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Trump Is Fulfilling Russia’s Dream of Splitting the Western Alliance

Somerville

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At least once a week, the president says something which causes some people to ask WHY? Why does he seem to be so interested in supporting Putin's actions around the world but especially so in Europe? Today, at the G7 meeting, half of which he plans to miss, he brought up the idea of Russia being brought back into the group, despite Putin's ongoing actions in Ukraine and Crimea. Actions which had caused the break up originally.

Trump Is Fulfilling Russia’s Dream of Splitting the Western Alliance

One of Russia’s principal foreign-policy goals for decades has been to split the United States from its allies. Whether by accident or by design, President Trump appears intent on bringing that dream to fruition.

The most immediate theater of Western disarray is today’s G7 meeting in Canada. Trump has been fomenting a trade war, hurling wild and largely groundless accusations at America’s allies. “Why isn’t the European Union and Canada informing the public that for years they have used massive Trade Tariffs and non-monetary Trade Barriers against the U.S. Totally unfair to our farmers, workers & companies,” he demands. “Take down your tariffs & barriers or we will more than match you!”

Western trade partners have attempted to reason with Trump’s demands, but the problem is that the basis for his beliefs and actions is entirely fantastical. If your neighbor is irate that you let your dog run loose in his yard, you can pacify him. If he’s irate that you are reading his thoughts through his tinfoil hat, there’s nothing you can do except disengage. And that is what they are doing.

This next paragraph seems to exemplify Trump's belief that national leaders need to be "strong men". We all know women can't be strong enough to lead a big nation - right? And those liberal, socialist types are just too weak to do the job that real men can do. :roll:
It’s not as if Trump is unable to get along with anybody. He has drawn our country closer to a variety of despots: in the Gulf states, North Korea, China, and of course Russia. There is an element of personality involved here. Trump admires strongmen. “Who are the three guys in the world he most admires?” a Trump adviser told the Post last year. “President Xi [Jinping] of China, [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and Putin. They’re all the same guy.”
 
At least once a week, the president says something which causes some people to ask WHY? Why does he seem to be so interested in supporting Putin's actions around the world but especially so in Europe? Today, at the G7 meeting, half of which he plans to miss, he brought up the idea of Russia being brought back into the group, despite Putin's ongoing actions in Ukraine and Crimea. Actions which had caused the break up originally.



This next paragraph seems to exemplify Trump's belief that national leaders need to be "strong men". We all know women can't be strong enough to lead a big nation - right? And those liberal, socialist types are just too weak to do the job that real men can do. :roll:

Vladimir is getting his monies worth.
 
NATO is obsolete. It is a vestigial creation of the LAST WAR. Not the next war. The next war is with China and/or radical Islam.

The NEXT war will combine earth bound economic, with weaponized space satellites circling overhead. Special Operations against Islam.

During WW II we were allied with the Soviets against a greater threat:the Nazi.

Our task at hand is to drive a wedge between the Russians and the Chinese (and Islam). In the long run China (and radical Islam) are our MUTUAL foes.
 
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This is going to be a bit of a long post, since I am about to go on a rant. This has been building up over the past several weeks.

Anyway, I've been doing a bit of research into the incumbent Secretary-General, and not many people are going to like it. But, of course, I am going to begin with President Cramp and his laundry list of hypocrisy, considering the fact he wants NATO states to pay their debts while he himself has his history of business deals gone awry and quite possibly being in debt himself (not to mention the tax returns fiasco, do I even need to emphasize the gigantic proportions of hypocrisy therein?)...

As he arrives at NATO summit, President Trump hounds allies over 'delinquent' defense spending
Gregory Korte, USA TODAY
Published 3:06 p.m. ET July 10, 2018 | Updated 3:33 p.m. ET July 10, 2018
President Donald Trump singles out Germany Thursday for not paying their NATO commitments during a meeting at the White House with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. (May 17) AP

BRUSSELS — President Donald Trump arrived Tuesday at the home of NATO headquarters with a seemingly singular preoccupation: allies who aren't sharing in the burden of providing for the collective defense.

Not only this, but Trump is continuing to distort the US numbers regarding their share of the burden:

Trump Still Distorting NATO Spending
By D'Angelo Gore
Posted on July 9, 2018

As we have written before, Trump is conflating NATO’s direct and indirect spending to claim that the U.S. “is paying for 90% of NATO.”

In direct costs, the U.S. currently pays about 22 percent of NATO’s “principal budgets” that are funded by all alliance members based on a cost-sharing formula that factors in the gross national income of each country. The principal budget categories include the civil budget, the military budget and the NATO Security Investment Programme (NSIP).

Dude, what the entire ****. NINETY percent up from Twenty-Two!? That's almost an eighty ****ing point swing. That's not simply "distorting facts", what that is, is almost quite literally spewing recalcitrant bull****.

