Posted on 01/16/2017 6:22:35 PM PST by Mariner
He called NATO obsolete. He said Germany’s acceptance of refugees is “utterly catastrophic.” The decades-old One China policy embraced by the United States? That’s up for discussion. Just days before Donald J. Trump’s inauguration, world leaders on three continents are on edge after comments the president-elect made in an interview on Friday with The Wall Street Journal and in a weekend interview with two European newspapers, Bild and The Times of London.
“It’s obsolete, first because it was designed many, many years ago,” Mr. Trump said, according to the German newspaper Bild. The 28-member alliance, born in 1949, three years after Mr. Trump, is viewed by many — including his nominee for defense secretary, Gen. James N. Mattis — as essential to American security.
“Secondly, countries aren’t paying what they should” and NATO “didn’t deal with terrorism.”
Responding on Monday to Mr. Trump’s comments, Dalia Grybauskaite, the president of Lithuania, which gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and joined NATO in 2004, urged Mr. Trump to continue meeting the United States’ financial obligations toward the alliance.
“Since World War II, the presence of U.S. troops has been a prerequisite for rebuilding the Continent, safeguarding peace and ensuring security. We expect continuity from the new U.S. administration. Trump must maintain this leadership role, to ensure security, stability and peace.” — Ms. Grybauskaite
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Everything that was before, the entire current world order, is up for reconsideration and negotiation.
He’s the first pro-American president we’ve had since Reagan. The world doesn’t know what to think!
Never trumpets In Intelligence community who signed a doc aren’t getting calls for help...lolol.chertoff signed it...oops...
As they should be.
Go Trump.
So they are telling US what we have to do? It’s because of this entitlement and lack of gratitude that we are rethinking their New Worl Order
Waiting for his first official day in office. That should be interesting. Then watching the snowflakes head to their comfort rooms and curl into the fetus position and suck their thumbs.
The EU does suck. Is any member state of it really happy with it, aside from the eastern European taker nations (Poland, Hungary) that get all the financial assistance?
Best election ever!
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LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said NATO was obsolete because it had not defended against terror attacks, but that the military alliance was still very important to him, The Times of London reported.
“I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete,” Trump told the newspaper in an interview. “It’s obsolete because it wasn’t taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right.”
Trump added that many NATO members were not paying their fair share for U.S. protection.
“A lot of these countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States,” Trump said. “With that being said, NATO is very important to me. There’s five countries that are paying what they’re supposed to. Five. It’s not much.”
Donald Trump slammed President Obama Thursday on TODAY for failing to take a stronger line against President Vladimir Putin in dealing with Ukraine, saying he feared Obama would now make up for lost time with imprudent moves to "show his manhood."
The real estate mogul and reality-TV star, who has criticized Putin for sending military troops into Crimea, said Obama must now take fierce steps to prevent the situation from escalating further.
"We should definitely do sanctions and we have to show some strengths. I mean, Putin has eaten Obama's lunch, therefore our lunch, for a long period of time," Trump said. ..."
http://www.today.com/news/donald-trump-putin-has-eaten-obamas-lunch-ukraine-2D79372098
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Here’s the interview w/ Matt Lauer on YouTube...
Donald Trump (2014): ‘Vladimir Putin Has Eaten Obama’s Lunch’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzURUENf1ns
March 26, 2015
What do you expect next from Russia?
Sessions: Well, there's a danger that they may continue this overreach. They just solidified power in Georgia, in South Ossetia. That was I think in the last week. Pressure is still on Ukraine. We don't know whether the Minsk Agreement will hold, I don't think it's holding very well now.
We have the Estonians, the Lithuanians, the Romanians, they're very worried. This is reality, I wish it weren't, but I'm afraid it is. It needs to be clear that Russia knows that there will be a high price to pay if this behavior continues.
If Minsk breaks down, at what point does the president have to act and supply Ukraine with lethal weaponry? What is the breaking point? We know from what Victoria Nuland said that the administration hasn't decided yet.
Sessions: From what I understand from this conference, I think it's clear that Germany has said publicly that they will support harsher sanctions and more military support if the Minsk Agreement fails. And that will be key.
Merkel has worked very very hard to establish a relationship with Putin and Russia. It's been a good-faith effort. If it fails, I would hope that Europe and the United States would have to unify and push back more firmly against Russian overreach. ..."
or,
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"In a Montgomery speech in March 2014...he [Sen Jeff Sessions] called for international scorn toward Russia for its aggressive actions in Ukraine and, before then, Georgia.
"I believe a systematic effort should be undertaken so that Russia feels pain for this," Sessions said then. "Because if you don't act now to make some sanctions against Russia then why will they believe in the future that we're going to impose sanctions or do anything aggressive if they move forward to take all of Ukraine, all of Georgia?""
Sessions, not that long ago, was calling for more sanctions against an expansionist Russia that was rattling U.S. allies in Europe. And he regularly blamed the Obama administration for what he argued was an overly optimistic and weak foreign policy, including a decision to scale back planned missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland.
“There’s no good solution now. The bottle of milk has shattered on the floor and you can’t put it back together,” the Alabama senator said about relations with Russia in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea.
Sessions has also pointed to Russia’s record as justification for a robust missile defense system, which has deep roots in north Alabama.
