Tag Archives: NATO

International news

Did he really say Germany is under Russia’s ‘control’?

Did I hear this correctly?

Donald J. Trump goes to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and declares that Germany is under Russia’s “total control.”

Is this man, the president of the United States, in touch with the real world? Don’t answer that. He isn’t.

What’s more, for this president to declare that another great power is under the thumb of Russia utterly is laughable on its face. Not because he is wrong. It is because many Americans back home believe the president himself is under the control of a nation that attacked our electoral system.

International news

Settle down, Mr. POTUS

Why in the world is Donald John Trump Sr. so darn angry?

He is lashing out yet again at our North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies in advance of a NATO summit.

I mean, c’mon, man! You’ve been elected to the highest office in the land; you live in damn good public housing (even though you once called the White House a “dump”); you have access to state-of-the-art public transportation; you eat well; you’ve got that big nuclear button at your fingertips.

Still, he rails and rants at our allies. NATO comprises nations that signed on after World War II to an agreement to protect each other in case of an attack from the Soviet Union. The USSR faded into oblivion in 1991, but the need remains strong, with Russia making noises about European conquest.

So, why is the president continuing his anger campaign … against our friends?

As I watch these machinations, I am compelled yet again to wonder: Why doesn’t he channel at least a bit of his outrage against the Russians? They meddled in our election. They sought to influence the election outcome. They have sown the seeds of discord and discontent in our electoral system. They have launched another meddling campaign in the 2018 midterm election here.

Trump’s lingering anger — and this is the least I can say about it — is entirely misdirected.

International news

Trump is right: U.S. can’t be world’s piggy bank

Donald J. Trump is going to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting next week with a critical message.

The United States really cannot afford to be the “world’s piggy bank,” and that NATO’s other member nations need to shoulder a larger burden of their mutual defense agreement.

I don’t want the United States to pull out of NATO. Nor do I want there to be continued tension between the United States and the rest of the alliance.

But the president happens to make a valuable point about NATO and the burden that all its member nations need to shoulder.

Trump has sought to pressure NATO nations to increase their share of the cost of the alliance. Indeed, many of the wealthier nations in NATO — Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom come to mind — are able to shoulder more of the financial load.

I merely want the president to cease with the bellicose rhetoric and the threats — veiled and outright — of punishing our allies if they don’t do as he wishes.

The bottom line, though, suggests to me that the president is correct to insist on greater cost-sharing among the allies of this important mutual defense organization.

national news

Hoping — yet again — for a turn for the better

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I was so hoping that when 2016 disappeared that the next year might bring a brighter outlook.

It turned out that 2017 was no better than the previous year.

While it is true the world didn’t lose as many iconic figures in 2017 as it did in 2016, my hope was that a new president’s performance might not be as horrific as I feared.

I regret to say I was mistaken.

Donald J. Trump’s first year in office was worse than I feared.

He didn’t get anything done. He didn’t make America any greater than it already is. He didn’t unify the country. The president didn’t deliver on the vast bulk of his campaign promises — although he did make good on some of them; I’ll get back to that in a moment.

The president’s “America First” mantra has brought further isolation for the United States in an era that has produced a shrinking globe.

He pulled the nation out of a worldwide effort to curb carbon emissions; he scolded our NATO allies over whether they’re paying their fair share of defense against Russian threats; the president insulted key heads of state of allied nations; he has used his Twitter account to launch tirades against the media, pro football players, and to promote falsehoods on all manner of issues.

The tax cut? That’s a promise kept. The president is crowing about it and he has earned the right to boast. It remains an open question, though, about how it will succeed. Will millions of jobs be returned specifically because of the corporate tax cuts? Is the economy going to continue to accelerate as it has done during the year?

And will the tax cut explode the federal budget deficit, which used to be anathema to Republican politicians?

Yes, indeed, there’s also that “Russia thing.”

