Trump is just saying the bad parts out loud. Very unpresidential. Better like Biden and Gaza to openly wring your hands and plead, plead, for Bibi to "Stop! Stop! The children Bibi! Think of the children! Over half of them are children! Keep this up and we might stop sending you more weapons of mass destruction!
Or send the CIA to blow up Russia's pipelines.
Nobel Peace Prize winner "Uncle" Barry ordering extrjudicial murders around the.world on verified suspects and the odd wedding because he's the leader of the.free world. Sitting in the White House bunker to watch navy Seals murder Osama bin Laden absent habias corpus, trial, evidence. Say nothing of doing it in someone else's country without even bothering to tell them.
All those bodies rotting in Guantanimo, many innocent of any crime, subject to torture and occasional murder.
The rapacious hounding to death of Julian Assange.
George W "Let's get 'em!" ( well, somebody) in Iraq and Afghanistan - way better off now.
Vlad's class act was giving an interview to Tucker Carlson and reminding him that he tried to join the CIA. I guess in writing that might be "tried." I've read that the whole war could have been avoided in only Ukraine had been willing to guarantee.that it would not join NATO back in 2022. Granted, it's hard to know whose lips you can safely read these days. For Russia it goes back to Crimea. For America it goes back to their support for the world's first openly alcoholic politician, Boris Yeltsin (Johnson the second.but that's a.whole different thing). Brought to power through CIA brilliance and cash, which led pretty quickly to Vlad and job security for life.
Trump is just American. He's raspberry and Bidens lemonade. Wait awhile and we'll get strawberry or maybe chocolate again. But it's all good, secured by the deep state going back to at least to The Warren Commission.
Trump shocked Europeans on Saturday by implying that he would encourage Russia "to do whatever the hell they want" to NATO allies that did not spend enough. The 31 allies have committed to a target of spending 2% of their output on defence but not all have done so individually.
"I expect 18 allies to spend 2% of their GDP on defence this year," Stoltenberg told a news conference in Brussels, adding overall military spending was set for another record year after two years of Russia's full-fledged war against Ukraine.
A very good article that summarize what I too I’ve been thinking for a long time.
Calling Trump “isolationist” is misleading. I’ve always described his foreign policy as “unilateralist” but “gangsterism” fix it well, too.
One note, I wouldn’t call neither people like JD Vance “isolationist”, a true isolationist in fact wouldn’t care what happens in Ukraine but neither to what happens to Israel and in the average middle east. Just ask to isolationist style people like Vance, Hawley or Marjorie Troonie Greene what do they think about a potential Israel-Iran blow out, you would discover they are far more hawkish than people like Daniel Pipes.
Genuine isolationist were people like Buchanan, MAGAs are just “I hate anyone except Israel and Russia” unilateralists.
An oddly blinkered piece. With the possible exception of the elimination of the Barbary pirates, it is hard to see how any US adventures abroad furthered democracy and self-determination. Our widely-opposed entrance into WWI brought about WW2, genocide of Jews, rise of Soviet Union and China. Hard to defend our foreign policy disasters in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the MidEast as other than victories for kleptocrats and extremists. And our thriving arms and propaganda industries.
The piece is about American beliefs and policies. Whether those beliefs and policies were effective is another matter I did not address.
If I were addressing it, I would have noted, for example, that the Bush Jr. administration was most aggressive in the promotion of liberal democracy and its foolish invasion of Iraq increasingly seems to have been a turning point -- liberal democracy had been on the rise but has been falling back ever since.
I would also a) question how exactly we can conclude that US involvement in WWI "brought about WW2, etc." and b) note that US involvement in WWII replaced fascism in Europe and Japan with liberal democracies. The latter, in particular, seems like not a small detail.
Great points as ever. One I'd add, Trump didn't only threaten European nations. He threatened Nato members. As you note, Canada - your and mine country - is well below the 2% spending target. So Trump has invited Putin to mass troops on the US' northern border. People think of the world on the basis of the east/west projection. But it's round.
An excellent piece. I note that FDR did not want to seek a third term unless nominated from the floor of the convention, which teetered on the brink of mayhem. He ran on a platform of non-engagement as he knew well this was the lone path to re-election.
Very perceptive history lesson and view. It should be front page of every news source available.