Oh, oh, but wait, there's more!

Trump suggests NATO members reimburse US for defense costs

BY BRETT SAMUELS - 07/10/18 01:21 PM EDT 816

trumpdonald_062118_0.jpg

© Getty Images

Yes.

You read that correctly. "Reimburse"

Did the LHC suck us into an alternate universe where Donald Trump isn't a comic book villain? Because this guy is trying to litrally extort the North Atlantic god-damned Treaty Organization.
Trump has long been critical of what he views as the U.S. taking on a disproportionate burden in funding NATO, but he has ratcheted up those complaints in the days leading up to the summit.

NATO members agreed in 2014 to move toward spending at least 2 percent of their respective gross domestic product on defense by 2024.

Trump reportedly wrote to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other NATO allies last month to chastise them for failing to live up to their spending obligations. He further warned that the U.S. could alter its military deployments if nothing changes.

But, of course, there have been many opportunities to sound the alarm by his so-called "opponents".

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST.
 
And then there's this ****...



NATO boss lauds Trump for defense-spending push on eve of summit
By: Sebastian Sprenger   6 hours ago

05_Trump.jpg


Stoltenberg’s strategy of lavishing praise on Trump is one that many in Europe believe has the greatest chance of averting a diplomatic disaster. Some leaders from NATO member nations fear another public reprimand by Trump over defense spending would embolden Russia.

And such a scenario appears likely, as Trump railed against the defense-spending mismatch between the United States and the rest of the alliance Tuesday morning. “NATO countries must pay MORE, the United States must pay LESS,” he tweeted. “Very Unfair!”

You have to SPANK the child, you have to SCARE THE **** out of him sometimes to get him to behave. This man is acting like the tin-pot dictator of a third-world country. Weak-minded servile sycophant. When will you in the establishment learn that there is a fine line between diplomacy and enabling. This man insults the entire organization you and your counterparts are supposed to be leading and watching out for, threatens to extort and essentially wage economic warfare on it, and you respond by lavishing ****ing praise on him and building his confidence. Pathetic.

And to add insult to injury, Stoltenberg calls on Germany to increase defence spending, echoing Trump...

Oh, and remember Germany acting as the voice of reason over Turkey's invasion of Syria a few months back? Well, Erdogan is grinning ear to ****ing ear over this neatly-wrapped gift he just got from Trump and Stoltenberg by giving Germany the proverbial "finger".

Aaaaand it gets worse.

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
 
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An inconvenient truth: Addressing democratic backsliding within NATO
Jonathan Katz and Torrey Taussig
Tuesday, July 10, 2018


The overriding concern of this week’s NATO Summit will be cohesion, with the security alliance facing crises of disunity on multiple fronts. In the West, President Donald Trump repeatedly calls into question NATO’s strategic value and berates America’s closest allies. Already, he has sent hostile letters to the leaders of several NATO member-states demanding they do more to pay their own way. In the East, an aggressive Russia has used conventional and nonconventional weapons to invade sovereign states and undermine European and American security. In continental Europe, migrant and refugee flows not seen since World War II are roiling internal politics within frontline and destination states.


There is also significant democratic backsliding among NATO member states. The cast of illiberal characters—who are leading the charge in the wrong direction—includes the recently reelected and empowered Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Law and Justice (PiS) Party in Poland, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the ruling Fidesz Party. Each has proven more than willing to repress free media, dismantle checks and balances, demonize political opposition, clamp down on civil society, and diminish the rule of law. America’s democratic system and norms under President Trump are also under duress; as a result, Freedom House downgraded the country’s score on the basis of weakening political rights and civil liberties.

Despite these alarming developments, NATO leaders have relegated democratic backsliding to the backburner. Opponents of making the case for democracy within NATO might argue that pushing Ankara, Warsaw, and Budapest too hard on their commitments to good governance will exacerbate already tense divisions in the alliance. Others might say that Russia would be the prime beneficiary of a contentious democracy discussion at NATO. Yet this is a counterproductive approach with current and potential costs to NATO’s future. Here are three security-based reasons why the United States and NATO should care about democratic backsliding, and actions the alliance can take to address them.

It goes into even more detail, with a point-by-point expose on the erosion of democratic institutions within NATO, but I am loathe to post more for suspicion of it being a breach of site rules over some kind of copyright stuff. But, in short, it goes into how NATO heads are enabling Putin under Stoltenberg.


Stoltenberg congratulates Erdoğan on re-election, stresses Turkey's importance in NATO

DAILY SABAH
ISTANBUL
PublishedJune 27, 2018

440

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday called President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to congratulate him on his election victory in Sunday's polls.

The NATO chief also stressed the importance of Turkey's role as a member of the alliance, while Erdoğan reassured him that Turkey would remain committed to NATO and its contributions would increasingly continue.