The investigation into alleged collusion with Russian agents seeking to influence the 2016 election outcome is getting hotter by the week. Trump calls it a phony story. Fine. Let it proceed and prove him correct, if that’s the outcome we get.

The year we are about to enter, I’m sad to say, doesn’t look any better than the one we’re about to set aside.

Sad.

International news

German leader doesn’t share Trump ‘home run’ view

This is a hunch on my part, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel doesn’t believe, as Donald J. Trump does, that the U.S. president hit a “home run” on his first overseas trip as head of state.

Merkel, arguably Europe’s most popular and potent leader, said at the end of the G-7 summit in Sicily that Germany no longer can “depend” on the United States as a reliable ally; she said the same thing about Great Britain, which is in the midst of pulling out of the European Union.

“The times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out,” she said at a campaign rally in Munich. “I’ve experienced that in the last few days.”

Is that how one would describe a “home run” in the U.S. president’s view?

The United States’ alliance with NATO has come under intense scrutiny. Donald Trump himself scolded NATO leaders publicly for not paying enough to defend themselves against external threats. The public dressing down didn’t go over well. But, hey, the president hit a home run!

The G-7, which comprises most of the world’s wealthiest nations, also is supposed to showcase U.S. solidarity with these important allies. Reports from the summit suggest, as Merkel has indicated, that European reliance on the United States is fading into oblivion.
So, we’re left with an “every country for itself” mind set, led by the man who wants to “put America first.”

Home run, Mr. President? Nope. You seem to have whiffed.

International news, national news

More like a stand-up double, maybe, Mr. President

The president of the United States believes he “hit a home run” on his first trip abroad as head of state.

I believe I will disagree with Donald J. Trump on that one.

ā€œBut we have been gone for close to nine days. This will be nine days. And I think we hit a home run no matter where we are,ā€ Trump said in Italy as he prepared to return home — and into the political maelstrom that awaits.

Let’s review:

* He started in Saudi Arabia and delivered an acceptable speech to a room full of kings, presidentsĀ and potentates about the threat of international terrorism. It’s interesting that he would make such a speech in a country that has done next to nothing to curb its breeding of terrorists. Hey, wasn’t Osama bin Laden a Saudi native?

* Trump ventured to Israel, where was met by government officials who were steamed that he revealed classified secrets to Russian visitors earlier that had come from Israeli intelligence officials. Lord knows what Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu likely told him in private.

* Then he went to the Vatican and met with Pope Francis, who he had criticized while campaigning for the presidency because the Holy Father disagreed with some public policy statements the candidate had made.

* Trump then ventured to Brussels, where he scolded NATO allies because some of them aren’t paying enough for the defense of Europe against Russian threats and those threatsĀ presented by terrorists. The reactions of the heads of state and government who heard the lecture couldn’t have been more instructive; they couldn’t believe the president would dress them down in such a public manner.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/335416-trump-at-conclusion-of-first-foreign-trip-i-think-we-hit-a-home-run

Along the way, the president was met with concern, a bit of anger over past statements. By my way of reasoning, he didn’t do much to assuage the concerns of world leaders who are concerned about the absence of any public service experience in his background.

Home run, Mr. President? Hardly. I’d say you hit — maybe — a stand-up double.

International news

Don’t go public with private concerns, Mr. POTUS

I feel the need to flesh out a bit a point I made briefly in an earlier blog post, but which seems to have gotten some traction among the various TV talking heads commenting on that particular point.

Donald J. Trump delivered a scolding lecture to fellow NATO heads of state and government about whether their countries are paying their fair share of the alliance’s defense.

I will ask again: Why couldn’t the president have delivered that message in private instead of standing in front the whole wide world and telling the NATO nations’ leaders about how “unfair” it is to saddle American taxpayers with such a burden?

Other presidents have griped about the cost of paying for NATO defense, but they’ve done so more discreetly. Then they would stand out front and declare solidarity with NATO. Trump did some of that the other day, but his message was diluted by the scolding he delivered about the price tag of providing for the defense of western Europe.

