Tag Archives: NATO

International news

Will we stand alone at the next big attack?

A commonly held notion in the wake of the 9/11 attack was that we shouldn’t concern ourselves over if another attack would occur, but we need to focus on when it would take place.

It’s good to remember at this point that when we collected ourselves after the horror of that event and went after the terrorists who did the deed, we had much of the world rally with us. Our friends in Europe and the Middle East were there. So were our allies in the Far East and in South Asia.

The European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization both rallied behind us in our retaliatory strikes against the terrorists. Their fighting men and women died alongside ours in Afghanistan and Iraq.

OK, so let’s fast-forward to the present day.

Two previous presidents — George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama — have come and gone. We have a new one at the helm, Donald J. Trump.

Whereas Presidents Bush and Obama courted our allies and sought to ensure they would be there when the chips were down, we now have a president who has decided to call the EU a “foe,” he has denigrated NATO’s value in today’s world, while excoriating its members for failing to pay more for their shared defense.

All the while, Donald Trump has thrown himself at the feet of Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman, and Kim Jong Un, the North Korean despot. He calls them “strong leaders,” “intelligent,” and people he “trusts.”

This leads me to the question that is lurking in the back of many observers’ minds. When the next terror attack occurs — and while none of us wants it to happen, we must be mindful that it very well could — are we going to be able to call on the very allies the president has insulted time and again?

My fear is that we’ll fight the next war alone.

You can take this to the bank: Never mind that Trump says that

“I, alone” can repair the nation’s ills, not even the greatest nation on Earth can fight wage this international fight all by itself.

Thus, we might be forced to reap what Donald Trump has sown.

International news

Does our president want to disband NATO?

Hey, I believe it is fair to ask: Does the president of the United States want to get rid of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?

He is yapping, yammering and yowling about NATO allies not paying their fair share for their defense. I get his concern on that one specific point.

Why, though, does he keep disparaging our allies? Why does he continue to play into Vladimir Putin’s hands with his tirades against Germany, the United Kingdom, France … indeed, the rest of the alliance.

Does this clown understand a fundamental truth about U.S. history?

Let me remind him — and you — of something we need to remember.

We had a generation of Americans go to war in Europe. They died in defense of liberty and freedom. They fought the tyrants. They won that war.

My father was one of them. He served in the U.S. Navy. He fought in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. He once endured 105 consecutive days of aerial bombardment from German and Italian air forces. An Italian dive bomber sank Dad’s ship off the coast of Sicily, forcing Dad to dive into the drink, where he awaited rescue from a British warship.

These men, including my father, set the stage for the creation of NATO immediately after the end of World War II.

Dad wasn’t a particularly political man. He and I didn’t discuss the issues of the day too often. However, I knew instinctively that he didn’t trust the Russians. He wanted NATO to stand watch as a deterrent against potential communist aggression.

Dad’s been gone for nearly 38 years. I believe in the deepest recesses of my gut that he would be aghast at the rhetoric we are hearing from the president of the United States.

Donald Trump, you’re no Harry Truman.

national news

WH chief of staff angry over breakfast menu? Wow!

Sarah Huckabee Sanders has just notched my all-time favorite lame response from the White House press office.

It’s a beaut, man!

White House chief of staff John Kelly was seen grimacing, looking at the floor and fidgeting while sitting two seats away from the president, who was lambasting Germany over what Donald Trump contended was Russia’s total control over our strategic ally.

The person next to Kelly, U.S. North Atlantic Treaty Organization ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison — the former U.S. senator from Texas — was seen looking around as if to suggest she’d rather be anywhere other than where she was at the moment.

As the New York Daily News reported: As Trump laid into Germany, Kelly pursed his lips, looked down and appeared generally uncomfortable. Kelly seemed particularly unsettled when Trump made the “captive” comment, firmly pressing his lips together and staring off into the distance.

Someone then asked Sanders about Kelly’s apparently visceral response, that some had interpreted as extreme discomfort over what he was hearing from the president.

