14/trump-gets-rare-praise-from-democrats-on-syria-00350143.

Greenwald, Glenn. “The Spoils of War: Trump Lavished with Media and Bipartisan Praise for Bombing Syria.” The Intercept, April 7, 2017. https://theintercept.com/2017/04/07/the-spoils-of-war-trump-lavished-with-media-and-bipartisan-praise-for-bombing-syria/.

———. “Wes Clark and the Neocon Dream.” Salon, November 26, 2011. https://www.salon.com/2011/11/26/wes_clark_and_the_neocon_dream/.

Grunwald, Michael. “Trump Goes Code Pink on George W. Bush.” POLITICO Magazine, February 14, 2016. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/trump-code-pink-bush-iraq-9-11-213630/.

Hensch, Mark. “CNN Host: ‘Donald Trump Became President’ Last Night.” The Hill, April 7, 2017. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/327779-cnn-host-donald-trump-became-president-last-night/.

Hunt, Kasie. “John Bolton Reacts to U.S. Strikes on Iran: ‘This Regime Is in Trouble.’” CNN, June 22, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/22/politics/video/bolton-reacts-to-strikes-on-iran-the-regime-is-in-trouble.

Klion, David. “Those Sometimes-Trump Neocons Are Returning to the Fold over Iran.” The Nation, June 20, 2025. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-neocons-iran-war/.

Krauss, Joseph, and Will Weissert. “Attempts to Remake the MidEast Offer Trump Warnings amid Iran and US Strikes.” AP News, June 23, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/iran-regime-change-us-intervention-middle-east-de06f9958c3367769e6cdafd080bdb8b.

Prashad, Vijay. “Barack Obama’s First Drone Strike.” CounterPunch.org. CounterPunch, February 4, 2025. https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/04/barack-obamas-first-drone-strike/.

Qiblawi, Tamara, Jomana Karadsheh, and Arwa Damon. “Iraq Has Voted to Expel US Troops. Whether They’ll Actually Be Kicked out Is far from Clear.” CNN, January 6, 2020. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/06/middleeast/iraq-us-troops-explainer-intl.

Sanger, David E. “Officials Concede They Don’t Know the Fate of Iran’s Uranium Stockpile.” The New York Times, June 22, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/us/politics/iran-uranium-stockpile-whereabouts.html.

Shannon, Kelly. “The United States Needs a New Iran Policy—and It Involves Regime Change, but Not the Traditional Kind.” Atlantic Council, February 22, 2024. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/regime-change-iran-women-life-freedom/.

Stephens, Bret. “Opinion | Trump’s Courageous Decision to Strike Iran’s Nuclear Sites.” The New York Times, June 22, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/opinion/us-military-strike-iran-trump.html.

Traylor, Jake. “Trump Backtracks on ‘Regime Change’ Talk in Iran.” POLITICO. Politico, June 24, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/24/trump-backtracks-on-regime-change-talk-in-iran-00420867.

Vakil, Caroline. “Trump Lashes out at Cheney, Calls Her a ‘Muslim-Hating Warmonger.’” The Hill, October 26, 2024. https://thehill.com/homenews/4955368-trump-lashes-out-at-cheney-muslim-hating-warmonger/.