It is the rise of Virus Nationalism.
People get upset about American producers shipping PPE, masks, ventilators, and the like to buyers overseas.
And others also get upset when products related to the struggle to deal with this virus are made in their own country for shipment to buyers in other countries.
People like Trump often argue protectionism makes sense at least for anything related to national security if not across the board.
And of course Trump has notoriously claimed without challenge than trade in anything at all is a national security matter.
Lately a kind of instinctive and worldwide Trumpism has emerged regarding medical goods related to the virus.
And it is undermining the global effort, as well as economic globalism and multinationalism in general.
Showing posts with label globalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label globalism. Show all posts
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Sunday, October 20, 2019
So, do they now regret the way the US ran away from the war in Vietnam?
Do they retrospectively regret all those "collaborators with US imperialism" we abandoned in the fall of Saigon, in 1975?
They?
Democrats joining Republicans in unanimously deploring the betrayal of the Kurds and the abandonment of Syria.
To be fair, it amazed me at the time how many supporters of the war did not mind at all the abandonment of thousands and tens of thousands of Vietnamese supporters of the US effort to a horrible fate.
I opposed the war but also was deeply ashamed of the betrayal of so many whom we had actively induced to rely on us.
In truth, we could not save everyone who had at least hoped for our victory - that would have been most of the people of South Vietnam - but we could and should have saved those publicly in any way associated with our participation in that war.
Tens of thousands though that would have been.
Because we were responsible for at least some of them sticking their heads up, daring so long to resist the reds, and we had promised them all they could count on us.
Why didn't the Brits give British passports to the entire population of Hong Kong when they agreed to turn over the colony to Beijing?
Why didn't the Commonwealth countries agree to accept them all as refugees, sharing them out among themselves more or less proportionately to their own part in the total population of the Commonwealth?
How was their failure to do any such thing not a shocking betrayal?
Not that they - the Vietnamese or the Hong Kong Chinese - would all have agreed to leave their homes.
But the invitations should have been extended.
They?
Democrats joining Republicans in unanimously deploring the betrayal of the Kurds and the abandonment of Syria.
To be fair, it amazed me at the time how many supporters of the war did not mind at all the abandonment of thousands and tens of thousands of Vietnamese supporters of the US effort to a horrible fate.
I opposed the war but also was deeply ashamed of the betrayal of so many whom we had actively induced to rely on us.
In truth, we could not save everyone who had at least hoped for our victory - that would have been most of the people of South Vietnam - but we could and should have saved those publicly in any way associated with our participation in that war.
Tens of thousands though that would have been.
Because we were responsible for at least some of them sticking their heads up, daring so long to resist the reds, and we had promised them all they could count on us.
Why didn't the Brits give British passports to the entire population of Hong Kong when they agreed to turn over the colony to Beijing?
Why didn't the Commonwealth countries agree to accept them all as refugees, sharing them out among themselves more or less proportionately to their own part in the total population of the Commonwealth?
How was their failure to do any such thing not a shocking betrayal?
Not that they - the Vietnamese or the Hong Kong Chinese - would all have agreed to leave their homes.
But the invitations should have been extended.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Trump at the UN
From a hospital waiting room.
A national disgrace, a fool, and a drivelling ass reiterates every nationalist stupidity and lie at the heart of his "America First" agenda, about which he crows and crows as he denounces globalism and global institutions.
It's a campaign speech full of offensive nonsense and lies about defense, trade, and everything he touches on.
Not excepting Brexit and the European Union.
He even suggested China ought to be kicked out of the WTO and denied the status of a developing country.
And addressing the global phenomenon of mass, unauthorized migration, he repeatedly attacked the migrants as unfairly burdening the countries they go to.
Using Venezuela to attack socialism, for domestic consumption.
Not one moment's applause, and he's been speaking for a while.
Stoney silence through the whole thing.
Even when he lies that his administration supports things that his UN audience might support.
Democrats edging toward impeachment.
Warren now ahead of Biden.
Perhaps all to the good.
Perfunctory applause at the end, only.
Extraordinary.
Friday, August 2, 2019
The Duce continues dogged by piss poor vetting of prospective nominees
Trump withdraws Ratcliffe as Intelligence pick
Ratcliffe, a three-term congressman who sits on the House Intelligence, Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, has received criticism for having a dearth of national security qualifications when compared to previous intelligence chiefs.
He is viewed as a staunch Trump ally and has criticized the origins of the Russia investigation, suggesting the FBI acted improperly in its investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
Trump may have been seeking to name somebody to the job who, like him, is skeptical of continued American participation in NATO and other Cold War alliances.
It could not be clearer he regards Putin and Putin's Russia as not remotely as threatening to the US or to US interests as the now defunct Soviet Union was, back in the day.
Or anyway was seen to be.
In a city of globalists, it's not going to be easy to find somebody both competent and ideologically congenial to Trump's isolationist side.
Ratcliffe, a three-term congressman who sits on the House Intelligence, Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, has received criticism for having a dearth of national security qualifications when compared to previous intelligence chiefs.
He is viewed as a staunch Trump ally and has criticized the origins of the Russia investigation, suggesting the FBI acted improperly in its investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
Trump may have been seeking to name somebody to the job who, like him, is skeptical of continued American participation in NATO and other Cold War alliances.
It could not be clearer he regards Putin and Putin's Russia as not remotely as threatening to the US or to US interests as the now defunct Soviet Union was, back in the day.
Or anyway was seen to be.
In a city of globalists, it's not going to be easy to find somebody both competent and ideologically congenial to Trump's isolationist side.
Monday, July 29, 2019
So, not a globalist, that means, I think.
Trump's intelligence pick is attempt to 'neutralise' spy agencies, say ex-officials
John Ratcliffe’s nomination follows announcement Dan Coats will leave after disagreements with Trump over policy and intelligence
Donald Trump’s nomination of an inexperienced but loyal partisan to become the director of national intelligence (DNI) is an attempt to “neutralise” US spy agencies as an independent and objective voice on global affairs, former intelligence officials warned.
Oh, is that what they are? They don't have their own, Cold War II, globalist agenda?
<snip>
“Trump is consolidating his personal control over the intelligence community,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA intelligence officer. He said the current directors of the CIA and FBI have found their hands tied increasingly when it comes to accurate intelligence assessment, by risk of being fired for something at odds with Trump’s views.
“I fear that there is a slow takeover of the norms and procedures of governance by this president, amassing unprecedented executive power,” Mowatt-Larssen, now at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, added.
“To do that he needs to neutralise or at least silence the intelligence community. He has been doing that for three years, but this takes it to the new level.”
The story emphasizes Ratcliffe is an ardent, Hannity-like Trumpist trumpet.
The idea is that he will corrupt the intelligence community and heap discredit upon its clear-eyed, candid, and disinterested vision.
Um.
But that isn't really the main issue, is it?
John Ratcliffe’s nomination follows announcement Dan Coats will leave after disagreements with Trump over policy and intelligence
Donald Trump’s nomination of an inexperienced but loyal partisan to become the director of national intelligence (DNI) is an attempt to “neutralise” US spy agencies as an independent and objective voice on global affairs, former intelligence officials warned.
Oh, is that what they are? They don't have their own, Cold War II, globalist agenda?
<snip>
“Trump is consolidating his personal control over the intelligence community,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA intelligence officer. He said the current directors of the CIA and FBI have found their hands tied increasingly when it comes to accurate intelligence assessment, by risk of being fired for something at odds with Trump’s views.
“I fear that there is a slow takeover of the norms and procedures of governance by this president, amassing unprecedented executive power,” Mowatt-Larssen, now at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, added.
“To do that he needs to neutralise or at least silence the intelligence community. He has been doing that for three years, but this takes it to the new level.”
The story emphasizes Ratcliffe is an ardent, Hannity-like Trumpist trumpet.
The idea is that he will corrupt the intelligence community and heap discredit upon its clear-eyed, candid, and disinterested vision.
Um.
But that isn't really the main issue, is it?
Thursday, June 20, 2019
So this is better?
