An Illinois echo opinion- Trump not qualified for international leadership

Rockford Register Star newspaper echo opinion letter- Trump unqualified to lead.

If the leadership capabilities (or lack thereof...) of the current White House resident don’t already make one nervous (and it should), a couple of recent writings might just do the trick. 

It's just a matter of time before Donald Trump finds himself in an international crises.  A border wall is not that crises.

In a Feb. 9-10 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Peggy Noonan writes eloquently about this administration’s probable inability to manage a foreign crisis. She notes the lack of seasoned staff, the rift between the president and the intelligence community, the departure of key individuals and the president’s egomaniac belief that he alone has the answers. Good managers know what they don’t know and enlist strong support to fill in the gaps. 

Noonan is not some left-wing-nut; she tends strongly Republican and was a speechwriter in the George H.W. Bush administration.

Time Magazine’s February 18-25 double issue contained a fascinating, though scary, article by John Wolcott. He writes of the “willful ignorance” exhibited by the president regarding input from the intelligence organizations, along with his ignorance of world geography and politics, a person unwilling to dig in and study critical matters. Intelligence briefers actually noted to Time that “the president is endangering U.S. security” due to “a stubborn disregard for their assessments.” Again, Time is not a left-wing propaganda publication. Historically it has always leaned Republican, sometimes strongly.

The point is we have a number of committed opponents and enemies: Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, to name the major ones. Each represents a complex scenario requiring the best intelligence, strategy, judgement and diplomacy we can muster. In today’s media-flooded world, the administrations in those countries are able to watch the same nightly news as we do. They must relish seeing the daily tweet storm emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., noting that most of White House energy seems directed at building a barrier along the Rio Grande.

Ms. Noonan, in her column, predicts it is only a matter of time until a real and serious international crisis erupts. Walling Hispanics from the United States is not that crisis.

— Jerry Forberg, Rockton Illinois