NATO nations certainly have stepped up in response to direct threats against member states, such as when 9/11 occurred. The president was good enough to acknowledge that NATO fighting personnel answered the call to fight the terrorist monsters who killed so many of our citizens on that terrible day.

But what weĀ heard in Brussels was the rhetoric of a man who doesn’t know anything about diplomacy and how to use it effectively to achieve a common purpose.

International news

Trump started out well at NATO, then …

Donald J. Trump actually knows how to deliver the right messageĀ at the right moment.

Such as when the president spoke Thursday at the NATO summit in Brussels of the terrible tragedy that befell the United Kingdom in that massacre in Manchester, England. The president called for a moment of silence and told British Prime Minister Teresa May that the alliance stands foursquare behind her beleaguered nation.

Then, at about the 4:50 mark of this video, the president decided to scold members of our nation’s oldest alliance by reminding them that they need to “pay more” for their defense. And, by golly, he actually cited threats from Russia as a concern with which NATO must deal.

I could not help but notice the looks on the president’s fellow heads of state and government as he reminded them publicly that many member nations aren’t paying what they supposedly have pledged to pay for NATO’s defense. They looked at each other, they looked at their feet, a couple of them seemed to snicker.

I understand that Trump was elected in 2016 on the pledge to “put America first.” He spoke at the NATO meeting of the burden that American taxpayers are bearingĀ  because ofĀ so-called deadbeats in Europe who aren’t shouldering their financial obligations.

I am left to wonder: Is that really how one talks to allies — in public?

International news

Trump shows bad manners at NATO

There’s no need to belabor this particular bit of news from the NATO summit in Brussels.

It’s still worth a mention.

Donald J. Trump was seen shoving aside Dusko Markovic, theĀ prime ministerĀ of Montenegro, the newest member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Trump pushed Markovic away while seeking to be photographed along with other leaders.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-shoves-a-fellow-world-leader-at-nato/ar-BBBwCkm

Markovic reportedly seemed a bit surprised by the bull-in-china-shop approach from Trump. Then he smiled and patted the president on the back.

Hey, I get that the United States is the big dog. We’re the world’s greatest nation. But it brings to mind this question: Is this what Trump means by “putting America first”?

International news

Trump runs smack into long memories

Donald J. Trump has now met most of his European colleagues on their turf.

My understanding is that the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization weren’t exactly opening their arms in a warm embrace of the president of the United States.

They have long memories of the things he said while campaigning for the presidency.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-gets-frosty-greeting-from-eu-leaders/ar-BBBwFBZ?li=BBnb7Kz

Trump called NATO “obsolete,” but has taken it back; he demanded the NATO member nations pay more for their defense; he said he wants to tear up the climate change accord signed this past year in Paris, but now says he United States is still undecided.

I guess I ought to mention, too, that NATO doesn’t trust that big neighbor to its east, Russia, which Trump seems unable to criticize with quite the fervor he expends on the Islamic State and other enemies of the United States.

NATO, which sits at Russia’s front porch, isn’t so, um, tolerant of Vladimir Putin’s motives or the tactics he has employed.

U.S. intelligence agencies already have concluded his government interfered in our election this past year. The Russians have done the same in France and are doing it yet again in Germany. Every leader in Europe knows it; so do our intelligence analysts. The only significant person on Planet Earth who’s denying it — other than Putin and his minions — is the president of the United States.

Is it any wonder that NATO — meeting in Brussels, a city Trump once called a “hellhole” — would be less than chummy with Donald Trump?

Hey, Mr. President. These folks are our allies. They are our friends. They are posted onĀ the front line of defense against Russia, which is neither an ally or a friend.

Trump simply shouldn’t have said what he did about NATO. He might not remember it, or understand the implications of his remarks, but his NATO colleagues damn sure do.