House votes to repeal Authorization for Use of Military Force
So now anything Trump does, or anyone else does, of a military nature in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, or anywhere at all against Jihaders and terrorists, even al-Qaeda itself, is without congressional sanction and hence unconstitutional?
So this is actually what Democrats want?
Or is it just posturing to satisfy, well, whom, exactly?
And how are Democrats supposed to plausibly criticize Trump for undermining US globalism while themselves pulling the rug out from under US efforts to respond to terrorists and Jihaders "over there rather than over here"?
What if ISIS does a comeback?
Not to worry.
Trump won't give a shit, nor will the Republicans in the congress.
So now anything Trump does, or anyone else does, of a military nature in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, or anywhere at all against Jihaders and terrorists, even al-Qaeda itself, is without congressional sanction and hence unconstitutional?
So this is actually what Democrats want?
Or is it just posturing to satisfy, well, whom, exactly?
And how are Democrats supposed to plausibly criticize Trump for undermining US globalism while themselves pulling the rug out from under US efforts to respond to terrorists and Jihaders "over there rather than over here"?
What if ISIS does a comeback?
Not to worry.
Trump won't give a shit, nor will the Republicans in the congress.
Friday, March 8, 2019
Buchananist neo-isolationism
With no chance to get any of his agenda done that requires congressional consent, Bozo is turning his attention to implementing as much of his neo-isolationist outlook as he can without it.
Trump Seeks Huge Premium From Allies Hosting U.S. Troops
The Duce is turning our troops into expensive mercenaries to encourage the host countries to refuse their presence.
The claim that he just wants to prod them into spending a bigger share of their own GDPs on their own defense is a figleaf for a policy of deliberate destabilization of the alliances.
For years, President Donald Trump has complained that countries hosting American troops aren’t paying enough. Now he wants to get even, and then some.
Under White House direction, the administration is drawing up demands that Germany, Japan and eventually any other country hosting U.S. troops pay the full price of American soldiers deployed on their soil -- plus 50 percent or more for the privilege of hosting them, according to a dozen administration officials and people briefed on the matter.
In some cases, nations hosting American forces could be asked to pay five to six times as much as they do now under the “Cost Plus 50” formula.
Trump has championed the idea for months.
His insistence on it almost derailed recent talks with South Korea over the status of 28,000 U.S. troops in the country when he overruled his negotiators with a note to National Security Adviser John Bolton saying, “We want cost plus 50.”
He sees our troops in allied countries as there exclusively to protect faraway foreign lands in which we have no significant national security stake.
He sees a few thousand migrants in a caravan heading for the Mexican border as a national security emergency, but not a war against our allies in Europe or Asia, perhaps excepting only Israel.
Yes, this is absolutely Buchananism - apart from Bozo's strong support for Israel that mostly reflects the position of his Evangelical base and enables him to urge Jewish voters in America to come over to the GOP.
[I remember an old joke that Jews have the incomes of Episcopalians and the politics of Puerto Ricans.]
Was Buchanan paid off by the Russians, too?
Trump Seeks Huge Premium From Allies Hosting U.S. Troops
The Duce is turning our troops into expensive mercenaries to encourage the host countries to refuse their presence.
The claim that he just wants to prod them into spending a bigger share of their own GDPs on their own defense is a figleaf for a policy of deliberate destabilization of the alliances.
For years, President Donald Trump has complained that countries hosting American troops aren’t paying enough. Now he wants to get even, and then some.
Under White House direction, the administration is drawing up demands that Germany, Japan and eventually any other country hosting U.S. troops pay the full price of American soldiers deployed on their soil -- plus 50 percent or more for the privilege of hosting them, according to a dozen administration officials and people briefed on the matter.
In some cases, nations hosting American forces could be asked to pay five to six times as much as they do now under the “Cost Plus 50” formula.
Trump has championed the idea for months.
His insistence on it almost derailed recent talks with South Korea over the status of 28,000 U.S. troops in the country when he overruled his negotiators with a note to National Security Adviser John Bolton saying, “We want cost plus 50.”
He sees our troops in allied countries as there exclusively to protect faraway foreign lands in which we have no significant national security stake.
He sees a few thousand migrants in a caravan heading for the Mexican border as a national security emergency, but not a war against our allies in Europe or Asia, perhaps excepting only Israel.
Yes, this is absolutely Buchananism - apart from Bozo's strong support for Israel that mostly reflects the position of his Evangelical base and enables him to urge Jewish voters in America to come over to the GOP.
[I remember an old joke that Jews have the incomes of Episcopalians and the politics of Puerto Ricans.]
Was Buchanan paid off by the Russians, too?
Monday, December 31, 2018
Will it stick?
The interpretation of the law according to which hush money is a campaign contribution and so may exceed legal limits is not new to the Cohen case.
But Edwards' lawyers argued against that interpretation of the law and it appears never to have actually been the basis of a conviction.
Democrats keep citing the charges against Edwards as support for that theory of the law.
(Did Democrats accept that theory of the law, back in the day? Did Republicans who now reject it accept it when it was Democrat Edwards on the hook?)
The grand jury bought it but apparently not the petit.
A lot of people will think this is bullshit, so it better not be the only charge in a bill of impeachment.
Edwards trial
The Justice Department has dropped its prosecution of former Sen. John Edwards over nearly $1 million in payments his backers made to support his pregnant mistress during the 2008 presidential campaign.
The formal dismissal of charges was filed in federal court in Greensboro, N.C., on Wednesday.
The decision came less than two weeks after Edwards’s trial on the campaign finance-related charges ended when a jury deadlocked on five felony counts and voted to acquit him on one charge.
. . . .
“We knew that this case — like all campaign finance cases — would be challenging. But it is our duty to bring hard cases when we believe that the facts and the law support charging a candidate for high office with a crime,” Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny Breuer said in a statement.
Breuer did not elaborate on prosecutors’ reasons for abandoning the case.
He simply noted the jury’s division on most counts and said: “In the interest of justice, we have decided not to retry Mr. Edwards on those counts.”
Edwards’s defense team welcomed the decision to drop the case.
“While John has repeatedly admitted to his sins, he has also consistently asserted, as we demonstrated at the trial, that he did not violate any campaign law nor even imagined that any campaign laws could apply,” defense lawyers Abbe Lowell, Allison Van Laningham and Alan Duncan said in a joint statement.
“We are confident that the outcome of any new trial would have been the same. We are very glad that, after living under this cloud for over three years, John and his family can have their lives back and enjoy the peace they deserve.”
A grand jury indicted the Democrat and two-time presidential candidate last year on charges that he illegally received campaign donations from his 2008 finance chairman Fred Baron and wealthy heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon.
The funds, spent on private jet travel, luxury hotels and housing for Edwards’s mistress, Rielle Hunter, never passed through campaign accounts.
However, prosecutors said they amounted to donations to Edwards’s campaign because they were intended to prevent damage to his presidential bid by hiding the extramarital affair from the media.
Too, Russiagate charges will work only if whatever the Russians did that Trump knew of in advance was actually illegal.
And that will work best if the crime is the hacking rather than mere pseudonymous use of social media that would have been perfectly legal if done by Americans.
It is really absurd and not a good idea to urge that blogging, tweeting, or other uses of social media can themselves be counted as either campaigning or making some sort of in-kind campaign contribution.
Or that it is when the Russians do it, but somehow not when you or I do it.
And is it "conspiracy" if Trump or his campaign did nothing to advance or aid in any illegal activity, perhaps even the hacking, but only knew of it before and when it happened?
Too, nothing he did really amounts to treason, however annoying to some globalists or to some Democrats.
Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 reads in pertinent part:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
Not even in those remote and nearly inaccessible possible worlds in which Trump actually and in just so many explicit words did sell certain aspects of US foreign policy to Russia in return for help in the campaign or other inducements.
I hope and believe that doing that would be criminal and impeachable.
But it would not be treason, even if we go with plain English and insist a foreign country can be an enemy even when we are not actually at war with it, so that giving such a power aid or comfort can be counted as treason.
The US is not and has never been at war with Russia.