So, not only is Stoltenberg cozying up to Trump the hard-right ultra-national populist, but also Erdogan the hard-right authoritarian dictator.

I would understand if Erdogan wasn't who he was, if the elections were free and fair, and things were going as they always had been. But he is, they weren't, and they aren't. Not only this, but he goes a step further and lavishes praise on him, while eating up his empty promises and lies. It would be utterly naive and stupid to believe Erdogan that he will "remain committed to NATO and its contributions would increasingly continue," utter bull**** I declare.

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST...
 
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NATO head Stoltenberg congratulates Erdoğan, praises high turnout


NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday he will call President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to congratulate him on his election victory.

He also praised Turkey's high voter turnout in Sunday's presidential and parliamentary elections. Voter turnout was just over 86 percent for the parliamentary polls and 84 percent for presidential polls.

Unbelievable. Truly and utterly unbelievable.
He also praised Italy after electing authoritarian populists and neo-fascists who call for ethnic cleansing of minorities.

However, I did some more research into Jens Stoltenberg and found some truly reprehensible things.



Nato boss sang anti-Nato songs as a youth

8779b713c56cd2143139f6e2d8e5ecb2d5cd83e040fab9145ff953e822fb2035.jpg

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg relaxing with AUF head Mani Husseini. Photo: Jon Olav Nesvold/NTB scanpix
NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg has reminisced about his evenings as a teenager spent singing anti-Nato protest songs from a song booklet with a picture of Lenin on the front page.
“We sang the chorus, ‘Singing Norway, Norway out of Nato’. It was a hit,” he joked to members of Norway’s Labour Party youth as they arrived on the island of Utøya for the first summer camp since the anti-Islamic extremist Anders Behring Breivik unleashed his gun massacre there in 2011.

Stoltenberg was also member of the then Marxist-Leninist group Red Youth, and has an extended history of associating with populist and far-left/extremist groups. Up to 1990, he had regular contacts with a Soviet diplomat. He ended this relationship after being informed by the Norwegian Police Security Service his contact was a KGB agent, warning him of further contact. Stoltenberg's code name within the KGB was "Steklov".

This really happened.

And in that last link! He said this!

Napoleon was a brutal warlord, but also a great reformer, a hero and a villain. Fascinating to read about a historical figure that cries, is happy, longing, is in love. Every day during the campaign in Italy he wrote letters to Josephine. He had a lot of contradictions, he. But let me emphasize: Napoleon is not a political ideal, but a wonderfully exciting person!

*Projectile vomits* It is translated of course, so not an exact quote, but that's close enough to convince me that what goes on in his head is probably similar to what goes on in Trump's regarding his attitude towards Putin, Xi, Kim and other "warlords".
*Vomits again*

He also does not take responsibility for his actions.

And is a fairly disgusting human being.*

The 2020 US presidential elections could not be more imperative regarding voting Trump out of office, because at this point we are almost completely encircled by psychopathic and ideological extremist world leaders. But while we're at it, perhaps NATO should remove Stoltenberg as well, because as of this moment the West is just as threatened from within as from without.

*How people treat non-threatening domesticated animals is generally a fairly good metric for judging a person's character.

Can you tell how angry this makes me? Take that and multiply it by a factor of 50.

(EDIT: Been away on personal business for the past 4 days and meant to post this beforehand).
 
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At least once a week, the president says something which causes some people to ask WHY? Why does he seem to be so interested in supporting Putin's actions around the world but especially so in Europe? Today, at the G7 meeting, half of which he plans to miss, he brought up the idea of Russia being brought back into the group, despite Putin's ongoing actions in Ukraine and Crimea. Actions which had caused the break up originally.



This next paragraph seems to exemplify Trump's belief that national leaders need to be "strong men". We all know women can't be strong enough to lead a big nation - right? And those liberal, socialist types are just too weak to do the job that real men can do. :roll:



On the contrary, Merkel has made a deal Putin to pipe LPG across Europe to Germany. Thus exposing the German people to the whims of Putin's Russia. People seem to have a short memory span as to when Putin shut off fuel to Europe. Trump is correct in his view. Merkel has not met the commitments to NATO and to her military, while relinquishing the country's independence of energy to Russia.


Europe shivers as Russia cuts gas shipments - World news - Europe - Russia | NBC News,
Ukraine — Russia shut off all gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine on Wednesday — leaving more than a dozen countries scrambling to cope during a winter cold snap. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin publicly endorsed the move and urged that international observers be brought into the energy dispute.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Europe plunged into energy crisis as Russia cuts off gas supply via Ukraine | Daily Mail Online
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, left, speaks to Gazprom chairman Alexei Miller during a meeting yesterday The European Union in Brussels called the sudden cut-off to some of its member countries 'completely unacceptable'.
 
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