“Russia’s recent actions in Georgia remind us that country, which we once hoped was on a path to greater integration into the global world community, might again be seeking to restore old Soviet ideas of dominance throughout their neighbors and in Eastern Europe, all of which should serve as a motivation to move ahead with the necessary capabilities to defend ourselves and our allies from missile attack, in particular,” Sessions said on the Senate floor in 2008.
Two years later, Sessions voted against the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, in part because he thought Obama conceded too much ground to the Russians.
“Just signing an agreement on a piece of paper does not create security,” Sessions said. “A consistent, principled, just approach to our legitimate national defense, advocated clearly and forthrightly without misunderstanding, is the best way to have security in this dangerous world.”
or,
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Also from the Oct 5, 2016 first VP debate...
QUIJANO (Moderator): I want to turn now to Syria. Two hundred fifty thousand people, 100,000 of them children, are under siege in Aleppo, Syria. Bunker buster bombs, cluster munitions, and incendiary weapons are being dropped on them by Russian and Syrian militaries. Does the U.S. have a responsibility to protect civilians and prevent mass casualties on this scale, Governor Pence?
PENCE: The United States of America needs to begin to exercise strong leadership to protect the vulnerable citizens and over 100,000 children in Aleppo. Hillary Clinton’s top priority when she became secretary of state was the Russian reset, the Russians reset. After the Russian reset, the Russians invaded Ukraine and took over Crimea.
And the small and bullying leader of Russia is now dictating terms to the United States to the point where all the United States of America — the greatest nation on Earth — just withdraws from talks about a cease-fire while Vladimir Putin puts a missile defense system in Syria while he marshals the forces and begins — look, we have got to begin to lean into this with strong, broad-shouldered American leadership.
It begins by rebuilding our military. And the Russians and the Chinese have been making enormous investments in the military. We have the smallest Navy since 1916. We have the lowest number of troops since the end of the Second World War. We’ve got to work with Congress, and Donald Trump will, to rebuild our military and project American strength in the world.
But about Aleppo and about Syria, I truly do believe that what America ought to do right now is immediately establish safe zones, so that families and vulnerable families with children can move out of those areas, work with our Arab partners, real time, right now, to make that happen.
And secondly, I just have to tell you that the provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength. And if Russia chooses to be involved and continue, I should say, to be involved in this barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime to prevent them from this humanitarian crisis that is taking place in Aleppo.
There’s a broad range of other things that we ought to do, as well. We ought to deploy a missile defense shield to the Czech Republic and Poland which Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pulled back on out of not wanting to offend the Russians back in 2009.
QUIJANO: Governor, your two minutes are up.
PENCE: We’ve just got to have American strength on the world stage. When Donald Trump becomes president of the United States, the Russians and other countries in the world will know they’re dealing with a strong American president.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/us/politics/vice-president-transcript.html
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And...
PENCE: What we’re dealing with is the — you know, there’s an old proverb that says the Russian bear never dies, it just hibernates.
And the truth of the matter is, the weak and feckless foreign policy of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has awakened an aggression in Russia that first appeared a few years ago with their move in Georgia, now their move into Crimea, now their move into the wider Middle East.
And all the while, all we do is fold our arms and say we’re not having talks anymore.
To answer your question, we just need American strength. We need to — we need to marshal the resources of our allies in the region, and in the immediate, we need to act and act now to get people out of harm’s way.
Ooooooo. I don’t give a $hit about “thu werld”.
WASHINGTON – Sen. Dan Coats’ efforts to punish Russia because of Moscow’s move to annex the Crimea region of Ukraine has gotten him banned from the country.
“While I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to go on vacation with my family in Siberia this summer, I am honored to be on this list,” the Indiana Republican said after Russia’s announcement Thursday. ...”
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2014/03/20/sen-coats-banned-entering-russia-retaliation-sanctions/6661473/
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"President-elect Donald Trump intends to nominate former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats to serve as National Intelligence Director"
"Dan Coats of Indiana has served on the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees."
Why do you spam every thread?
Do you not realize that people hate you for it?
My aim is simply to get important/relevant *facts* out about where the Trump-Pence admin *really* stand on KGB Putin. Not the BS being spun by the Putinistas or their know-nothing go-alongs.
I don’t know if you had this experience, but until quite recently (the last few years) I had dismissed the whole NWO globalist narrative as expressed by people like Alex Jones and so forth. I had allowed myself to be dismissive of this view because of those who agitated against it: the Bilderberg/Trilateral Commission conspiracy theorists and on the other side the anarchic-communist protesters at G7 meetings.
But fairly recent events (from 2010 onward) made me re-examine that narrative. And from that point on it became crystal clear (at least to me) that there was something to it. A lot of masks have fallen off and I don’t think it can be doubted that America is definitely in a war with these globalist leaders and their institutions.
This will get worse before it gets better. A new re-alignment is called for.
Same here.
An epiphany over the last 5 years. For me it was a combo of Ukraine, Syria and Egypt.
It’s been most recently validated by the CIA betrayals, the FBI exoneration of Clinton and the vehement anti-Russian narrative of our neocons and rinos. They were not this aggressive or vicious in 1982. Now even the Democrats are taking up the mantle. They are being driven there by forces difficult to see.
Trump pointed out 5 countries were paying their fair share. Since I don’t see it on the thread, the five are (per CNN) The US, Britain, Poland, Greece, and Estonia.
Al the rest are freeloaders.
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