And Trump and all his supporters and even some of his opponents, both on the left and on the right, will argue that the premise of Trump's Buchananist foreign policy is that Russia is not and need not be an actual outright enemy of the US, despite conflicts between us over this or that.
Whether or not it is or becomes an actual enemy of, say, Latvia or Ukraine.
Too, if Trump's policies or preferences respecting NATO, Russia, or anything else in foreign affairs contain or amount to treason then Buchananist foreign policy, neo-isolationist policy, Rand Paul's foreign policy, and any foreign policy that is less confrontational vis-a-vis Russia than Hillary Clinton's would be treason, also.
And anyone who implements such policies, or perhaps even advocates them, is a traitor.
Russian participation on Trump's behalf in the campaign, or any other alleged quid pro quo, though possibly accounting for motive, would be irrelevant to the substance of that charge against him.
And Trump's moves would have been treason even if the Russians had never lifted a finger to help him.
But all of that is absurd on its face.
Do we really want to say it can be treason for an American politician - or indeed anyone else - to advocate changes in America policy?
Even ending a war already underway?
Can it be treason for an American politician to run on ending a war, or reversing an alliance, or on undoing an alliance, and then keep his promise once elected?
That's not a view any of us ought to be supporting.
And ironically it well deserves to be called McCarthyism.
But Edwards' lawyers argued against that interpretation of the law and it appears never to have actually been the basis of a conviction.
Democrats keep citing the charges against Edwards as support for that theory of the law.
(Did Democrats accept that theory of the law, back in the day? Did Republicans who now reject it accept it when it was Democrat Edwards on the hook?)
The grand jury bought it but apparently not the petit.
A lot of people will think this is bullshit, so it better not be the only charge in a bill of impeachment.
Edwards trial
The Justice Department has dropped its prosecution of former Sen. John Edwards over nearly $1 million in payments his backers made to support his pregnant mistress during the 2008 presidential campaign.
The formal dismissal of charges was filed in federal court in Greensboro, N.C., on Wednesday.
The decision came less than two weeks after Edwards’s trial on the campaign finance-related charges ended when a jury deadlocked on five felony counts and voted to acquit him on one charge.
. . . .
“We knew that this case — like all campaign finance cases — would be challenging. But it is our duty to bring hard cases when we believe that the facts and the law support charging a candidate for high office with a crime,” Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny Breuer said in a statement.
Breuer did not elaborate on prosecutors’ reasons for abandoning the case.
He simply noted the jury’s division on most counts and said: “In the interest of justice, we have decided not to retry Mr. Edwards on those counts.”
Edwards’s defense team welcomed the decision to drop the case.
“While John has repeatedly admitted to his sins, he has also consistently asserted, as we demonstrated at the trial, that he did not violate any campaign law nor even imagined that any campaign laws could apply,” defense lawyers Abbe Lowell, Allison Van Laningham and Alan Duncan said in a joint statement.
“We are confident that the outcome of any new trial would have been the same. We are very glad that, after living under this cloud for over three years, John and his family can have their lives back and enjoy the peace they deserve.”
A grand jury indicted the Democrat and two-time presidential candidate last year on charges that he illegally received campaign donations from his 2008 finance chairman Fred Baron and wealthy heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon.
The funds, spent on private jet travel, luxury hotels and housing for Edwards’s mistress, Rielle Hunter, never passed through campaign accounts.
However, prosecutors said they amounted to donations to Edwards’s campaign because they were intended to prevent damage to his presidential bid by hiding the extramarital affair from the media.
Too, Russiagate charges will work only if whatever the Russians did that Trump knew of in advance was actually illegal.
And that will work best if the crime is the hacking rather than mere pseudonymous use of social media that would have been perfectly legal if done by Americans.
It is really absurd and not a good idea to urge that blogging, tweeting, or other uses of social media can themselves be counted as either campaigning or making some sort of in-kind campaign contribution.
Or that it is when the Russians do it, but somehow not when you or I do it.
And is it "conspiracy" if Trump or his campaign did nothing to advance or aid in any illegal activity, perhaps even the hacking, but only knew of it before and when it happened?
Too, nothing he did really amounts to treason, however annoying to some globalists or to some Democrats.
Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 reads in pertinent part:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
Not even in those remote and nearly inaccessible possible worlds in which Trump actually and in just so many explicit words did sell certain aspects of US foreign policy to Russia in return for help in the campaign or other inducements.
I hope and believe that doing that would be criminal and impeachable.
But it would not be treason, even if we go with plain English and insist a foreign country can be an enemy even when we are not actually at war with it, so that giving such a power aid or comfort can be counted as treason.
The US is not and has never been at war with Russia.
And Trump and all his supporters and even some of his opponents, both on the left and on the right, will argue that the premise of Trump's Buchananist foreign policy is that Russia is not and need not be an actual outright enemy of the US, despite conflicts between us over this or that.
Whether or not it is or becomes an actual enemy of, say, Latvia or Ukraine.
Too, if Trump's policies or preferences respecting NATO, Russia, or anything else in foreign affairs contain or amount to treason then Buchananist foreign policy, neo-isolationist policy, Rand Paul's foreign policy, and any foreign policy that is less confrontational vis-a-vis Russia than Hillary Clinton's would be treason, also.
And anyone who implements such policies, or perhaps even advocates them, is a traitor.
Russian participation on Trump's behalf in the campaign, or any other alleged quid pro quo, though possibly accounting for motive, would be irrelevant to the substance of that charge against him.
And Trump's moves would have been treason even if the Russians had never lifted a finger to help him.
But all of that is absurd on its face.
Do we really want to say it can be treason for an American politician - or indeed anyone else - to advocate changes in America policy?
Even ending a war already underway?
Can it be treason for an American politician to run on ending a war, or reversing an alliance, or on undoing an alliance, and then keep his promise once elected?
That's not a view any of us ought to be supporting.
And ironically it well deserves to be called McCarthyism.
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Trump's mini-me at State has embraced his Buchananite nationalism almost entirely
Pompeo Questions the Value of International Groups Like U.N. and E.U.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke out against several treaties and institutions, including the United Nations and the European Union, during a speech in Brussels.
In a major speech on Tuesday [December 4], Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to explain one of the abiding conundrums of the Trump administration: How does a nationalist lead on the international stage?
The answer, he said, is to revamp or jettison some treaties and institutions while bolstering others.
Among the institutions that Mr. Pompeo criticized were the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of American States and the African Union.
But he embraced NATO, which President Trump has harshly criticized, as an “indispensable institution.”
. . . .
The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization also came in for sharp criticism.
“International bodies must help facilitate cooperation that bolsters the security and values of the free world, or they must be reformed or eliminated,” he said.
After the short speech, Mr. Pompeo took no questions.
Did Kissinger get it right or not?
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke out against several treaties and institutions, including the United Nations and the European Union, during a speech in Brussels.
In a major speech on Tuesday [December 4], Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to explain one of the abiding conundrums of the Trump administration: How does a nationalist lead on the international stage?
The answer, he said, is to revamp or jettison some treaties and institutions while bolstering others.
Among the institutions that Mr. Pompeo criticized were the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of American States and the African Union.
But he embraced NATO, which President Trump has harshly criticized, as an “indispensable institution.”
. . . .
The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization also came in for sharp criticism.
“International bodies must help facilitate cooperation that bolsters the security and values of the free world, or they must be reformed or eliminated,” he said.
After the short speech, Mr. Pompeo took no questions.
Did Kissinger get it right or not?
Last week I was browsing through Henry Kissinger’s 2014 book, World Order, when the news broke that Jim Mattis, the US defence secretary, had resigned, sending a shockwave of new uncertainties across Europe.
It made these lines from Kissinger all the more striking:
“The United States has every reason from history and geopolitics to bolster the European Union and prevent its drifting off in a geopolitical vacuum; the United States, if separated from Europe in politics, economics and defence, would become geopolitically an island off the shores of Eurasia, and Europe itself could turn into an appendage to the reaches of Asia and the Middle East.”
One key sentence in Mattis’s resignation letter pointed to the importance of the US respecting its allies.
