7/11/18: The president’s great attitude
and preparedness are on display at breakfast with NATO officials. Someone has
hammered a fact through his helmet of hair and right into his skull. That means
Trump knows Germany buys liquefied gas from Russia. So, he’s pissed.
Time to vent.
____________________
The Trump Doctrine: If America can score some serious cash,
we might be interested in helping.
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“Germany is totally controlled by Russia,” he grumbles for the world to see. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, sitting to his left, wears a tight smile frozen on his face. Kate Bailey Hutchinson, U.S. ambassador to NATO, seated to his right, looks stunned, as if someone has hit her upside the head with a frozen trout. Chief of Staff General John Kelly, one seat down, stares at his plate. He dares not make eye contact with any of our allies seated across the table. Kelly spends a few moments silently counting his bacon strips. One. Two. Three. Four.
Yep. There are four.
Trump is off on one of his patented riffs. Whatever random thoughts are floating in his head are flying from his lips. It’s like he’s at a campaign rally, only now these are allies and he’s calling them Lyin’ Canada and Crooked Germany.
I think it’s very sad when
Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia where – we’re supposed to
be guarding against Russia and Germany goes out and pays billions and
billions of dollars [emphasis added] a year to Russia.
So we’re protecting Germany, we’re protecting France, we’re protecting all of these countries and then numerous of these countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they’re paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia. So we’re supposed to protect you against Russia, but they’re paying billions of dollars to Russia. I think that’s very inappropriate.
Attitude, see.
“The most successful military alliance in history.”
Trump prepares for appearances on the world stage by bringing attitude and that attitude never changes. He believes everyone is screwing the United States. In the history books we have the Monroe Doctrine. We had the Truman Doctrine after World War II. Now we have the Trump Doctrine: “If America can score some serious cash, we might be interested in helping.”
With that display of pique, you can hear the foundation of what one expert has called “the most successful military alliance in history” cracking. For seventy years the U.S. has helped defend NATO allies. We have carried a heavy burden. NATO was our idea. For the first four decades our allies were part of an essential bulwark against Soviet expansion. Trump apparently forgets this. Or doesn’t care. When Ronald Reagan told Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down that wall,” it was a victory for the West, for freedom, for capitalism too.
In the meetings which follow his breakfast outburst, Trump insists that NATO allies don’t spend enough on defense. The president claims the United States is stuck picking up the tab. He says our long-time allies “owe us massive amounts of money.” That’s not even close to true. NATO has helped ensure peace and prosperity across Europe and avoid costly wars in the region for seventy years. Our allies spend heavily on defense, just not as heavily as us. Since they’re our allies any spending they do can be viewed as combining with ours to make the entire alliance stronger.
Trump insults the memory of their dead.
These would be the allies that sent a total of 130,000 troops to aid us in Afghanistan. On September 11, 2001, none were attacked. Yet they sent precious sons and precious daughters to fight in distant lands, just as we did. Casualties were high. Canada had 158 killed. Denmark lost 43, France 86, Germany 54, Italy 48, Spain 34, the United Kingdom 455. Some NATO allies lost a handful, but each was tragedy for a family back home. Belgium lost 1, Latvia 3, Hungary 7, Poland 10. Several thousand NATO soldiers were wounded or maimed.
The U.S. dead in Afghanistan total, as of today, 2,412.
The allied dead number 1,148.
The president might not understand how much help our friends provided in Afghanistan and provide in the fight against ISIS today. ISIS, however, has noticed. The terrorists unleashed horrific attacks on civilian targets in Paris and Nice, in London and Manchester, in Toronto, Brussels and Berlin.
Our allies paid a price in blood.
Trump insults the memory of their dead.
$$$$$$$$$$
BLOGGER’S NOTE: In September 2020, a firestorm erupts when President Trump is reported to have called Marines who died during World War I, “suckers” and “losers.” Considering his disrespect for the NATO dead, we should not be surprised. See: 9/5/20.
Also: 10/10-14/19, for his betrayal of the Kurds,
who did most of the bloody fighting against ISIS, before Trump abandoned them.
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