Sanders’s response? She said Kelly “was displeased because he was expecting a full breakfast and there were only pastries and cheese.”

Isn’t that a great retort? Doesn’t that qualify for entry into the press secretaries’ hall of shame for lame responses?

It’s got my vote. To be candid, I thought Sanders’s response to the question was quite, um, creative.

Stand tall, Sarah.

International news

This is no way to, um, MAGA

Donald Trump’s mantra that he would “make America great again” has hit another snag.

That’s my view at least.

You see, a great nation’s president doesn’t diss its allies. It doesn’t do the dirty work of disrupting a key international alliance on behalf of our nation’s top adversary. The president doesn’t conflate trade issues with defense alliances.

The president doesn’t open his mouth without knowing what the hell he is talking about.

Donald Trump is making a hash out of our alliance with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He makes a valid point about NATO nations needing to pony up more cash to pay for their own defense.

It’s his style. It’s his clumsy rhetoric. It’s his ignorance of NATO’s very founding that drives many of us nuts.

A president who wants to make America great again doesn’t get disinvited to London by that city’s mayor because of the disgraceful comments he has made about Muslims; oh, yes, the London mayor — Sadiq Khan — happens to worship the Islamic faith.

After the president finishes trashing NATO and uttering preposterous statements, the president is heading to Helsinki, Finland, to meet with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. The two men are going to meet in a room with no senior aides present; they’ll have their interpreters, that’s it!

What in the world is Trump going to give to Putin? What is he going to tell him? What is he going to demand of him?

And what are we supposed to believe from the Liar in Chief when he comes out of that meeting and delivers his version of what happened behind closed doors?

This isn’t how you make America great again.

International news

Once upon a time, Republicans mistrusted the Russians

There once was a time, not that long ago, when Republican Party politicians bristled at the notion of cozying up to Russia, the direct descendants of what President Reagan once called The Evil Empire.

They would rant and roar at the prospect of Democrats talking nice to the Russians. They would argue that the Russians weren’t to be trusted as far as we could throw them.

The 2012 GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, called Russia the world’s greatest geopolitical adversary of this nation. Democrats laughed at Mitt. I admit to being one of the critics who dismissed Mitt’s view; I regret what I said then.

These days the one-time Party of Reagan has been captured and co-opted by Donald J. Trump. The current president is unlike any human being who’s ever been elected to the high office.

He talks nice to the Russians. Get this: He now disparages and disrespects our allies. He scolds our North Atlantic Treaty Organization friends for failing to pay enough to defend themselves. The president’s NATO diatribe plays directly into the hands of Russia.

I’m trying to imagine what the Republican Party hierarchy would do if, say, Barack H. Obama had done any of the things that his immediate successor has done. They would collapse into spasms of apoplexy. They would call for the president’s head on a platter. They would impeach him in a New York nano-second.

This is a strange new world, dear reader. It’s making me nervous.

The president of the United States is supposed to be a source of wisdom, stability and dignity. Instead, we have someone at the top of our governmental chain of command who has turned everything on its head.

What’s more, the political party with which he is affiliated is buying into it. The Russians are the good guys now? We are scolding our allies and giving comfort to our No. 1 adversary?

Wow!

International news

NATO remains our most important alliance

On one hand, Donald Trump is right to insist that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization member nations pay more for their defense.

The president, though, is talking way past the sale with his relentless attacks on our nation’s alliance in Europe, the one created after World War II as a defense against potential aggression by the Soviet Union.

He is insulting the heads of state and government of virtually all those nations. He suggests Russia controls Germany because it sells the Germans oil and natural gas. Holy crap, man! Does the president have any clue as to what Europeans are thinking and saying out loud about his own relationships with the Russia and the former chief KGB spook who runs that country?

NATO remains as credible, viable and important today as it was at its founding. For the president of the United States to undermine an alliance full of nations that came to our defense after 9/11 plays directly into the hands of Vladimir Putin, whose mission as Russian president has been to, um, undermine NATO.

I wonder if Putin is going to thank Trump when they meet in Helsinki for doing his job for him.

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.