It read like a final verdict on something Europeans had been dreading ever since Donald Trump’s election but were wary of acknowledging: the utter indifference of this American leader to postwar alliances.
A US “separated from Europe” has suddenly become more of a reality.
. . . .
The spectre that’s haunting Europe today is multifaceted: a Trump‑Brexit‑Putin nexus has taken shape.
With the Brexit countdown approaching and European parliament elections due in May, things look ominous, and Mattis’s message will have done little to reassure anyone.
But much could change if Brexit is somehow halted.
. . . .
This year, Trump’s hostility to the EU (he calls it a “foe”) morphed into a systematic onslaught.
One shocking moment came when Trump’s national security adviser Mike Pompeo gave a speech in Brussels this month lambasting the European project.
This year, Trump’s hostility to the EU (he calls it a “foe”) morphed into a systematic onslaught.
One shocking moment came when Trump’s national security adviser Mike Pompeo gave a speech in Brussels this month lambasting the European project.
Meanwhile, both Trump and Putin have made clear they want the Brexit train wreck to run its course.
The US president has openly encouraged a no-deal British departure from the EU, and last week Putin mused that Theresa May should “fulfil the will of the people”.
These men’s motives may vary but the endgame they seek – sowing division – is much the same, and it’s just as obsessive.
Trump is interested in an isolated UK and a disembowelled EU which would no longer be able to set rules and standards in trade.
Putin wants to secure geopolitical gains for Russia in Europe in a quest for a sphere of influence, as revenge for defeat in the cold war.
. . . .
Brexit has so far united continental Europe much more than it has divided it.
Brexit is also a lose-lose project on which more and more Britons are apparently starting to turn their backs.
Neither Trump nor Putin are going away any time soon.
Brexit, on the other hand, increasingly looks like a fading prospect.
. . . .
But the biggest boon to all Europeans – and the biggest blow to both Trump and Putin’s calculations – would surely come if Brexit didn’t happen at all.
This could change the entire narrative about a continent beholden to hostile forces.
In fact, a Brexit reversal could be Europe’s finest hour, after a decade of crises.
If Britain changed its mind and remained in the European club, it would save itself and Europe from unnecessary havoc and absurdity: a cause for celebration whatever side of the Channel you live on.
If you judge the EU by the very nature of its enemies – autocrats or would-be autocrats – then surely putting an end to Brexit takes on a wider meaning than just securing market access.
Trump and Putin have placed high stakes on Brexit as something that would vindicate their world view.
Brexit is very much part of their project. Now is the time to disappoint them.
Not one hint from the Guardian columnist on how that might happen.
Mattis and Trump both urge that the United States cannot be "the world's policeman," but they mean very different things by that.
For Buchananist Trump the cliche expresses rejection of the postwar/Cold War alliances, supranational institutions, and global institutions the US led in building and in which the US still participates.
For Mattis it is a reason for embracing, expanding, and strengthening them all.
More on Trump's Buchananist commitments can be found in the New Yorker.
Expect more this from the Duce in the new year, when Democrats in the house are expected to pretty much put a stop to his domestic agenda.
He will turn to foreign policy, where presidents are stronger than the congress and the courts.
He will be a wrecking ball.
Mattis and Trump both urge that the United States cannot be "the world's policeman," but they mean very different things by that.
For Buchananist Trump the cliche expresses rejection of the postwar/Cold War alliances, supranational institutions, and global institutions the US led in building and in which the US still participates.
For Mattis it is a reason for embracing, expanding, and strengthening them all.
More on Trump's Buchananist commitments can be found in the New Yorker.
Expect more this from the Duce in the new year, when Democrats in the house are expected to pretty much put a stop to his domestic agenda.
He will turn to foreign policy, where presidents are stronger than the congress and the courts.
He will be a wrecking ball.
How Trumpism is helping the forgotten man - aka Archie Bunker - defeat globalization and bring back the good old days
Trump says he isn't happy with General Motors' decision to shed 14,700 jobs
General Motors has announced it will halt production at five North American facilities and cut 14,700 jobs as it deals with slowing sedan sales and the impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs.
More than 6,000 blue-collar jobs will be hit by GM plans to stop production at a car plant in Canada and two more in Ohio and Michigan.
Two transmission plants in the US will also be mothballed, putting the future of those plants in doubt.
The cuts will also include 15% of GM’s 54,000 white-collar workforce, about 8,100 people, and come as 18,000 GM workers have been asked to accept voluntary redundancy.
Trump, who won over voters in many of the states affected by GM’s decision by promising to save their jobs, told reporters he was not happy with the decision.
“We don’t like it,” he told reporters.
“This country has done a lot for General Motors. They better get back to Ohio, and soon.”
Or else what, one has to wonder?
. . . .
Cost pressures on GM and other car companies and suppliers have increased as demand has waned for traditional sedans.
The company has also said tariffs on imported steel, imposed earlier this year by the Trump administration, have cost it $1bn.
. . . .
GM has internally debated for months how to address shrinking car demand, a person briefed on the matter said, and the issue is certain to re-emerge when GM holds contract talks next year with the UAW.
The company has begun what is expected to be a long and expensive transition to a new transportation model that embraces electrified and automated vehicles, many of which will be shared rather than owned.
GM signaled the latest belt-tightening in late October when it offered buyouts to 50,000 salaried employees in North America.
Lagging US car sales has seen several car plants fall to just one shift, including its Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly plant and Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant.
Rivals Ford and Fiat Chrysler have curtailed US car production.
Ford said in April it planned to stop building nearly all cars in North America.
'A kick in the stomach'
In a speech in nearby Youngstown in July 2017, Trump promised to bring back auto jobs.
“They’re all coming back,” he said.
“Don’t move, don’t sell your house.”
Trump has criticized GM about layoffs, but the Lordstown workers say he hasn’t done enough.
. . . .
The workers are also angry that GM, helped by the $1tn corporate tax [cut] enacted last year, has spent nearly $14bn on stock buybacks since 2015, money that could have been invested in developing next-generation vehicles.
And then there is the indirect protectionism of politicians representing affected areas, abundantly willing to shove the extra costs of cars made by the Americans on whom their jobs depend onto the backs of other Americans on whom their jobs do not depend.
There’s a bipartisan push to save the plant.
Governor John Kasich, a Republican, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and Senator Rob Portman, a Republican, have pressed GM’s chief executive, Mary Barra, to find a way to keep the plant open.
Brown, who is contemplating a presidential run in 2020, has urged Trump to back legislation he has introduced that would give consumers $3,500 rebates on American-made cars.
General Motors has announced it will halt production at five North American facilities and cut 14,700 jobs as it deals with slowing sedan sales and the impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs.
More than 6,000 blue-collar jobs will be hit by GM plans to stop production at a car plant in Canada and two more in Ohio and Michigan.
Two transmission plants in the US will also be mothballed, putting the future of those plants in doubt.
The cuts will also include 15% of GM’s 54,000 white-collar workforce, about 8,100 people, and come as 18,000 GM workers have been asked to accept voluntary redundancy.
Trump, who won over voters in many of the states affected by GM’s decision by promising to save their jobs, told reporters he was not happy with the decision.
“We don’t like it,” he told reporters.
“This country has done a lot for General Motors. They better get back to Ohio, and soon.”
Or else what, one has to wonder?
. . . .
Cost pressures on GM and other car companies and suppliers have increased as demand has waned for traditional sedans.
The company has also said tariffs on imported steel, imposed earlier this year by the Trump administration, have cost it $1bn.
. . . .
GM has internally debated for months how to address shrinking car demand, a person briefed on the matter said, and the issue is certain to re-emerge when GM holds contract talks next year with the UAW.
The company has begun what is expected to be a long and expensive transition to a new transportation model that embraces electrified and automated vehicles, many of which will be shared rather than owned.
GM signaled the latest belt-tightening in late October when it offered buyouts to 50,000 salaried employees in North America.
Lagging US car sales has seen several car plants fall to just one shift, including its Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly plant and Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant.
Rivals Ford and Fiat Chrysler have curtailed US car production.
