Posted on 06/21/2024 5:17:11 PM PDT by Kazan
Washington: Former President Donald Trump said in an interview with the All-In podcast that the possibility of NATO expanding to Russia’s border has always been understood to be off the table and such rhetoric now is provocative.
“They don’t want to have it, it’s always been understood, and that’s even before Putin,” Trump said in the podcast that aired on Thursday. “It’s always been understood that was a no-no… that was very provocative, and now it’s even more provocative.”
Trump said that it’s understandable that Russia would be bothered by NATO troops on its border, adding that NATO’s eastward expansion is a key reason for the conflict and that President Biden’s rhetoric about envisioning Ukraine eventually joining NATO is even more provocative.
“Biden was saying all of the wrong things and one of the wrong things he was saying: ‘Ukraine will go into NATO,’…Biden, he was saying the opposite of what in my opinion you had to say…and he’s still saying it,” Trump said.
In addition, Trump vowed to not put US troops on the ground in Ukraine if he returns to the White House.
My great-uncle, John Stanley Holmes served with the 38th Battalion (Ottawa) C.E.F. He was killed during The Hundred Days Offensive. According to official records: "While crossing the Cambrai-Arras Road, close to the Windmill near the village of Dury, during the advance on the Drocourt-Queant Line, September 2nd, 1918, he was hit in the body by an enemy machine gun bullet. His wounds were dressed, and he was taken to the advanced dressing station, and later evacuated to No. 14 General Hospital, Wimereux, where he succumbed to his wounds 8 days later (9/10/18)."
He was the only son, single and 25 years of age. He's buried in a British Military Cemetery in Wimille, France. Many years ago I paid the Canadian War Graves Department to get a photo of his headstone. I have a photo of him on horseback in his uniform. I have no idea where it was taken.
Not long ago I watched a YouTube video posted by British Vet Kevin Hicks titled "Uncovering stories of WWI Stretcher Bearers on the Front Lines." His YouTube channel is The History Squad. In the video he mentioned a Stretcher Bearer named Private John Francis Young, who was apparently working in the same area as my great-uncle. I wrote Kevin that I would like to think that it was Private Young who took care of my great-uncle that day.
One of the other books on a Canadian infantry during WWII I was "Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign: September 13 - November 6, 1944" by Mark Zuehlke. The area of Holland that the First Canadian Army fought through included the village of Schoondijke, where my father was born. The family left Holland in 1913 and came through Ellis Island, settling in Sodus, Wayne County, NY. The First Canadian Army suffered terrible losses during that offensive.
Back in 2006, I flew overseas with my oldest son into Brussels. Then we took the train to Brugge. The next day we picked up a rental car, and drove the 50 miles into Holland to visit the village of Schoondijke. We stayed at the main hotel/restaurant that sits right on the round-about in the middle of the village. The owner had an enlarged photograph of the village hung in the entryway. It showed the devastation that Schoondijke experienced from Allied bombing. The village was almost completely destroyed. About the only thing that survived was the old Mill that sits on the left side of the road, heading into Schoondijke. That Mill was there when my father was just a boy, and during the war, the De Hulster family that owned it, hid downed allied pilots, and helped them make connections to escape the area.
It has? Ukraine was invited to join NATO back in 2008 at the Bucharest NATO summit , but for some unknown reason, NATO never bothered to advise them on how to do that. Apparently it wasn't that important at the time, and it took NATO another 16 years to make moves on Ukraine again, but instead, they allowed Sweden to waltz right in, leaving Ukraine standing on the sidelines of the dance floor one again. None of it makes a lick of sense.
The only thing that Ukraine has validated is that Zelensky is a dictator, who centralized all the media companies under control of his government, banned opposition political parties, banned elections, closed all Orthodox Churches connected to Russia, banned Ukraine men from the ages of 18-60 from leaving the country, and his term of office expired on May 21st 2024. Sounds more like 1930's Germany to me.
I'd like to know how the Ukraine government plans to allocate 2% of their gross domestic product for their own defense budget in order to be a verified member of NATO. That's one of the requirements, but then again, Germany hadn't been allocating the required 2% of their gross domestic product to their own defense budget since the Cold War ended. Germany only came into line with NATO requirements in the first part of 2024.
Trump was right about member nations not paying their fair share. So the question is, with a dictator in charge of Ukraine, who has banned elections, banned opposition political parties, banned men between the ages of 18-60 from leaving the country, banned Orthodox churches connected with Russia, consolidated all the media agencies under the control of his government, and refuses to sit down to peace talks, how does Zelensky expect to get his government's budget in line, in order to fall in line with NATO requirements? The U.S. has already bailed Ukraine out way too many times, and shouldn't be involved in funding proxy wars against any other country. We've been the glue that has held NATO together these past 71 years. I think we've given the rest of the world long enough to get their $hit together. They failed. Time to end this craziness, and get out of NATO NOW!
Great post! I love history, and people’s stories, they need to be told.
Thanks. Sometimes I think I bore people. I'm glad this time I didn't.
Trump just lost the globohomo vote.
Hillary's lies are a whole different silo. Trump has compromised himself all by himself at times. Like hiring Manafort, for instance. Seriously, what was he thinking?
I am convinced that the straw that broke the camel’s back was the speech in November, 2021 by Heels Up Harris about Ukraine someday joining NATO. The Russkies knew that she was scripted by the people running Grandpa Hairsniffer and that it was a very serious signal that we were going to continue pushing them into a corner Yeah, Putin actually pulled the trigger, but we certainly gave him every excuse that he needed to do so by pushing and pushing and pushing.
Yes.Millions of such stories, every single one of them heartbreaking. Andd all for nothing.
Bulwyf was right. May they all rest in peace, in a country where all this hatred has finally come to an end.
They served their purpose of deterring a Soviet invasion of western Europe without getting into a hot war. B
But after that, they became an aggressive colonial police force. First in the Balkans, then Iraq, now Ukraine.
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