Trump is just saying the bad parts out loud. Very unpresidential. Better like Biden and Gaza to openly wring your hands and plead, plead, for Bibi to "Stop! Stop! The children Bibi! Think of the children! Over half of them are children! Keep this up and we might stop sending you more weapons of mass destruction!
Or send the CIA to blow up Russia's pipelines.
Nobel Peace Prize winner "Uncle" Barry ordering extrjudicial murders around the.world on verified suspects and the odd wedding because he's the leader of the.free world. Sitting in the White House bunker to watch navy Seals murder Osama bin Laden absent habias corpus, trial, evidence. Say nothing of doing it in someone else's country without even bothering to tell them.
All those bodies rotting in Guantanimo, many innocent of any crime, subject to torture and occasional murder.
The rapacious hounding to death of Julian Assange.
George W "Let's get 'em!" ( well, somebody) in Iraq and Afghanistan - way better off now.
Vlad's class act was giving an interview to Tucker Carlson and reminding him that he tried to join the CIA. I guess in writing that might be "tried." I've read that the whole war could have been avoided in only Ukraine had been willing to guarantee.that it would not join NATO back in 2022. Granted, it's hard to know whose lips you can safely read these days. For Russia it goes back to Crimea. For America it goes back to their support for the world's first openly alcoholic politician, Boris Yeltsin (Johnson the second.but that's a.whole different thing). Brought to power through CIA brilliance and cash, which led pretty quickly to Vlad and job security for life.
Trump is just American. He's raspberry and Bidens lemonade. Wait awhile and we'll get strawberry or maybe chocolate again. But it's all good, secured by the deep state going back to at least to The Warren Commission.
This a useful & succinct historical piece. Thank you!
I also note that, according to this article, not all allies have actually hit their target:
https://www.reuters.com/world/nato-chief-says-18-countries-meet-2-military-spending-target-2024-02-14/
Trump shocked Europeans on Saturday by implying that he would encourage Russia "to do whatever the hell they want" to NATO allies that did not spend enough. The 31 allies have committed to a target of spending 2% of their output on defence but not all have done so individually.
"I expect 18 allies to spend 2% of their GDP on defence this year," Stoltenberg told a news conference in Brussels, adding overall military spending was set for another record year after two years of Russia's full-fledged war against Ukraine.
A very good article that summarize what I too I’ve been thinking for a long time.
Calling Trump “isolationist” is misleading. I’ve always described his foreign policy as “unilateralist” but “gangsterism” fix it well, too.
One note, I wouldn’t call neither people like JD Vance “isolationist”, a true isolationist in fact wouldn’t care what happens in Ukraine but neither to what happens to Israel and in the average middle east. Just ask to isolationist style people like Vance, Hawley or Marjorie Troonie Greene what do they think about a potential Israel-Iran blow out, you would discover they are far more hawkish than people like Daniel Pipes.
Genuine isolationist were people like Buchanan, MAGAs are just “I hate anyone except Israel and Russia” unilateralists.
An oddly blinkered piece. With the possible exception of the elimination of the Barbary pirates, it is hard to see how any US adventures abroad furthered democracy and self-determination. Our widely-opposed entrance into WWI brought about WW2, genocide of Jews, rise of Soviet Union and China. Hard to defend our foreign policy disasters in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the MidEast as other than victories for kleptocrats and extremists. And our thriving arms and propaganda industries.
The piece is about American beliefs and policies. Whether those beliefs and policies were effective is another matter I did not address.
If I were addressing it, I would have noted, for example, that the Bush Jr. administration was most aggressive in the promotion of liberal democracy and its foolish invasion of Iraq increasingly seems to have been a turning point -- liberal democracy had been on the rise but has been falling back ever since.
I would also a) question how exactly we can conclude that US involvement in WWI "brought about WW2, etc." and b) note that US involvement in WWII replaced fascism in Europe and Japan with liberal democracies. The latter, in particular, seems like not a small detail.
Great points as ever. One I'd add, Trump didn't only threaten European nations. He threatened Nato members. As you note, Canada - your and mine country - is well below the 2% spending target. So Trump has invited Putin to mass troops on the US' northern border. People think of the world on the basis of the east/west projection. But it's round.
An excellent piece. I note that FDR did not want to seek a third term unless nominated from the floor of the convention, which teetered on the brink of mayhem. He ran on a platform of non-engagement as he knew well this was the lone path to re-election.