Ford said in April it planned to stop building nearly all cars in North America.
'A kick in the stomach'
In a speech in nearby Youngstown in July 2017, Trump promised to bring back auto jobs.
“They’re all coming back,” he said.
“Don’t move, don’t sell your house.”
Trump has criticized GM about layoffs, but the Lordstown workers say he hasn’t done enough.
. . . .
The workers are also angry that GM, helped by the $1tn corporate tax [cut] enacted last year, has spent nearly $14bn on stock buybacks since 2015, money that could have been invested in developing next-generation vehicles.
And then there is the indirect protectionism of politicians representing affected areas, abundantly willing to shove the extra costs of cars made by the Americans on whom their jobs depend onto the backs of other Americans on whom their jobs do not depend.
There’s a bipartisan push to save the plant.
Governor John Kasich, a Republican, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and Senator Rob Portman, a Republican, have pressed GM’s chief executive, Mary Barra, to find a way to keep the plant open.
Brown, who is contemplating a presidential run in 2020, has urged Trump to back legislation he has introduced that would give consumers $3,500 rebates on American-made cars.
Friday, December 21, 2018
Mattis quits
His domestic agenda will be dead in 2020.
It will be the year of Trump's isolationism.
And he's starting early with his withdrawal from Syria and an impending withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Too much for the last globalist general working for the Duce.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigns, scolding Trump over his military judgment
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced his resignation Thursday afternoon, sending President Donald Trump a letter that implicitly criticized the president's military judgment.
In the letter, Mattis suggested Trump was not treating allies with respect and had not been "clear-eyed" about U.S. enemies and competitors.
“My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues,” he wrote.
Mattis told the president in the letter that he should have a defense chief who shares his views.
“Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position,” he wrote.
It will be the year of Trump's isolationism.
And he's starting early with his withdrawal from Syria and an impending withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Too much for the last globalist general working for the Duce.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigns, scolding Trump over his military judgment
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced his resignation Thursday afternoon, sending President Donald Trump a letter that implicitly criticized the president's military judgment.
In the letter, Mattis suggested Trump was not treating allies with respect and had not been "clear-eyed" about U.S. enemies and competitors.
“My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues,” he wrote.
Mattis told the president in the letter that he should have a defense chief who shares his views.
“Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position,” he wrote.
. . . .
"One core belief I have always held is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships," the general wrote.
"While the U.S. remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies," the letter said.
. . . .
Previously, Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal without consulting Mattis, who had to scramble to get the president on the phone before that formal announcement was made.
This past summer, Trump surprised Mattis again by pausing U.S. military exercises with South Korean in a concession to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
A short time later, Mattis was blindsided by Trump again when the president directed the Pentagon to develop a sixth branch of the military to oversee space.
Globalists in his own party are as dismayed as those among the Democrats.
In the media some are reminding us how freaked Mattis was at Trump's proposal to withdraw from South Korea and his suggestions of withdrawal from NATO.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in a statement seemed to echo some of Mattis' comments about alliances in the letter.
"I believe it’s essential that the United States maintain and strengthen the post-World War II alliances that have been carefully built by leaders in both parties," McConnell said.
"We must also maintain a clear-eyed understanding of our friends and foes, and recognize that nations like Russia are among the latter.
"I am particularly distressed that he is resigning due to sharp differences with the president on these and other key aspects of America’s global leadership," he continued, urging Trump "to select a leader who shares Secretary Mattis's understanding of these vital principles and his total commitment to America’s servicemembers."
Saturday, September 8, 2018
Fake news in the New York Times?
A false flag leak?
The real deal?
I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration
I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
Many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
I would know. I am one of them.
To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left.
We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.
But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
. . . .
The root of the problem is the president’s amorality.
Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.
Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people.
At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings.
At worst, he has attacked them outright.
Ballocks.
The party of Kavanaugh cannot pretend to commitment to republican liberty and rule of law.
It cannot pretend to reject authoritarianism; not with his construction of fundamentally lawless presidential power.
Or rather pretending is just what they are doing.
The Republicans of today are Trump's abused toadies or his ardent supporters who love his mini-Mussolini authoritarianism and his stupid and incompetent bragging and bullying.
He gave them their giant tax cut, he held up his end on efforts to repeal Obamacare, he supports them in their global warming denial, he executes their sabotage of the regulatory state just as far as he can, and so on and so on.
Thus this:
Don’t get me wrong.
There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.
. . . .
Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.
. . . .
The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around the White House.
Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media.
But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.
It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room.
We fully recognize what is happening.
And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.
The result is a two-track presidency.
Take foreign policy:
In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations.
Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as rivals.
On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain.
He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior.
But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.
This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state.
It’s the work of the steady state.
Um, it's the deep state.
The entire staff of the executive national security apparatus is committed to continuing American military and political globalism, as is nearly all of the classe politique of both parties.
Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president.
But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis.
So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.
The real deal?
I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration
I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
The Times is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about the essay or our vetting process here.. . . .
Many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
I would know. I am one of them.
To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left.
We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.
But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
. . . .
The root of the problem is the president’s amorality.
Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.
Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people.
At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings.
At worst, he has attacked them outright.
Ballocks.
The party of Kavanaugh cannot pretend to commitment to republican liberty and rule of law.
It cannot pretend to reject authoritarianism; not with his construction of fundamentally lawless presidential power.
Or rather pretending is just what they are doing.
The Republicans of today are Trump's abused toadies or his ardent supporters who love his mini-Mussolini authoritarianism and his stupid and incompetent bragging and bullying.
He gave them their giant tax cut, he held up his end on efforts to repeal Obamacare, he supports them in their global warming denial, he executes their sabotage of the regulatory state just as far as he can, and so on and so on.
Thus this:
Don’t get me wrong.
There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.
. . . .
Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.
. . . .
The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around the White House.
Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media.
But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.
It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room.
We fully recognize what is happening.
And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.
The result is a two-track presidency.
Take foreign policy:
In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations.
Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as rivals.
On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain.
He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior.
But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.
This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state.
It’s the work of the steady state.
Um, it's the deep state.
The entire staff of the executive national security apparatus is committed to continuing American military and political globalism, as is nearly all of the classe politique of both parties.
Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president.
But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis.
So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Globalism or America First?
This is a piece by an academic who wrote a book about FDR getting us into the war in Europe.
Republican leaders need to remember what happened the last time America chose to be isolated
She quotes Henry Luce's The American Century in opposition to Trump's America First policy and his hammer blows against American globalism.
Luce published his famous article, "The American Century," in February 1941, seven months after all the European democracies -- except Great Britain -- had surrendered to Hitler's ruthless armies.
Luce traced this catastrophe to the end of World War I when the Senate rejected Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations and the United States began its retreat from world affairs.
In the 1920s and '30s, Americans embraced "the moral and practical bankruptcy" of isolationism, Luce wrote, and "failed to play their part as a world power."
That unwillingness to confront Hitler's aggression in the 1930s, he underscored, brought "disastrous consequences" to "all mankind."
All the same, the idea that we should or had to eventually enter the war to keep Hitler from conquering the world is exactly the sort of childish twaddle that it appears, and Luce himself said just that in this very piece.
Even the British, whose regime and empire Hitler vastly admired, could probably have negotiated a separate peace without accepting any degree of nazification.
And Luce in this piece concedes that an American defense of North America against all enemies, if that was what Americans wanted, could well have worked.
Anyway, there was no convincing argument against that notion.
For Luce, the question whether America should send armies to fight in Europe to stop Hitler depended on what Americans wanted to do.
Defend only their own democracy in their own country, or defend and advance "so-called democratic principles" and government throughout the world?
Isolationism or engagement?
In the latter part of his piece, Luce presents a brilliant and sweeping picture of what American internationalism could and should be.
It is, today, a stirring and powerful defense of the kind of international liberal order built up after the Second World War.
But what it really comes down to, today, is whether we continue our engagements in NATO, in the Far East, in Oceania, and elsewhere, along with participation in global institutions like the UN and the WTO and support for pan-European institutions like the EU.
