If I had a hammer

   

    We have all heard the phrase "if you have a hammer every problem looks like a nail."  I am reminded of this when I see the Trump Administration's approach to any foreign problem.  From its "hard" budget with large increases in defense spending and its shortchanging the diplomatic resources by slashing the State Department's budget to its deploying a "naval armada" to the waters off of North Korea to trying to back out of negotiated agreements with Iran and most of the developed world on climate change this Administration seems to represent a leader who has issues with the "adequacy" of his manhood.  Diplomacy seems like surrender to a bully.
     Just look at the issue of bombing a military base in Syria to show that "there is a new sheriff in town" as the only response to the horrific chemical attack on innocent civilians.  I am not judging the wisdom of that military action to lessen the chance of chemical weapons being used again.  Maybe it will and maybe it won't.  But there is one action that will definitely improve the plight of Syrian civilians that apparently is never an option for this Administration.  That option it to increase our aid to refugees who have fled the country to escape the destruction of their country and to agree to accept more vetted refugees into the United States.  Apparently that is too "soft" an approach to an Administration that only has a hammer.   We seem to have become a Country that has a foreign policy that is to "bomb the sh** out of them" then to remember that we once were the Country that had a leader with a different approach.


P.S.

    Maybe we should consider what the United States represents to the World when an "America First" agenda means more coal production and weaponizing the world instead of a "Earth First" agenda of improving our fragile environment and developing the resources for peaceful resolutions to conflict.