All for the encouragement, construction, and consolidation of a civilization of global democratic capitalism.
Or instead let it - or even make it - all fall apart.
And risk enemies rising up everywhere, surrounding fortress North America and forcing us to risk fighting a war to save ourselves right here in our home turf, rather than far lesser wars, often proxy wars, at a very great distance from ourselves.
PS. Luce in this piece suggests America commit itself to feeding everyone in the world who would otherwise go without, at taxpayer expense, with food produced by American agriculture.
But we have not done it and are very unlikely to.
We won't even feed all our own.
Republican leaders need to remember what happened the last time America chose to be isolated
She quotes Henry Luce's The American Century in opposition to Trump's America First policy and his hammer blows against American globalism.
Luce published his famous article, "The American Century," in February 1941, seven months after all the European democracies -- except Great Britain -- had surrendered to Hitler's ruthless armies.
Luce traced this catastrophe to the end of World War I when the Senate rejected Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations and the United States began its retreat from world affairs.
In the 1920s and '30s, Americans embraced "the moral and practical bankruptcy" of isolationism, Luce wrote, and "failed to play their part as a world power."
That unwillingness to confront Hitler's aggression in the 1930s, he underscored, brought "disastrous consequences" to "all mankind."
All the same, the idea that we should or had to eventually enter the war to keep Hitler from conquering the world is exactly the sort of childish twaddle that it appears, and Luce himself said just that in this very piece.
Even the British, whose regime and empire Hitler vastly admired, could probably have negotiated a separate peace without accepting any degree of nazification.
And Luce in this piece concedes that an American defense of North America against all enemies, if that was what Americans wanted, could well have worked.
Anyway, there was no convincing argument against that notion.
For Luce, the question whether America should send armies to fight in Europe to stop Hitler depended on what Americans wanted to do.
Defend only their own democracy in their own country, or defend and advance "so-called democratic principles" and government throughout the world?
Isolationism or engagement?
In the latter part of his piece, Luce presents a brilliant and sweeping picture of what American internationalism could and should be.
It is, today, a stirring and powerful defense of the kind of international liberal order built up after the Second World War.
But what it really comes down to, today, is whether we continue our engagements in NATO, in the Far East, in Oceania, and elsewhere, along with participation in global institutions like the UN and the WTO and support for pan-European institutions like the EU.
All for the encouragement, construction, and consolidation of a civilization of global democratic capitalism.
Or instead let it - or even make it - all fall apart.
And risk enemies rising up everywhere, surrounding fortress North America and forcing us to risk fighting a war to save ourselves right here in our home turf, rather than far lesser wars, often proxy wars, at a very great distance from ourselves.
PS. Luce in this piece suggests America commit itself to feeding everyone in the world who would otherwise go without, at taxpayer expense, with food produced by American agriculture.
But we have not done it and are very unlikely to.
We won't even feed all our own.
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
He facilitates globalism even as he continuously undermines it
Trump says defending tiny NATO ally Montenegro could result in World War III
He sounds like Pat Buchanan.
Montenegro, located on the Adriatic Sea in southeastern Europe, joined the NATO alliance during the Trump administration.
The nation, which borders Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Croatia, is geographically smaller than Connecticut and has a smaller population than Washington, D.C. Russia has condemned its NATO membership.
The most recent addition to the alliance became a topic of discussion Tuesday during a Fox News interview with the president in the wake of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"Membership in NATO obligates the members to defend any other member that's attacked," Fox News host Tucker Carlson said to Trump.
"So let’s say Montenegro, which joined last year, is attacked. Why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack?"
Trump answered: "I understand what you're saying. I've asked the same question. Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people. … They're very aggressive people. They may get aggressive, and, congratulations, you're in World War III."
But he carries on like Hillary.
Despite his rhetoric on defense spending, the president signed onto an agreement at the NATO summit that reiterated the mutual defense language included in Article 5 of NATO's founding document.
The agreement the president signed last week notes that any "attack against one Ally will be regarded as an attack against us all."
Article 5 is the bedrock principle of NATO and the reason it is widely considered the most powerful military alliance in the world.
The last time NATO invoked Article 5 was after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Montenegro's prime minister was asked about Trump's interview Wednesday in parliament.
"He said that the Montenegrin people are brave and that he does not want the U.S. citizens to fight for others and for other NATO member states," Prime Minister Duško Marković said, according to an official translation provided to NBC News.
"He did not say that only on that occasion, but he also said the same at the NATO summit, you know it because he said it publicly, not in terms of justification of NATO's existence, but of NATO funding."
According to NBC News, citing official figures, Montenegro contributes more troops per capita to the war in Afghanistan than the United States.
Overall, Montenegro maintains a standing military of less than 2,000.
Montenegro joined NATO last year with the overwhelming consent of the U.S. Senate, which voted 97-2.
Trump himself signed off on the country's entrance into the alliance.
He sounds like Pat Buchanan.
Montenegro, located on the Adriatic Sea in southeastern Europe, joined the NATO alliance during the Trump administration.
The nation, which borders Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Croatia, is geographically smaller than Connecticut and has a smaller population than Washington, D.C. Russia has condemned its NATO membership.
The most recent addition to the alliance became a topic of discussion Tuesday during a Fox News interview with the president in the wake of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"Membership in NATO obligates the members to defend any other member that's attacked," Fox News host Tucker Carlson said to Trump.
"So let’s say Montenegro, which joined last year, is attacked. Why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack?"
Trump answered: "I understand what you're saying. I've asked the same question. Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people. … They're very aggressive people. They may get aggressive, and, congratulations, you're in World War III."
But he carries on like Hillary.
Despite his rhetoric on defense spending, the president signed onto an agreement at the NATO summit that reiterated the mutual defense language included in Article 5 of NATO's founding document.
The agreement the president signed last week notes that any "attack against one Ally will be regarded as an attack against us all."
Article 5 is the bedrock principle of NATO and the reason it is widely considered the most powerful military alliance in the world.
The last time NATO invoked Article 5 was after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Montenegro's prime minister was asked about Trump's interview Wednesday in parliament.
"He said that the Montenegrin people are brave and that he does not want the U.S. citizens to fight for others and for other NATO member states," Prime Minister Duško Marković said, according to an official translation provided to NBC News.
"He did not say that only on that occasion, but he also said the same at the NATO summit, you know it because he said it publicly, not in terms of justification of NATO's existence, but of NATO funding."
According to NBC News, citing official figures, Montenegro contributes more troops per capita to the war in Afghanistan than the United States.
Overall, Montenegro maintains a standing military of less than 2,000.
Montenegro joined NATO last year with the overwhelming consent of the U.S. Senate, which voted 97-2.
Trump himself signed off on the country's entrance into the alliance.
Sunday, July 8, 2018
Is it time to leave, after all?
Time and past time, since the Cold War alliance system and both the Democrats' containment policy and the Republicans' rollback policy were products of absurd capitalist terror of and hatred for communism and, indeed, anything that smelled a bit like socialism.
And maybe, too, a lot of them drank their own Kool Aid, and actually believed of the Reds, as they had claimed they believed of Hitler, that they were out for world conquest.
And that, if we didn't oppose them everywhere in everything, they really could do it.
They really could conquer the whole world, including us.
And that, if they succeeded, the loss of freedom and democracy from the whole planet, the global triumph of totalitarian communism, would be irreversible, a fate so awful that the nuclear destruction of the world would actually be preferable.
Humbug, all of it.
As to the issue of the day, it's not just Trump who's a NATO skeptic.
It's a lot of Americans.
And it was, until Hillary became their candidate and Trump their opponent, a lot of the Americans in the Democratic Party - and I don't just mean the Bernie Sanders supporters - and a lot of people who spoke for them at MSNBC, as well as other major and conspicuous Democratic media.
But most of them have shut up since the election as Trump and the Trumpist wing of the Republican Party have stolen anti-globalism completely from all but the further and more anti-Democrat left.
And it's not just our alliance with Europe the skeptics are and have been long skeptical of.
Look at what Trump has really done in Korea, aided by Kim's cooperation in putting on an amazing propaganda show giving Trump a purely fictitious Cold War II triumph.
He has declared victory, weakened the US military defense of the peninsula, and publicly said he wants to remove US forces both from there and from Europe.
And Europeans see it, too.
For most of its history, the US has sought to avoid entanglement in Europe, and more or less succeeded from independence in 1776 until 1917 and the country’s reluctant entrance into the first world war.
Even then, most Americans were keen to leave again as soon as possible.
Congress turned its back on President Woodrow Wilson’s international ideals and refused to ratify the Versailles peace treaty or to allow the US to join the new League of Nations.
Congress was just as resistant to being sucked into the second world war, and the US could well have sat on the sidelines had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, and then Germany declared war on the US four days later.
When the second world war was over in 1945, Americans again made plans to pull out, demobilising 90% of their troops.
But over the next two years it became increasingly clear European states were not going to recover economically without US help and that Stalin’s Soviet Union was looming as a global threat.
So the US stayed in Europe, rebuilding Germany, and forming Nato.
Now Europe is mostly prosperous, and the Soviet Union has gone. A revanchist Russia has taken its place, but it is a far punier power, with only the fifth biggest economy in Europe.
“Russia is not an existential threat. It’s not felt in London, Paris or Rome as an existential threat. It’s not a unifying threat,” the senior European official said.
With the cold war conditions that persuaded the US to stay engaged in Europe now in the past, some argue that it is inevitable Americans would at some point reconsider their role.
But the American military, diplomatic, and national security establishments are still globalist.
Globalism, after all, is their job.
And there are all those fans of all those books and essays about how awful the world would have been without America's past globalism, how awful it would be now without today's American globalism, and how awful it will be in the future without continuing, persistent, one might even say unrelenting American globalism.
All those people who think that America is, for the good of all mankind, the indispensable nation.
Or say they do to dress up their arrogance of power, their ambition, their delusions of national and personal grandeur, their imitation of global altruism, and their fear of losing such control as America, through its participation in those far-flung alliances as well as other global institutions, actually has of global events and developments.
These are the people who reject immediately and with angry contempt the least suggestion that, for most purposes and most of the time, the rest of the world and what happens in it is not our problem, no skin off our nose, no threat to us, and no business of ours.
These are the people who have irreversibly spun Russiagate into a seemingly endless barrage of pro-NATO, anti-Putin, anti-Russia propaganda and painted every effort of Trump to back off the most extreme of these globalist policies as bought and paid for treason.
Even as Trump rails against Nato, his administration – the Pentagon in particular – has been boosting its commitment to the alliance in resources and troops deployed on its eastern flank.
This month’s summit will see the creation of two new commands, one on the US east coast to oversee the protection of transatlantic sea lanes, and another in Germany to run logistics to ensure that the alliance can reinforce quickly when threatened.
The new commitments reflect the atlanticist convictions of the US military and diplomatic corps, who may well be seeking to compensate for Trump’s anti-Nato rhetoric.
And maybe, too, a lot of them drank their own Kool Aid, and actually believed of the Reds, as they had claimed they believed of Hitler, that they were out for world conquest.
And that, if we didn't oppose them everywhere in everything, they really could do it.
They really could conquer the whole world, including us.
Humbug, all of it.
As to the issue of the day, it's not just Trump who's a NATO skeptic.
It's a lot of Americans.
And it was, until Hillary became their candidate and Trump their opponent, a lot of the Americans in the Democratic Party - and I don't just mean the Bernie Sanders supporters - and a lot of people who spoke for them at MSNBC, as well as other major and conspicuous Democratic media.
But most of them have shut up since the election as Trump and the Trumpist wing of the Republican Party have stolen anti-globalism completely from all but the further and more anti-Democrat left.
And it's not just our alliance with Europe the skeptics are and have been long skeptical of.
Look at what Trump has really done in Korea, aided by Kim's cooperation in putting on an amazing propaganda show giving Trump a purely fictitious Cold War II triumph.
He has declared victory, weakened the US military defense of the peninsula, and publicly said he wants to remove US forces both from there and from Europe.
And Europeans see it, too.
For most of its history, the US has sought to avoid entanglement in Europe, and more or less succeeded from independence in 1776 until 1917 and the country’s reluctant entrance into the first world war.
Even then, most Americans were keen to leave again as soon as possible.
Congress turned its back on President Woodrow Wilson’s international ideals and refused to ratify the Versailles peace treaty or to allow the US to join the new League of Nations.
Congress was just as resistant to being sucked into the second world war, and the US could well have sat on the sidelines had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, and then Germany declared war on the US four days later.
When the second world war was over in 1945, Americans again made plans to pull out, demobilising 90% of their troops.
But over the next two years it became increasingly clear European states were not going to recover economically without US help and that Stalin’s Soviet Union was looming as a global threat.
So the US stayed in Europe, rebuilding Germany, and forming Nato.
Now Europe is mostly prosperous, and the Soviet Union has gone. A revanchist Russia has taken its place, but it is a far punier power, with only the fifth biggest economy in Europe.
“Russia is not an existential threat. It’s not felt in London, Paris or Rome as an existential threat. It’s not a unifying threat,” the senior European official said.
With the cold war conditions that persuaded the US to stay engaged in Europe now in the past, some argue that it is inevitable Americans would at some point reconsider their role.
But the American military, diplomatic, and national security establishments are still globalist.
Globalism, after all, is their job.
And there are all those fans of all those books and essays about how awful the world would have been without America's past globalism, how awful it would be now without today's American globalism, and how awful it will be in the future without continuing, persistent, one might even say unrelenting American globalism.
All those people who think that America is, for the good of all mankind, the indispensable nation.
Or say they do to dress up their arrogance of power, their ambition, their delusions of national and personal grandeur, their imitation of global altruism, and their fear of losing such control as America, through its participation in those far-flung alliances as well as other global institutions, actually has of global events and developments.
These are the people who reject immediately and with angry contempt the least suggestion that, for most purposes and most of the time, the rest of the world and what happens in it is not our problem, no skin off our nose, no threat to us, and no business of ours.
These are the people who have irreversibly spun Russiagate into a seemingly endless barrage of pro-NATO, anti-Putin, anti-Russia propaganda and painted every effort of Trump to back off the most extreme of these globalist policies as bought and paid for treason.
Even as Trump rails against Nato, his administration – the Pentagon in particular – has been boosting its commitment to the alliance in resources and troops deployed on its eastern flank.
This month’s summit will see the creation of two new commands, one on the US east coast to oversee the protection of transatlantic sea lanes, and another in Germany to run logistics to ensure that the alliance can reinforce quickly when threatened.
The new commitments reflect the atlanticist convictions of the US military and diplomatic corps, who may well be seeking to compensate for Trump’s anti-Nato rhetoric.
Thursday, July 5, 2018
GOP returning to its paleocon isolationist past?
Trump works for Republican anti-globalists, too.
Republican lawmakers come to Moscow, raising hopes there of U.S.-Russia thaw
Not sure that they follow the Duce in openly admiring Kim for his political murders, and no doubt tacitly admiring Putin for the same.
The more rabid Democrats like to say - based only on his conduct and words, which, of course, do not actually prove any such thing - that Trump is a bought and paid for agent of Putin's.
Are all these guys bought and paid for, too?
Is Pat Buchanan bought and paid for?
Republican lawmakers come to Moscow, raising hopes there of U.S.-Russia thaw
Not sure that they follow the Duce in openly admiring Kim for his political murders, and no doubt tacitly admiring Putin for the same.
The more rabid Democrats like to say - based only on his conduct and words, which, of course, do not actually prove any such thing - that Trump is a bought and paid for agent of Putin's.
Are all these guys bought and paid for, too?
Is Pat Buchanan bought and paid for?
So what about NK and its nukes?
The Duce is just walking away, tweeting about saving the world from war as the intelligence agencies report Kim is expanding his nuclear establishment.
Experts Skeptical That North Korea Is Serious About Denuclearizing
And where are the peacenik Democrats?
Or are we all globalists now, as everyone at MSNBC seems now to be, promising DC will take a nuke for Tallinn?
Experts Skeptical That North Korea Is Serious About Denuclearizing
And where are the peacenik Democrats?
Or are we all globalists now, as everyone at MSNBC seems now to be, promising DC will take a nuke for Tallinn?
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
If they don't pony up he will gladly begin American withdrawal from Europe
And that will be how he begins to back away from NATO, to back away from globalism.
Trump demands NATO spend more or face shifts in US military
President Donald Trump is demanding that Norway ramp up its defense spending as a NATO partner, according to a letter he wrote to Prime Minister Erna Solberg that was obtained by CNN.
The letter was one of a series that Trump sent to NATO allies, including Germany, Belgium, Canada and others, demanding they boost spending and threatening to shift the US military presence in Europe if they do not.
The letters were first reported in The New York Times on Monday.
. . . .
In advocating for increased defense spending, Trump joins his predecessors Barack Obama and George W. Bush, both of whom also lobbied NATO allies to spend more on defense.
Robert Gates, who served as defense Secretary under both Obama and Bush, warned in 2011 that the US could lose interest in NATO if allies did not increase investment in their militaries.
Trump demands NATO spend more or face shifts in US military
President Donald Trump is demanding that Norway ramp up its defense spending as a NATO partner, according to a letter he wrote to Prime Minister Erna Solberg that was obtained by CNN.
The letter was one of a series that Trump sent to NATO allies, including Germany, Belgium, Canada and others, demanding they boost spending and threatening to shift the US military presence in Europe if they do not.
The letters were first reported in The New York Times on Monday.
. . . .
In advocating for increased defense spending, Trump joins his predecessors Barack Obama and George W. Bush, both of whom also lobbied NATO allies to spend more on defense.
Robert Gates, who served as defense Secretary under both Obama and Bush, warned in 2011 that the US could lose interest in NATO if allies did not increase investment in their militaries.
Saturday, June 30, 2018
A step away from NATO?
Emmanuel Macron l’a fait.
Angela Merkel l’a fait.
Pourtant, on peut pardonner aux Européens s’ils ne voient pas la rencontre entre Donald Trump et Vladimir Poutine comme un rendez-vous ordinaire.
Il faut remettre les choses dans leur contexte.
Trump va s’entretenir avec Poutine alors qu’il n’est toujours pas d’accord avec ses propres services de renseignement sur l’ingérence russe dans la présidentielle américaine de 2016.
La Russie, a tweeté Trump le 28 juin, “maintient qu’elle ne s’est pas du tout mêlée de notre élection !”.
Les renseignements américains ne sont pas de cet avis et plusieurs pays européens ont aussi été la cible d’ingérences russes en période électorale.
Trump est également en conflit avec les alliés européens des États-Unis sur plusieurs dossiers, notamment la politique commerciale, le changement climatique et l’accord sur le nucléaire iranien.
Au vu de l’ambivalence du président américain concernant l’OTAN, les dirigeants européens discutent ouvertement d’une autonomie européenne en matière de défense.
Angela Merkel l’a fait.
Pourtant, on peut pardonner aux Européens s’ils ne voient pas la rencontre entre Donald Trump et Vladimir Poutine comme un rendez-vous ordinaire.
Il faut remettre les choses dans leur contexte.
Trump va s’entretenir avec Poutine alors qu’il n’est toujours pas d’accord avec ses propres services de renseignement sur l’ingérence russe dans la présidentielle américaine de 2016.
La Russie, a tweeté Trump le 28 juin, “maintient qu’elle ne s’est pas du tout mêlée de notre élection !”.
Les renseignements américains ne sont pas de cet avis et plusieurs pays européens ont aussi été la cible d’ingérences russes en période électorale.
Trump est également en conflit avec les alliés européens des États-Unis sur plusieurs dossiers, notamment la politique commerciale, le changement climatique et l’accord sur le nucléaire iranien.
Au vu de l’ambivalence du président américain concernant l’OTAN, les dirigeants européens discutent ouvertement d’une autonomie européenne en matière de défense.
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Trump getting us out of Korea
He is not stupid enough to think he has actually somehow caused NK's nuclear arsenal to disappear, and he has already admitted without alarm - joking, in fact - that NK might not actually follow through on nuclear disarmament.
He has called off training for our troops in SK without which they are less of a deterrent and less capable of simply defending themselves, and has already said he wants to pull them out.
And he has significantly distanced himself from the brinkmanship of the rhetoric of war both he and his administration publicly espoused during the scariest part of the crisis.
Almost everybody agrees that, if it isn't already too late for military action - because they can and very possibly would nuke us - to force them to abandon their nukes it soon will be.
And so Kim and the Buchanites win.
Nobody really thinks the US would or should go to war against a nuclear armed NK to help SK fend off invasion.
Truth to tell, nobody wants an American president to risk anything remotely that serious in an effort to keep Putin from military action against neighboring pieces of the ex-Soviet Union.
We are all of us getting softened up for an American withdrawal of our forces and of our guarantees from SK, and maybe next Japan.
Maybe this is how Trump staggers his way toward the isolationist policies of his campaign.
Globalists deplore the dismantling of what they call "the post-WW2 liberal world order", referring in actual fact to the system of international alliances left over from the long-gone Cold War.
But those global alliances are past their shelf-life, and we need neither the ability nor the commitments to fight 2 and 1/2 wars against any adversaries, anywhere in the world, at the same time, though it is perfectly obvious that "the deep state" and the majority of politicians in both parties are not ready to even think so, much less say so and make the necessary changes.
The NATO countries are rich enough, populous enough, and powerful enough to conduct their own collective defense, or their own military adventures, without us.
So are Japan, SK, and the other states in the Far East, especially if they remain allied with Australia and New Zealand.
None of which is to say any of Trump's protectionist moves make the least sense.
And though of course we need to continue police and security cooperation with everybody facing Islamic or other forms of terrorism, that does not mean we really need to participate with the Europeans and friendly local powers in the continuing military struggles against ISIS, the Taliban, and other radical Islamic organizations in the Middle East, Central Asia, or Africa.
Anyway, we certainly don't need to take a leading role either politically or militarily in any of that.
He has called off training for our troops in SK without which they are less of a deterrent and less capable of simply defending themselves, and has already said he wants to pull them out.
And he has significantly distanced himself from the brinkmanship of the rhetoric of war both he and his administration publicly espoused during the scariest part of the crisis.
Almost everybody agrees that, if it isn't already too late for military action - because they can and very possibly would nuke us - to force them to abandon their nukes it soon will be.
And so Kim and the Buchanites win.
Nobody really thinks the US would or should go to war against a nuclear armed NK to help SK fend off invasion.
Truth to tell, nobody wants an American president to risk anything remotely that serious in an effort to keep Putin from military action against neighboring pieces of the ex-Soviet Union.
We are all of us getting softened up for an American withdrawal of our forces and of our guarantees from SK, and maybe next Japan.
Maybe this is how Trump staggers his way toward the isolationist policies of his campaign.
Globalists deplore the dismantling of what they call "the post-WW2 liberal world order", referring in actual fact to the system of international alliances left over from the long-gone Cold War.
But those global alliances are past their shelf-life, and we need neither the ability nor the commitments to fight 2 and 1/2 wars against any adversaries, anywhere in the world, at the same time, though it is perfectly obvious that "the deep state" and the majority of politicians in both parties are not ready to even think so, much less say so and make the necessary changes.
The NATO countries are rich enough, populous enough, and powerful enough to conduct their own collective defense, or their own military adventures, without us.
So are Japan, SK, and the other states in the Far East, especially if they remain allied with Australia and New Zealand.
None of which is to say any of Trump's protectionist moves make the least sense.
And though of course we need to continue police and security cooperation with everybody facing Islamic or other forms of terrorism, that does not mean we really need to participate with the Europeans and friendly local powers in the continuing military struggles against ISIS, the Taliban, and other radical Islamic organizations in the Middle East, Central Asia, or Africa.
Anyway, we certainly don't need to take a leading role either politically or militarily in any of that.
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